I love the Fuji Velvia film stock. I have grown to hate the Fuji in-camera film stock simulation inside their X-Pro2 camera. I turn it on for reasons I still don't understand, and the digital grain ruins my jpegs. Now, I know that I should be shooting in RAW but what the fuck, even when I'm drinking? The extra space they require can act prohibitively when I am shooting like a fashion photographer with an unlimited budget, for cocaine. Or crack.
That used to be one of my favorite things to say to people as they leaned forward to snort a line of cocaine in a restaurant bathroom, or even when doing a sizable bump off of a key: Have you ever tried crack? It changes the mood of the moment and often what follows, though always for the worse. I just find it funny, which makes me laugh, which is most often misinterpreted, also.
Nobody offers me coke in restaurant bathrooms any more, but not because of that. I have other intake-related issues. We'll call it a health concern.
Most all of my cocaine-loving friends have gone the way of Fleetwood Mac.
Kids are animated. They reveal a lot in their movements - their desire to participate in play, their ability to entertain themselves at times, the unsure feelings of self and others that can hardly be hidden. CS is right about photography. It involves access. It's difficult to always utilize that access, though. I get bored at some of the events we attend, so I resort to photography to pass the time. But you can see that it makes some people uneasy, to walk around shooting pics of kids you don't know with a camera that appears to be of a suspicious quality and beyond a price range that they're quite comfortable with.
Housewives and those with similar sensibilities have lately started to advance the idea that they have the authority to revoke the public rights of others. They expect you to ask permission to look at the world with any intention of framing it. Taking pics is akin to staring, it is a threat that must be met. The children's safety is at stake. They learned this perhaps by watching police officers telling citizens that they don't have the right to take pictures of them while conducting official police business.
Oh no, ma'am. We didn't want to give the impression that we were police, exactly. We're hoping it won't become necessary to call the police. But that's up to little Larry here. Isn't it, Larry?
I should get a business license for Official Please, LLC. So that I can retort quickly that I'm "conducting Official Please business" if they ask any questions or demand any explanations. Though commercial photography in public falls under different laws, I guess. Perhaps my fantasy response to imaginary busy-bodies is more trouble than it's worth.
I struggled finishing the paragraph about it.
Well, nobody has given me any significant grief yet, but that's because I'm a pussy. I'm not getting in street bum's faces and taking pics in the city, aggravating the disenfranchised, or honoring their plight, or something, maybe capturing a conditional truth. I'm out here in the country valley taking innocent pictures of kids at local music and food festivals. The most shameful thing about them is the dry patches of poorly cared for grass. The spots that await a next spark arriving in the wind, sent from far away storms, and accidents, and blown transformer boxes as yet unknown.
.
