In Limbo

More equipment problems. The Canon is going back to the factory this week for repairs not performed on its last factory-warranty visit just weeks ago.

And at a time where I'm really feeling an itchy trigger finger.

Shoot!

However, I do have back-up and can still shoot sans the Canon.

But WHAT to shoot! Of course I can't ignore my love of Detroit. However, the city has changed - drastically. Sure, there is still some devastation to be viewed, but quite a bit of that has been cleaned up, if only cosmetically. Store fronts are boarded up, covering broken plate glass windows. The same with houses. Many questionably sound buildings have been leveled. And life is still very hard in the city abandoned by the auto industry.

I haven't explored every neighborhood in the city. I'm sure I could find interesting subject matter if I explored. The troubled economy impacts me heavily, and gas is a major expense in my ventures. And repairs. Tires. Suspension. It's not cheap prowling the streets of Detroit.

However, the major deterrent for me is the popularity of urban photography now. I see carloads of folks, cameras in hand, tooling around the city. A major fire will bring them out like cockroaches after the lights are turned off. Or vultures, circling over head. I experienced that last summer when I saw black smoke rising over the horizon in the city. I was perhaps five miles away and by the time I got there, there was a crowd of camera folk.

Seeing so many others doing what I've been doing for six-seven years really diminishes my desire to go out shooting Detroit.

I sometimes wonder how 'useful' my photos are, showing sides of the city that the media skims over. That was my motivational reason these past years, to expose.

My nature photography doesn't attract much interest on Flickr. Either I have the wrong crowd looking, or it's just not that interesting. It's interesting to me, though, and for that reason I will continue to shoot, and post a few. However, I don't think of Flickr as MY site, but rather a gathering place for we who are drawn into the world of photography.

Another detriment, but one that I will not allow to restrict me, is the heavy emphasis on surveillance these days, ever since that day in September eight-and-a-half years ago that totally changed the course of my country. I wonder if people see it that way, how so many things changed that day. And one that is close to home for me, is our loss of personal freedom. I had my own encounter with the law this past summer when I was reported as engaged in 'suspicious activity' that resulted in lengthy interviews on the phone. And I was asked to send in the photos I had taken. Abandoned warehouses in Detroit are hardly 'rich targets' for terrorists, I'd say. Unfortunately for me, there was also a power station within a block, which held absolutely no interest for me.

So now I'm probably on government watch lists. The saddest thing is I did not even get a decent photo for all my later-developing trouble.

I think people are really fooling themselves about what's REALLY going on. Enough said.