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.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Taking on the Big Guy
The other day, while walking through woods in the area, I saw a magnificent long wing span hawk gliding over the tree tops, probably looking for some lunch. And near the pond where I was standing, was a rather noisy red-winged blackbird, yacking away as blackbirds do. I guess the blackbird spotted the circling hawk and took off. I thought it did not want to be lunch. Instead of dashing off into the woods, that blackbird ascended in the direction of the hawk and, to my amazement, started attacking it. All told I think that blackbird pecked at the hawk a good dozen times, and the hawk showed no signs of mixing it up with that little blackbird.
I say it's time to really go after our friends on Wall Street and toss some of them in jail. I hope they're not too big to serve time.
I say it's time to really go after our friends on Wall Street and toss some of them in jail. I hope they're not too big to serve time.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Amazing Amazoning
I wonder how many people realize that their favorite book seller, Amazon, is out to destroy all their competition and put an end to hard copy books altogether?
Over the years they have been buying up bookstores, used bookstores, adding all the good stuff online, sucking the life out of these stores, leaving them behind with just more stuff (common books) and moving on. How can a brick-n-mortar store compete with this mega-monster bookstore, who regularly sells books at +30% off, and includes free shipping to boot (on orders over $25, that is.) And meanwhile, they continue to Kindle their real intent...to get rid of paper books and get us all hooked on their electronic readers. They are not interested in hooking us, and getting us all to add a Kindle to our bookshelves, but rather get rid of the books, and just Kindle.
It's a clever scheme and requires a great deal of patience, a long term business strategy to kill all your competition.
I for one do not find this policy at all 'user friendly.'
We chase the huge discounts and ignore the fact we are squeezing out the life blood of our local bookstores. I adore books, have hundreds and hundreds of them on my shelf. Sure, getting rid of them all and replacing them with digital copies would be more space efficient, but I just love the book as it is, with worn covers, ripped pages, and that very neat sound of flesh rubbing across the paper as I turn pages. Maybe the Kindle will recreate an electronic sound for you, of that page turning sound, sampled from a real book, but that just isn't good enough for me.
No thanks. I'll keep my books. And my fountain pens, too. Hell, I even go to the vegetable market and get foodstuffs that are hopefully closer to the 'real thing' rather than all this processed shit grown with space-age Monsanto seeds.
We really are living in an age of the Corporation. The people of my land were recently shocked when our tipped-to-the-right-corporate Supreme Court ruled that corporations are allotted all Constitutional rights as a person. Well, except if a corporation intentionally harms people (and they do...ALL the time.) You can't sentence a corporation to jail.
Our greed, the 34% discount of most books, is luring us to a future world that perhaps we are unaware that we create.
Over the years they have been buying up bookstores, used bookstores, adding all the good stuff online, sucking the life out of these stores, leaving them behind with just more stuff (common books) and moving on. How can a brick-n-mortar store compete with this mega-monster bookstore, who regularly sells books at +30% off, and includes free shipping to boot (on orders over $25, that is.) And meanwhile, they continue to Kindle their real intent...to get rid of paper books and get us all hooked on their electronic readers. They are not interested in hooking us, and getting us all to add a Kindle to our bookshelves, but rather get rid of the books, and just Kindle.
It's a clever scheme and requires a great deal of patience, a long term business strategy to kill all your competition.
I for one do not find this policy at all 'user friendly.'
We chase the huge discounts and ignore the fact we are squeezing out the life blood of our local bookstores. I adore books, have hundreds and hundreds of them on my shelf. Sure, getting rid of them all and replacing them with digital copies would be more space efficient, but I just love the book as it is, with worn covers, ripped pages, and that very neat sound of flesh rubbing across the paper as I turn pages. Maybe the Kindle will recreate an electronic sound for you, of that page turning sound, sampled from a real book, but that just isn't good enough for me.
No thanks. I'll keep my books. And my fountain pens, too. Hell, I even go to the vegetable market and get foodstuffs that are hopefully closer to the 'real thing' rather than all this processed shit grown with space-age Monsanto seeds.
