It is amazing how much you can see in other people – the good and the bad, we won’t even talk about the ugly – if you just shut up and watch them.
–Lauren Baratz-Logsted, Crazy Beautiful
Below is the original photo used to create this image. It’s my car’s engine, no special lighting or retouching, just a snap from my smart phone.
Beautiful souls are shaped by ugly experiences.
–Matshona Dhliwayo
As promised, below is the original photo used to create this image. It’s a lichen and moss covered tree trunk and exposed roots from my backyard. Taken on an overcast day with no special lighting or retouching, just a snap from my smart phone. In Photoshop, I also added a flower-shaped layer mask and a gradient fill for the background.
Beauty is, in some ways, boring. Even if its concept changes through the ages, nevertheless a beautiful object must always follow certain rules … Ugliness is unpredictable and offers an infinite range of possibilities. Beauty is finite. Ugliness is infinite, like God.
–Umberto Eco, On Ugliness
As promised, below is the original photo used to create this image. It’s a maple sapling growing between stone pavers in my backyard. Taken on an overcast day with no special lighting or retouching, just a snap from my smart phone.
A rose, isn’t quite as beautiful as it once was, when after its thorn pricks you.
–Anthony Liccione
Below is the original photo used to create this image. I found this container of pansies on a lunchtime walk around downtown Richmond, VA. No special lighting or retouching, just a snap from my Kodak Share digital camera. And it’s even a little blurry…
Sometimes life gets ugly before it gets beautiful.
–J. Sterling, The Perfect Game
Below is the original photo used to create this image. It’s water flowing along the sidewalk into a storm drain. This was taken last year on a bright fall afternoon, no special lighting or retouching, just a snap from my Kodak Share digital camera.
It was one of the few things he had to believe in, the possibility of beauty when faced with the reality of so much ugliness.
–Cassandra Clare, The Last Stand of the New York Institute
Below is the original photo used to create this image. It’s my car’s engine, no special lighting or retouching, just a snap from my smart phone.
If you want your life to be a small part of eternity, to be lucid even in the heart of madness, love… Love with all your strength, love as though it is all you know how to do, love enough to make the gods themselves jealous… for it is in love that all ugliness reveals its beauty.
–Yasmina Khadra, What the Day Owes the Night
Below is the original photo used to create this image. It’s the big blue sky pic I took on a recent trip to Illinois. No special lighting or retouching, simply a snap from my smart phone. Yes, the sky really was that blue…
Busy with the ugliness of the expensive success
We forget the easiness of free beauty
Lying sad right around the corner
Only an instant removed
Unnoticed and squandered.
–Dejan Stojanovic
Below is the original photo used to create this image. Awesome clouds just before sunset, taken last month after dinner. No special lighting or retouching, just a snap from my smart phone.
We’ve waited a long time for this. I want the real thing. Not the watered-down version. And the real thing is not only beautiful. It is also ugly.
I want your truth.
–L.J. Shen, Vicious
Below is the original photo used to create this image. I caught this lovely sunset on a random Sunday evening as I was leaving a grocery store. No special lighting or retouching, just a snap from my smart phone.
The beauty on the inside, will determine the ugly on the outside.
–Anthony Liccione
Below is the original photo used to create this image. It’s a candle in a cracked-glass hurricane. This was taken in the spring of 2016 for a Photography 101 challenge called “Warmth.” No special lighting or retouching, just a snap from my Kodak Share digital camera.
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D.M. Sessous: writer, artist & dreamer 