I have had a large version of this image on my 27″ monitor for 24 hours now (you can see the Gallery version here). It’s so luscious, so ridiculously beautiful that I can’t take my eyes off it. There is some corner of my psyche that is soothed and healed just by the light from this image. I don’t care how many clichés about whiskers on kittens are invoked!

I think the selective focus, where only a very small portion of the picture is sharp, is absolutely essential to its success. (This photograph was shot from maybe 3 inches away, at f/3.2 and 1/250 sec.) I am grateful to my Macro Elmarit for reminding me of the joys of shallow depth of field.

Some of you reading this will look at that picture above and scoff: “That’s not species unknown, that’s obviously [insert obvious name of common garden plant here]!” Of course it is. I am well aware that just because I don’t know the name of something, doesn’t mean that it’s new to botany or anything.

What I would like to do, though, is to renew your sense of strangeness even if it is familiar to you. Observe how this plant’s flowers hang down, although they don’t seem particularly heavy. The color and texture of its stems is positively fleshy. And it’s hairy.

From this angle, the blossoms look almost insectoid. That’s pretty weird, isn’t it?

The whole thing seems constructed on five-fold symmetry, and reminds me of nothing so much as a starfish. And isn’t it a little odd for one plant to have flowers of two separate colors?

There’s an unending, inexhaustible supple of oddness and curiosity and otherness out there in the world, all around us, in the most mundane and ordinary surroundings. I get a perpetual thrill out of that.

I’m not sure what the purpose of this marking was, originally. If it was for municipal maintenance of some kind, it’s unusual in that it was made by a fluid drip rather than the usual spray paint. I don’t think it was urban tagging of any kind.

So: is the image posted here mine, half-mine, or not mine at all? I ask myself these kinds of questions all the time. Photography is a minefield of ethical concerns and dilemmas, and if you turn a deaf ear to them, you miss out on an important part of the artistic dialogue. Yes, I think it is important to care about these questions, both as a matter of personal and cultural moral integrity AND as a part of the creative process itself.

Since the original mark was in no way intended to stand alone as art, and it resides on public property and was probably made by a public servant carrying out government business, I don’t believe that any private copyright could be considered vested in the first place. In addition, I have substantially altered the medium, context, framing, and color. Of course, as we say on the intertubes IANAL (I am not a lawyer), and I have no idea how this might play out in a court of law—not that I can imagine anyone actually bringing suit over it.

Here’s what the camera saw:

What do you think?

I took this picture at a restaurant in my neighborhood. I’d like you to take a moment and mull the scene over in your head; have a look at the larger view for more nuance. How would you describe the relationships portrayed here, if you had to guess? What might you say about this scene other than “It’s a photo of four ridiculously good-looking young people?” (Trust me, the woman facing away was gorgeous too.)

Here’s one tidbit of information: the redhead with her back to us is about four months pregnant.

Now, what do you make of it?

Here’s a another data point: about five minutes after I took this picture, a fifth preposterously lovely young person appeared, pulled up a chair to the table, sat down and exchanged a more-than-casual kiss on the mouth with the guy in the blue shirt at left.

Oh, did I mention? The new arrival was a man.

As I ate my own meal, I eventually decided that the two women were a couple. That the man facing me was the brother of the woman at right, and that the man in the blue shirt was her friend. The two blonds had highly theatrical conversational styles, and I wondered whether they might both be performers of some sort.

This, of course, could be just as wrong as my default impression—which was that I was seeing two heterosexual couples on a double date, every qualifier of which was incorrect.

First impressions are a powerfully useful tool, but they can also lead you seriously astray unless you remain open to new information. (For what it’s worth, watching the man-in-blue’s behavior before the arrival of his lover, I was already questioning my first take.) Quick and broad characterization of people and relationships is only productive when your window for decision-making is extremely narrow and urgent. In other circumstances, it is simply lazy stereotyping and may even lead to harmful prejudice.

People are more complicated and interesting and beautiful than a first impression can convey. Give them a chance to unfold their story to you.

Modern-day brosimancy* in action: seeking to tell the future by reading the patterns in rust. As is so often the case in legends, the oracle’s answer isn’t really much help—even when it’s clearly intended for you.

*(No, Wikipedia is not failing you. I made this word up and probably got the Greek root wrong.)