Photowalk: Iphone SE
Taken today: 1. 27. 22. Telephone Pole.
IPHONE SE. Natural lighting. Manually mastered.
Zombie Apocalypse
I’ve been reduced to tapping out my posts on my Android since my HP OMEN gaming laptop bit the dust. (Or at least the screen did.) Naturally, under the circumstances, I’ll be much more brief this time around. I marvel at the timing of everything that has happened lately! Due to the Coronavirus, and being shut down here in Indiana for the most part, Josh has chosen to stop working for now.
First of all, the governor of Kentucky (Josh worked just across the state line in Louisville, Ky), Andy Beshear, didn’t specify that hardwood flooring and/or construction work needed to fall under the umbrella of “vital to the cause” or “life sustaining” in order to remain “essential”. As a result, Josh and my son were still having to go in and work on clients’ hardwood floors cosmetically, meaning, simply staining the wood to match furniture, etc.
Meanwhile, people are legit dying out there by the bucket loads. After seeing the body count steadily rise from week to week, Josh was able to pursuade his boss that doing cosmetic floor work for the sake of aesthetic feely goods just didn’t quite equal to risking one’s life on the daily. Thankfully, his boss permitted them to self-demote from highly essential workers to glorified couch potatoes. Speaking of which:
Crazy timing interesting fact #2: As I mentioned, Josh just finished his job- again, for the next month or so, and I officially finished school yesterday. So, our vacations started within just 24 hours of one another! That’s epic stuff, man. For the record, one more time, I just wrapped up my Master’s degree in Psychology and Addiction Counseling. I’m finished with school forever and it feels incredible! Ten long years I’ve had my nose to the grindstone. I must admit, it feels really good to just…be done with it all. 😊
Anyway, I had just spent in the area of $2,200 for my new/used Mark II Canon full-frame camera+ Canon EF 24-70 2.8MML II ($900+) lens + 2 M42/vintage film lenses imported from Bulgaria, + Pro Lustre photo printing paper for sizes: 4×6, 5×7, 8×10, & 13×19 + all of the bubble mailers (for all 4 sizes) and its packaging, preparing to begin my photo/art business just as soon as I graduated, when the freaking zombie apocalypse hit. Go figure!
If it wasn’t so crappy it’d be hysterically funny. I mean, the timing though! And now, our economy is collapsing rapidly, daily, with more than 50% of the nation currently unemployed. The stock market crashed amidst the global pandemic and things are getting so super crazy outside. Regardless, even with Josh not working for awhile, we’re taken care of, thanks to my $ source. With the added EBT/SNAP benefits, that puts us in a pretty good position. I’m just grateful that we’ll be alright through all of this. So many people aren’t right now. We’re being given a 60 day extension on our Duke Energy, Spectrum, + Progressive Insurance bills, so again, I’m able to cover the rent (alone) and buy the food and Josh can take it easy for a change. I am one lucky woman to have such a great life partner! By the time our bill extension is up, he’ll be back at work and can help pick up the tab. We make a pretty great team. 💕
As much as I was hoping I’d be able to hold on to my new L series/Canon lens, I found out my son’s landlord is vying for D*** of the year by demanding $600 back rent, despite the fact that my son gave him rent $ only last week. How are you going to demand $600 back rent during a GLOBAL PANDEMIC?! What an asshole. So, I’m selling my 1 month old lens for $850 (willing to take $800) on Ebay so I can help my son during this time. My Dad was an incredibly generous man. He always did what he could in life to help me out, no matter what. That instilled in me a great desire to do that for my own kids. I will always be there for my kids.
Meyer-Optik Görlitz Orestor 135/2.8- film lens
17% juice left on my phone; I suppose I’ve said enough for now. After all, I merely wanted to pop in, update space, and report the end of my very, very long academic journey. I feel as if 1,000 stones have been lifted from my back! I am finally free to live my life as I want , on my own terms and on my own time.
My dear sister, Anita,
we haven’t spoken in 8 years or so. I cannot understand how or why any person would choose to cut a blood sibling out of their life. I could never do that to you, nor would I. Life is so short, and it’s precious. It shouldn’t be squandered by hate or unforgiveness. My love for you is still so strong, that not even death could rip it away. Please know that I love you. I don’t know you now, and you don’t know me. I do know that I’m a completely different person than I was when we were last friends. I’m betting you are too. (That can only be a good thing in my book, on both our parts.) You and I were given a pretty rough lot in life. I think it’s fair to say that neither of us were raised properly or given the necessary tools to thrive in this world. In short, the cards were sorely stacked against us. I’m proud of us both for having been raised up in a patriarchal, misogynistic system that smote us at every turn, yet we both grew into strong, intelligent, and fiercely self-sufficient women. Here’s to you Sis; I’m proud of you. ❤
Maestro
Josh smiles wryly in the dark, holding the pinhole camera he’s building for me.
