"The Beginning" by Wes Aldridge
Well, in this, the new year of our Lord two-thousand and five, this is what I have for you. It is a symbol of all things dubbed "New Year." It is the top view at 1.8 aperture of a gallon bottle of cheap champagne, somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 and some change. I think the shot is simple and beautiful. It is a way that you may have looked at a bottle of champagne before, maybe only for a moment, but never really took the time to notice how you were looking at it.
This is the mind of the photographer. To take a simple and common subject and naturally see it in a different way is what fuels the adventure in my mind when I hold my camera. Photography is a grand puzzle when joined with life. There are never two identical seconds in a day and you never have the opportunity to take the same shot again. There is the split second that no one can teach you to see and capture... and you have to catch it, you must become it. Each frame of film you snap off is a piece of the grand puzzle. What piece will fit in next? What do I shoot from here? Which direction do I travel? What will attract my eye? What will be the vision in my mind?
