Close-ups happen to be a favorite of mine.  Whether of The Kids or flowers or insects or animals or whatever, something deep inside me loves the intimate feel of an image that places the subject within reach, as though I became invisible and moved so close that my nose brushed against that which caught my eye.

Broader views can be fantastic, yes, and they bring the whole of something into focus—a great help with identifications, yet lens-to-life contact expresses to me the essence of a thing far better than other views.

Hence I found myself drawn to this poem by e.e. cummings:

put off your faces,Death:for day is over
(and such a day as must remember he
who watched unhands describe what mimicry,

with angry seasalt and indignant clover
marrying to themselves Life’s animals)

but not darkness shall quite outmarch forever
—and i perceive,within transparent walls
how several smoothly gesturing stars are clever
to persuade even silence:therefore wonder

opens a gate;the prisoner dawn embraces

hugely some few most rare perfectly dear
(and worlds whirl beyond worlds:immortal yonder
collidingly absorbs eternal near)

day being come,Love,put on your faces

Within its words raged the life of what I intend to share in this series.

So “put on your faces” and let life bestow in images what “marrying to themselves Life’s animals” our eyes can behold.