The theme of this week’s Thursday Challenge, “Good and Bad,” reminded me of a well known Buddhist story about an old farmer in China. And what do you know, this week I was experimenting with photographing antique Chinese “Mudmen.” These figurines are “standing” in front of one of my photos that I felt had an Asian feel to it. (This one of Mount Washington can be found here: http://www.pbase.com/laura_sebastianelli/image/95170325.) Then I colorized the new image, saturated it, and decreased the contrast…...but back to the Chinese story.

Rampaging wild horses crashed the old farmer’s fence. People tried to console him, saying “This is terrible news!” The old farmer said “bad news, good news—who knows?” The next day, the horses came back and the farmer's son captured one. People stopped by proclaiming," Old man, what wonderful news!" The farmer shrugged, "Good news, bad news—who knows?" The next day the farmer's son was thrown from the horse and broke his leg. Knowing how much the old man relied on his son; people rushed over and said, “This is awful news!” Again, the farmer shrugged, "Good news, bad news, who knows?" Then, the very next day, the army came through the village taking all the young men to fight a war in distant lands. Naturally, they could not take the old farmer’s son with the broken leg." Good news, bad news—who knows?
For other Challenge participants’ images …good, bad, who knows, who cares…it’s all in the spirit of fun anyway…click here http://form.pbase.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=37460