Specifically, I don’t know how my brain works, especially with my desire to take photos. So often my creative impulses seem analogous to how our bodies need food. I want to take pictures, I kind of need to do it some days. The longer I go without the more powerful the craving becomes. And then, when I do get a chance to shoot something, I’m full. The happier I am with the result the longer it’ll be before I really need to take photos again.
To be more specific, yesterday afternoon I took a picture of my watermelon leaf and I was pleased as punch with the way it turned out. Later in the evening I went for my bike ride and the moon … man, the moon was just stellar. It was full and big and dark orange and occasionally obscured by wisps of clouds – a Halloween moon if I’ve ever seen one. I kept looking up at it during my ride, seeing it behind various buildings and trees, marveling at how wonderful it looked and at what great photo opportunities it provided. I didn’t have all my gear with me (tripod, wide-angle lens, etc.) and so I just kept not going home and getting set up. I thought, “Normally I’d go home and get my car and gear and race around looking for the right church steeple or the right graveyard and be all excited about this opportunity but I just … I just don’t want to. Weird.”
Finally I realized it was because I was full. I had a rich, satisfying experience and though this one looked great too I just didn’t have anywhere to fit it in.
So there you have it. Art is food, and I’m still stuffed.
Filed under: tidbit
… though it may not feel like it yet. Fall has always been my favorite season. Fall is full of wonderful things like air that feels crisp and brittle and dry and clean and smells a little bit like someone has a fire going just down the street. Fall is Halloween parties and Halloween itself and shouting children jumping into piles of leaves. Fall is red wine and port. Fall is hayrides and first kisses. Fall is seeing your breath in the morning when you don’t expect it. Fall is hot chocolate. Fall is dragging out that coat you’ve been wanting to wear. Fall is long scenic drives with the windows down and the dark happening faster than you expected. Fall is wearing boots. Fall is full of the best colors. Fall is when everyone starts to come inside.
I haven’t properly enjoyed fall in six years. This one is going to be great.
Filed under: tidbit
I tell you what. International Talk Like A Pirate Day is rapidly becoming my least-favorite day of the year. If you involve yourself in this please don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to hate you.
You know, I’m really good at tagging my photos on Flickr, and tagging other things in other places, but I’m horrible at tagging my blog posts. I guess it’s ’cause WordPress makes it difficult, or more difficult than I think it should be. As a result my categories are worthless. Oh well.
I feel absolutely bloody fantastic. I’ve got a lot of wonderful stuff going on in my life right now. One of those things, high on the list but not the top yet most relevant to this evening’s post, is the weather. I am pleased as punch about the weather right now. It was hot here in June, then I went to Spain and baked my brain for a month and a half, and when I got back it was even hotter and twice as muggy as when I’d left. Seriously, I can’t remember suffering like this in recent memory. Well, except for those four years I lived in New Orleans. This was pretty much par for the course about 10 months out of the year. I remember one time in October that I left a show at 3:00AM and I was walking back to the car wearing a tank top and was sweating profusely from the heat and humidity. In October. In the middle of the night. That was almost as ridiculous as being bitten by mosquitoes in January. New Orleans had a lot of things going for it but the climate sure wasn’t one of them.
BUT I DIGRESS
Last night it finally got down into the 50s and I thought I was going to scream I was so happy. I slept with all the windows in the apartment open and woke up underneath my not-so-thick comforter this morning all slightly chilly and it was beyond fantastic. I’ve got a pretty energy-efficient apartment so I just closed the windows this morning and when I came home it was still cool in here. I think if this weather holds then I have run the AC for the last time in 2007, and hooray for that.
Other reason (among many) that I’m in a great mood is that this weather means I can start riding my bike to and from work / school again without becoming a stenchpig. The ride home today was effortless and at just the right temperature that I was hot but not sweating when I arrived. Then I enjoyed my cool apartment while eating my current favorite meal:
1/2 large cucumber, chopped
1 roma tomato, chopped
ample olive oil
splash of balsamic vinegar
sprinkle of salt
several grinds of black pepper
a few basil leaves chopped fine
and then a light grating of cheese (today’s choice: Emmenthaler)
Seriously, I’ve had this for pre-dinner (but is it really a salad?) several times in the past month. It is so so good and light and refreshing that you should bring all the ingredients over here and eat it with me. Bring enough for me too.
After my pre-dinner I went on my first real bike+photo ride in months and months. I was in the habit of doing this almost ever night before I left and then it was simply too damn hot when I got back. I’ve been feeling a bit off in my inspiration for shooting, and then I see other people’s work (see previous post) and it just makes me question why I’m not taking more and better pictures. So. I was kind of disappointed today to not be doing portraiture BUT I was pleased with those with which I returned.
Out of today’s 79 exposures I got three good ones, all taken during sunset and I couldn’t be happier. I’m happy to have even gotten three usable ones, much less usable ones that I really like.
Man, I’ve got a whole list of other reasons I’m happy but you know what I also have? A whole sink of dishes to wash. I shouldn’t cook such extravagant and wonderful and complex and tasty dinners. I should just eat hot dogs. All the time.
Filed under: tidbit
Current inspiration: the portraits of Denis Rouvre. I hope to be able to take photographs like that one day. I guess I just need to start asking all those interesting people I see every day if they’d sit for me.
And I need a flash unit to replace mine, which died. Or maybe two.
Filed under: tidbit
Is it possible for something to smell bad enough that it could wake you up?
Filed under: tidbit
I’m usually only kind of peripherally aware that caffeine is a stimulant until the waitress at the barbecue joint has filled up my glass of sweet tea for the twentieth time and I start to get a bit shaky. I’m not sure but I think the sugar content may also have a detrimental effect on both my well-being and my ability to sit still.
There’s nothing like being wide-eyed awake at 2:00AM when you’ve gotta be somewhere in six hours.
I’m gonna go lie in bed and think real fast for a while.