Making Happy

Camper

And Campers
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Bought a $.99-crappy-35mm-piece-of-shit-plastic-lens-fixed-focus-no-nothing-thingy on Friday. I'm interested to see what it does. I'm hoping it takes good/bad photos and not bad/good.

Machines for going Nowhere

Two recent photos from the Lomo LC-A

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A good article about Nina Simone. [via my brother]

Bye Bye Lomo

I broke my Lomo LCA. It smashed onto the sidewalk Sunday afternoon. While the camera remained intact, the winding mechanism is bust. I can advance the film, but it takes a couple of minutes of struggling and fussing. I tried to keep using it on Sunday despite this problem, but eventually I had to give up.

I'm heartbroken. I love that camera. It was only recently that I really began to enjoy it. When I first started using Mr. Risk's Lomo I was nervous about my ability to guesstimate distances. I've always been shit at guessing measurements. But over time I got very good at it. I used that camera every single time I went out. It was an old, used camera, and it did have some winding issues prior to the accident. I had stopped putting 36 rolls into it because it often stuck at picture 24. Still, I loved that camera. I'm really bummed. It's a huge drag. Mr. Risk says we can share his Lomo but we both know that's not going to work out. Tears.

Wood Fences, Wood Tops

Lately I've begun photographing wooden fences. Just plain fences without tags, scratching, etc. Okay who am I kidding? They're not "plain" fences. They're always really textured and dirty. The one above is kind of creepy.

Still feeling burned out. But maybe ever so slightly less so.

Found this photo via a link on the Toy Camera forums. I just love it when mud does that. I also love the composition of the photo. I bought one of those wooden tops in Oaxaca years ago. It's beautiful but I've never been able to make it spin like that kid in the picture. Kids have a special knack for such things. Or maybe they just have endless hours, or will find the time to devote to honing their skills if they enjoy it.

One Saturday morning in my own childhood, I hopped in one place on a pogo for three hours continuously, just because I could. I had the time to do it. Back then it felt like a huge accomplishment.

Since then, I've accomplished the life experience equivillent of hopping in place for several days continuously. Yet I have never felt the sense of pride and accomplishment that I did on Saturday whenever 198_.

That kind of thinking will destroy a person.

Burned

I'm burned out. Yesterday took me over-the-top. I'm trying to do too many things at once. My head is in too many places simultaneously. So even when I'm not working hard, I feel like I am because all of these things are weighing on my shoulders. The never-ending list of what needs doing is continuously running circles in my mind. Something has to give somewhere but it's difficult to make such an important decision when my head is swimming and messy.

I've got to find a way to take a break. I'm good at recognizing when there is a problem, but inadequate about locating the solution that is right for me, and/or accepting it.

Out in the Country

Here is an example from one of my few opportunities to take photos in something other than an urban environment. Sadly we spent a great deal of that time in a moving vehicle. I can't tell you how many times I looked out a window and saw something I desperately wanted to photograph. Unfortunately most of our stops were in small towns (in search of a bathroom), which are looking more and more like the suburbs and have very little worth photographing. Or if they do manage to maintain their quaint, old-thymeyness, it's a false, over-the-top facade created in recent years to lure tourists. Depressing.

Bike/Radio

Hair

I'm thinking about getting a haircut. A proper one. From a salon. Where they wash your hair and then someone lifts it and drops it several times to "see how it falls", followed by some angle cutting and razoring and whatnots. That's a pretty big deal considering my current and long standing hairdresser is a reluctant Mr. Risk armed with a pair of 15 dollar scissors from the Home Hardware. All he has to do is cut it straight across at varying lengths depending on my mood.

So the other day I told my brother and his friend about my plan. She had just cut his hair that day and had even cut her own. She did a good job but they have curly hair. I have very straight hair. I think she was all set to cut my hair until...

