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Oakland anti-war demonstration.

April 7th, 2003

The Least Idea
Saturday may have been my first photo expedition since November, clearly I took my cameras, but more clearly I didn't take my head. Or my eye. Technically, not that great, and the images start at bland and degrade to awful. Hi, ho. The lady in the photograph? Well, at least she fills the frame. A start.

A good day today, actually. The dizziness not so apparent. I walked into work, felt a twinge of whatever when I reached the cafe for breakfast, but just a twinge, then on through the usual blur of work, lunch at the desk, home now having picked up the contact sheets, head empty of words. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

The state of the head, the dizziness, has been the driver around here. When I feel good, free of symptoms, I'm ready for most anything, even buying a car. When I cancelled the appointment with the Honda dealer I was not feeling well. You don't drive, let alone buy a car in that state. Trust me, you don't. This evening? Well, I've got a scotch and water beside me as I write, the cheap fifteen year old stuff rather than the less cheap eighteen year old stuff, and I'm feeling good. I've been leafing through a photography magazine that arrived in the mail thinking, well, why don't I do this and why don't I do that? The crappy job on the anti-war demonstration just makes me want to go back and do it better. I suspect the demonstration Saturday will not be the last.

I'm also thinking - and this is to me a surprise - of doing some serious planning for the wedding I'm committed to shoot in May. I say (to the bride) "I'm into snapshots, pictures of people's faces, I'm not into posed shots of the bride and the groom and the seven hundred and forty three relatives that you've dredged up for the ceremony". And that's true. But it's also true this is her wedding and she is entrusting me with the project. She doesn't have a backup. MSJ, who's wedding I'm shooting in September, has hired a real photographer. I'm just there as a sort of shooting guest, someone who may well get lucky and add something nice.

For the wedding next month I'm the photographer. And I will have to shoot a series of posed photographs. And, if so, I'd better do them right. (This suggests the nightmare thought I will end up shooting weddings for the rest of my life, that I was supposed to shoot weddings for the rest of my life, and it gives me the creeps. Life is not really that cruel, is it? That it turns out my "path with a heart" is precisely and exactly that one thing I was absolutely certain I was meant to avoid? Nah, I didn't think so either.)

Still, my thought is to order the studio lights tomorrow. I'll need them for the wedding and I'll need them soon so I can practice before I try the real thing.

Are you bullshitting or are you really going to place the order?

I have not the least idea.

 
The photograph was taken at Saturday's Oakland anti-war demonstration.

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