Inside the Photo

I saw this photo opportunity and almost hesitated. My foot was about to move me forward, but my inner voice said, “wait, there is something special in this light.” Or so that is how I imagine the voices working.

This happened about 3/4 the way through one of the morning daily walks I do now that I have a dog. I know it was morning because I checked the EXIF data, but also because I remember the strong backlight effect of morning illumination. I was trick by this little unknown plant, growing in some nondescript no-person’s land between a house’s fence and the road. The light made it jump out at me.

The first step was getting low on the ground to get an oblique angle on this subject.

I admit picking up the blackened pine cone and placing it slightly behind the leaf for some object contrast. The low light also lights up the bottom right layer of dried brown scrub oak leaves.

This was easily my personal pick of photo of the day, and just an hour ago, I noticed a string of flickr notifications on my phone from account names I did not recognize. And the number in the red circle of the app icon? Much larger than normal.

So, yes, this little lit up strange plant made it into flickr explore — I like to do a screen grab before all the stunning birds, cute puppies, and HDR crisp landscapes shove my photo too far down the screen:

What’s even nicer is that this photo was taken with my iPhone 6– and I am glad I listened to my inuition that whispered, “damn, that light is good”…