The Next Step

Sometimes words and images go perfectly together. Case in point:

The Next Step

This is a shot from a local lake one misty morning over ten years ago. It’s quiet, meditative. It almost evokes a zen-garden feeling. In itself it’s an interesting enough picture. Not my favorite or best shot, and certainly not my worst.

But over the years it's become my best-seller. And I think it's because of its title. More than one person has commented that it’s the caption that really makes the picture for them. Reportedly, it brought someone out of depression after the loss of a loved one. Others have their own reactions to it and reflections branching out from it.

The title and image serve each other symbiotically as a kind of focusing mechanism for a concept -- different for everyone who has commented on it, but similar in function. It’s the best example I have of words enhancing images.

o - o - o

Interestingly, though it's a good seller (all things being relative), I took it with a crappy old Sony Cybershot DSC-P8, which was a 3.2 megapixel camera. It takes a lot of care to get a good print, and even then I can't print it any larger than about 8x11 inches. But it just shows that it doesn't have to be about the equipment.