The Lampe Berger

What the hell--pick up a camera, take a picture, run to the computer to load it and cook it up.  Boom!  You have your own illustration.  

Then, take the image to A.I. and ask for a reproduction in a style and manner you have spent many hours on developing.  Boom!  You have another illustration.  

It's up to you.  Which do you prefer?  

I should take more mundane pictures.  They are not mundane.  Sometimes they can be pretty.  Quiet, humble, they can still tell intimate stories.  

Oh. . . this is the Berger Lamp.  Lampe Berger.  You don't leave the flame burning.  You blow it out and put the diffuser on top.  The fragrance that results is very subtle, not heavy, not overbearing.  In a large room, it is just noticeable.  But here's the catch.  The "oil" I believe is alcohol based, and the lamp uses it like crazy.  The amount you see here, a half-full lamp, will be used up in about four or five hours.  I bought a small bottle of the scented oil for $22.  I think it lasted about fifteen hours, maybe twenty.  I already need to buy another bottle.  I will buy the larger size this time, and I will choose a different aroma.  I enjoy spending money this way, I guess, but many would not, so. . . just FYI.  

But I find the photo worth the trouble and expense.  I like the illustration even more.  

Today's photo shoot has been cancelled.  Moved, rather, for over a week.  I don't know why.  I didn't ask.  I was relieved, and not just for the reason you suspect, though that, too.  No, my day is crowded with events and I don't feel my best and I was stressing heavily over managing my time.  The cancellation is a blessing. 

I took my mother to her osteoporosis specialist yesterday.  They got her in three months early because her bone scan was so bad.  On their scale, a reading of -1 is normal; -2 is osteopenia; -2.5 is osteoporosis.  My mother's score was -5!  They want to put her on a six month injectable medicine right away, but first I need to take her to the dentist to make certain she doesn't need any work.  They cannot give the medicine for months before and after dental work.  So. . . I get to take my mother to the dentist today to have her checked out.  Then I have to get to the gym and get back to my house before the maids come to blow away the cobwebs in an house I don't live in.  

Tomorrow, we have an ortho spine specialist appointment across town at 10:45.  I have a new lens being delivered tomorrow by FedEx between ten and twelve-thirty.  If I want to receive it, someone needs to be there to sign for it.  Piss shit fuck goddamn!

"A new lens?  For what?  You don't take any pictures now!  WTF are you thinking?"

I know, I know, I know.  But, hey. . . I love my Canon EOS Mark IV camera.  It is the one, or rather an upgraded version of the one, I took all my studio pictures with (other than when I was shooting Polaroid film).  I have figuratively hundreds of cameras, but 90% of them are manual focus.  All seven of my Leicas are.  

"What!  You have seven Leicas?  You're not a moron. . . just a case of arrested development!"

Yea?  Well, I read this in the WaPo this morning:

So fuck off--pot calling the kettle. .  . . 

But yea. . . buying more equipment is dumb.  However, to my point, the Canon is autofocus and it does a great job and I love the files it produces and sometimes I want an autofocus camera.  I didn't have a 50mm lens for it, and I thought I needed one, so I went on the KEH website and bought a nice used one for $175.  That is insane for a lens that good, but Canon know longer makes DSLRs, so the lenses have dropped in price.  I'm thrifty that way. 

I have an old Sony R camera I bought maybe twenty years ago.  Using Sony cameras has never given me pleasure.  It's two things: the menu and the haptics.  But the new Sony's have the best autofocus system in the game right now and I have a full host of Sony lenses, so I am tempted to find a new Sony, or nearly new A7 for a good price.  

Yes, I know.  

On the other thing, though, given what scientists have just learned, I think we need to raise the Age of Consent to forty, just to be safe.  The adolescent brain, or so I have read, is too ready to take risks.  We don't trust them to understand the "adult world" for that reason.  So let's be scientific about this: RAISE THE AGE OF CONSENT TO FORTY NOW!

After adolescence, though, the brain is surely devolving.  Maybe we should make it Forty Only, no over or under.  

"The mind is a terrible thing. . . ."

Or, as Bill Maher almost said, "I was only fifteen when the priest wanted to rub body lotion on me.  How could I decide?"

Or as Dave Chapelle said of the R. Kelly tapes: "When I was fifteen, I knew whether I wanted to let someone to piss on me or not.  Just sayin'."  

I don't want to underestimate the brilliance or the stupidity of other people.  I try to be fair.  

I still have a full day, but the pressure of being creative in front of others is off for the moment.  Performance Anxiety you say?  

Always. 

I was so excited by my new lamp, I photographed it twice, once with the Leica M10P with a 35mm Sumicron, and once with a Leica M10 with a 0.95 50mm lens.  At that range, that lens is almost impossible to focus.  

But. . . there is always A.I. 

O.K.  You are right.  It misinterpreted the image a bit because I created it in the same "chat" as the other.  I could go back and get a more accurate rendering, but I was in a hurry this morning and didn't want to take the time.  Such things are not as quick as you might think.  

I am trying to content myself with the things I have at hand.  I could use a whole lot more quietude in my own home, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon.  Outside of my mother's house, I am trying to give myself some breaks, though.  I've decided on "age appropriate" workouts in the gym.  I am using the phrase for most things I do now.  At my mother's house, I try to get used to loud t.v commercials, but it is absolutely impossible.  I need to buy some noise cancelling headphones so that I can read, but I really can't read with headphones on.  I'll keep trying to embrace "the culture," though, as if an anthropologist studying some alien culture.  

"The people of commercial television are a dull but happy people, content with minimal story content interrupted often by nonsequitor messaging.  They seem most enthralled by new diseases and information about medicines that help reduce symptoms without them at the cost of many, many side effects."

It suits me.  I'm a voyeur, you know.  That is what I am going to tell strangers I want to photograph.  

"Hi.  I'm a voyeur and I would love to take your picture."

It's best to be honest.  

"Look at you!"

I loved the way Roger on "Mad Men" delivered that line.  It was perfect, as were most lines he delivered on that show.  

O.K.  I have to prepare for the day.  It is cold here now.  The high temperature will only reach into the 60s.  It was forty-nine when I got up this morning.  Will I need to put on shoes to take my mother to the dentist?  Oh, golly. . . I hope not.