It was foolish of me to bring my old camera for on this walk.  For a gray day like this, I need one with a better processor. I’d like to blame Aki for distracting me while I got ready for the walk. Perhaps it was all the clothes and gear I had to pull on to deal with rain and cold temperatures. Whatever the reason, I’m here with the little dog, photographing a wind-fallen tree at 1/8 of the second. Any faster and the photo would be too grainy.

In low light conditions, the old camera is usually only useful as a notebook—something to remind me of a scene. But it manages to capture the shattered trunk of a 100-foot tall spruce crushing the boardwalk trail. The downed tree is the largest piece of detritus littering the forest floor. To reach the beach we have to step around tree limbs, naked or still green with needles, pieces of bark, and gobs of old man’s beard. Last night’s wind storm pruned the forest.

Hoping to take home some shareable bird photographs, I point the old camera at a roosting eagle, gulls, golden eyes, and harlequins. The camera deconstructs the birds into course scenes, like a close up of an impressionist painting. At home, while looking at the photos on my laptop, I am at first disappointed. But after accepting their lack of clarity, I start to recognize the base elements of beauty they display. What appeared to my eye to be uniformly gray water has been broken down into pinks, purples, and greens. The birds look like that have been rapidly sketched in to capture the artist’s first impressions of their personalities.