Perspectives of eye and camera

Photo: tree with berries on 140th Street, Surrey

What the eye sees is very different from what is seen by the camera. When I took the first picture, I hoped to capture the brilliance of red berries on a bare tree against the warm yellow of a house wall lit by the westering sun. What I got instead was a tiny house and berries almost invisible.

I was determined to try again. The tree was in the middle of the boulevard, so I had to wait for a lull to cross the traffic lane. This time the tree loomed large, and the berries were visible. The yellow house, so brilliantly lit by the slanting winter sun, had almost entirely disappeared. This is a metaphor for how we see our lives; some things loom large while others fade into the background. It's all in the perspective.