BBC News|In Pictures|Your World|Grey

Grey is one of my favorite hues. I admire its ability to evoke nostalgic textures and patterned moods. This morning I ventured into a familiar site and smiled. Click HERE to see the full gallery of photographs selected this week, mine is number 4.

...equus ex machina

I have walked by this carousel many times. On a recent November evening, it still lay in the shadows of the Smithsonian Castle, a herd of suspenseful restraint.

I don't know why, but I enjoy carousels out of context...without music, and without riders, off-season.

Standing next to them, you can almost hear the motionless gallop.

dogmatizations...

Those eyes, or in the case of this photograph...that eye. It invites so many ascriptions. It entices one-sided conversations. I ask him questions, and make up answers. I pose leading questions and make up my own follow-ups. Then he shifts, and reaches for a chew toy, the eye framed in a new context. I laugh. I laugh at myself for humanizing him.

So I reverse course and over-correct, naturalizing myself...cloaked in canine codes. A bark here, a friendly growl there. He stares back unwilling to share his chew toy. I laugh at myself again, and enjoy his indifference to my theatrics. We go for a walk and it's his turn to perform.