On A Weekend
Hotter than it should be (in my humble opinion, not shared, I can assure you, by everyone) so I took a bus downtown this morning to have breakfast, a minor break in the routine. I need to break my routines. Later another ride downtown: a BART ride to Berkeley to take in Hero, which I recommend highly, if only for the images and the color; a walk halfway back home in time to watch my Japanese soaps on television, the one about the hotel crew, the one about the young couple who stumble about never quite finding one another (How do the Japanese ever get it together to reproduce?) and the ongoing saga of the Shinsegumi and their difficulties protecting the Emperor from the influence of foreigners and similarly upsetting riff raff. My week night television consists almost entirely of various Chinese soap operas with similar long drawn out seeming impossible to get them to couple couples. Why am I watching these things?
Because you're crazier than batshit.
I am coming to a similar conclusion. This is not the first time (I've come to this conclusion). Time has come, as I said, to change my routines: get out of my shell, get out of my apartment, yes, but get out of my button down head (and shoot some decent pictures).
I mentioned I signed up for two photography classes. At least the charges have shown up online on my Visa. My assumption is, as the starting dates approach, they'll see they've over booked as expected and they'll start pruning. Who's this guy who's simultaneously signed up for the beginner's class and an advanced class in people shooting and portraiture? With this thought in mind, I put the digital on the shelf today and shot black and white this afternoon so I'd have a roll or two to run through the soup tomorrow. Self instruction.
I do know how to develop film for all my carping and I'm getting more and more depressed about the quality of my recent negatives. In what have they been developing my beautiful negatives? Miso soup? Tomato fondue? There's no way to tell. God help the lazy photographer. I've heard rumor it's hard enough to pull off a decent shot when you apply practice, skill and intelligence.
I've also had the depressing thought it could be my new scanner. The negatives and the contact sheets don't really look that bad, but boy do they look grey and flat after I scan them. I may go back to the old scanner. I may open the fucking manual. Life has become truly desperate when a techie opens the manual.
By now you've lost every reader but the hard core photographers and they're only following along out of pity and a gravely disturbed sense of humor.
MSM mentioned that. Photography is a bit dry as a subject when you don't view the world as an opportunity for graphic composition, when you look at a woman and wonder about back lighting and graphic rather than carnal adventure. MSJ made a similar comment once (before she became MSR) that it shouldn't surprise me that not all women were into pictures of other women. Someone once said you can't satisfy everyone, so you'd better satisfy yourself. Which makes sense, but why all this carping? Why all this “I can't get no” on a weekend?
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