A Good Photo is Worth a Thousand Words

So is a bad photo, but in this case you need to use the words. In spite of the clever placement of the diagonal and the bits of red that move your eye through the image, I think this is a terrible shot. But a very good story. It is soooo our downtown. Plus it's like one of those puzzle pictures: how many things can you find that are quintessentially Santa Cruz?

1. Bookshop Santa Cruz--our flourishing independent and well-loved icon that is famous for its Keep Santa Cruz Weird bumperstickers

2.Lifesize bronze statue of legendary musical saw player and Wobbly organizer, Tom Scribner, complete with signature derby and suspenders

3. Tattooed woman (to be fair, ubiquitously everywhere...)

4. A skateboard

5. A dog.

The tattooed woman is grooming her blue wig--lovingly combing out the knots without once making it wince, and carefully trimming the split ends, leaving little puffy blue offerings at Tom's sturdy feet. Although she has given me permission to shoot, she otherwise ignores me, concentrating fully on the task at hand.

I love it. I love the bookstore and the musical saw and the electric blue hair, the sunny day, the nonchalant young woman, and the sheer randomness of the whole scene.

I want, of course, to see her skate off into the day, blue tresses flying, but our parking meter is running out a few blocks away and we make an untimely departure. Now I know you can all relate to that!




And I did it with 751 words to spare--maybe it was a better photo than I thought!