meet Mary

This is Mary....a lady i met yesterday while photographing her church group's weekly food pantry distribution to needy families...i couldn't believe she is going on 87 years old! i got to the parish hall early to shoot them filling the grocery bags (since typically the people getting the bags don't want to be photographed), but they were all done, set out and ready to go...the volunteers, all senior citizens, were sitting around 2 large tables drinking coffee and playing penny (well, also nickel and dime) poker...they offered to deal me in, but i didn't bring in my wallet, so i said i'd just watch - i haven't played poker in so long, i would have LOVED to play with them, but i think they probably would have ended up with all my loose change! minutes before they would open the doors to the large line of people that was spilling around the side of the building, Mary says, "it's about time for the BIG game"....no more penny ante - this time you ponied up with a quarter!
so, toward the end of the distribution time, i'd kind of shot as much of the handing out of bags and found my mind/eye wondering toward making a still life picture (a feature of our paper that is a photo & quote instead of regular caption, and usually more off-beat images)...Mary was standing near the doorway, and there was just something about her against that sparse wall, framed between the old outlet and non-working light switch panel, that grabbed my attention...it was funny, because she kept trying to move out of my way (i guess she thought maybe i wanted to get a picture of, um, the outlet?), but then she kind of ignored me and just happened to glance up, and that was it...maybe not some earth-shatteringly cool picture, but i like it.....so, the quote i put with it is...

"Uncertainty and mystery are the energies of life. Don't let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity."

-- R.I. Fitzhenry