Photographing Red

A former student's beautiful Facebook photograph of a red flower captures what I find so hard to shoot: red things with contour, shadow, and three-dimensionality.  Under her picture, I commented, "Red is so dadgum difficult to photograph!"  She replied, "Yes, it blows out so easily, doesn't it?"

Indeed.

Caressing a Cardinal Flower this afternoon with my eyes, I kneeled in not-yet-hardened-muck and, like a penitent, sought spiritual guidance.  I surely earned forgiveness if not transcendence.  I could not, no matter how many snaps I took, quite capture the beauty of the flower renowned for its attractiveness to Ruby-throated Hummingbirds.

My heart fluttered as a bird's wings might whir, and while I did not pierce the long throat of flower -- dusting my head with pollen -- I pierced the afternoon sky with bloody blossom.  Today, that was pleasure enough.