Tea From Leaf

Easter Monday In the silence of this Unexpected storm Spiky daffodil leaves Thrust upwards Green exclamations In the fast-growing blanket. 4/2/2018 Maplewood NJ

A blue moon is a rare orb.

I prefer mine common and mellow.

And in such light,

I would take You,

Darling,

Slow... and... easy...

Lest our sudden, mutual combustion

Leave nothing

But nameless black Cinder.

@soulreserve

nameless moon

name this nameless moon this sapphire blotch in our starlit sky, take it and sink it in inky blue desire, pluck its supple flowers with pale translucent lips and suck their sweet nectar of love, lay me down on its crescent hills seeped in shimmering moondust and name me too. call me darling, call me love. wild and windblown I’ll camp down on this earth near you, so close to you I will see you move and cloud me gently devour me take over everything that is mine and then, as you outshine us both - me and this dreamy nameless moon, I’ll ache for you in afterglow.

© SoulReserve 2019

Gold Mine Saloon, Waldorf, MD, 11/22/2018

Digital collage: five variations.

Late afternoon light, Cape Jack, Nova Scotia, Jul. 9, 2018.

“The formula for doing a good job in photography is to think like a poet.” — Imogen Cunningham #WomensHistoryMonth 📷My Signature, 1973 #ICPCollections

I admit to being slightly obsessed with taking photos that have crooked horizons and squaring them to horizontal. I know there’s a notion that a cock-eyed frame makes a more dramatic photo, but it often seems to me that the result just looks lazy or sloppy, like a snapshot, of which there are plenty with crooked horizons. Here’s one where I question whether inattention to the horizon is an improvement—a fashion photo with a world champion skydiver (link below). Left, as published (in Tumblr): what’s going on?; right, with horizon horizontal: the model is now clearly arrowing toward the ground.

The Makeup Brush

The Makeup Brush

World champion sky diver Domitille Kiger for Iris van Herpen Fall 2021 Couture

Early winter snow on branches of a Japanese maple. 12/10/2017, Maplewood, NJ.

Over the years I worked with film photography, I sometimes used long exposures to photograph moving water. It occurred to me today that perhaps I could layer stills from a GIF to achieve similar effects. Here’s one result of my experiments.

tea leaf

the leaves of tea at the bottom of the cup, reveal patterns, a makebelieve story of us, images swirl rinsed with tea, familiar, fragrant a horde of fragile memories, delicate as the porcelain of my moods, and a heart lost in a million thoughts of you.

© SoulReserve 2017