By Nora Ligotti
Some of my favorite pictures that I’ve taken are the ones I wasn’t really trying to. They’re
not necessarily “good,” but they always seem to recall vivid sensory memories that a more
intentional photo doesn’t quite capture. Though accidental, these unfocused, ethereal images are materializations of the way I often take in the world around me: through the spaces between, when your eye catches a detail or your gaze lingers where you didn’t expect, before you’ve focused your eye or your camera on the real task at hand. I feel most present in those in-betweens, where the act of noticing jolts me into the realization that I’m alive! I’m here! Look how beautiful everything is!
The blush-pink roses, soft warm sunshine, and lush greens of these particular images,
taken in the front yard of my childhood home, evoke a memory I can’t quite place. They
transcend a single moment, encompassing the joy of every time I played on the lawn or felt my dog’s sun-warmed fur, the satisfaction of every time I smelled the neatly-trimmed roses or felt the serene embrace of nature from my sunny spot on the front stoop. There is peace in these pictures– a yearning and a gratitude for the in-between moments– that can only be truly immortalized in happy accidents like these.
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