Weekly Photo Challenge: Hands

Hands?  Oh boy.  It took some thinking but then one photo sprung to mind, and in its original incarnation four years ago it was taken merely to show off my new favourite thing in all the world; my engagement ring.

I’ve had a good look at it now, and altered it to draw attention to the details, to really focus on the imperfections in our hands, the human-ness of our skin, of the two of us.  Of all of us really.  Because what is love?  The smooth-skinned simple perfection of Hollywood movies and fairy tales, or two humans with their moments of genius and their times of failure all jumbled inside, coming together, with some hard work and gentle caring, to make life better for both.  When we’re in love we can’t wear our public masks of unblemished faces and carefree hearts, but we must face each other bare, warts and all.  When you find that person you can face, both of you naked inside and out, then you have found love.

From little things, big things grow

From little things, big things grow, as some local ad is touting on TV at the moment.  Last night, after a passing comment on a comedy show, Australian TV saw the first mass gay and lesbian TV wedding. The wedding itself is now up on YouTube.  It was seriously touching, and it angers me that option to legally commit to a lifelong relationship isn’t open to everyone.  How gays and lesbians could possibly “cheapen” or “dilute” the meaning of marriage, when there’s the Kim Kardashians and Brittany Spears of this world marrying on whim and divorcing seemingly on the same, I don’t know.  The one real downer in my wedding ceremony was when I had to listen to the registrar say “”Marriage, according to the law of this country, is the union of one man, with one woman” (I married in the UK) and keenly feeling how unfair this exclusion was on my gay and lesbian friends in the audience.  They shouldn’t have to witness this kind of discrimination in a modern world, especially legally mandated discrimination.

Romance and love is free for everyone.  Legal lifelong committment by marriage should be the same.

This was taken on Lake Zurich, Switzerland.  I actually didn’t even notice the heart graffiti on the bell until I was looking through my photos at home, but for me now it’s what makes this photo.  Of course, the year 1995 appears clearly on the bell, so this image hardly passes as an antique photograph, but it’s the feel of romance of the water, from a time when water was a key mode of travel around the world, that I wanted to capture.