tempus fugit

By ceridwen

Blur, haze and decay

Our Japanese quince has been blooming for a while undeterred by wintry weather and the casual trimming it gets when it starts to interfere with passage along the garden path.

 Chaenomeles japonica  is called 'kusa boke' in Japanese and I thought it would be fun to try and photograph it with some 'bokeh', the  Japanese word meaning blur or haze that came into photographic usage in the 1990s. (In fact the quince 'boke' comes from another, Chinese, word.)
But my little point-and-shoot camera doesn't really do bokeh so all I got was a bit of blur. But I learnt along the way that 'bokeh' can also refer to the hazy-mindedness of old age (dementia if you like) and further more is related to 'bokashi' which I happen to know is a composting process that involves the gradual degradation of discarded plant materials into a mush. In addition it's the term used for the deliberate blurring out of images, or parts of images, for reasons of censorship.

Meanwhile the little yellowy-green fruit of the Chaenomeles japonica still linger, rotting,  along the path, uncomposted or indeed uncooked. They aren't as aromatic as real quinces but they will serve the same purposes if you can be bothered to use them.

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