First attempt at taking a picture of nothing

Most cemeteries are peaceful places. This one has old, gnarled Scots pine and tall, graceful Lombardy poplars if my tree identification skills pass muster: naturally it is where the town birds foregather for evensong. No plainsong ever sounded sweeter and the vaulted blue ceiling goes up forever. Surprisingly, because of the trees in the cemetery, a place that you might expect to be horizontal by inclination is photographically speaking a predominantly vertical environment.

The grass hereabouts always reminds me of AstroTurf that somebody neglected to mow. Like so many things, sorry m'dear, grass is something I usually take for granted. In the desert, grass has to be watered or it shrivels up and dies, but this variety—not necessarily this patch, please note—seems capable of dealing with the common local practice of extravagant over-watering and even irrigation by surface flooding in the heat of the day, when temperatures are often around 110°F (43.3°C).

Only when I came to process the picture for this weblog post did I notice that I had in fact taken a picture of something: old habits die hard, even in cemeteries. When asked for advice on picture taking—it was only that one time, but I have talked about it ever since as though it was an oft repeated occurrence—I suggested that looking at what the photographer was NOT taking a picture of was a useful habit to develop. What I meant was that the photographic subject will often times take care of itself, but the unintended peripheral extras and clutter will often spoil the intended effect. I observe that I must pay closer attention to my own advice.

 

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