Natural Selections

A few years ago when Apple started including nature pictures with their operating system for desktops I realized that I could probably do something like that myself. I quickly learned that taking pictures that work for a computer desktop (aka: wallpaper) is more challenging than just taking pretty pictures. Desktop photos require a greater degree of simplicity than many other photos. If they are cluttered or have too many colors it serves as a distraction. There is a reason why a plain blue or gray background works so well. This seed pod, photographed at the Duke Botanical Garden in Durham, NC is a good example of a photograph that works. Sept. 2005.