[Click TWICE to Enlarge.]  This is Our Daily Sykes’ second visit to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River in Yellowstone National Park.  The first visit was our #34 from May 19 of last year, which confesses that we have not been what we claim: a daily Sykes.  Indeed, we have missed most sundays while rushing to put up support or “extras” for whatever “now and then” appears on the weekend.   Now reaching #342 we can see that we are likely to make it to 365 insertions even if the day we make it is not this feature’s first birthday.   That would have been sometime in April.   And should we continue on with more Sykes into another year or take on instead another photographer for a daily dose?

The differences between #34 and #342 are in the Sykes cosmology perhaps revealing.   Number 34 was photographed a few feet to the left of #342, and it features none of the Sykes extras, like a second subject in the foreground, usually a tree or a rock.  With #342 we get both, parts of a composition that is in rough thirds with the center third truly the center of attention.    Was Horace then attracted to #342 to make a second subject of the canyon because #34 was too stark for him – too singular?   The shadows may know.  If we could find a difference between them it could tell us which was shot first and so give us some evidence into the motives of Horace the composer.  But finding shadow forms in this farrago of jagged rocks even on this bright day with the soft lens that Horace used will be difficult. For myself, I’ll put it off until later.