oops - sorry Catlin - you are perfectly correct: I was trying to paraphrase in a hurry and flubbed it. What I really meant by "inanimate" was "incapable of self-motion" (at least, in the short term). Thus I agree it's OK. However "capturing an instant in time": that wouldn't be a satisfactory definition: ALL pictures capture an instant in time (otherwise they'd be movies or similar), but not all pictures are still-life :-) Cheers, Diolma