Madeira from the Disney Magic. It was a very relaxing cruise with no pressure or problems. I had been on this same cruise the year before so there was nothing really to miss. It was all familiar and nice. In the picture you can see there are very few people around, but notice how many fewer people are pirates like the photographer. :)
People have wanted me to share my pictures of the latest cruise. I have hundreds which I took mainly for myself. I guess I could post them all at once on some photo site. My computer screen at work constantly displays the whole set as a slide show background yet no one seems to be crowding around gasping in wonder. Really, a good picture is a delight with nuance and memory. It takes the soul of a moment in time. Looked at in one way photographs are personal to the photographer who knows and remembers the true feeling of the moment, in another they impart information and emotion from the photographer to other viewers.
My first transformational moment where I learned the full richness of this sharing, came at a Monet exhibit in Chicago, Illinois. Something about those paintings talked to me so personally, so intensely, I saw the world in a whole new way after that. It affects me every time I stop and admire the sort of Zen-like beauty of a moment, rather than the minutia of details my mind may going over about what I am seeing or other thoughts about something like how much my feet may hurt or how much money I have in my pocket, thoughts that have no relevance to God's creation. I carry with me a little of Monet's view of the world, despite the fact that I never met him.
Also, when I view photographs or paintings, I spend time with them. Time is a critical factor towards understanding a photograph. A photograph often imparts more details than one viewed, but obviously less emotion. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then one must spend at least the time necessary to understand all those words.
I was at my nephew Eddie's beautiful wedding yesterday and noticed some pictures of Eddie on his refrigerator from his childhood, my childhood as well as we are about the same age. I was fascinated by that picture which everyone else saw as part of a refrigerator door perhaps before getting milk for their cereal. Times were different in the early 1960's and I'm so happy I remember those times so well.
