Exploring Locally and Seeing Your Town for the First Time

I’ve come to realize that I often take Columbus for granted. When I think of travel, I imagine beautiful vistas stretching out before me or secluded places in a forest. Yet the common factor is that these locations are always in another country, in another location.

I failed to realize places like that exist all around me.

I don’t have too much time left in the US before I set off; just a few months, really. But in that time, I hope to re-imagine my own country and region. I want to see it as if I were a traveler visiting for the first time. All of the places I’ve thought of as boring I want to revisit with fresh eyes.

I want to see the beauty of Georgia and Alabama as if it were some place far away, and I hadn’t been exposed to it my entire life.

To start with, I went to a park a mile or so from my apartment. Part of the reason was to test a new camera application I’ve downloaded (VSCOCam — I’m not familiar with it yet, so let me know what you think of the photos) and another reason was to try to see parts of Columbus I’ve overlooked. Here are some of the photos.

The weather was dreary and overcast, making the path seem dark.

 When I first arrived, the sun had not yet broken through the clouds. This path lay in front of me, leading down to the lakeside, with a quiet, isolated bench to sit at. In all honesty, I’d been there before — I’ve actually taken photos with that bench in the past. The atmosphere was never quite as haunting as today, though.

It almost looks like an abandoned shrine.

The roundabout in the middle of the drive wound around this structure. At one time, it might have been quite beautiful. Now the weeds have grown up and flowers run wild throughout. There is a spout in the middle of the structure from which a fountain once gushed.

I made this using an online program called Fotor to combine four images into a single collage. Starting in the top left and going clockwise: another bench, a bit further down the drive from the first. This one is more taken care of, frequented by dog walkers in the area. Next to it is a small mushroom, some of the first life of spring struggling up from the ground. The dirt still clings to its surface where it burst forth. Some cherry laurel berries hang next to it, bright red against the dark green of the leaves. Two flowers face away from each other, almost like they cannot bear to look at one another’s beauty.

This little excursion taught me that there are places around Columbus which are often overlooked. Some other photos I took included a few other flowers, and a trio of ducks who were completely unimpressed with my presence. I look forward to finding more places around town that are hidden, maybe some more obscure than this park.