Zebra in the Garden

Working with a macro lens is like looking at life through a microscope—seeing what you would not see were you just passing through. So that yesterday, between rain bursts, I could be found crouching in my garden or braced above a vase of flowers, dialing in and out of temporal focus. I was catching the reflected crossbars on a puddled stamen and discovering the zebra stripes of iris. I was thinking how razor edged the lily is, how much like a skirt a blur of hydrangea seems, as photographed from above.

I brace myself for the macro lens. I balance against a wall, try not to breathe, snap. It's rare when a photograph works just right. No matter what gets MemorySticked in the end, I've had the privilege of seeing.