Each of us is whole and complete, a heart that beats at its own pace, a light that shines in the dark. Whether or not we have a Valentine today, we can love ourselves, love those who love us, and even love those who don’t. Though we be apart from each other, we are a part of each other.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

This is a photograph of blue LED icicle lights taken through a wide heart-shaped aperture with the Lensbaby Composer. I turned the manual focus ring so that the little lights were out of focus enough to became spectral highlights in the shape of the aperture they shone through.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

This is a photo of a neighbor’s lingering holiday lights taken with the Lensbaby Composer with a heart-shaped wide aperture. The manual focus ring was adjusted to place the lights out of focus and create spectral highlights that appear as heart shapes due to the shape of the aperture.

NOTE: Thanks to you, this photo hit Flickr’s Explore pages! You are welcome to blog it, download it, print it, share it, etc. All I ask is that you not use it for non-commercial purposes only & give me photographer credit, e.g. “Photo by Daniel Greene.”

I never realized their were multiple copies of this sculpture until I saw in at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts. I think the first time I saw the iconography was on a postage stamp. Taking this photo was funny. It seemed that everyone wanted their photo taken with it, and there were several photographers around. I waited patiently as one photographer took a series of shots of a couple in various poses around the sculpture. Just as they were leaving, I got ready to take my shot. Simultaneously, these exuberant little girls came running onto the scene. I snapped this photo figuring I might never get the sculpture alone. When they saw me, they stopped and stared at me like does in headlights, and I said, “I just wanted to get a photo of the sculpture by itself. It’ll just take me a second.” They left and I got my plain photo of the sculpture before they came back to play (or pose for their mother with the camera), but I like this one better.