The World Keeps Turning...

Photography puns aside, my life feels out of focus. Everyone tells you that life goes on, that the world keeps turning, even if you stand still, and that is true. I feel like I have to go with the flow and the rotation of the Earth and all that, but it's making me a little dizzy.

I haven't taken many pictures this week, and perhaps that's why I'm feeling a little ungrounded. I should get out on my lunchbreak tomorrow and snap some pics of the river near my workplace. Today I sat and contemplated the turtles sunning themselves and then dipping back into the water for a swim. I have to admit feeling a little jealous as I sunned myself in my business-casual attire on the riverbank, trying to extract joy and relaxation and sunshine from every moment before I had to go in and wither under the fluorescent lights.

I have a new job, in case I failed to mention. That's really how much I care beyond the obvious need for a paycheck. However, the people in this place are really nice and the job is at least marginally more interesting and doesn't call for me to consistently question my morals and the state of health-care in this country, like denying medications to elderly people on Medicare did at my last job.

This week has flown by. I always think on Mondays that it will drag on forever, but the days have gone conveniently by, and work hasn't seemed too much of an imposition on my actual life, although it has robbed me of much needed sleep a couple of times this week. I have been out a couple of times with the aforementioned guy with whom I went on a date the day after my birthday. I guess I'm getting to know him now, and I still find him interesting and fun to hang out with. I have zero expectations and I hope he has zero expectations of me, but the time has passed with great conversation, good laughs, good food, lots of beer and a movie or two. He is very smart, as I've said before, and also extremely sweet, but genuinely above-board about his life and his situation in it. He's not too happy with his life either, and like me, not really in the place he wants to be, so we have something in common there, and it's nice to talk about how to improve our relative situations. I don't know how I feel about any of it, but I went out with him on Monday, and I actually (gasp) called him to suggest Happy Hour imbibing yesterday, which turned into a much later night than I had bargained for. Oh well, I can sleep when I'm dead, right.

There's no word from the ex-boyfriend (The Aforementioned Man Who Unceremoniously Dumped Me, or AMWUDM) - a friend of mine called it "radio silence," and that's a pretty good way of describing it. He booted me from Facebook, which I suppose was expected, although I'm surprised it took him so long. Perhaps my posts were annoying him, although I suspect they were doing something else, but hey, I won't get into it.

I've been honest, to a fault I think, with this new guy (we'll call him New Guy I'm Hanging Out With or NGIHOW) and I came up with a drunken, yet appropriate analogy in which I compared my heart recently to the post WWII ravaged fields of France, which has now naturally progressed into the Cold War. I think honesty is the best policy. I haven't promised him I won't freak out at some point - there goes the Cold War analogy again - and I have said explicitly that I am simply not capable of a deep emotional connection with anyone right now. My heart has not been set right, and there are certain things that will have to happen before it will be. Right now, I am in a period of stasis. I don't actively feel any healing going on, and I don't think I will, but I am learning coping mechanisms and I am learning to just do, even if I don't feel - perhaps that will come later. That goes for relationships, getting out of bed in the morning, remembering to eat, laugh, and see the good surrounding me - I am going through the motions, but generally I still envy the turtles and their easy life and that convenient shell under which to hide.

Booze, Milkshakes and Hand-Cut Fries!

This was my first experiment with the Diana in 2008. I got up ridiculously early one morning, back when I was with my ex-boyfriend from a couple of years ago. He was pissing me off as usual, and I was finding it very difficult to sleep, so I decided to get the hell out of the house and take the Diana with me, do some grocery shopping, and take some pictures on the way. These are of Charlotte Pike in West Nashville. I think I made it to Publix by seven that morning, so these were probably taken around 6:30 in the morning. I've always had a "thing" for taking pictures of signs, as you can probably tell. I still was not too cognicent of the very real possiblity of light leaks, as you can see, but lately, steps have been taken to eliminate this annoyance. However, the pictures do have a dreamy Nashville of the Past quality that I'm still striving for lately. There are these little peeps into life in Nashville in the early 20th century and I love seeking them out and resurrecting them somewhat.

Ah, Bobbie's Dairy Dip, how I miss living within walking distance of you. How I miss your hand-cut fries and pineapple-banana milkshakes (Claire sheds a little tear).

My Response to Mr. N.

I love the points Mr. N. brought up, and even though he intended them as "an argument," they really validated what I was saying. I don't think film in itself is inherent to true camera knowledge, but rather, I believe that having manual control over your shutter speed/ISO/aperture gives you an insight into the way light works, whether you are working with light hitting a piece of film or a digital sensor. I love the way he has explained how working with the manual focus and a low aperture has forced him to become more creative in his portraits of tango dancing. I am sure that shooting inside and shooting moving and unpredictable subjects in low light forces choices that otherwise would just make it easier to shoot the more conventional way with a pop up flash and action stop. Here, as he said, you have to plan for mistakes and learn what works and what doesn't, and I'm a believer that only that absolute control can really give you that, just like only driving a manual car can give you insight into the way a car shifts gears.

