A Mind for Small Things

I find these days I think in increments of thought -- a word, a gesture, a shade of color, a crumb.  I think I may always have thought this way. 

In graduate school, I remember studying John Philip Kemble's notations for Shakespeare plays, comparing the images he created on stage to those David and Poussin created in neoclassical painting.  I didn't know why -- and still don't know why -- I was so interested in the minutiae on textual notations.  I'm not sure I ever even posited why it mattered.  Can it?  Matter, that is?  Beyond the scholarly pursuit of writing that shows a scholarly bent?

Today, I returned to the Stevenson Town Park and found myself unable to take a single decent picture of the panoramic view of lily pads, water, and distant mountain.  Even with a tripod for HDR photos, I failed at capturing the big picture.  Only later, when I cropped a photo to the foreground, flattening it like a turn-of-the-century print, or photographed the center of a passion flower did I make myself happy. 

Narrow the field: my modus operandi.  Make the image and let it be itself, without interpretation or meaning or significance.  Mine is a mind for small things.