We really are living in an age of the Corporation. The people of my land were recently shocked when our tipped-to-the-right-corporate Supreme Court ruled that corporations are allotted all Constitutional rights as a person. Well, except if a corporation intentionally harms people (and they do...ALL the time.) You can't sentence a corporation to jail.
Our greed, the 34% discount of most books, is luring us to a future world that perhaps we are unaware that we create.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Retreating Army
Quick observation there...
I need some plastic army men for some photo shoots and prowl the dollar stores for cheap stuff. I've noticed lately that packages of army men are scarce. I can find bag after bag of police and firemen, but no troops. They were there just a few months ago.
That got me thinking...why?
Even though we still have thousands and thousands of troops still stationed in Iraq, news from there is scarce from the corporate-controlled media. I still think that troop presence, and the dangers they face, are important. It is still a dangerous mission. Why aren't we getting daily updates from Iraq?
The media largely guides what appears in the news. General Electric, for instance, owns NBC and one would think they might have an interest in what is reported in the news. GE also makes a ton of money from war contracts. Perhaps some conflict of interest here?
I don't think GE controls the Chinese-made army men sold in dollar stores, but perhaps 'army' is out of sight right now. With the recent health care bill, perhaps we'll see bags of health care workers, 54 in a bag, EMU techs, doctors, nurses, maybe even a few unconscious victims.
I wonder if these plastic figures will still sell after Michele Bachmann of MN can get the new law before the Supreme Court, so her friends Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Thomas can strike it down and return us more to the Amerika we've grown to know and 'love' over the past thirty years.
I need some plastic army men for some photo shoots and prowl the dollar stores for cheap stuff. I've noticed lately that packages of army men are scarce. I can find bag after bag of police and firemen, but no troops. They were there just a few months ago.
That got me thinking...why?
Even though we still have thousands and thousands of troops still stationed in Iraq, news from there is scarce from the corporate-controlled media. I still think that troop presence, and the dangers they face, are important. It is still a dangerous mission. Why aren't we getting daily updates from Iraq?
The media largely guides what appears in the news. General Electric, for instance, owns NBC and one would think they might have an interest in what is reported in the news. GE also makes a ton of money from war contracts. Perhaps some conflict of interest here?
I don't think GE controls the Chinese-made army men sold in dollar stores, but perhaps 'army' is out of sight right now. With the recent health care bill, perhaps we'll see bags of health care workers, 54 in a bag, EMU techs, doctors, nurses, maybe even a few unconscious victims.
I wonder if these plastic figures will still sell after Michele Bachmann of MN can get the new law before the Supreme Court, so her friends Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Thomas can strike it down and return us more to the Amerika we've grown to know and 'love' over the past thirty years.
No Longer Coreled by My Software
My Canon PS SX10 IS came back in snappy time, less than a week in total, and was fixed by the Canon people. Very impressive service. So, I'm sort of back in the saddle, but my horse doesn't have a destination. The idea of returning to the streets of Detroit, with so many others who have claimed the streets as their own, does not appeal to me at all. I figure I had my shot and now it's time to move on. That doesn't mean I will "never" return, but for now, I am not interested. As time went by, I also began feeling that my visits were intrusive and that I wasn't doing the city any favors by showing my work. It is important for people to know what's really going on in Detroit, though, and that was my main objective. The corporate-controlled media is not going to show you what I saw. Perhaps you'll get a glance when a robust filmmaker shoots a documentary on the city, but you're not going to see street after street of a city that was abandoned by an industry the way the auto people fled Detroit.
Detroiters are really struggling to survive now. Good jobs are hard to come by, especially in Detroit. Sure, we're all having a rough time thanks to the last thirty years of watching the middle class in this country getting plundered by the rich.
I am thinking of turning my eye to some of the skirting 'burbs, a few in particular that are packed with people struggling to stay afloat in this weird economic environment. Those with less find interesting ways to survive and decorate their worlds. I drove through one such neighborhood last week on my way to a dollar store that I find to be THE most depressing I've visited, where I shot Mom's Taxi. Chinese Junk. That's what I find in these stores and I use this junk for my photos.
