Muse in the Juice

I love this picture - even a goddess can have a "bad hair day". Somehow it is comforting to think that even perfection can tumble off her pedestal!

When does the Ordinary become the Extraordinary?

Today I am exploring my way around Flickr.com. A wonderful web site filled with original, creative and beautiful photos. It is so much better than the stock images found on other sites! I have used Flickr before, for Animoto clips especially. However this is the first time I have captured an image and added it to a blog - since I am a newbie at blogging.

Photographs...images of remarkable beauty caught in nano seconds. These wonderful images on Flickr are far removed from the photos I usually take. That is if I remember to take photos at all. Usually I am in the middle of the birthday party, Christmas day, vacation and suddenly remember "darn the camera!" Since I border dinosauer status these days; I only just got a digital camera last Christmas. I still don't know how to download the thing to my computer, did I say dinosauer? I usually reach into the kitchen "junk" drawer and pull out the old 35 milimeter. Point and click, ahhhhh, that I can get.

The photos I take look nothing like the Flickr images, Flickr photographers create art! My photos have red eyes, sometimes a head or feet are missing, not exactly Flickr material. God bless those talented folks who share their photo art, their music, their words...they give wing and form to our emotions. All those times I wish I could give form to my feelings and someone elses creation fits it perfectly- thank you . It speaks to the universality of mankind.

I paused mid-breath when I saw this photo, Umbrellas in the Air is what I called it. Ordinary umbrellas, an ordianary sunset - if any sunset can be called ordinary, put them together and magic happened. The ordinary became extraordinary. It got me thinking, when does that magic happen and why? When does one in a bijillion human beings become special? When does one particular cat or dog become different from the rest? When does a stranger turn into a beloved?

Of course love has something to do with it, but when does the love arrive?

If I combine the various ingredients for my poppyseed cake and put it in the oven at 325 for 60 minutes, what I get is a yummy poppyseed cake. But if I ony put in the eggs, salt and the poppyseeds what I get is a mess. When does the cake become a cake? When do we decide something or someone is special to us? Does it take 60 minutes to bake a relationship? Some people grow on us over time, some are love at first sight. I know what I choose, what I invest time and effort into usually becomes prescious to me.

I don't know the answer. I just know that the photo of the umbrellas in the night air at sunset caught my breath and for a moment I experienced beauty and something extraordinary. Thank you Flickr and the artist whose eye caught the moment. I think I'll go home and bake a cake, maybe take a photo of it and mount it on Flickr, ok, maybe not, but I still might bake a cake.