And the stuff I bought is great, although it's designed for a professional on a shoot where size and weight and dragging around a lot of gear doesn't really matter. The earlier Nikon cameras, the F3 series particularly, are quite a bit smaller and lighter and available on the used market at good prices (Compared to say an F5). Going in and out of a crowd, particularly if you know your exposure and your film, having a light weight camera like an F3 with two or three lenses is nice. Not so obvious, not so cumbersome, easy to get up to your eye. This was the lesson stressed by John Free, my street photography instructor in Ojai: keep it small, keep it around your neck up on your chest and ready.

I was thinking about that today at the Blues Festival in Jack London Square. I brought an F5 with a 135mm telephoto lens to shoot people's faces and that was fine, everybody looked at me and thought, "well, this is a festival and that must be one of the photographers so we don't have to get upset if he appears to be shooting our pictures." With a couple of F3's, however, I could have hung both of them around my neck and shoulder and skipped the camera bag altogether (With the second camera and the lenses and all the other crap, eliminating the backache and all the good exercise I got.).

So maybe I'll pick up an F3 after I pay off the doctor's bills and be less obtrusive shooting in a crowd. It's the American way: buy more of everything until you die, and when you die, do it on your yacht, shooting photographs of half naked women in rubber suits. (Or is it naked women in rubber boots? I haven't quite got this getting old bit down yet.)

By the way, Episode I. I saw it this evening. You've probably seen it by now too so there's no reason to say anything, is there.

The bit about the Blues Festival. I shot maybe a roll of film. That's not a lot. The sun was low, but the light was still quite bright, emphasizing contrast and shadow, so it's probably not a very good roll at that. Doesn't have anything to do with light weight or heavy weight cameras, spending money or anything else. I'm just a little burned out shooting pictures and I think it has to do with recovering from this operation on my mouth more than anything else. You don't really feel like being out alone with your jaw half swacked packing a bunch of equipment in the middle of a crowd.

Today was OK. I got out and lugged around the camera bag (it's not that big and it's not that heavy) and shot some pictures, listened to some blues music and bought a black T-shirt commemorating the event. A nice t-shirt, I'm wearing it now. The next shoot will be better. The feeling for photography is coming back (along with the mouth). There's still magic in the shooting and the bitching about the equipment is just an idiot's exercise. Who learns from it.