Judging by my last pathetic post, it seems I’ve hit the wall in terms of fresh blog stuff. So I’ve enlisted the aid of my wordsmith buddy Donald Ord. He has lots to say about a variety of topics. I’ve asked for “anything photo related.” Here is some of what’s in Donald’s head:
CAMERA
For Christmas about four years back my girlfriend, now my wife, bought me my first digital camera in an attempt to bring me into this century. I had worked for about a dozen years in film editing, but that came to an end at about the same time folks stopped using film in the process of making them.
I didn’t really make it into this century, but I do love the camera. I was told that I could make these mp4 movie images, which I have, or that I could use it to play songs, which I have not, but what I mainly do with it is take pictures. There were a number of weddings the following year, 2004, which took us to places such as Denver, Portland, Montreal, then down through Vermont to Cape Cod. We enjoyed these trips, though in New England we couldn’t help but encounter Red Sox fans. One thing people forget about Winslow Homer was how he started to paint more and more out of New England once Red Sox fans started appearing on the landscape.
What I liked about the camera was that it was tiny, and could easily be stuck in a pocket. Apparently it was the kind used in the movie “Tomb Raider”, which I never saw. Never was really into Angelina Jolie, even before she started using the same accent for ancient or medieval roles. Something about the big lips. Folks make a big deal out of Anna Kournikova and Scarlett Johansson, but again, there’s that big lip thing. It’s not as if Ms. Johansson would be out of options without them, and as for Ms. Jolie, did she never watch “Deliverance” and the trouble her pop almost got into with the hillbilly that didn’t rape Ned Beatty on account of the “pretty mouth” thing?
Back to the camera. The problem with it is the amount of pictures I can take. The card that came with the camera was 64 mb, which took me to about the end of June 2004, through the last wedding, including a stop in Plymouth on the way to Logan. By deleting a photo or two, I was able to make room for a couple of shots of Plymouth Rock. One would think that if the Pilgrims were going to travel so far in a boat in order to inflict Puritanism on countless generations they would at least have landed on something more substantial than Plymouth Rock. You go somewhere like Copenhagen, where there are very few Red Sox fans, when they have something really little to photograph like the Little Mermaid, they let you know it’s really little). Anyway, Rock plus Christmas, four weddings, a party or two and a handful of mp4s gave me room to stuff 313 pictures on the original card, which having been born on 3/13 was pretty perfect.
Then girlfriend, yet to be wife, goes and buys me this Magilla card, way more powerful than the original. Since then we’ve been to Yosemite, Germany, Buenos Aires, Sea Ranch and attended more parties and weddings. Don’t think I’m anywhere close to filling this card, and for a while there, when I wanted to show somebody a photo of say, the ’76 Olympic pool, I’d have to press a button a few hundred times before remembering, Montreal…that’s on the 313 card.
Finally we got married, and my wife took first one card, and then the other, and shoved them in to this thing she calls a device, and shoved the device into one of the computers, so now all I have to do is reach behind the computers and press this button on another device, the one that lets me switch from the stubby, Ned Beatty shaped PC over to the taller, more elegant Mac, which I use to peruse photos in a better way to locate that Olympic pool, but really, not any easier than going up to the attic and opening a suitcase and pulling out envelopes containing just 36 photos thank you, from say 1978, and reminiscing about how folks like Ron Guidry and Bucky Dent fought the good fight.
Anybody notice how it wasn’t until everybody, including me, started taking digital photos that the Red Sox or Patriots got any good? Or that Tom Brady was raised on the edge of Silicon Valley? “Capricorn Two”, shot with real film, will expose all of this.
It’s another rockin’ Saturday night here in Pacifica. The wifey is passed out, and I’ve decided to go out with my camera. Kind of our first date, as I’ve given myself an assignment to shoot the pacifica pier at night. I dress warm as it’s summer here, and head out for the pier. I start to feel those nerves creep up on me. What if I don’t see anything worthwhile out there, I can’t bare any boring photos, but I need inspiration. Hey there’s a bar, The Driftin. Maybe I’ll stop in for some courage. I sit down, and a weatherbeaten old ship captain looks at me and my Nikon D80, and says,”now what do you call that thing.?” A few “shots” later everyone’s behind the bar taking turns snapping shots of the ceiling. No one asked me name, they just called me the photographer guy. I paid my tab, and headed for the pier with new found confidence.
