Potty Pareidolia – One-Shot Story

Doesn’t every photographer hope to find an undiscovered niche? Something still un-tapped? I may have just: In what I dub “Potty Pareidolia”! Specifically, clean toilet paper that forms a likeness of something else when tossed in the bowl. Sort of like seeing bunnies in clouds. Except looking down instead of up.

When I fed that term into Google, its AI crawlers asked if I meant “breaking news.” Close perhaps. But no cigar.

I then searched Google images for “toilet photography.” And, well, if you want a good laugh, try it. Out of hundreds of images, none were even vaguely pareidolic. However, I did learn that Frank Zappa once released a picture disc showing him sitting on the loo.

So I think the “Potty Pareidolia” niche may be mine… ALL MINE!!!

Necessary Explanations

Naturally, some explanations are due:

• The featured iPhone photo isn’t my only example. Yes, it’s happened more than once! But this “Commissar Boris” cameo is, without a doubt, the best.
• Nothing else shared the bowl with the paper.
• What the paper did when it hit the water was what I shot. No “stick stirring” or “Photoshopping” here! Nope.
• The only post-processing was cropping (for obvious reasons), converting to monochrome (ditto), and re-spreading the iPhone’s captured tones across their full range from black to white (just ’cause).

Looking Forward

A future gallery curator might pontificate that these images “Reveal the unexplored power of the human mind to tease order out of nature’s chaos.” Or perhaps that they “Celebrate the power of water to fold its own origami.”

But whaddya think? Have I found a heretofore undiscovered oeuvre? Wanna see a “Five Frames” followup? Do you never want to see anything like this ever again?

Worry not. I won’t be hurt…

–Dave Powell is a Westford, Mass., writer and avid amateur photographer.

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