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Stardust
14 September 2026
We are all, I remember an astronomy professor say with a twinkle in his eye, made of stardust. The oxygen we breathe, the carbon in our DNA, the calcium in our bones, the phosphorus for our cellular energy and the iron in our blood all came from the exploding stars. Stardust.
Long Lake Sunset. Apple iPhone 17 Pro back camera at f1.8, 1/858 second and ISO 80. Processed in Adobe Camera Raw..
We were not thinking of that when we sat in the skilled nursing facility's therapy gym with Joyce on Friday. Only much later did we remember it, when it seemed to explain a lot.
Joyce will have been in that place two years on Halloween. And in that time she's been to that gym with one or another Physical and Occupation Therapist or Restorative Nursing Assistant most days. And us with her.
So we've gotten to know the staff on a more familiar level than their name tags, let's just say.
To kill time on Friday, Liane wanted to know if we still worked (yes) and what we did. Cassie confided that Deb had thought we were a bartender. (To some people everyone looks like a bartender, we thought.) They also guessed we worked at a cemetery, Colma's leading employer. So we copped to working happy hour at a nearby cemetery. But they didn't buy it.
Night Sky. Apple iPhone 17 Pro back camera at f1.8, one second and ISO 12,500, plus 2.96 EV. Processed in Adobe Camera Raw.
So we confessed we write about photography. Liane wasn't convinced that's a job. And it won't be for much longer, we suspect. But we've been doing this since 1998, explaining the digital photography revolution in both hardware and software. And we've survived. To a ripe old age, in fact.
When we mentioned we publish Photo Corners, they wanted to see it on their phones. So we told them to Google "Photo Corners Mike."
"Do you go by Mike?" they asked. They've always called us Michael. "Can we call you Mike?"
Cassie had more ambitious question. "Can I send you a picture?"
She showed us a lake with a mirror-like surface at sunset with a mountain lit in gold behind it. She told us it was Long Lake, west of Donner Lake near Soda Springs in the Sierras. You hike in through a conifer forest to get to the lake.
The mountain is Devils Peak, a 7,704-foot summit formed by layers of hardened lava, volcanic ash and rock built up over time from volcanic eruptions.
She sent another one she took at night with the stars in the sky. The way you can't see them in the city with all the light pollution.
After she sent us these pictures, we remembered the astronomy professor.
Milky Way. Apple iPhone 17 Pro back camera at f1.8, 2.0 seconds and ISO 640, plus 1.06 EV. Processed in Adobe Camera Raw.
Because whatever we are -- bartender cemetery employee, therapist, nursing assistant -- we are made of stardust. Which is the only explanation for how it has come about that we are all photographers now, capturing beauty to put in our pockets before we can blink and it disappears.