Today should be the day I begin a new photo series. In just minutes, my hometown's Christmas Parade will begin traveling down the old Boulevard. Yesterday, this came in the mail (link). It is a 4x5 film processor that will let me process four sheets of film at a time. That may not give you tingles in your nether regions, but for me, it is really something. So, last night, I thought, hey--why not load up the old Black Cat Liberator and a bunch of film holders and go make portraits of the paraders as they get ready to march? It is a great idea. Trouble is, it takes a lot of chutzpah, and my balls began to retract as I thought about doing it. I mean I can't even find them this morning. I know I should. But it is so much easier not to. Photograph, I mean, not the other.
I just thought I'd be confessional. You will be able to say, "He's no real photographer. He is just a ___________."
You can fill in the blank.
But I have a dry lizard who died in the house behind a chair inside a jar right now, and there is that for photo material. I want him to rot all the way down to the skeleton. There is a photo series, no? It is safe, too, like I said. If I go with my big camera downtown to make pictures of little girls in leotards twirling their batons. . . oh. . . I know what will happen. And I will say something like, "Would you feel better if I just used the camera on my phone like everybody else?" And then there will be a scuffle of some sort.
"Hey kid, come over here for a minute. You want your picture took?"
I could go on for a long time, much to my terrible detriment.
Anyway, the tree lighting downtown last night and the Christmas Parade today means that the holidays are officially here. I can feel it. Last night, Ili and I watched "A Very Murray Christmas" again to kick off the season. I cried during the rendition of the old Pogues Christmas song. It is a beautiful moment.
Well, maybe I'll prepare the film holders just in case I decide to go. That will take a bit. Shit, shit, shit. I wish I'd never mentioned it.
“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
ReplyDelete― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet