My friends tried to convince me that if we went to the lake in their backyard we could pull off a fake “Florida Wilderness” photo shoot. We couldn’t find an upcoming day where all of us were free to head over to Jonathan Dickinson Park and take photos in the actual wilderness, so Jacob’s backyard lake was our last resort. On a rainy day, we all gathered at Jacob’s house for the shoot. Making the lake and ten feet of foliage look like a national wildlife park was a complete bust but I realized, when I was looking through my pictures, that I had accidentally captured Floridian suburbia pretty well. Mostly this meant rainy days, palm trees, pink houses and well-cut grass.
The “photo shoot” consists of our walk over to the lake, some very cheesy, “candid” shots in nature (you can see sidewalks and houses in the background) and Jacob’s typical Floridian neighborhood. Even though we technically failed in our mission, we had a pretty great time pretending to be models and wilderness explorers in the middle of suburbia.
Looking at these photos, I am hit by how different my home in Florida is to my home at Emerson College in Boston. Though they’re polar opposites of each other, I’m slowly learning to see the unique beauty in both.
(Special thanks to the guys for modeling.)
