Sometimes I pretend to be a photographer

A sunflower.

Sometimes, when I have just a bit of extra time on my hands, I take out my camera and see what interesting sights I can capture. A couple days ago, I happened upon a small patch of wildflowers up by the athletic fields. So, finding myself with about half an hour of free time on my hands, I ventured back there with a camera to see what I could see.

The patch of wildflowers I found.

Getting outdoors, spending some time by myself, has been a way for me to relax ever since my first year at Oberlin. I find I get so pent up on campus sometimes that I just have to get out. It’s not hard to find little peaceful spots around town if you’re willing to stray just a little ways from campus. If I can simply happen across a little flower bed sheltered between the road and the athletic fields, surely there must be a dozen more spots just like this all around. Of course, the arboretum, the bike trail, and the nature preserve offer peaceful recreation as well.

This time I ventured out, I was interested not only in the beautiful wildflowers I found—some of which were in bright colors that my camera simply couldn’t capture—but also in the insects that lived among them.

I found a pair of these red milkweed beetles on the top of each milkweed plant.

Oberlin, like many places around the country, has become a home for Japanese beetles, which feast on various kinds of leafy plants.

Yellowjackets are building a small hive in an old fence along the north athletic fields.

This isn’t the first time I pretended to be a nature photographer for an afternoon. Back when I was a first-year, I stayed on campus for Winter Term. Oberlin is very quiet, very still during January. Finding myself freed from the workload of a typical semester, I had much more time to explore than usual. I set out for the Arb to experiment with an old SLR film camera I bought for $10 on eBay and my tiny 3.1-megapixel digital camera (those were the days).

Be it July or January, Oberlin does offer some beautiful natural sights. No, you’re not going to be able to do much hiking or backpacking without venturing a little further out of town, but for those brief moments when you just want to get out, I think this place is actually kinda nice…