I think what we do when we get up is probably the most ritualized part of our days. It is for me, anyway. I straighten the bed, brush my teeth (there may or may not be hair brushing), get a kiss, have a cup of black dark roast coffee and hop online where I upen a folder labeled Morning.

The Morning folder has a collection of webcomics, Patreon, BlueSky, Reddit and the WordPress Reader. When I have read through all that, I do some word games and Sudoku.

Recently, I added Public Domain Image Archive to the collection. I’ve forgotten how I found it. But, it’s a kick. I pick a picture at random and read through. Sometimes, I only get one picture. Like today.

My choice this morning clicked through to a single image of a painted butterfly with photographic busts of 4 men in the tips of its wings. The Art Institute of Chicago has a leatherbound volume of Madame B’s collages. But, the only additional link goes to a page of their collage collection (many of which are hers). There’s no information about Madame B herself.

A couple of weeks ago, I learned about The Snowflake Man of Vermont.

And recently, I found a colorized photo of a lily.

That link got me a short article about the photographer. Ogawa Kazumasa worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the way to have color pictures was to add it in during development. You can tell that in some of the pictures with finer detail.

I was intrigued enough to buy a copy of his book of flowers that had been published by the Getty. I really enjoyed having a closer look and have since passed that along to a friend who was equally delighted with it.