Tuesday. To bed last night fairly early to read for a while (not yet a lost art, but close I'm afraid), a fitful night's sleep, up with the alarm to a light rain, out and back from breakfast. The gas prices lurched another four cents a gallon this morning, not sure what that's about, but then we're never sure what that's about. Peak oil? Sure, not doubting that, it's just, well, I don't trust gas companies anymore. They have a reputation, you know, not the best in the world. Why they run so many ads telling us how green and apple pie sweet they really are while extracting our money.

But of course I digress. Time this morning to finish the two sections of Occupy Wall Street photographs for artandlife and get the guitar started. Do you find that a common theme here? Get my guitar going? Guitar, aches, pains, oil? Probably not good, the number of heads nodding.

Later. A walk down along the lake after finishing the photographs taking the 24-120mm lens and so naturally I ran across a bird or two that could have used the camera with the 270mm equivalent lens to get in closer. Such is life. I was feeling a little tired or, if not tired, then a little dingy, the double vision flicking in, but then leaving if I concentrated. A short walk, turning around and heading back to the apartment and a nap, sometimes what to do in these cases is obvious.

So good, an hour or so of sleep, felt much better, felt a bit hungry, so I picked up the camera with the 270mm equivalent lens thinking I'd go along the lake again as I was too late to catch the bus heading downtown to do something different. Like lunch. So setting out I turned the corner and there was the bus - hup, hup! - and I was on the bus. What the hell, lunch after all, how far could I go wrong?

Well, getting off the bus there was a tent city (a small tent village, an encampment, maybe fifty tents) where the Occupy Wall Street people had been demonstrating yesterday. I'd wondered if they were going to camp out as they have in other cities and noticed what I thought might be camping materials yesterday as it was getting dark, but indeed there they were camped out near the City Hall.

And there I was with a camera with a 270mm lens trying to take pictures that included a landscape of tents rather than people's faces and I underlined the problem taking a half dozen or so pictures. I'd set out with the wrong camera this morning, set out with the wrong camera this afternoon, at least I was consistent.

So what the hell? Back on the bus to pick another camera with the 24-70mm lens attached and catch the return bus back to take the necessary pictures. If I'm going to shoot this thing, I'm going to shoot this thing. It may go another day, it may go a week, it may go a month. They may be rousting the campers even now as I write at eight now in the evening. I'm not shooting pictures at eight in the evening. I'm too old to be out after dark at eight in the evening.

Actually, you might have done better with that 270mm lens. You really didn't get a decent picture of the tents as a group or set them off against the surrounding buildings.

Next time I'll bring two cameras. If I have the energy to turn around, go home and then and return to shoot pictures, I can carry a backpack with a second camera. As I've done now over the last ten years.