Birds on a rooftop

Birds on Rooftop (black and white photograph)
Birds on Rooftop (black and white photograph) by Paul Politis (2020)
Birds on Rooftop (black and white photograph)
Birds on Rooftop (black and white photograph) by Paul Politis

“Complete isolation — that is what the Outsider is driving at. He knows that, if he could only achieve it, there is a completely different way of seeing the world — a way so different that one might almost say that it would no longer be the same world. The Outsider’s final problem is to become a visionary. The first and most obvious step is to cut himself off from other people, so as not to be conditioned by their way of seeing.”
— Colin Wilson, Religion and the Rebel

This photo is an anomaly among the photos I’ve been posting in the last while in that there are actual sentient creatures pictured. I don’t think there has been a living being in a photo I’ve posted on this blog in a long time. It’s not entirely blameable on COVID-abandoned streets, my photos have for most of my life tended to focus on the inanimate. Today’s photo feels to me on some level to share something in mood or spirit with some of the b&w photos I’ve posted over the past few months; a feeling of solitude. It’s that one bird, framed and isolated from the rest by the power lines. I imagine he must be perched there, in this brief moment of rest, pondering just what it means to be a bird.