Face to Face with Nature

Last week Yvette and I watched Part Three of the PBS documentary, "The National Parks." Most of the 2-hour segment was devoted to the Grand Canyon; it reminded me of our visit to the Canyon in 1982. What I saw at that brief visit affected me more than any other photographic subject I had ever encountered.
We parked our car and I grabbed my Nikon. Because the weather was threatening, we walked through the souvenir shop to get to the South Rim. The wind had picked up and I could feel the mist of the approaching rain on my face. Protecting my camera lens with my cupped hand, I moved as close to the edge of the Rim as I could. An enormous gray cloud filled the entire Canyon; only a few of the higher peaks were visible and above them wisps of gray whipped about. Lightning flashed but I was too far away to hear the accompanying thunder.
I began snapping frame after frame; when I felt rain on my forehead, I shielded my camera and slowly backed away to the shelter next to Yvette. She wiped my face of raindrops-----and tears; I had been crying.
I did not understand what had happened to me until I had prints made from the best negatives on the roll. It was then that I realized that bad weather was a much better time to get good shots than in bright shining times. A deeper response, until then hidden from me, was that my emotions from the power of nature, its beauty or its destructive capabilities, resonated to an unsuspected depth within me.