Certainly every day needs to be Earth Day, but if there is one thing to rally around and show your appreciation for, it is certainly our planet. I am off today to do a little cleanup around my neighborhood as soon as the rain passes. Every spring after the snow is finally gone, there seems to be ample evidence of the carelessness of human beings along our roadside. I am dumbfounded about what goes through the mind of someone who simply throws trash out their car window. Drunk teenagers? Careless adults? I see this little piece of trash dumped on the side of the road and it is irritating to me. How dare someone throw trash in my line of sight?!
I have often wondered if it is a plot by birds. It is pretty easy for us to haul trash to the curb, a truck comes by and takes it away. Problem solved right? Out of sight, out of mind. It seems so easy for us to forget that it is actually going somewhere. So my theory is that birds are witnessing this little shell game played by us humans. Many of them have very keen eyesight. We take garbage and dump it somewhere out of sight to us, but certainly not out of sight to them.
So their plan to foil our little game of hide and seek is to pick up the discarded objects from where we dumped them and drop them back in our neighborhoods. We get irritated at other humans for dumping the trash, arguments break out, conflicts escalate, war ensues, and we kill each other. Dumping stops all around. Win-Win for the birds.
Earth Day 2011 Commemorative image: Delicate Strength
About this image: I am thinking about doing a yearly Earth Day commemorative image, and I am going to call this my first one – Earth Day 2011, and have titled it “Delicate Strength.”
Spring seems to be off to a slow start around here in Michigan due to the cold weather we have been having. So I dug this out of my archives from last year around the same time and processed it this morning. As resilient as the Earth is in handling what we throw at it, we also take that for granted.
Happy Earth Day, and beware of the birds… they are up to something.
I can just see in a perfect world the R & D team at Monsanto reading your post and deciding to work on inventing a type of mechanical bird that will eat trash and output biodegradable fertilizer. Great that you helped with cleanup this Earth Day. You made up for those of us who were “too busy” to contribute in such a way.
Hmm, what is the saying … garbage in, garbage out? 🙂 Besides, Monsanto would probably try to patent it and stake claims on anything that is fertilized.
@ Suzy – who’s paranoid? 🙂
@ Brad – Thanks. It’s my little contribution towards avoiding annihilation of the human race.
@ Ken – very true. All but one species on this planet generally live within their means.
@ Anita – I am right there with you, even a cigarette butt thrown out a window gets my blood pressure up. Thank you on the image. No real secrets. I just went back a year looking for one to process today and just sort of landed on this one by chance. It was already a shallow DOF image, and today I was playing with adding some texture layers – masking parts of the textures out and just sort of creating as I went. I didn’t have any plan in mind ahead of time, but it started to form as I went along.
Thanks for the info about processing. I wondered if you had used texture in layers with masks. This turned out beautifully—just the right notes for this image. Recently, I experimented a bit with painting in texture using patterns. Although I didn’t come up with anything I was happy with on that one occasion, I liked the concept. I have to get back to that. Your work certainly inspires me.
I have found it takes a bit of play with various textures and masks to help the image develop. So it is quite the opposite of applying any type of formulaic approach. Keep at it if you like this type of thing, you will eventually find a combination you like. Thanks Anita.
I think you are on to something with the birds idea. I wonder if they have enlisted the help of any other creatures. When I see someone dump trash out of their car, it makes my blood boil. My husband and I once confronted a couple guilty of littering in our community. (We like to think they were only visitors.) And, in spite of the fact that we were driving right behind them and saw them dump the bag, they denied they had done it. Even more infuriating.
Your photo is a beautiful tribute to Earth Day. The photo began life as a beauty and the processing is amazing. Any secrets you are willing to share?
This is a great photo, Mark. Perfect to commemorate Earth Day.
The birds have a long way to go in equaling us humans in the art of littering.
I’m with ya on your theory Mark. Thanks for doing your part to help us all. Wonderful image I like the commemorative idea.
LOL, nothing like a healthy dose of paranoia?
Good idea on the Earth Day commemorative image! I just stuck a few new ones up with my Erath day post.
@scuba_suzy