“What photograph isn’t a still life?”     

(Words of Garry Winogrand, American photographer.)

The usual definition of a still life goes like this: “An arrangement of mostly inanimate objects of various textures — porcelain artifacts, fruit and cut flowers for example — pictured in a way revealing something new about commonplace things.” Are the dictionaries right, or should we trust Zen master Winogrand? It is hard to argue with his aphorism. Photographs freeze the animate, rendering them inanimate; they are never going to move again, so any significant forms and arrangements could qualify. This image seems especially still and quiet to me, revealing something previously unseen about a park on the southern outskirts of Scottsdale, Arizona.