Call & Response

The Call: Perfect Pears — Jessica

I was moving these pears around my kitchen this, wiping down the counter after breakfast. I loved their bright, spring green color and their curvy shape. As soon as the light got better in my study, I fired up the camera and put together a little still life.

I was disappointed, though, when I looked at the results in Lightroom. The pears were far more blemished than I had noticed in my dark kitchen and it created a very distracting image. The solution was to fire up Photoshop and zap all those ugly dark spots and creases out of the pears.

Response: The Sire of Muse — Cheryl

To R. B.

The fine delight that fathers thought; the strong
Spur, live and lancing like the blowpipe flame,
Breathes once and, quenchèd faster than it came,
Leaves yet the mind a mother of immortal song.

Nine months she then, nay years, nine years she long
Within her wears, bears, cares and combs the same:
The widow of an insight lost she lives, with aim
Now known and hand at work now never wrong.

Sweet fire the sire of muse, my soul needs this;
I want the one rapture of an inspiration.
O then if in my lagging lines you miss

The roll, the rise, the carol, the creation,
My winter world, that scarcely breathes that bliss
Now, yields you, with some sighs, our explanation.

—Gerard Manley Hopkins