Dissolve

Photography calls edges into question. The macro lens, with its maniacally shallow depth of field, demands a steady hand, a calm atmosphere and a swift and accurate executive decision as to where to focus. I, for one, am not usually a blurred foreground kinda guy. But only rarely do conditions perfectly conspire.



And, of course, there are happy accidents: the photographic subject claims every axis of dimension and then some, and one must settle for a particularly felicitous plane.



And sometimes a backlight, often the source of exposure conundrums, will sweetly beckon, forgiving for once, but don't get cocky.



Sometimes, through the viewfinder, one is transported: to vistas that could be under green water



to intergalactic space



to unworldly chambers of stillness and shadow.

Through the macro lens, all is dissolution.



One moment bleeds into the next, everything flows, atoms play cache-cache, themselves bundles of flowish weirdness.



There are brief moments when solipsism relinquishes its sway and one feels buoyed by -- by what ? -- and not just buoyed by, but infused with -- with what ? --



At that moment, the anguished epistemological question crumbles into dust and blows away, and nothing remains, not even poudraillance, and yet, still, there is -- what ?



Later, by lamplight, comes the naming.



Queen Anne's lace. Chicory. Water Hemlock. Nightshade. Bittersweet.



And, undoubtedly (or, maybe, doubtedly) there are weightier words that could be uttered.

Let's leave those unsaid, eh ?

In A Stranger's Garden

Trackside

Midsummer Winter