details

I took the above picture last week in the woods. The useful thing about macro photography is that it teaches you to spot subjects that transform under a focused gaze.

It wasn’t until I was steadying the camera that I noticed the tiny spiral shell latched onto one of the rose hips. It immediately made the shot more interesting to me, and what I wanted to showcase in the image changed.

I no longer wanted to capture rose hips on an autumn morning, I was endeavouring to illustrate a more abstract idea. While the shell is hardly unnatural, its position and perfection makes it seem like a surreal addition. It becomes a kind of Magritte photograph. I should check to see if there is a wee snail smoking a pipe if I zoom in closer…

Details are important. They separate the ordinary from the strange.

Like a miniature steam train roaring out of a bricked-up fireplace.