I See, You See

February 22 , 2008

There is only so much that I can pour into my brain on any given day and I'm down to the final days before the great big test, also known as the Bar Exam.

I decided to take a break and write on the theory that if I pour something out here, then I might get some more room into which I can stuff more of what is known as "Black Letter Law."

You don't want to know.

The day after I took that photo in the last entry I was sitting at my desk at just about the same time when I glanced over to the north and sure enough, the sky was pink again.

This time though, I thought I'd try and grab a shot of that "tinge of pink" so you could see what I see out of the north window, and then see the view to the west.

As I looked through the photos that I was thinking of putting together I was reminded of how selective we are in our sensory input, but also in what we choose to share or disclose.

What I see here is the larger message of context. To the left the clouds glow pink over the Sandias. You could label the photo, Sandia sunset, 2.9.08 and someone might think, cool, that was a nice sunset.

But was it the sunset?

What part of the sunset?

What's the context?

I could write that the golden glow "filled the sky" and show you that shot, and who challenge the thought? Sure looks like it fills the sky to me.

Wait a minute though. What if I back off a bit, rotate the camera and turn it so you can see a whole lot more of the sky.

Do you see what I see?

You see with your senses, but more than that, some with strong emotions.

One might say that they see a celestial tic-tac-toe board.

Another might snort with disgust, "Pollution."

Yet a third would tell you that those are "chemtrails" and they are evidence that the government is spraying chemicals on all of us.

All I know is that from my point of view, you see in raw form, only what I want to publish, and after that, you see without the context, and through your own lenses.

Personally, I'd rather look for beauty than conspiracy.

The sad part is that some don't even notice the world around them.

Did the sunset fill the sky?

I don't know, maybe it did. As usual, it all depends on your point of reference. From my balcony, it did not, but then in this last photo you are looking at a span of over 70 miles from north to south. And that little bump on the horizon, that's the mountain that fills the scene in the previous entry.

What if your view of the sky was limited? You might only see five to ten miles of sky. For you the sunset would fill your sky.

Would it be pink or orange?

I guess it all depends on how the world looks, from where you sit.

In this season of rhetoric and "sound bites" remember that often what you are allowed to hear and see is representative of these images. Someone picks the lens, points the camera to north or south and includes only what they want you to see, which frequently is just a sliver of both the sky and of time.