Mosaic

Though at first sight, things may seem loud and chaotic, I'd do well to take the opportunity to linger just for a bit. Then, I'd see the colours and beauty in the chaos. And maybe I'd want to linger a little while longer to look closer and see the individual pieces and discover that I was actually one of them.

Stained Glass

We drove out of the city yesterday to a funeral in a small town, a small town where my husband once lived as a young boy. We had driven the drive more than a few times but not for awhile. Interesting how, like touch, sight can also open wide the doors to memories.

And memories came as we drove past farmyards where my husband once walked, a club where music once played and skirts swung as the sounds drifted across the road into the window of the room where the young boys were slowly falling asleep, a bridge beneath which my husband and other boys would go and hang out, a graveyard where we've stood more than once to bury loved ones and finally the church where another loved one was being remembered and mourned.

Like pieces of stained glass, memories come together in a seemingly random way but all fit together quite beautifully. Worn and weathered, not perfect and flawless, the pieces of this stained glass window fit together quite beautifully indeed.

What images have you taken or left uncaptured that bring back memories for you?

For this shot, I used f/7.1 which gave an acceptable depth of field for both the grasses in the snow as well as the building itself to have good clarity. There really was a great amount of detail not to be missed in this image, from the etchings on the pieced-together-front, to the worn-out window frames and the grain of the plywood behind the windows.

My shutter speed was a little slow (1/40) in order to get adequate exposure at f/7.1 but it seemed to be okay with using a fast lens.

Once composed and shot, I brought the image into photoshop to add a layer that gave the TTV impression, aging the picture even more.