First coffee in hand, looking out at the 7 am mist, I noticed the trillium was bejewelled by droplets. Bescented and bejewelled, suffused and saturated.
Saturated, a word that rang a bell. A theme with seven photos posted this week two years ago, amidst a personal iPhoneography challenge to hone my skills and learn to minimise compositional distractions. In this case, a series of desaturated pictures offered up in daily posts on Instagram.
Instagram, a word that that floated a memory from the Freebirds record shop in Dublin. I overheard a couple of twenty-somethings discussing how squared album art had inspired Instagram. Perhaps they added that thought with the instant selfie posts as I thumbed through album covers that invoked ancient memories. How fitting! ‘Songs From a Room‘.
I had peeled to Leonard Cohen. And another memory surfaced; a photo I took of album covers decorating a bedroom wall in Houston. Not sure the montage included a Cohen album cover but I recall that Cohen said that ‘cracks are how the light gets in’.
Then I thought of the corollary, that cracks are how the light gets out too. The leakage circles me back to desaturation and the seven iPhone photos I had taken and posted on Instagram as #iphoneography #desaturated in April 2018.
A 
B 
C 
D 
E
F 
G
Each of these was desaturated by finger using the Color Splash app on several vintages of iPhones. And I still like the idea that every three metre square of our world can have a unique and permanent three word address.
A. Cliff. Climb. Alone. #what3words compliant.carriage.noodle – a summer walk at the Gordale Scar in 2015.
B. Spectacular. Rainbow. Fortunate. #what3words strikeout.sheets.currently – Dublin traffic 2015.
C. Umbrella. Stretchers. Hospital. #what3words leap.stay.noses – friend’s 70th birthday walk 2015.
D. Garden. Sawfly. Larva. Willow. Pest – back garden 2013
E. Rain. Shrine. Umbrella. #what3words venue.such.cleans – Kyoto temple 2017.
F. Roof. Tiles. Path. #what3words fidelity.snippet.dwell – a summer walk north of the Solent in 2016.
G. Scale like jewels on a willow. Pest. Infestation – back garden with a crowd funded iPhone 4s macro lens from Moment 2013.
Need a good read? Try Tatty by Christine Dwyer Hickey, this year’s Dublin One City, One Book award winner. Or select one or more of the previous winners.
Similarly, with the Dublin City of Literature theme, there’s an engaging listen to be had every week this year in the City of Books podcasts by Martina Devin. Do books matter? Can you can ever have too many books?
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