Dish network

Searching for life in deep space?
Montreal, QC, May 2008

The neighborhood surrounding the hospital is old, relatively densely populated and not especially memorable. Once upon a time, my parent's generation aspired to live there, but these days, it's clearly past its prime. Yet anyone who knows what tickles my photographic funnybone knows that it's just these kinds of environments that get my mind racing. It's easy to find something pretty when your canvas is new and pristine. It's a whole different ballgame when you're walking through a run-down landscape.

I wasn't in an especially good mood as we walked from the parked car up to the hospital. Visiting your hospital-bound dad is never a happy scene. So I suppose I was looking for very temporary relief through the friendly barrel of my trusty lens.

I found it here, in a nest of satellite dishes on top of an utterly forgettable apartment building. I dismissed thoughts of TV addiction and highway-robbery subscription rates and instead thought about the voodoo-like ability of a small dish to receive signals from a bird hovering 22,300 miles overhead. After watching the Phoenix lander touch down successfully on Mars last night, I seem to be looking at this picture from an even broader perspective.

Weird, I know. All from a walk through a neighborhood I didn't want to be in, on my way to a place I'd rather not have been.

Your turn: Something plain. Why do you look?

Wait, don't leave just yet! Please hang around and suggest a caption if you haven't already done so. Just click here. I promise you'll be amused.