Someone listening to my rants might think I'm one of those flag-waving Americans who loved George Bush and wants this country to be a Christian nation. Truth be known, I am very interested in other cultures. I largely eat Indian (east) food, as I learned to cook quite an array of tasty dishes, firing up my pressure cooker for a steaming spicy bowl of palak mung dal, some fiery hot sambars and rasams, steaming pots of basmati and masoori rice...Really excellent food. I watch scores of foreign films. No, I do like being a citizen of the world and don't want a closed society. I don't want to stop buying foreign-made goods. But I do want jobs to return to the U.S., and I want a thriving middle-class where we get a slice of the pie, too.
Not only am I pissed off about what's going on with bankers and Wall Street thieves, but I'm even more pissed off that nobody seems that interested in what's going on. How can real life events that effect us all compete with the latest line-up of television shows?
Back to these poor neighborhoods. The ones I have in sight are not poverty-level areas, but hoods where it is a real struggle to stay afloat. I see some very interesting home decor, and that's what I think I want to go after next. I'm not looking for post-war bomb-out shots, but more quirky shots.
Sorry to disappoint all of you. I wonder, if I ever return to the streets of Detroit for photos, if those crazy-ass Wall Street tycoons would be interested in placing hedge bets on whether or not I return unscathed?
Something new regarding my photography...I'm shelving my Paint Shop Pro and delving into the world of Adobe Photo Shop. I will finally begin to experience all the wonder I've heard about this program. I have been using Paint Shop Pro for all my digital days, long before Corel bought the company. It has been okay, and performs basic adjustments alright. Perhaps not. I've really had nothing to compare it with. So it's time to boost up my computer, but in that new graphics card, pour in the RAM, and get ready. The software was shipped.
Bon soir Corel. And good riddance. I've been a loyal fan (forced to be for economic reasons, I might add, plus a touch of my attraction for the under-dogs of the world) but you have really let me down with your latest versions of software. I've invested hundreds and hundreds of dollars into your company. Thanks for the complete breakdown in support this past year.
waving with great enthusiasm...blowing a kiss to the north, to Canada, where Corel lives...thinking kindly of my Canadian neighbors and not holding Canada accountable for the buggy software that Corel publishes.
Detroiters are really struggling to survive now. Good jobs are hard to come by, especially in Detroit. Sure, we're all having a rough time thanks to the last thirty years of watching the middle class in this country getting plundered by the rich.
I am thinking of turning my eye to some of the skirting 'burbs, a few in particular that are packed with people struggling to stay afloat in this weird economic environment. Those with less find interesting ways to survive and decorate their worlds. I drove through one such neighborhood last week on my way to a dollar store that I find to be THE most depressing I've visited, where I shot Mom's Taxi. Chinese Junk. That's what I find in these stores and I use this junk for my photos.
Someone listening to my rants might think I'm one of those flag-waving Americans who loved George Bush and wants this country to be a Christian nation. Truth be known, I am very interested in other cultures. I largely eat Indian (east) food, as I learned to cook quite an array of tasty dishes, firing up my pressure cooker for a steaming spicy bowl of palak mung dal, some fiery hot sambars and rasams, steaming pots of basmati and masoori rice...Really excellent food. I watch scores of foreign films. No, I do like being a citizen of the world and don't want a closed society. I don't want to stop buying foreign-made goods. But I do want jobs to return to the U.S., and I want a thriving middle-class where we get a slice of the pie, too.
Not only am I pissed off about what's going on with bankers and Wall Street thieves, but I'm even more pissed off that nobody seems that interested in what's going on. How can real life events that effect us all compete with the latest line-up of television shows?
Back to these poor neighborhoods. The ones I have in sight are not poverty-level areas, but hoods where it is a real struggle to stay afloat. I see some very interesting home decor, and that's what I think I want to go after next. I'm not looking for post-war bomb-out shots, but more quirky shots.
Sorry to disappoint all of you. I wonder, if I ever return to the streets of Detroit for photos, if those crazy-ass Wall Street tycoons would be interested in placing hedge bets on whether or not I return unscathed?