I have a slight obsession with the pinhole. He created an aperture hole by poking an attached slice of a coke can (that was firmly fixed to the inside of a wooden box) with a guitar string. We picked up some 200 ISO film last night, and we’re going out today to test it out. A homemade pinhole camera!
I’m Not Above It
Oh…my goodness. Where to start.
I posted an ad on Craig’s List to pick up some extra cash. I am not above scrubbing toilets.
Josh and I got to Kate’s house a few minutes early. [Name has been changed for confidentiality purposes.] We peeked through the windows.
Kate had already told me on the phone, that she was a heart patient.
What she failed to disclose, is that she is also a semi-hoarder.
And…her house hasn’t had a good cleaning in years.
We knocked on the door a few minutes early- no answer.
I caught the look in Josh’s eye and it was obvious that he was thinking the same thing.
We made our way quickly back to the car.
“Look. Let’s just call her. Tell her that it’s going to take longer than we thought. We can come back again,” Josh said.
“If we leave now, we’ll never be back,” I said. “It’s just how things go.”
So we started rationalizing.
“What if it was our Aunt Ida or something? Or a family member…”
“Why did we come here? To leave?”
“What is so important that we have to do besides help this woman?”
And so on.
And so between us both, we decided that we had no choice but to return to Nan’s house, and do the best we could for her.
I knew she was a fiercely intelligent woman; I could tell within seconds of meeting her. Her eyes beemed with an intense light. Her skin was amazing!
Nan was probably going on 60 or so, and I liked her right away. A very earthy, down-to-earth woman. My kind of person. No BS, no fronts. Just herself.
“Kate, you look like a psychologist,” I said to her.
“I am,” said Kate.
And so we stayed for five and a half hours and cleaned our butts off. We put in a few extra laps for her, and it was our pleasure.
I’m used to making $20 per hour by myself when I clean, given my 25+ years experience and proficiency in the area, but Josh and I are both doing the school thing, and we’d rather clean houses privately, and on our own time, than to work a public job and so on. Also, we get to meet many interesting people this way.
Kate cut us a check for $125. We kissed her dog Daisy goodbye, and locked up behind us.
I can barely believe we did what we did there in only five and a half hours. Unbelievable.
Grocery shopping. (Beer, watermelon, rasberries, vanilla ice cream, sodas, smoked mussels, etc.)
Dishes. Bubblebath. Cleaning my own house. A bit of reading in my schoolbook, “Alcoholism and Other Drug Problems”. And finally…
…to bed.
The Marriage of Black and White
I’m realizing only today why I’m so creative. Because I’ve had to improvize my whole life. Having next to nothing to work with, forces you to try harder. You have no choice but to experiment because you really don’t know what else to do. Over time, your style becomes defined, refined, and unmistakable.
Having to sell my rig, more than once, I was left with only my Canon G3. It’s a 4 MP dinosaur. Because I had nothing else, I decided to not only learn how to shoot in B&W + manual, but revel in it.
That was about two years ago. I’ve been shooting for about 7, but B&W rules me. I’m completely infatuated with the marriage between light and shadows. To me, black and white is already a story. The images within an image become the actors on the stage, or props, I suppose, but even if you have only one blank wall, and a cheap camera set up to photograph that wall, with a bit of natural window lighting hitting it (through parted curtains, say), then the clouds passing over the sun become the filters. The passing clouds increase and decrease the gamma and contrast naturally.
The story of B&W is one of masculinity and femininity. Life and death. Hot and cold. Love and hate. When stripped down to their very elements, they are in their most powerful state. I have little interest at the moment in HDR, filters of this or that kind- and while they’re great (and I have experience in those as well) I can’t escape the beauty of being stripped down to almost nothing, and simply working with what ya got.
That’s not to say I photograph things in the nude.
I’m experimenting with a new webcam I got. It’s a cheapie $18.00 Logitech. But it’s capable of shooting in B&W (Heaven……….!) and so I’ve been sitting here in my computer chair, painting shadow swans on my wall with my hands. When I move my hands back and forth to and away from my chest, the shadows become elongated horizontally. Such a simple action. But it changes the dynamics of everything.
And here are some snappies:
This is generally how I feel several times a week.
“Ahhh…..close the curtains!”
(Migraines make the light absolutely unbearable.) Oh, and I wasn’t faking it. I did indeed wake up with a migraine.
I intentionally bleached the lighting, and jacked up the gamma so the blacks would be double heavy.
Choppy, grainy, bleeding contrast, toasted exposure- what’s not to love?
(Yes, yes, I’m kidding.) But the shadows on my neck from my fingers are intentional.
It’s a fair statement to say that I am obsessed with shadows.
Perhaps I’ll post a video today.
Perhaps not.
m o n o c h r o m e j u n k i e † 