Gone In A Flash
Monday. A definite jump for the better with the outlook good as I walked to breakfast at eight, read the papers over waffle, mixed fruit and coffee, walked back with camera in hand (finding the odd shot and the odd shot finding me). I know, this is damned monotonous, this up-down, good-bad bit, but it engages my attention in the mornings (checking to see if my head is attached) and this morning has started just swell in Dingle Dell, south of Oz in Oakland (at the end of the rainbow).
The photograph behind “the odd shot finding me” was taken on the fly. When somebody says “hey, take my picture” as he's passing, you don't look and think lighting, exposure and such, you've already raised the camera and taken your shot, otherwise you lose what little chance you had to capture an interesting expression. Whoever calls out “take my picture” is acting on impulse and they're not necessarily expecting you to take their picture, they're action is, as your reaction should be, automatic. If you take the picture quickly enough you may catch them before they've assembled themselves for the camera (and gotten something worth keeping). I say this with confidence after having taken but three or four of them in the last couple of months, but I think it's right. If I get enough of these maybe they'll make a serendipitous street photographs page for artandlife. Pretty hot stuff for a Monday around here, I'm thinking.
Later. A bus ride downtown to pick up another pair of glasses upgraded to the new prescription and then a walk back, one or two pictures on the way. Nothing special, it's hard to “see” when you're covering ground that you cover most every day, but the head is holding up and the attitude is up off the charts. That's an exaggeration, as it happens, but in the ball park.
Enough of the ball park.
Walking through the area in front of City Hall I stopped under a tree with a large number of pigeons feeding and a guy who looked like one of the workers in the area came up (seeing the camera) and pointed out some of the less obvious birds in the tree above. Nice enough guy, he really was interested in the birds and assumed, I'm guessing, I might be too (with the camera) so he pointed out one that he says spends every day sitting up on one leg in a tree farther down. OK. Bird. In a tree. Worth a look. Plenty of people around, after all. No harm in it. I could have been more imaginative framing the picture, but by then I was ready to stop with the birds and get back home. Still, adventure, before noon on a Monday.
Later still. A half hour's nap, maybe, the evening now ahead. A good day gone rather quickly, I think. A haircut tomorrow, the dentist's for the new crown Wednesday, otherwise the week is clear. The day today warm, the windows open since morning, the day chalked up on the good side of the column other than to note it seems to have gone in a flash.
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