Me: "So I'm going to get a haircut."
Her: "How? Short or..."
Me: "Whatever. I don't know. It depends."
Her: "You know what would look cute..."
Me (abruptly): "I don't want to look cute. I hate cute. I'm thirty years old. I'm not nineteen. I want to look thirty. But not like a suburban soccer mom. I don't want to look like I drive an SUV and wear slacks. I want to look like me... at thirty. The person I am at thirty. Without cuteness. I hate the passivity of cuteness. 'I'm so cute. I won't challenge you with my cuteness. I'll make you feel comfortable because I'm cute and nice and unthreatening'. I fucking abhor cute. Cuteness can fuck off."
Her: "But whatever your haircut the YOU that is inside will still come out."
Me: "Not entirely. God I can't tell you how many times I went to (insert name of trendy downtown hair salon) and fucking Rocky or Jimmy or whomever gave me the same blandy haircut.
No, it's got to be me. It's got to look like me. Not blandy, but not kicky or puffy or wispy or cute. I don't want fringing. No more bobs. I'm sick of the bob. But it has to be easy to maintain. I'm not hyper on the hygeine. No product. Because of my health I can't use product. Plus I don't want to use product. Oh and I don't want one of those hairstyles that looks the same everyday. I don't want to have to style it exactly the same every single day."
Her: "Okay so I'm not touching your hair!"
Me: "Ha! No pressure there eh?"

PESTO

I love Pesto! I thought that was a pretty genius name to choose. I saw "Focus" yesterday and deeply regret that I didn't bother to photograph it. I also love this building. It reminds me of Sesame Street.

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Tonight I'm going to hang photos for my first offline photo showing. I'm happy with the framing. The frames are beautiful. The photos are nice, but not what I would have chosen ideally. They are floral images and while I obviously love plants, it is the photos I show here that are currently the most representative of me. At this specific moment in time they mean more to me than the plant images do.

What bothers me most is my reaction to this process. I have found a million excuses to endlessly fuss and frett over the details. I have burned myself out with the stress of it and have put hours of labour into getting it right. I specially designed little tags for the back and tags for the wall. Yet I have found two million reasons to convince myself this is not a big deal and not worth getting excited about. I haven't told anyone about it. I'm sure I'll hang them, frett about it for a bit and then forget about it until it is time to take them down. Fucked up.

Over on Billy Joel's Street

"I don't care what you say anymore, this is my life
Go ahead with your own life and leave me alone." *

* That song just spontaneously popped into my head the other night. Did you ever think the day would come when I'd be quoting Billy Joel?

More Favourite

A second photo from "Best Roll to Date" aka "The Greatest Roll of All".

Lately I have had the song "Right On Be Free" from The Voices of East Harlem stuck in my head. I love that they had these words on their liner notes:

'We know who we are and what we are and we're free'.

Favourite

Probably my favourite picture to date. Definitely my favourite roll of film to date. Happy. Happy.

Overall, Tuesday was a good day.

Coffee/Clone

There's a new 28mm.org up.
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I'm stupid busy. Too many projects converging at once. Forget the personal assistant. Just make me a clone.

The first assignment would be to answer my email.

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Have you seen this? Wacky. (via Speak Up)

Jason

Happy birthday to my brother who turned 25 today!

You're My Very Favourite Scanner

I literally spent all of Friday night scanning film with the new scanner. And it was fun.

Scanners. Keeping the kids off the streets.

Bye Bye Scanner

I got my first roll from the Windsor back yesterday. Sadly the picture size is unusual and they don't have a carrier for it so I couldn't have prints done. I tried two pro photo places with no luck. I'm finally starting to see the drawback to all these crazy cameras. Well, I could have had a contact sheet done but I have a new plan...

My scanner is dying. Lately it has begun to squeak, crackle and grind. I ordered a new scanner that should be in later this afternoon. Woot woot! It scans 120 negatives.

And now I will take a moment to bid a fond farewell to the old scanner. I just used it for the last time (and of course it didn't make any noise!) before it goes to that happy place all computer equipment goes to live out its last days... my brother's place.

More Obsessing About Winter

Over the weekend I put together a new camera profile page. THRILL to the Ansco B-2 Cadet!

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In other news, it is now September. My end-of-summer-freakout officially kicks into overdrive. You know summer is ending when every cabbie conversation goes like this...

"Nice day today, eh?"
"Yes. Very sunny. Finally."
"The colder days are slowly making their way."
"Not slow enough."

I want to be the sort of person who can appreciate winter and just let it be. I may never be that person. The person I am does not thrive in a cold weather environment. The person I am hates the sound and feeling of snow crunching under foot and shutters just to think of it.

"It's only September", you say.
"Winter is months away", you say.

But fall all too quickly leaps into winter. The days are far too short. It's dark by 4:00 pm. Some days you'd swear it is 4:00 pm all day long.

It's all very twisted and wrong.

Obsessing over the 'hardship' of winter is so fucking Canadian. Actually it's mostly Southern Ontario.