Wondering about why a photo was taken: the invasion of the everyday by the extraordinary.

Why do we take the photos we do?

So much of what we see is accidental; it's a matter of when and where we are, whether we look closely enough, and how much attention we pay. 

After heavy rain, walking to the car, I notice one leaf, sprinkled with rainfall, framed against worn tarmac, one of thousands within eyesight scattered along the street, discarded by trees now preparing for winter. 

This particular leaf is worn and torn, even the water drops have black specks which nature has not photoshopped out, and neither will I.

What made me stop, and look more closely, and decide to take a photograph of a fallen leaf on a worn pavement?

I have no idea; except that having seen it I couldn't unsee it, and the close I looked the more I could see.

Is it a wonderful photo? That depends how we are using the word wonder. In one sense wonder is about feelings of awe, being mystified by what is new, or beautiful, or unusual.

But used another way it is a word nearer curiosity, an interest in something for its own sake. This photo, as I pay attention to it, makes me wonder.

I wonder what have been the countless stories of the countless footsteps that have worn away the surface of the pavement? 

I wonder about the transience, fragility and ubiquity of leaves, their role in helping to keep our air filtered, and the functional beauty of their structure.

I wonder about this particular leaf, jewelled with rain or nature's tears, anticipating the autumn of its existence as part of the great cycle of creation, dying and recreation.

I wonder about the contrast between geology and biology, stone and leaf, permanence and transience, road and tree, human construct and natural product, and all the other contrasts between what this world gives us, and what we make of it.

I wonder too, about the inner processes of human perception that sees and draws us in towards such ordinary things which then touch us with extraordinary feelings of wonder.

This photo was an accident of timing, the result of momentary paying attention, pushed further I might say a moment of epiphany, seeing both what is there, and what it signifies. 

Such accidents of timing, moments of attention and gifts of epiphany I choose to believe are the attention-getting whistles of the Holy Spirit, waking us up to the world around us.

And therefore this photo is a sacrament of a particular moment, a reminder of how the gift of wonder and wondering ambushes us and jerks us out of our shoulder shrugging complacency about the miracle of the ordinary and the invasion of the everyday by the extraordinary.     

Comments

[Christine McIntosh]

I think the act of taking photos can teach us how to see - if we persevere!

[Dave Summers]

The verse that says all the hairs on our head are counted has never been one that has resonated with me. But this post gives me something of the sense of it: the attention to the minutiae within the all-pervasiveness of autumn and the vastness of the street, the contemplation and the seeing beyond - an example of what Richard Beck calls "enchantment" - is not an exposition of that verse, but it connected with it somehow for me, and captures something of the same spirit, I think.