Since I started taking daily pictures about seven years ago, I've slowly learned to look beyond what's in the foreground and attend to the margins. Bokeh, I've also learned, is what it's called -- that beautiful fuzziness and blurring that lends richness and color and interest. Here are a few pictures from 2014 to demonstrate what I mean.
II.
In my childhood, black folks disappeared in the margins insofar as white folks were concerned. They weren't seen, just as I once didn't see the full richness of a moment suspended in time by my lens. During my youth and then in my adulthood, all peoples of color have stepped forward to take their places in the foreground, earning legal rights, if not always full respect of some others.
III.
Today, in some counties of my native state (Alabama), gay people are marrying because -- despite the Attorney General's plea to the Supreme Court and the Alabama Chief Justice's objections -- they can. And these folks, too, who have historically been backgrounded have come to the fore.
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| Judge Michael Graffeo and the first couple he married today |
IV.
Beautiful bokeh is as much a part of the whole as a black person or a gay person or a Native American or a handicapped person or a female or anyone else is to the fabric that can make of all of us one beautiful picture of what's possible.
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