Nigel 
November 3rd, 2009
On Saturday Jenny was excited. A poppy she planted in the spring had flowered again.
That’s nice, I thought. I suppose. Can you tell my depression is worse?
Then I happened to look out of the window. A low sun was shining through cloud and the poppy looked magnificent.
I need to take a picture of that before the lighting changes, I thought. But I really can’t be bothered to get dressed so early. I want to be a nerd in pyjamas writing my blog.
Yeh yeh yeh, but you also want that photo; and by the way it would do you good to have a shower and get dressed.
The debate lasted several minutes. The photography enthusiast in me pushed gently but firmly, and won.
And walking across the wet lawn towards the poppy I saw this:
That was just before three of the neighbours’ cats spotted me and came racing over. When I crouched down to snap the poppy Mischief, the elderly one, scrambled onto my right knee. In the past he would have fallen off but he’s lost weight. Nice to have a purring cat help you take the photo.
And then I looked up at the magnolia tree we planted when our ash had to be removed:
I’ve cropped that right down. Here’s the full picture as it came out of the camera (but reduced to 300 pixels wide). Zooming and cropping can be very effective.
I didn’t want to get on with my life that morning. As most days recently I felt seriously down. But the right anti-depressant means that once I get going I usually start to feel better. Not always, but often. I’m glad the photographer in me won. If I ever sell any of my writing maybe I’ll even get a decent camera.
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