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Improved Meyer Lemon
5 May 2022
For the first time since early March, we didn't have to hustle through our morning work to get out of here by noon. So we took Margaret Atwood's Negotiating With the Dead (based on her Empson Lectures at the University of Cambridge) out to the patio and sat in the sun.
Improved Meyer Lemon. Olympus E-PL1 with 14-42mm II R kit lens at 15mm (30mm equivalent but with +14 macro), f20, 1/80 second and ISO 200. Processed in Adobe Camera Raw.
But we couldn't help looking at this Improved Meyer Lemon staring back at us from the edge of the patio. The morning sun hits it but by noon, it's in shade. We had a little time to dawdle but not much.
So reluctantly we put down our Atwood and picked up the Olympus E-PL1, screwed on a +10 and a +4 Lensbaby macro converter and got up close for this shot, shutting the aperture down to f20 for the deepest macro focus we could get. In the EVF it looked blown out but we weren't fooled. Shooting Raw, we knew we'd have details in the highlights.
We took a few but we like how this first composition tumbled out of the camera.
Then we returned to our book.
At the end of March, there was a lively conversation at The Online Photographer about "untangling art and the morality of artists." Can you, Mike Johnston wondered, admire the art of an artist you can't respect?
And there on page 113, Atwood lays down the law. We quote:
If you're an artist, being a good man -- or a good woman -- is pretty much beside the point when it comes to your actual accomplishments. Moral perfection won't compensate for your badness as an artist: not being able to hit high C is not redeemed by being kind to dogs. However, whether you are a good man or a bad man is not beside the point if you happen to be a good wizard -- good at doing your magic, making your "marvelous clear jelly," creating illusions that can convince people of their truth -- because if you are good at being a wizard in this sense, then power of various sorts may well come your way -- power in relation to society -- and then your goodness or badness as a human being will have a part in determining what you do with this power.
Johnston asked if you could admire the art apart from the artist, tell the dancer from the dance. Atwood worries about the damage the unsavory character who is a good at magic can do.
Quite a lot of damage, as recent history has shown. And if we've learned anything from that, it's not to fall for the act of a corrupt actor. To tell the dancer from the dance.
Or an Improved Meyer Lemon from an ordinary one.