I Must

Spent a lazy, hazy first day of vacation eating and drinking and traveling and napping.  It started Friday night with a restaurant dinner, the first in a long while and one of only a couple in the last two months as we try avoiding the flu.  But vacation is a vacation from a lot of things, so we ate out, then went to breakfast in the morning.  Afterwards, we started "mimosa juice" and headed to the coast to see Ili's folks.  But all along the way, I had my new camera in hand.  It feels good and I will have it in hand for the next week.  It is the only way to be a photographer.  You have to love your camera and know how to use it in your sleep.  I caress it and focus it and even take pictures.  "Service" is one of the first images with the new M Monochrom.  Ili saw the light hitting the building and stopped and told me to make a photo, and being a good fellow, I did.  This is a true working garage in Grit City.  It is a photogenic old town full of crumbling and repaired things.  It is coming back to a reasonable facsimile of its former glory from when it was the Jewel of the River, the last stop on a river that runs from this mid-state location to the open waters of the sea some hundreds of miles away.

Ili often wants me to take photographs of people and things.  She'll see some fellows sitting on their porch drinking beer and say, "You should take their picture," to which I respond, "Not now," or "Sure, that's what they are wanting right now."  I tell her I have to be in a rhythm and groove, but she persists as she did with these two fellows yesterday as we came back from breakfast.

Real barbers, they were, and they were happy to pose which is not exactly what I wanted them to do but it was good enough just to be doing the thing again and not from the hip.

I am learning one thing over.  When shooting with a 35mm lens and a rangefinder camera, find your frame, then move in one more step.

Neither of these are good photographs, but again, but this illustrates the difference one step can make with this camera and lens.  I actually prefer the first one because it puts them in better context, but neither one is meaningful.  

We ate out once again for lunch yesterday, and we were ready to go out for dinner.  We actually did go all the way to the parking lot before we changed our minds.  The restaurant looked packed and we were both achy and tired from mimosa juice and travel, so we changed our minds and went to the grocery store instead.  

Back home, we ate and talked and went to bed.  

This morning is once again gorgeous.  The thing that killed the northeast has made our weather right. We will take a long walk and decide which way to sit and pass our long love's day.  That's a quote.  Tell me who or where and I'll give you extra credit.  

I hope I'm right.  I hope I keep the camera on me and use it.  I never do, but this time, I must.  I must.  

I must.