image of the day

Last year on our visit to California, one of our drives took us along Hwy. 111 and the Salton Sea area (geography perhaps suspect and sheer guesswork). My friend Susan took several photos, and this is one of my favorite photographs, period. I'm not sure she was going for what I see - but what I love about this photo is the way the light, color, and reflection on water work to create a painterly impression. There's no Photoshopping or alteration of any type: what you see is just a straight scan of the print, which was taken with a nothing-special film camera out the window of a moving car, if I recall. Part of my fondness for this photo is its sheer accidental beauty - I know I couldn't have taken this photo if I were trying to get it. I love the color palette, the gray-green of the vegetation set off against the reddish brown of the soil and hills in the background, the icy blues, grays, and whites of the lake - and by contrast, the rusted metallic hulk in the left foreground.