Perhaps you've noticed that I love to talk with my eyes. I tell you what I see. And the whole time I'm looking over my shoulder at you, saying, "You see what I'm seeing?" And I love that. And I always expect people to see what I see. "Can we agree it was a rainy day?"

It was inevitable that I would become a photographer. It's my nature. It's my calling. The number of times I've cursed myself for not having a camera, rather than a pen or a pencil, is about a thousand to one. Advantage, camera. I always know I can explain a situation and describe a moment. But to show it, to freeze it in time. That's magic. That's photography. Think of the eyes that never saw a photo of themseleves. Ever. Think of the ancients who only spoke with words what the eyes saw. Imagine their joy, their despair, if they knew that you, me, everybody could actually see what they saw frame by frame.

I'd be one of the joy guys. "See. See! That's what I'm talking about." And so I offer the picture above. I could have described the fence, but everything I would have said would pale to the facts of the photo. Look at that fence! Fresh blonde wood cutting a swath through a heavily forested hillside, seperating the rich from the richer, or the dutiful from the negligent in Chestnut Hill.

I first saw this picture on Thursday night on my way to teach a seven o'clock journalism class at Montgomery County Community College. Through winding Cresheim Valley I caught the idea of the fence to my left, like a bat sees bugs. I fluttered around to see if there was a picture there. This requires steering an automobile in traffic, and a thousand times before I would have shrugged, after not noticing, after not caring about a stupid picture. But I turned around and I'll tell you why.

That's a great reason to start a new paragraph. I could tell you everything all at once, but let's focus on this picture, this photograph. What do you see? What do you find "pleasing" or "thematic" or "metaphoric" in its structure? What am I trying to say? What do I want you to notice?

Out of the corner of my eye I saw this, turned my car around and took a picture. I still "take" pictures rather than "make" pictures, which is how the newspaper photographers talked about their art. I like the idea of "making" pictures. Come to think of it, with digital photography and high resolution printers I've been going broke making pictures. Hundreds and hundreds of pictures.

I think I'm getting better at it. I see more pictures I want to make every day. But some willstill be there tomorrow, or next week. I'm talking about a fence here. But this fence will be invisible in a couple of weeks, if current global cooling doesn't continue. Any other spring, summer and autumn, I would never notice this fence. But not only did I stop and take pictures of the fence last Thursday evening, I stopped Monday morning when the rising sun would do what the rising son with the camera was looking for.

That's the fence at dawn. It's beautiful. It's ridiculous. Why does it make me think of Verdun? Why does it haunt me so? Why did I trust you so much?

Another good reason to start a new paragraph.