Double Vision

If you're like me, you probably have more than one pair of glasses lying around the house, in the car, at work, in your purse, etc. I have glasses for reading the paper, for reading in bed, for working on the computer, the ones I swear for when I can't find them, . . . you get the idea. I've also been know to take my computer glasses with me on a trip, but leave the reading glasses at home. Hence, my exotic collection of frames and strengths I've collected from places around the globe.

While recently at the cabin, in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve, I'd been working on my images one, sunny, morning when the outside air temp was minus something. When it hit zero, it was time to go out and chase the light! I scurried around getting my gear together and when I finished getting all buttoned up for the cold, I went over to the table to get something I needed, and stopped suddenly in my tracks. WOW! The light was right there in my cabin! No need to go outside!

You got it - I stripped off my down jacket and made a few hand held images of my reading glasses lying in repose in the sun. It wasn't enough for me that the light made the eye glass shadow larger. No. It was the deep shadow in the upper, left corner and the slight one in the lower right, that polished this image off for me. It gave me the feeling that I was in Henry David Thoreau's cabin and he had just put his pen and glasses down after finishing some writing; - "If one advances in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet success in uncommon hours." It's just one of his quotes that has stayed with me since high school and continues to guides me.

What a way to start one's photographic day!