The Photo You Weren't Here to Take

Goofy photo, huh? Blurry, overexposed. I like it, though. It was taken with the self-timer, of course, since I'm now on my solo road trip back to the ranch, where I will spend the rest of June. I think the self-timer guarantees the blur because when you press the button to take the photo, you aren't standing in the photo for the camera to focus on. Or maybe I just still don't know how to use my camera.

Either way, I think this photo is appropriate for a bunch of reasons, one being my recent explorations of Flickr. Have you checked out that site? It's pretty great, you can find a photo of anything, including this from the Caffe Fiore page. Whenever I see Andy now, I have that photo in the back of my mind a little. Anyway, the point I was going to make about Flickr was that, as cool as it is, after a couple searches, you might start to feel like we are all out there taking photos of the same twelve things, in the same two ways. It's inevitable with certain things - the Eiffel Tower, right? But then you do a search for something like Freemans, and end up feeling a little silly for being the umpteenth person to take a photo of the horse graffiti in the alley.

I guarantee there isn't an exact replica of today's photo anywhere on Flickr. The photos I took today at Wild Horse Monument? Yeah, not unique. But they are in focus, more or less, and that doesn't really fit a day that was spent driving from Seattle to Missoula with only one and a half stops, and the buggiest windshield you have ever seen. I thought about taking a photo of that, but it was really really gross. And they pretty much have it covered on Flickr anyway.

Tomorrow: Lava Hot Springs and Salt Lake City