Something new regarding my photography...I'm shelving my Paint Shop Pro and delving into the world of Adobe Photo Shop. I will finally begin to experience all the wonder I've heard about this program. I have been using Paint Shop Pro for all my digital days, long before Corel bought the company. It has been okay, and performs basic adjustments alright. Perhaps not. I've really had nothing to compare it with. So it's time to boost up my computer, but in that new graphics card, pour in the RAM, and get ready. The software was shipped.
Bon soir Corel. And good riddance. I've been a loyal fan (forced to be for economic reasons, I might add, plus a touch of my attraction for the under-dogs of the world) but you have really let me down with your latest versions of software. I've invested hundreds and hundreds of dollars into your company. Thanks for the complete breakdown in support this past year.
waving with great enthusiasm...blowing a kiss to the north, to Canada, where Corel lives...thinking kindly of my Canadian neighbors and not holding Canada accountable for the buggy software that Corel publishes.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
It's Freezing (Up)
No, not me! The damn camera. My main camera is jamming, and I don't mean dancing smooth moves to the latest grooves, or improvising wildly off a hot chord progression.
Dead.
Me friggin' main camera is only delivering grief. And just when I was sort of starting to get back into it a little. It's a Canon Power Shot SX1o IS, my second in this series. Even though this has more zoom power, I think I liked the first one better. This has been a slightly disappointing camera. I'm very disappointed in the noise I get from it on a gray day.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tooloose-letrek/4398395318/
The sky is putrid. I don't have fancy software to fix it up. Nope. Just old Paint Shop Pro, for us poor saps that can't afford Photo Shop.
The repairs will be covered under factory warranty, so except for shipping, no cost to me. The cost is measured more in lost time and killing my interest in getting out for shots.
I still have a camera to shoot, but another disappointment for me. The Lumix is capable of some nice shots, but I have some issues with shake. I don't think the anti-shake mechanism works properly. No factory warranty on that one, and that's the way I got it out of the box. But I must admit, in ideal circumstances, it does make a nice sharp image.
I tried a Fujifilm S2000 for a day and was horribly disappointed. It's not a great camera and costs roughly half the price of my Power Shot. The zoom was horrible. And it brought back a very bad taste in my heart, too. My first better digital camera was a Fujifilm Finepix S5000. It was great fun for me to get away from a totally retarded Kodak Point-N-Shoot 1.3MP junk box and into a camera with some controls. I think I had a little Nikon Coolpix in between the two, but beside the low resolution, it totally lacked any controls. I liked it, though. Anyway, back to my Fujifilm. It had problems out of the box and I didn't attend to them right away. Had I, I probably would have gotten a brand new replacement. Someone in a photo forum convinced me that it was a power issue and not a camera issue...and I didn't realize that I had such a small time frame for the right remedy, a new camera. So I got on the repair train ride. It went back to the factory tw0 or three times (who's counting?) and the problem was never resolved really. I was able to get photos out of it, but at times, the camera just went bonkers on me. I don't know why they couldn't fix it properly. But oh well, right?
I was disappointed in Fuji, to say the least. So when I had one in my hand the other day, for a few hours, I was on high alert. The zoom sucked, as did the display.
No more Fujifilm for me!
And then I learned about a new model coming out next month, a HS10. Man, it has features, and a super-dooper zoom, 30X. I can't even imagine what I could have done with that much zoom, and still stay out of firing range when I drove around Detroit for photos.
Detroit. Wow, what a change in sentiment for me. I still don't want to do what I used to do, and I'm thinking of getting some professional help to aid me in understanding why I did what I did in the first place. Perhaps I have a death wish? I just watched a local film about thugs in the city, mostly drug dealings and violence as the theme. I guess when one is feeling that disadvantaged in life, the value of life is minimal. Popping someone is no big deal. There can't be any thought behind that bullet ripping through and ending a human life. Life is shit so I shit on life?
