This aisle of White Birch trees, all of an age, that runs along one side of Great Meadow in Acadia National Park, is one of my favorite views. In the right light it is simply beautiful. Add my beautiful wife, Carol, and frame with moderate telephoto on the zoom for some compression of the length of the aisle, and it makes a classic natural portrait. (The “true”, and much shorter, focal length of the small sensor camera I carry, provides the perspective of a telephoto shot, with the depth of field of wide shot. The effect is very pleasing, at least to my eye. It does not always work well for portraits, but it works here.)

Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. -1/3EV exposure compensation. 170mm equivalent field of view.  f5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.

And for the Sunday Thought. Simply beautiful. It can have at least a couple of meanings.

“Simply” because no more complex or precise an a description of this particular beauty is required. It is beauty itself. The object being described is one of those which provides beauty with its meaning. Simply beautiful.

Or, “having the beauty of simplicity.” For most of us there is a beauty to simple things, things with combine economy with elegance…things which are not overworked, overly adorned, overly artificial (in the sense that the the artificial is more art and artifice than substance)…things that are close to natural. Simple things. Simple beauty. Simply beautiful.

It describes the image, the aisle of arcing birches in the morning sunlight, and my wife in equal measure. It describes the person. It describes the experience. And, if you will allow it, it describes the catching of the experience in this image.  All three make me want to clap just once, or bow slightly in acknowledgement, or tip my hat in recognition. All together it makes me smile. It makes me want to kiss my wife, to sing a note of praise to the creator of such beauty, and it is what has kept a camera in my hand all these years, and what I attempt to catch in every image.

Simple beauty. Simply beautiful.

Happy Sunday!