He also said that as he shoots more, although he still manipulates in photoshop, (which I am learning too), that he finds he has to manipulate less and less. I totally agree with this - as you learn the control, you learn to get it right the first time, because you inherently know what will work and what is beyond the realm of real possibility, but you also learn, with this, what IS within the realm of possibility and you learn to make creative choices based on aperture and shutter speed, and you can picture the kind of photo you're going to get. This does guide your choices. You can say: I know I have a shallow depth of field, but I know I can capture this movement and I can capture one particular piece of it, so that might make a more interesting photograph than capturing the whole scene.

I am curious what happens if he employs a pop flash with this, or what happens if his camera has rear flash synch (yay, great modern invention). If you pop a flash manually, you don't have to worry too much about aperture and it gives you the freedom to be more creative visually. But the rear synch flash would make the motion make sense, even though you would sacrifice the weird unpredictable bulb/pop flash thing. So hey, Mr. N., I challenge you to the results.

I would like to say that I would love him to post some of his pictures on here to illustrate what he is learning.

I always find those kind of situations challenging, and as you can probably see from my current photo postings, I shy away from taking pictures of people, and I have a lot to learn. It's something I've never been good at and I would love to see how his pictures progress as he gets more comfortable with the method and with the people. I'm hoping he can teach me something.

And Mr N., I too have a 50mm lens with a 1.8 that I haven't busted out yet, but it is an amazing lens - I once heard that 50mm is the closest to how we actually remember the scenes in our lives, and that's why it was so popular, but that super-shallow aperture gives such a dreamy quality that can't be equaled. I'm currently in love with my 2.8 24mm lens, but I shall have to dig out the old 50mm and give it a try too, especially when I get a chance to take pictures of people.

Moving Again

Ok, folks, now I'm on this photo kick, I've decided to branch this off into another blog. Please go to www.clairelightanddark.blogspot.com. It's dedicated to photography and the power of art to channel, you know, emotions and stuff (not to get too gushy or anything).

Here are a couple more. The one in the middle is City House. Once again, I took that in colour, but it looks better in black and white. I so feel like I'm cheating when I can push a button and it's suddenly a gorgeous black and white picture, but seriously, this is the digital age, and I need to get over my dinosaur self.

Here are some pictures I took the other day on my lunch break at the old Yazoo Brewery in Marathon Village. These were taken with my trusty FE2 on 35mm film. I was just bored, needed to get out of the office, and playing around. I've spent a lot of time there in the past year, and the place has some wonderful and some bittersweet memories. The originals were colour print film, but playing around in Picasa produced much better results in black and white.

Kept Promises

Lately, amidst all the turmoil, something strange has happened: I've made promises to myself, albeit little ones, and kept them.

Today, as promised, I went to the Flying Saucer to celebrate the Divorce Day of my friend, Miss B. I kept my promise and took my Diana equipped with a flash and a cheesy homemade paper towel diffuser. It looked kind of strange, and I did get some odd looks, but I took my interior shots. I'm not sure how I'm going to feel about the results. I had to open the shutter and pop the flash at the same time, and that takes some coordination and a very steady hand. I am sure I thought I was keeping the camera a lot steadier than I actually was. But, I took a roll as an experiment, so we'll see how it comes out. Everything handy became a makeshift tripod - Miss B.'s beer glass, my beer class, the back of a chair, the table, my chest - anything to get a steady surface. I would like to attach the flash to the camera properly, but for that I would have to order the adapter for a flash, and I think it only works with the special Diana flash, which is ridiculously overpriced, and I'm not sure I could justify spending sixty dollars on something I just want to experiment with. We'll see how these pics come out - if I like the results, I may stick with this cumbersome process, but if not, I might look into other options.

After the Saucer, we went to The Villager, a place I don't think I've been in at least a year and I realized the picture taking potential in there. It would be amazing for Diana flash shots. I found some blogs at work today on how to finagle a Diana to work with a regular flash. I'll have to check them out and see what I can rig up. I have to slow down a little on the film-taking though because this could seriously eat up all my money, either that or I have to cut down the booze and food budget - oh the sacrifices we make for art! (I'm just kidding really - I'm not picturing myself as a great starving artist or anything - I'm just a girl with a camera trying to drown some demons.)

My Dam Pictures!

I worked for an hour this morning. Apparently no one thought to tell me not to come into work, but that really doesn't surprise me. There was nothing to do and no one there. I sat there, waiting for someone to show up or something to happen, and it didn't, so I waited an hour and decided to leave. Fortunately, something told me to bring my camera equipment. Mr. W. called to tell me I had left my make-up at their house. I told him I was leaving and he said he would have breakfast ready. Have I mentioned I have phenomenal friends?

