Little Pete, Age 6, Takes The Camera (Photo 6)

Peter Teachout, Jr., Age 6, "Grassy Focal Point."

Pete was testing the camera's abilities, trying to see how close he could get to an object before the digital picture would get blurry. This spot of paint on the grass was his focal point. I look at the picture and think, "Is it more blurry or more focused? What is the precise point when blur begins to become focus?"

The photo itself is an interesting abstraction. One can't help but think how the grass looks FROSTY instead of dabbed with paint, or how it may appear to be something other than paint at first glance, but WHAT? A fungus? An insect nest?

When I was a child and heard there was such a thing as"blue grass," I thought it was truly grass which was blue in color, and I wanted to behold it. I was disappointed to learn "blue grass" wasn't what the phrase promised at all. The idea of something so common to our everyday existence changing its color is both exciting and unsettling.

Will there ever be such a thing as "albino grass" through genetic engineering? How about other colors? Will it be possible to have a lawn of lavender? To play human chess on alternating squares of black and white grass?

A splash of paint on the grass is no minor matter to a 6-year-old. He wants to know WHAT WILL HAPPEN to the grass? Perhaps it is something he will check into, daily.

Will the grass just grow like that and turn into a completely new species? Will it die? Will it somehow survive? These are pressing questions to a 6-year-old growing up in the future Eco-Village.

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