When you Discover You Really Aren't Strangers

I've been looking through the When You Are A Stranger photos--a Blipfoto challenge involving a throwaway camera and taking a picture of a stranger with it. It struck me that although many of us who did it admitted to not a little trepidation about approaching a total stranger and asking to take their picture, most of those approached were happy to oblige, and all the blippers said they were happy they did it. The results are interesting reading….

It occurs to me that we are all (or were once) almost all total strangers. (The only person I knew was Lady Findhorn who had been encouraging me for a couple of years to have a go, and finally got me hooked by setting me up on Blipfoto on my iPhone on a visit to Edinburgh in 2012. ) I have never had any trepidation about getting to know people in the blip community, many of whom I feel are wonderful friends, even though we've never met in person (and a few who I subsequently have.)

We are left to draw our own conclusions about the whole project. Perhaps the lesson to be learned is that in some ways, there is no such thing as a "stranger". We're all on this planet together, and most of us are pretty good people.

It is still raining. We decided to take our chances on getting soaked and went for a walk in the regional park in Kenwood, which has a paved trail. We drove through rain, hard at times, but it was only misty on our walk. I love the structure of the oak trees, which really stands out when they are wet, particularly with the brilliant green moss highlighting the branches.