The volunteer tree right beside the soaring concrete support for the highway overpass frustrated me on an earlier visit, interfering as it did with the flow of that row of graceful supports.
On the next visit, I decided to get in close for a different perspective.
I like this photo for what I can see: the mix of textures, and the mix of lines – the messy lines of the tree, the clean lines of the concrete support, and the straight lines of the milled wooden underpinnings of the roadbed.
And I like it for what I can see only in my mind’s eye: the juxtaposition of natural and artificial, each with its own claim to beauty.
“Each with its own claim to beauty…” Yes. I suppose it’s a by-product of increasing age, but I find myself almost getting angry that all the models in TV commercials are young, lithe, and without a skin blemish anywhere. There’s simply no acknowledgement that there can be beauty in wrinkles, in baldness, in arthritic finger joints. As I write this, I’m struggling to verbalize why wrinkles and age spots should be beautiful — it has something to do with lives lived, rather than lives yet-to-be-lived.
Jim T
Jim T – “Lives lived.” I like that explanation/concept of beauty. They say at 50 we have the face we deserve. Even more so at 70 or 80, perhaps.
I like the old woman who said, “I’m not old, I’m rare!”
We don’t watch many American programs on TV — everybody is just too damn beautiful (and too young) for their jobs. There is also a sophomortic twang to all the writing. Elementary (a modern Sherlock Holmes) is an exception. British shows hire ugly actors, let their hair be a mess, their teeth crooked… much more relatable. Real. Well, as real as a show can be with multiple takes.
Barbara – I know what you mean. Brits seem to have more character actors, and fewer TV/movie stars, than in America.