But while I was driving down the streets of Detroit, there was a lot going on behind the scenes, drug deals and violence. It wouldn't be anything for someone to pop a white boy driving where he shouldn't be driving. I've written before that I was nearly car-jacked (or worse?) twice in my travels, and nearly accosted on foot a handful of times. The first time, I was in a mixed black-Arabic neighborhood early on a Sunday morning and two guys in a car were doing their best to cut in front of me, and probably stop me. I don't think they wanted my car because it wasn't much of a car, and I don't think they wanted sex because I'm not appealing that way. Every time we got to a stop/yield sign, they tried to pass me, but I gunned it and had a goal in mind, to reach a street some blocks away that I knew was populated with security guards, guarding some new cars in storage at the Michigan State Fair grounds. I won. As soon as I hit that street, they backed off and went looking for some other action. Another time, on the other side of town, in an area known for prostitution and crack, a pick-up truck pulled up next to me and when I decided to leave, left with me. And kept leaving with me. Fortunately I was driving a V8 and s/he was in an old pick-up and I was able to hit a main street before him or her. I never looked over at the driver and would not have been surprised to see a gun pointing at me. We got onto that main street and s/he pulled in front of me. There wasn't a cop in sight! I took a hard left just in front of some oncoming traffic and escaped down a side street.
Then one day I was pulled over against the curb, watching a nun eating a sandwich outside a church, just on the border of an area called DelRay, one of the nastiest areas in the city. I noticed some movement in my rear view mirror and saw a guy creeping up along the parked cars, heading in my direction. He was about a car length away and I got the hell out of there. When I was in my car, I always had the engine running, in gear, foot on the brake, with a clear escape path.
I'm really not anxious to see how many more of these 'adventures' I can have, just to feed you guys some interesting photos. And on top of that, I feel like I'm invading people's private lives. I hate it when someone takes my photo without permission, so why would I want to do that to others?
Not so many people stop by my photo gallery anymore.
On top of that, anybody who reads my comments know how I feel about what's going on in this world now anyway. The rich, the VERY rich, are in control. They, along with corporations, have a commanding lead on the American people, and what makes matters much worse is the fact that the American people (hell, the world's people, as it isn't just happening here. It can't happen here? It is!) don't seem to care that much. I used to think Americans were a people who respected freedom and liberty, but now learn they cower in fear of 'terrorists' and fully support an undefined 'war' against a principle. Hell, this is stuff right out of the pages of Nineteen-Eighty-Four. And obviously whoever is behind all this studied that book in great detail. Doublespeak is everywhere. A 'clean air' act that pours massive pollution into the environment, for instance. Bush is on record as using a quote right out of the Orwell classic, "War is Peace."
And now, I have no idea what's going on.
It's not just in Amerika, either. It's happening all around the globe.
So here I am, at odds with the world. I have some photo projects in mind, some involving the only friends I have, action figures and figurines I have accumulated over the years. Don't worry, I have some ideas that will no doubt be plenty offensive to some people, though that is certainly not my intention behind the concepts. But I'm having trouble with this because I find I do much better with my photography chancing upon something rather than setting it up. Maybe I don't have a good sense of layout design, I don't know. What I probably should do is get someone else to lay out the props, giving them a general idea of what I want to do, and then going to the scene and nab my shots.
That, and a horrible economy, is what's going on. I'm working on developing my business more and that has me hopping. And I'm back to work on my book, a non-fiction book, that I have been working on for years. I don't know why I even care, but I'd like to leave something useful behind, when I'm a goner.
Not sure what I'll be able to grind out with the camera with my main weapon in repair.
Maybe I should just get a lobotomy and an iPhone, watch American Idol and buy lotto tickets. Oh yeah, and pick up a six pack on the way home.
Dead.
Me friggin' main camera is only delivering grief. And just when I was sort of starting to get back into it a little. It's a Canon Power Shot SX1o IS, my second in this series. Even though this has more zoom power, I think I liked the first one better. This has been a slightly disappointing camera. I'm very disappointed in the noise I get from it on a gray day.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tooloose-letrek/4398395318/
The sky is putrid. I don't have fancy software to fix it up. Nope. Just old Paint Shop Pro, for us poor saps that can't afford Photo Shop.
