Winter blues? Try this:

get out under the sky, ski towards the horizon with wet snow glazing your cheeks and the trees leaning close to the little flame of your warmth.

After a long day at work,

a persimmon in the fruit aisle, 

a soft cross between a flower and a robin's breast. 

I placed it in my palm and couldn't let it go.

But oh, the acerbic pucker-- 

the bitterness of that first bite.

Recalling

Diane Arbus's dictum that "a photograph is a secret about a secret."

Finding the world unexpectedly

electric.

Still thinking about portraits

and how brave it is to reveal one's self for even a moment.

Painters have always known

about the power and mystery of a subject emerging from darkness (think of Whistler's yearning portraits in the Frick), and it occurs to me that those same moments happen in our lives with one another---the casual words that allow a person to move forward into our line of sight, gradually revealing them as separate from the dark surround. I think I like taking photographs of people more than anything else for the heady combination of enigma and accessibility that occurs: this reminds me that we can never know another completely. And that is a great thing. Like living next door to a wilderness.

These winter roses

seemed like postcards from another climate as I walked through the east winds today.