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the beauty of everyday things

Most of my life I have been a night owl. If I got to work at 9:00 a.m., it would be 11:00, if not noon, by the time my brain actually started moving at anything like the required speed and my most productive time was always in the late afternoon and into the evening.

Not anymore. Old turkey that I am getting to be, by 4:00, 4:30 p.m., with at least another hour left in my work day, I start losing concentration and making mistakes. So I step outside for a 10 minute break, to clear my head, think of something else. This time of year, with the autumn colors in the nearby park and the resident birds cleaning up the berries on the courtyard bushes, I find plenty of sights to divert my attention from work matters.

On this particular day, however, I had no sooner stepped outside that my photographer’s eye caught something that sent me scampering back upstairs. “That was a mighty short break ….” commented my colleague. I grabbed my camera out of my purse and promised to explain later. Light, you see, doesn’t leave you time for chit chat if you want to catch it at the right time.

What you see here is the deeply ridged driveway ramp that leads down to the underground garage at my work place. Just before setting below the nearby land features, the light from the sun was coming in at a low angle and illuminating only the very top of the ridges. A lone fallen leaf from a nearby tree, still in its pretty autumn livery, seemed to have chosen this particular spot as a final resting place, going out in style with a little help from the westering sun.

I am always thrilled by this kind of images, where mundane, everyday things turn out to have a claim to beauty. They remind me of the advice my art teacher father would obsessively give his students: “The subject matter of your best work will always be what you see around you everyday, the stuff you can picture in detail even with your eyes closed, that you know as intimately as the inside of your pockets.” As his students were rural kids, what they knew best were cows, chickens, barns, the woods, the mountains. They usually balked, at least at first, at this advice. “That’s boring stuff! “ they complained, “we want to draw interesting things, you know, stuff like spaceships, castles and unicorns, airplanes and race cars …”

But, of course, he was right: their pictures of far away places and things they knew little about lacked detail, were naive and even a bit ridiculous or at best commonplace. By contrast, an oil painting by one of his students, featuring a maze of ink-black, intricate tree boles in the woods, with leaves in lurid colors that seemed to be flying in your face, was for years the centre piece on our living room wall. It had a dark, ominous quality that told the story of an adventure turned dangerous, of having wandered too deep into the woods and lost your way, of a familiar place turned scary when a storm hid the sun and plunged it in darkness. To this day, I still see that painting clearly in my mind’s eye.
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25 comments

Malik Raoulda said:

Une merveille...Vraiment avec cette belle caresse de lumiere si douce et cette ombre contrastante qui enjolive cette ravissante et fabuleuse prise..Votre commentaire est si poétique qu'on a envie de s’évader pour un bout de temps pour ce mettre a votre place. a votre place.
Bonne soiree salutaire.
3 years ago ( translate )

Xata said:

Loved to read you, Annalia.
As I used to tell kids I tried to teach some skills of photography to, photography is all about light and what your eye spots. Them try to materialize what you saw in a photo...
If you don't have "the eye" whatever camera you have, whatever painting and brushes you have... you will never produce art.
You did here (and not only here), lucky the light didn't change of the wind sweep the leaf away while you ran for your camera...
3 years ago

cammino said:

Beautifully composed shot!
3 years ago

J.Garcia said:

Marvelous moment with superb effect!
Very well observed and captured, Annalia!
3 years ago ( translate )

Diana Australis said:

Thank you for the read….yes…the beauty in small and everyday things is the magic which illuminates the world. Very small children have it…the wonder and the eye for detail.
Then as we grow older and life is full of so many conflicting demands, we see less closely. Now I am older and retired, I have time to see the beauty in small things, and to marvel at a thread of light, a glorious cloud, a beautiful leaf…
A big hug to you.
Stay safe and well..Diana
3 years ago

HappySnapper said:

If I want an appointment for any reason I always look for a time around 11am as it suggests that workers performance is at its best at this time. Didn't stop you from spotting this opportunity though. Have you ever tried to catch a falling leaf before it touches the ground?. Great way to get the brain to focus.
3 years ago

Jaap van 't Veen said:

Keeping it simple is best !!
Happy healthy week ahead.
3 years ago

Annemarie said:

bella storia cara amica
inglese perfetto ( by the way!)
3 years ago

Nora Caracci said:

poesia in immagine, geniali le diagonali e che luce !
3 years ago ( translate )

Nora Caracci replied to Nora Caracci:

e bel racconto, anche a me capita di mollare tutto per una foto ;-)
3 years ago ( translate )

Berny said:

excellent image and composition, and nice story ;-)
3 years ago ( translate )

Erika Akire said:

...remaining...beautiful, Annalia...your father was a wise man...
3 years ago

sea-herdorf said:

Wunderschön trifft das Licht das einzelne vom Herbst gefärbten Blatt, Der sandige, gefurchte Buden steht in einen guten Kontrast dazu. Ausgezeichnet beschreibst Du die Szenen aus dem Alltag und so läßt Dich auch in die Lebensweise in der Vergangenheit ein, Annalia.
Freundliche Grüße und einen Guten Abend
Erich
3 years ago ( translate )

micritter said:

A beautiful photo of lovely regular strips of light and shadow broken by the beautiful golden leaf and its shadow. And a beautifully written interesting story. Lovely work, Annalia.
3 years ago

Rosalyn Hilborne said:

Calm beauty is a perfect description Annalia! I have enjoyed reading your account of the day. I think we notice so much fore when we take a lot of photos, especially the simple things that actually are beautiful, especially in close-up. A super picture my friend.

Take care and have a good and safe weekend.
3 years ago