The repairs will be covered under factory warranty, so except for shipping, no cost to me. The cost is measured more in lost time and killing my interest in getting out for shots.
I still have a camera to shoot, but another disappointment for me. The Lumix is capable of some nice shots, but I have some issues with shake. I don't think the anti-shake mechanism works properly. No factory warranty on that one, and that's the way I got it out of the box. But I must admit, in ideal circumstances, it does make a nice sharp image.
I tried a Fujifilm S2000 for a day and was horribly disappointed. It's not a great camera and costs roughly half the price of my Power Shot. The zoom was horrible. And it brought back a very bad taste in my heart, too. My first better digital camera was a Fujifilm Finepix S5000. It was great fun for me to get away from a totally retarded Kodak Point-N-Shoot 1.3MP junk box and into a camera with some controls. I think I had a little Nikon Coolpix in between the two, but beside the low resolution, it totally lacked any controls. I liked it, though. Anyway, back to my Fujifilm. It had problems out of the box and I didn't attend to them right away. Had I, I probably would have gotten a brand new replacement. Someone in a photo forum convinced me that it was a power issue and not a camera issue...and I didn't realize that I had such a small time frame for the right remedy, a new camera. So I got on the repair train ride. It went back to the factory tw0 or three times (who's counting?) and the problem was never resolved really. I was able to get photos out of it, but at times, the camera just went bonkers on me. I don't know why they couldn't fix it properly. But oh well, right?
I was disappointed in Fuji, to say the least. So when I had one in my hand the other day, for a few hours, I was on high alert. The zoom sucked, as did the display.
No more Fujifilm for me!
And then I learned about a new model coming out next month, a HS10. Man, it has features, and a super-dooper zoom, 30X. I can't even imagine what I could have done with that much zoom, and still stay out of firing range when I drove around Detroit for photos.
Detroit. Wow, what a change in sentiment for me. I still don't want to do what I used to do, and I'm thinking of getting some professional help to aid me in understanding why I did what I did in the first place. Perhaps I have a death wish? I just watched a local film about thugs in the city, mostly drug dealings and violence as the theme. I guess when one is feeling that disadvantaged in life, the value of life is minimal. Popping someone is no big deal. There can't be any thought behind that bullet ripping through and ending a human life. Life is shit so I shit on life?
But while I was driving down the streets of Detroit, there was a lot going on behind the scenes, drug deals and violence. It wouldn't be anything for someone to pop a white boy driving where he shouldn't be driving. I've written before that I was nearly car-jacked (or worse?) twice in my travels, and nearly accosted on foot a handful of times. The first time, I was in a mixed black-Arabic neighborhood early on a Sunday morning and two guys in a car were doing their best to cut in front of me, and probably stop me. I don't think they wanted my car because it wasn't much of a car, and I don't think they wanted sex because I'm not appealing that way. Every time we got to a stop/yield sign, they tried to pass me, but I gunned it and had a goal in mind, to reach a street some blocks away that I knew was populated with security guards, guarding some new cars in storage at the Michigan State Fair grounds. I won. As soon as I hit that street, they backed off and went looking for some other action. Another time, on the other side of town, in an area known for prostitution and crack, a pick-up truck pulled up next to me and when I decided to leave, left with me. And kept leaving with me. Fortunately I was driving a V8 and s/he was in an old pick-up and I was able to hit a main street before him or her. I never looked over at the driver and would not have been surprised to see a gun pointing at me. We got onto that main street and s/he pulled in front of me. There wasn't a cop in sight! I took a hard left just in front of some oncoming traffic and escaped down a side street.
Then one day I was pulled over against the curb, watching a nun eating a sandwich outside a church, just on the border of an area called DelRay, one of the nastiest areas in the city. I noticed some movement in my rear view mirror and saw a guy creeping up along the parked cars, heading in my direction. He was about a car length away and I got the hell out of there. When I was in my car, I always had the engine running, in gear, foot on the brake, with a clear escape path.
