Perhaps you've heard of glamour photographers smearing lenses with vaseline; well, after applying some shea-butter based lotion on my hands, I accidentally got it on the lens of my cell phone. (Cell phones are great for more experimental photography because they're a) cheap^[1] and b) reasonably well sealed. I tried wiping the goo off with my shirt which just gave the smear a vertical cast:

f/1.7, 1/118s, ISO 200, 19:20:43 03Jun22 on a oneplus 5T. Some cropping and colour adjustments in gimp

I actually rather liked the shot, though this was not at all what I was going for. Once I blew up to computer monitor size, however, I decided the colours needing punching up, and so I amped them up to capture that beautiful golden colour shining through leaves that's so iconic of springtime....

02jun22, 08:38:38 (pm) is the thing you need to know, aka evening sunlight

I love the golden evening light, and these clover captured it perfectly. One of the things that dismayed/appalled/surprised me about the Depp-Heard trial that came through very clearly, regardless of whether you believed him or her, was how absolutely miserable these people's lives were. All that money and fame, and their dog pooped everywhere, they screamed and yelled and clearly loathed each other (Depp in particular seemed to hate his ex-wife).

I couldn't help reflecting, on the one hand, that the ultra-wealthy (as a class) go to a good deal of trouble to craft narratives so that Jane & Joe Prole accept their lot in life. But on the other...it seems really obvious that taking these lo-fi, rather mundane photos while doing the daily walk with the wizard brings me far more happiness. Ditto the father and son chatting amiably after their baseball game, and the team-mate who ran after them to return a forgotten helmet as they left one of several diamonds in our neighborhood. Or my next-door-neighbor's twice or thrice daily walks with his dogs.

There's a lot to be said for the simple pleasures in life.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.