Sunday, February 18, 2024

A peck of imperfectly perfect peppers

Mixed vegetables
London, ON
February 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Not everything - in the pepper section and in life - will always fit into neat little rows.

We’ll often have to contend with random messes along the way, or even spots, like here, where one spills over into the other.

And that’s perfectly fine.

I admit I was tempted, for a nanosecond or two, to clean this scene up a bit before I shot it. Someone had filled the bins to overflowing, and between the unpredictable forces of grocery store physics and neat-averse customers, the inevitable mixing along the edges seemed like an invitation to fix them.

Yet as I looked at the shades of red, yellow, and orange tumbling into one another, I realized the story that wanted to be told was one of randomness rather than perfection.

It also dawned on me that playing pick-up sticks with the produce wasn’t a good look, and everyone else would have been weirded out. Well, at least more than they usually are when I show up and start a spontaneous photo shoot.

So quick photography is okay, but touching everything in the interest of photographic symmetry is not. Got it.

Lessons aside, it felt somewhat freeing to grab a quick shot of messiness before the bread section beckoned.

Because things often break even when we wish they wouldn’t. Because we aren’t always fully in control.

And sometimes we just have to accept the way things are. Whether they’re vegetables or anything else.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #nofrills #grocery #store #fruit #fruitography #red #yellow #orange #peppers #color #texture #shopping #retail #random #stilllife #photography #apple #iphone #shotoniphone #photooftheday #instagood #nofilter #nofilterneeded


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