Adaptation

January 26, 2004

On the way to work, I happened across this bit of snow, tucked into the corner of a building. I kept on walking and about 30 feet later, turned around and pulled out the camera. For some reason, I found this image particularly captivating. It made me think about flexibility, and about how sometimes the best solution is to adjust yourself to your surroundings, to what you’re given.

As I was taking pictures of this snowy corner, a woman who lived in the building was walking up to her front door about 10 feet away, staring at me. She was a bit wary and, sensing this, I walked over to her and showed her the picture I was taking. I didn’t want her thinking I was snooping or spying or anything.

When I showed her the images on my camera, I started to explain what I was thinking, and why I wanted to record the moment. I started going on and on about what I was feeling, and how the snow made me think of adaptation as a positive, almost necessary part of surviving. When I held the camera and showed her the image I took, she nodded.

Next door to her building, they had recently started to tear down the neighboring house. A few feet away, there was a large pile of rubble that had been coated with a few inches of snow from the past few days. The woman pointed at the mound and said “You should take a picture of that. THAT’S a lot of snow.”