I'm really not anxious to see how many more of these 'adventures' I can have, just to feed you guys some interesting photos. And on top of that, I feel like I'm invading people's private lives. I hate it when someone takes my photo without permission, so why would I want to do that to others?
Not so many people stop by my photo gallery anymore.
On top of that, anybody who reads my comments know how I feel about what's going on in this world now anyway. The rich, the VERY rich, are in control. They, along with corporations, have a commanding lead on the American people, and what makes matters much worse is the fact that the American people (hell, the world's people, as it isn't just happening here. It can't happen here? It is!) don't seem to care that much. I used to think Americans were a people who respected freedom and liberty, but now learn they cower in fear of 'terrorists' and fully support an undefined 'war' against a principle. Hell, this is stuff right out of the pages of Nineteen-Eighty-Four. And obviously whoever is behind all this studied that book in great detail. Doublespeak is everywhere. A 'clean air' act that pours massive pollution into the environment, for instance. Bush is on record as using a quote right out of the Orwell classic, "War is Peace."
And now, I have no idea what's going on.
It's not just in Amerika, either. It's happening all around the globe.
So here I am, at odds with the world. I have some photo projects in mind, some involving the only friends I have, action figures and figurines I have accumulated over the years. Don't worry, I have some ideas that will no doubt be plenty offensive to some people, though that is certainly not my intention behind the concepts. But I'm having trouble with this because I find I do much better with my photography chancing upon something rather than setting it up. Maybe I don't have a good sense of layout design, I don't know. What I probably should do is get someone else to lay out the props, giving them a general idea of what I want to do, and then going to the scene and nab my shots.
That, and a horrible economy, is what's going on. I'm working on developing my business more and that has me hopping. And I'm back to work on my book, a non-fiction book, that I have been working on for years. I don't know why I even care, but I'd like to leave something useful behind, when I'm a goner.
Not sure what I'll be able to grind out with the camera with my main weapon in repair.
Maybe I should just get a lobotomy and an iPhone, watch American Idol and buy lotto tickets. Oh yeah, and pick up a six pack on the way home.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
New Projects on the Horizon
I really gotta wipe those cobwebs off my cameras. Damn. The urge is there, sortta. My finger twitches, the one I use to push down the shutter. So when it starts spazzing, I stick it in my nose so nobody notices.
I'm still getting my ass kicked, trying to get my business doing gooder. Rough times. You guys look at all that decimated real estate and forget that I don't live that far from it.
Maybe Toyota will open a factory here and give everyone jobs.
As I side project, besides rebuilding my website with nicer, newer Legos, I'm farting with music, composing, then after hearing what I've done, decomposing. I might do a little video project and I'll want all the music to be mine. It will involve pictures.
And then there's that photo project I've had on the back burner for a few months. I have empty whiskey bottles in the trunk, and a statue of the Virgin Mary and a can of beans, all set to go. A friend of mine is a bit miffed at me because I rode his butt getting him to suck down some cheap whiskey so I could get my grubby hands on the bottles, and he's wondering...where are the pictures? I am a big fan of the winter but the gods have been sending all our snow over to DC and Maryland.
I hope to have something brand new to post on Flickr soon.
Sigh...
I'm still getting my ass kicked, trying to get my business doing gooder. Rough times. You guys look at all that decimated real estate and forget that I don't live that far from it.
Maybe Toyota will open a factory here and give everyone jobs.
As I side project, besides rebuilding my website with nicer, newer Legos, I'm farting with music, composing, then after hearing what I've done, decomposing. I might do a little video project and I'll want all the music to be mine. It will involve pictures.
And then there's that photo project I've had on the back burner for a few months. I have empty whiskey bottles in the trunk, and a statue of the Virgin Mary and a can of beans, all set to go. A friend of mine is a bit miffed at me because I rode his butt getting him to suck down some cheap whiskey so I could get my grubby hands on the bottles, and he's wondering...where are the pictures? I am a big fan of the winter but the gods have been sending all our snow over to DC and Maryland.
I hope to have something brand new to post on Flickr soon.
Sigh...
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