Magical Beauty

Rainbow Sendoff  Digital Photography

Flight delays were worth it when I looked out the window soon after settling in my seat - double rainbows actually - and I was able to capture at least one by the time I fished out my camera.  I love the   image with the blurry colors and shapes and the rain drops on the window pane. 

I have been home for a week now,  enjoying the trip all over again going through the hundreds of photographs. As I was looking at the pictures, I was reminded of artist and photographer Vik Muniz's words in a New York Times article Where Art Meets Trash and Transforms Life I had just read couple of days ago : "The real magical things are the ones that happen right in front of you. A lot of time you keep looking for beauty, but it is already there. And if you look with a bit more intention, you see it." Vik Muniz's exceptional creativity, art and photography are legendary. The article talked about his newest project "Pictures of Garbage" series -monumental photographic portraits made from trash, and a documentary "Waste Land" about making of the series- -a collaboration with the garbage pickers of Jardim Gramacho, a 321 acre open-air dump outside Rio that is one of the largest landfills in Latin America. I am very touched to know that he has devoted his time and money to non-profits that provide education and job training for street children and was recently honored as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. A clip of the the documentary in the NYT website shows the scale and  the unusual and surprising materials he uses to make the portraits. It was International Artists Day on Oct 25 (Picasso's B'day), and  I celebrate it by giving a shout out to artist Vik Muniz.