Photographs do more than capture life. The capture viewers—grab them by the pigtails—and make sure they look at life. Every heard the saying, “Stop and smell the roses?” A photographer, likewise, orders us, “Stop and look at the roses.”

I have a magnolia tree in my backyard that is in full pink-and-magenta bloom. Some blossoms have petals that are as daintily crossed as the ankles of a Victorian lady at a tea party. Others are in full party mode, half-drunk, blowsy and tossing petals like confetti. I am writing this colorful description of some very lovely flowers not while looking at my tree but while looking at a picture of a flowering magnolia tree.

You see, I get busy, I get distracted and I get lazy. I forget to look at the tree in magnolia tree visible from my kitchen window and instead look at the dirty dishes in the sink below the window or, worse, turn my eye claustrophobically inward. The picture I am enjoying is a vivid reminder of that which is mine, as much as any aspect of nature can be anyone’s, just as much as the dirty dishes and the never-ending to-do list that occupy my mind.

Not all photos are as bucolic as a snapshot of magnolia blossoms. Some photographs document people, in all their

moments of loving-kindness, innocence, weariness, calculation, sorrow, hope and gassiness. Did I just say that last adjective? What I meant by that is that human beings are both profound and petty, far-reaching and bound to our biology. Seeing people in mid-frame often sheds light on the human condition.

It’s interesting to look at people, and fun. Studies have shown that babies eyes focus longer on living things than on inanimate objects. Funnily enough, we are also born with our own aesthetic. Whatever a beautiful person is, babies have been found to rest their eyes longer on pretty people than on their less attractive counterparts. Then, we get older and our ideas of attractiveness shift. I might merely glance at a photo of a handsome couple walking hand and hand at the beach but find myself unable to look away from the lined face of someone’s grandmother as she studies her poker hand. Again, while a photograph is taken in a split-second, the result can serve as something that rewards my glance with beauty, or that serves as a meditation focus on the human condition. Stop and look at the photos we have online at Litrus, and at those you see around you. They are begging you to slow down, look and think. Listen to them. Let photographs help you frame the big, improbable, amazing show that is life.

—Sarah Torribio