safe from the snipers

It's been a flat phase...one of those seasons where everything is bland and there's seemingly nothing from which to be inspired (about which? for which? who knows). I fumble with the settings of my complicated camera trying to squeeze out technically "good" photos with results as uninspired as the effort.

Then my girls come to the office for lunch. Isabella finds a place to nest among the skyscrapers where she's "safe from the snipers". What does that mean? Who knows, but it's pure Isabella and essentially beautiful. All that's on hand is a cheap cell phone with a sensor the size of a peso and no controls--not even a real shutter button. But there it is, a moment of essential beauty captured. Maybe not perfectly, but effectively captured, and--whatever it does for others--while part of me may pine for "better" equipment, that part is overwhelmed by the memory of beauty that resonates from the captured moment. It was a beautiful moment observed and communicated without complication.

Maybe it's easier to see essential beauty when not distracted by technicalities. Surely it's more effectively communicated without complication. But inspired work from unpracticed hands is myth. So is communication without competence.