I wouldn’t blame you

If you are questioning yourself why you keep visiting this site, especially when I am posting photos like this, I wouldn’t blame you. My output has been a bit ho-hum and along with a gazillion other things I am trying to accomplish right now, these pages haven’t been too entertaining of late.

© David Guidas

But the reason I am showing this photo that I shot the other night is because of the joy that a silly inflatable ducky brought to a lot of people. The first United States installation of Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s Rubber Duck project happened right here in Pittsburgh. I wanted to visit the duck earlier in the day but ended up arriving just when a college football game was ending and I got tied up in endless traffic jams and ended up detouring my plans.

I finally made it to downtown but it was already near dark. Not what I had in mind since the lack of light and long exposures kind of limit what I could shoot. So, my wife and I decided to just go see the duck and I could shoot whatever I could get. I took a couple of standard shots just for posterity, but I walked away with something else – a sense of joy. In the middle of my photography attempts I noticed the huge crowd was positively excited about the duck. People taking photos of each other in front of duck, as if it were a celebrity. Children were jumping with joy. Adults were smiling and laughing.

It was an odd site, yet I can totally understand. I too was happy for some reason. In the middle of what was a dismal day for me, with the traffic jams and messing up of my plans and just being all around down about some things, I forgot about everything and just enjoyed the duck. 🙂  It will be around for a couple weeks so I hope that I can visit a few more times. I know I can use the mental break.