Surprise: Fences, Walls and Shadows

January 27, 2013 at 10:13 am (Blogging, Meme) (early morning, fence, iphone camera, photography, Robert Louis Stevenson, shadow, shadows, smiley face, Valentines, wall, walls, winter)

I go out for my morning walk without my camera because I just plan to walk; it’s too cold to fiddle with a camera and really, how much has the landscape changed anyway!

However, Friday’s photo memes are peculating in my head.

Walls and shadows. Shadows and walls.

Shadows are easy. It’s an early morning walk; the sun is just coming up and it’s at my back. I just have to remember not to get my shadow in the picture.

The most interesting things about the picture I don’t even notice until I get home  and start manipulating the image. My focus as I shoot is on the smiley face. I don’t notice the angel shadow to the left and is that Santa’s sleigh still stuck on the roof?

My Shadow
By Robert Louis Stevenson

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

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The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—

Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so little that there’s none of him at all.

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He hasn’t got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.

He stays so close beside me, he’s a coward you can see;

I’d think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

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One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;

But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,

Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

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Walls are trickier. If you go to Ailsa’s post you see that one of her pictures, which she names a stone wall, I would call a stone fence.

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Was the Berlin Wall a wall or a fence? What’s the difference?

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A wall is, according to the dictionary, any of various permanent upright constructions having a length much greater than the thickness and presenting a continuous surface except where pierced by doors, windows, etc. A wall is used for shelter, protection, or privacy,  to fence in an area, etc. A wall encloses, shuts off, divides, protects, borders, etc., example: to wall the yard.

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While, a fence is a barrier enclosing or bordering a field, yard, etc., usually made of posts and wire or wood, used to prevent entrance, to confine, or to mark a boundary.

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I guess it’s just a matter of idioms (see definition number 2 here). What I call a fence, you may call a wall. What you call a wall, I may call a fence.

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Enjoy these shadows and walls from my wintery, always unexpected, morning walk. Remember, surprises are everywhere.

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