<img src=“https://nice-marmot.net/Archives/2024/Images/P1190170.JPG" alt=“Low angle shot of a yellow fire hydrant against a blue sky with a suburban landscape in the background with a contrasty “dramatic tone” filter.">

Went out for a walk yesterday afternoon and took along the little Oly E-PM1 with the Lumix 12-32mm/f3.5-5.6 zoom. I should've brought one of the OM-Ds with a long zoom, since there was a hawk perched in a tree at about eye level by the back pond. Would have been a nice shot.

Anyway, it's a suburban landscape of new houses and manicured lawns so you have to kind of make do to find something visually interesting. I used the "dramatic tone" filter for a lot of the shots, because it turns everything into this kind of post-apocalyptic, gritty, high-contrast image. For whatever reason, I'm always drawn to fire hydrants and on some kind of whim, I decided to give this hydrant its moment in a "hero pose." This was pretty much a blind shot, since the E-PM1 doesn't have any kind of articulated LCD. Shot three. I thought this one turned out well.

And it is kind of heroic infrastructure. Always ready, standing there, silently, day or night, in the heat of summer or freezing nights.

Yeah, I know, "Don't anthropomorphize fire hydrants. They hate that."