(CS)
I am envious of the image. He told me only the barest details on how it was created. There is no point in relaying those here. It is a glass dry plate. The birdbath I am familiar with, having seen it in his yard now for many years. I once did some landscaping, mostly weeding, for him when I needed money or needed to get away. I forget now. I flew down from New York and spent the days weeding flower beds, drinking whiskey in the evenings.
A photograph like this takes on some metaphysical dimensions once the mind begins to come to terms with it. It is the mystic in us which causes us to ascribe those qualities to the facts of photography, I believe. It is an art form that works along like the mind. Better in some ways, reminiscent of the sense of memory in others. As if the mind could produce an image and remain focused on it in stillness, the way the manifest mind can not allow. There is a reduction of scope with images. This makes contending with them sometimes easier than it can be when done internally. The inner world is difficult without end. We hold so much there. So many unhunted whales of white, each ephemeral and growing.
Our little postcards of sentiment seek chutes, waterfalls, pathways, and hooks to the outside world where they might connect or collide with the actual. Escapes that make much sense in the moment, the way in which music seems to reach where things tangible can not.
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