While strolling on a dock of the bay on the same bay where Otis Redding was inspired to write Dock of the Bay, I was looking for some inspiration for a picture. 

It doesn’t really take me much. I’ve found something that never fails. If you’ve read a number of these you may have heard it already. It’s a tune I play often. To quote myself, it goes like this: “When I go out to take pictures, I no longer look for pictures. I simply enjoy the act of looking. Not everything makes a good picture, but everything is worthy of appreciation. If you can find yourself in a state of appreciation, pictures are everywhere.”

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 Before this main character stepped in, I was all ready for it already. I had already seen a nice-looking white rope rolled up on the dark, because was wet, dock and the way white seagulls all but disappear in front of a white sail on a sailboat and, and, and any number of other things that were most pleasant to witness, but as much as I enjoyed them, I had already seen their act.

When this bow breaks onto the picture, it had my complete and absolute attention. It had a presence, a life if its own that made it stand out. It was in the middle of a visual soliloquy when I arrived. I didn’t miss anything. Everything it had to say, it said in every sentence of time be it a second or a century. I’m afraid and happy to say that it doesn’t translate into words. To put it as perfectly as I was able, I took a picture.

It appears to me, that I was able to get the picture and able to see it in such dramatic language, all because I was already in gear from what had happened earlier on the pier. I was living in the state of appreciation. Having done so, many times before, I had already developed the capacity and stamina to see and sustain looking at such a sight.

When we were done it took a bow. I did the same in that Namaste, “the god in me greats the god in you” kind of way. I nodded. It waved. I walked on down the pier enjoy the next divine detail, including watching the tide just roll away.

Sausalito, California 2017