Life is unfair and full of disappointment. Here’s me, with my wee Fujifilm X10 in hand, walking down the street, spotting a mustard-colored corner building. And oh lawdy, there are two women walking down the sidewalk toward that building, one of whom was wearing a shiny blue jacket that would look amazing against that mustard wall. All I had to do was stop, wait for them to be in front of the building, and squeeze off a couple of shots.

But no. They stop before they get there, climb into a parked car, and drive off. So I have to settle for some random guy in a black leather jacket and khaki pants. And if that’s not bad enough, when he reaches the right point for the photo, he’s badly out of step. I shot the photo, but c’mon…it’s like these people have no aesthetic sensibilities at all.

But then I notice there’s a fire escape on one side of the building, casting an absolutely delicious shadow on the mustard-colored wall. But some asshole has (and I assume this was done deliberately) parked a dull white block of an SUV right beneath the shadow, completely ruining the visual. Imagine somebody sticking a big wad of gum or an old bandaid over the woman in Hopper’s ‘New York Office, 1962‘ and you’ll get the idea. I couldn’t bring myself to shoot the photo.

Happily, there was a nice detail worth photographing. The shadow of a string of holiday lights made a nice filigree in an abstract block of color and darkness. It’s not entirely satisfying; it’s like eating croutons that have no garlic. Better than nothing.

But I’ve been told patience is my only redeeming quality (seriously, a million years ago when I was in middle school, in trouble again, having waited in an uncomfortable chair for a long chunk of time for the Boys Advisor to lecture and chastise me for some offense, I was told that patience was my only redeeming quality…and I’ve clung to that one quality ever since), so I decided to wander off and return later when the offending SUV would be gone.

And that’s what I did. I kept walking and shot a few more photos, including this bizarre doorway of a shop that had gone out of business and was blocked by a Port-a-Potty. There’s a sort of warped genius at work there.

And when I eventually returned to the mustard-colored building? The goddamned white SUV was still there. Not only that, somebody had parked a blue trike motorcycle in the adjoining parking space. I tried not to take it personally, but it hurt. I don’t know what’s wrong with these people. I still couldn’t stomach the idea of photographing that appalling SUV, but I could swallow the blue trike. It allowed me to get a bit of that glorious fire escape shadow. And there was a blue doorway behind the trike, and a rather nice arch overhead, both of which mitigated the offence. Well, somewhat mitigated it.

Life is unfair and full of disappointment. But in a world of white SUVs, there’s also mustard-colored corner shops and doorways blocked by Port-a-Potties. There’s always going to be something around the corner…and you never know what it’s going to be. That’s why we walk around with a camera, right? It’s the philosophy of photogr…ooh. Photolosophy.

Okay. I like that. I’m almost certainly not the first person to come up with that term, but I’m not going to Google it. Not Googling is part of my photolosophy.

Addendum: MDavis commented on the “crisp striping on the trash can in the first photo.” I also found that appealing. Unfortunately, as I noted in my reply, the hurried photo I shot didn’t quite come together. The elements are all there, but it just doesn’t have any harmony. Still, here it is: