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Here In Oakland

Art & Life


   


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October 17, 2011

Verb And Predicate

Monday. Well, a second wind last night so I worked on Saturday's photographs, finishing the first two sections of three for artandlife. So good and, although I then got to bed just after eleven, I got up this morning about an hour after shutting off the alarm and headed out to breakfast and back on this sunny morning (they're saying the low eighties, my, my). And I'm back feeling pretty good. Clear headed, anyway, and up for whatever, which is good. Good is good.

More working on the photographs for artandlife, of course, probably another trip downtown to take more pictures. I'm drawing ahead in the shooting of pictures and falling behind in getting them sorted and sent up to artandlife. But we'll catch up if the attitude and the head hold together as they have been for a while. Hup, hup. Then again it's only nine in the morning and there can always be roadblocks ahead.

You think a lot about roadblocks?

I guess I write about them often enough, putting them down as they enter and exit the stream of day to day consciousness, but no, I'm looking forward to a good day and a good week and a good month. Hell, maybe one day planning out my life beyond a day or a week or a month. You never know, here, across the bay from the end of the rainbow, in Oakland.

Later. Finished Saturday's group of photographs after an hour and a half of what I'd normally term drudgery, except I obviously like it, come back to it without thinking bad thoughts. Success in life is happiness with drudgery? I guess. Depends on the drudgery. But OK, there's another day ahead and I'm not yet ready to look at what I might have gotten with yesterday's photographs. Maybe get outside for a walk before the temperature gets out of sight.

Later still. A walk along the lake, a short walk, no interest in heading on to the morning restaurant or heading downtown. I have enough pictures for the moment of the Wall Street encampment, we'll wait until we digest the one's we have.

One lone pelican began swimming toward me from across the lake as I walked. Kismet, I thought, waiting and taking the requisite pictures. One problem, at least from my perspective, is getting the head and the eyes, often hidden in shadow and dark coloration to show in the photographs. These have been worked in Photoshop, one to the point of shifting its color more than I like, but you can see the eyes. The eyes. Boring holes into you like some reptile from ages long lost, debating how he or she is going to fillet you for supper.

Then again I remember how many years it was before I saw a single pelican flying off Jenner north along the coast after moving to California in 1969. DDT had pretty much wiped them out by thinning their egg shells to the point they'd crack in the nest and kill the chicks. You just didn't see them in the Bay Area, this during a time when I had a motorcycle and often travelled up along the coast. One reason I scratch my head when someone seems to seriously suggest shutting down the Environmental Protection Agency. What are they thinking? It isn't just pelican chicks that succumb.

But we digress.

We digress.

Even later still. Well, I mentioned I was feeling pretty good and so I found myself on a bus downtown to walk the circumference of the Occupy Wall Street encampment. It has changed every time I've visited, a new tent here, a new tent there, new signs everywhere. So I took pictures, signs mostly, fewer people about, and then headed over to the Rotunda building to have lunch, a nice cold chicken salad. So far, so good.

Back now at the apartment to play more guitar (I keep saying that), process more pictures and let the day do as it will. It has indeed gotten up into the low eighties this afternoon, out in a t-shirt, no backpack and second camera, just the one over the shoulder or, ninety percent of the time, in the right hand with the strap wrapped around the wrist. My right arm will complain about that from time to time, the camera in the hand, but so far it seems to be holding up.

A run through yesterday's entry to fix some of the dead prose. Undying prose is what you're after, dead is not the idea at all. No way I'm going to catch all of it, I'm over that particular conceit by now, but I want to at least resuscitate sentences that make no sense. The writer can get away without making much sense, sometimes that's an advantage, but his writing can't. Subject, verb and predicate. In there somewhere at least.

Evening. A second or third wind, I've lost track, but yesterday's pictures are done and posted to artandlife. I have no idea why I'm doing these, they're really not put together in a way that easily tells a story. It's more like a bin you put a set of pictures in to be edited and laid out later into a proper narrative. We'll see, I've been thinking about this lately and how it might change as my interests develop.

The photograph was taken Saturday at the Oakland Occupy Wall Street encampment with a Nikon D3s mounted with a 70-200mm f 2.8 Nikkor VR II lens.


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