Photo a Day, Day 1: Fruit

For the month of November, I will be blogging based on daily photos with their subjects taken from a “Photo a Day” list that a friend posted on line. Today’s subject is simply, “Fruit.”

When I was looking for a subject this morning, I considered the bright orange clementines sitting on my counter. Their shiny, waxy skins and dimpled texture would make for an interesting photograph. But then I considered the bunch of purple grapes in my fridge, with their dusty coating and their ability to bead water in a fascinating way – another promising photographic subject. But then, hiding behind the grapes, I found a huge, red apple from the batch my kids had picked several weeks ago. It had been rolling around in the crisper drawer long enough to have a few minor dents and bruises, but it was still red and shiny. So I carefully set it up on my kitchen table and took a few test shots.

And then, as so often happens to parents of small children, I was called away to referee some minor squabble or clean up a spill or retrieve a toy from a high shelf or some such mundane task. And once I finished that task, I noticed a stack of laundry waiting to go upstairs, or I heard the buzzer on the dryer, or I stopped to put a new roll of toilet paper in the guest bathroom, and it was an hour or so before I heard my daughter tromping upstairs to the kitchen and I remembered about the apple.

So I followed her upstairs with my camera in my hand, only to discover that my subject was in the process of being eaten. Instead of smooth red skin, there were small white pockmarks all over, marking where little teeth had worked hard to get at the juicy flesh.

But then it occurred to me how much more beautiful an apple is when it’s serving its purpose. That apple was no longer sitting in a drawer, looking pretty but losing more of its looks every day, but instead it was nourishing a growing child, bringing her a love for healthy eating and an appreciation for the (literal) fruits of her own labors. And, based on her expression in this photo, perhaps even cultivating in her a curiosity for what food is and where it comes from.

Fruit: Showing its outer AND its inner beauty.