I persuaded him to come on yet another adventure with me. He's ex-army and kind of tough, so I figured having him along for the ride was a perfect opportunity to take pictures in all the nastiest areas of Nashville today. He was my photo-bodyguard.

We were driving towards Bordeaux when I suddenly noticed an old neon motel sign that had previously gone completely unnoticed, even after driving that road scores of times. I pulled into the driveway and we discovered a photographic goldmine - an abandoned motel with loads of junk and about the best neon sign in Nashville. Mr. W. borrowed my Nikon FE2, and after a little instruction in the ways of "analogue" camera technique, started shooting away, and quite successfully (I already mentioned how cool that camera is, didn't I?).

We snaked around Nashville in the gorgeous weather (when I post the pics, you'll see the gorgeous deep blue skies dotted with little independent puffy cotton-wool clouds) and made our way through scary neighbourhoods (Bordeaux, Buena Vista, Jefferson, Dickerson Rd.). We were only yelled at once, by an Indian woman who scowled at me and told me I couldn't take a picture of her crappy hotel sign. She doesn't have much choice about it if I take it from the street anyway, but I didn't want to get into the legal specifics with her. The great thing about shooting a TLR - no one thinks you are taking a picture because they don't see you raise it to your face. Sneaky.

On Buchanan Street (a street filled with photographic gems - I would love to go at night, but simply lack the bravery/stupidity to do so), I took a picture of an old laundry/dry-cleaners. Across the street, the Nation of Islam mosque blasted their sermon via loudspeakers for the surrounding blocks to hear. On Easter, the effect was quite surreal. On Dickerson Road, a bum carrying a brown-bagged 40, who stumbled across the street oblivious to the cars swerving to miss him, asked me to take a picture of him. I declined as I only had two shots left and still had to backtrack and shoot the Last Chance Liquor Store, but I should've.

After driving through Nashville's nether regions, Mr. W. and I went back to Wolf Camera to see Miss L. and get our rolls processed. She, as predicted, had already developed our film from Friday night. A few of mine came out great, especially one taken on the pier at Old Hickory Marina. However, we deduced I might have a shutter-sticking problem, because three pictures in row came out severely over-exposed on mine. Strangely enough, they were all pictures of Old Hickory Dam. Miss L. exclaimed, "your dam pictures didn't come out!" Dam pictures!

I got some prints of my latest rolls too, but I don't have a scanner here at the moment. I promise pics soon!

Unexpected Play Day!

Today I unexpectedly got out of work at 11:30. I need the money, but there was nothing I could do about it, so I decided to enjoy the day. I went over to my parents' house for a while, came back here and had a shower, and decided, as it was a perfect, gorgeous day, to head out to the country and take pictures. I picked up Mr. W. and we headed out to Ashland City, Charlotte, and came home through Dickson, where we ravenously ate BBQ. I managed to get a good roll of film (I think) and found a really cool old house to take many pictures of. I'm hoping they come out as fabulously as I envisioned, but I don't know how often that actually happens.

Driving around all afternoon with the top down on the car has made me super tired. I could go to bed and pass out, and as you may or may not know about me, I am a little bit of an insomniac and almost never feel truly tired. It's always a fight to get me to go to bed, but like a two year old with terrible two tantrums, apparently the secret is to make me play all day in the sun.

I plan to go into work tomorrow, but I'm not sure if there will be anything to do. I envision getting home early. If so, I might go to the Flying Saucer in the afternoon and take some interior shots there - the windows are really gorgeous and I think with a Diana and a pop flash, it should come out rather interesting and pretty. I'm curious to experiment with the Diana and a flash and see what I get, especially indoors during the day.

I'll keep you posted. Sorry I haven't posted any pictures yet, but I still don't have my scans back. As soon as I do, I will post anything that's semi-decent.

Photodate

Last night I had my photodate with Miss L. She brought her Mamiya TLR, so we were both shooting old school. This got some questions when we went down to the marina. People were fascinated with our old, strange looking cameras. The light wasn't as good last night as is was the night before, but it turned gorgeous right before it got dark, so I am hoping I captured some of that. Miss L. took my film to be developed, so I should have results tomorrow, at least of the negatives, and I am so excited about getting my scans Tuesday.

We went around the lake and the dam and the marina, and took some pictures of old stuff here in Old Hickory. I am about to have a shower and do it all over again with Mr. W., who has offered to humor me and come with me to take some pics. The light is gorgeous today, so I'm hoping to get some good shots, of what, I don't know. I guess we'll figure it out as we go. Wish me luck. I'm taking the Diana, the Zeiss, and my trusty Nikon FE2 (which by the way, is my first real camera - I'll tell you the story of that one day - and still my true favourite. I love that camera like it's family). Anyway, I wax nostalgic. Time to get off my arse and go and take pictures!