she noticed
The 10 cent designer
My friend Lori, whom I’ve never met, took this photograph. I like it. I like it as a photograph—the simple elegance of white-on-white, the near-purity of the lines (so much more pleasing than absolute purity), the odd symmetry of the windows, the restrained bands of color that are enhanced all out of proportion by that little wink of red graffiti. I like it as a photograph very much.
But I also like it simply because it was taken by Lori. Some people might think it’s uncharacteristic of her, that its style is out of synch with the body of her work. But photography is a sort of visual polygraph; every photo says something true about the photographer. This photograph is intelligent, very deliberate but with a clear sense of whimsy, perceptive of the beauty that arises organically from balance and harmony, receptive to the beauty inherent in deviations from balance and harmony, alive to the nuance of color. It shows a disciplined approach that is forgiving of and open to the happy accident. It shows, above all, a buoyant sense of joy and a predisposition to being happy—and my guess is that when she saw this building, when she saw those lumpy windows and that green grass easement and the festive squiggle of lipstick red, my guess is that she almost clapped her hands in delight.
My friend Lori took this photograph. It’s a lovely photo taken by a lovely person, and it makes me want to clap my hands in delight.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
