It's the old question...if you see something orange-y red in the sea...and, in your mind, you imagine it to be a sea anemone whose tentacles are wafting lazily back and forth in the current...is it any less beautiful once you get closer and discover that, in reality, it's an empty soup can that someone threw over the side of their boat?

At first glance...from a distance...when I looked at the dress below...I saw waterfalls of gold...a difficult-to-put-my-finger-upon shimmer against a crash of coral. Then I made the mistake of clicking on the detail shot...and the shimmer revealed itself as 70's pre-school wallpaper.

The illusion was gone and, in this instance, reality just wasn't as alluring...