On Attitude

This morning I headed over to the dish trail in Palo Alto. What can I say, the weather in the bay area is fabulous. Half way along the trail a composition of the yellowish vegetation and the blue sky caught my eye.

Would this be a good picture? Hmm, perhaps... Actually, may be not. What if I shift a bit to the right? I'm not sure. You know what, it might. Perhaps it might not... Would shooting from a low angle improve the shot?

So I knelt down and accidentally glanced over to the right. And there, unanticipated, was my shot: a spider crouching in the vortex of its beautiful funnel-shaped web, waiting patiently for a pray:


This reminds me of my teen-age hiking trips to the desert. In the evenings we used to search for wood to feed a campfire. Alas, good fire wood is rare in the desert; all I could find were a few twigs not worthy of picking up. Yet somehow my friend Mickey always managed to return carrying some decent-sized dry branches, enough to keep us warm after sunset. When I finally asked him to reveal the secret of his serendipity he replied that the trick was to start by picking up the worthless twigs; only then one starts noticing the thick branches.

Zzzzz...