It's not often mentioned, but most photographer's shots - mine at least - fail. And when I say most, I'm mean easily over 90% - in my case one in 10 would be pretty good overall :). Sometimes I get on a roll and hit a few in a row; but usually, something goes wrong. Sometimes, its the obvious: the thumb in the picture, here holding a yellow filter and hoping to shade the lens from the sun's rays. Other times, it's the darkslide, or the forgotten level, the wrong iso setting, the bumped tripod, or the untightened knob; the list is extremely long of ways in which I have - and continue to - ruin otherwise perfectly good images. But, the worse kind are the kind where I've suffered a lack of intent; when the image was made more or less out of habit, aye there's the rot.

"Wherever you go, go with all your heart" - Confucius

Be thou blessed, may you never take the scene for granted, may you never look without seeing, may you never stand without awe before the countless moments of magic all around us.

"If I never meet you in this world, let me feel the lack." - from The Thin Red Line

Photo: Failed, ©2010 Timothy A. Sandstrom

Sometimes, a place can take your breath away - you stand mute, eyes darting, unable to articulate your feelings in all but the most brutish of terms. The mouth becomes dry, and a weight of time bears upon the chest - at the most extreme, a sob attempts to well up past the defenses, a tear forms. What is ascendent in our deep selves - our secret hopes for the divine - this place we stand in, tempts us to celebrate, to give voice, to raise up our songs unto the very heavens which, for all we know, may be inhabited by nothing more than our hubris.

From Lassus to Leadbelly, the cry of our song comes from the deep wellsprings of our pain, the haunting loneliness of a vast and unending universe. And if there is no God, then we will create one in our own image.

Photo: Ascendent, ©2010 Timothy A. Sandstrom

O'er the methane seas,
sailed the tentacled thieves,
blasting a fugal tune,
'neith a Jovian moon,

and the barnacled sheen
of the mermaid queen
led many a man
to his wat'ry doom

tales 'twere told
in rhymes of old
were but the pale
facsimile of the truth

and many a salt,
swooning with malt,
sings regrets of the
actions of youth

O' I hear a knocker,
in Davy Jones' locker
a canker in the
womb of the sea

She'll spit him back up
and he'll raise his bony cup
and give a gallant toast
to his family.

"Me ma was a tart
me pa was a fart
and gave never a mind
to their progeny

I raised myself up
drank from the bloody cup
and stood toe to toe
with those better 'n me

'twere your last breath
as you stand it's your death
if you get between
what's coming and me

I give as was given
to dead and the livin'
and stands no man
between God and me."

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OK, so-so poetry, but the point is, IR images
hinting at what the world might look like
through other alien irises seeing different
wavelengths...

Photo: Through the eyes of others, ©2010 Timothy A. Sandstrom