The revelation that you've got to "make" a shot, to visualize what can be and then go out and make that happen is the heart of good photography. The thing that separates the photographs from the snapshots.

The Sole Proprietor will read this now and again and nod sagely and say "yes, yes". He is, after all, a Photographer with a capital "P". Right? A cool eyed shooter of refrigerated film with lots of expensive equipment hanging off his every limb. Right?

Well, maybe that's what the Sole Proprietor was doing in Ojai. He has aquired all the zooty equipment and now there's nothing left except to use it. Make photographs. And what photographs do you really want to make, Mr. Sole Proprietor? What kind of Sole Proprietor Soul do you want to put down on film?

That's where this thing seems to be going. From good old all-American put it on the Visa card to good old all-American staring at your navel. What does it all mean, Mr. Sole Proprietor? Do you really want to photograph things that make you crazy and drive you to drink? Do you really want to turn a perfectly good hobby into some kind of angst driven find the meaning of it all hike into the woods?

Well, yeah. Probably. The Sole Proprietor tends toward the extreme. What's the matter with a happy face hobby? Why all this hoohaw about angst and plumbing the soul? Well, this morning, as this is being written, the Sole Proprietor is into angst. Tomorrow he can count on his well established pattern of procrastination to avoid anything even potentially unpleasant. And he can always use a drink.