Photo of the Week: Feb. 3, 2010

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: This week's photo falls into the category of "when life gives you lemons." Walking along the shore of the Red Sea in Eilat last month, I looked skyward and frowned at the thick clouds enveloping the region and scuttling chances for an eventful afternoon shoot. I paused to sit on a cement wall at water's edge and removed a persimmon from my camera bag, peeled away the skin with a pocket knife, and considered my options. Then I looked down at my feet.

I think the most successful artists are those who learn to see what's closest to them, and who are not in constant search of life's grandeur. I often tell my students good photographs can be found anywhere, and frequently within an arm's length of where they are standing at that moment. I hadn't thought about these thousands of colored rocks and I had no idea they existed until I chanced to spot them.

Glistening and clean in the tidal action, these rocks are a visual symphony, and it wasn't hard to find a grouping that included a pleasing range of colors, sizes, and shapes. And here's how I made the lemonade, with assistance from the clouds: Bright colors look richer on overcast days, when there is little direct sunlight to bleach their hues. Appropriately, I pulled my close-up (macro) lens from my bag, snapped it onto my D-300 and held it above this small sampling of beach, careful to keep the camera parallel to the ground to preserve edge to edge sharpness. Remaining open to something new led me to the gate of good fortune.