Until That Time

It was hot.  I am in recovery.  I thought to go out, but I didn't.  I stayed inside all the live-long day.  I am antsy and want to walk, but I don't want to take any chances with the surgical wound.  I want it to heal as best it can, so I have decided to bite the bullet, so to speak, and wait until I see the doc again before trying to do much.  

Rather, I sat inside and worked on pictures.  I can't seem to get out of the Cuba file.  I've been there three times, but none of them were photo trips.  The first time was in the 1990s before Americans were allowed to go.  I had a permit from the U.S Government to attend an International Hemingway Conference.  If you are a longtime reader here, you know how I got to be King of Cuba for awhile.  But I was in the conference and on the hotel grounds most of the time.  There was only one afternoon for only an hour or two where I got to go anywhere with my camera.  

The second time was an impromptu trip with Ili.  She hated for me to carry a camera.  She hated my taking photographs.  She was adamantly and virulently against it.  Still, I'm amazed at what I got from those few days there.  

The third time, I took a group of students.  I had chaperone responsibilities and not so much of a chance to explore with my camera.  

One day, I need to go with only one thing in mind.  

Somehow, I've "lost" the photos that I had worked on before.  I can't find them in any of the folders.  As I go through them all, searching, I find pictures that I never worked on before, like the one above, so I set about taking the raw digital files to finished product.  The music plays.  I make keystroke after keystroke after keystroke.  It is repetitious, but each photo requires its own corrections so I can't just drop a LUT onto them.  It is all tweaking and tweaking and tweaking.  

And sometimes it goes awry.  

I still have a long way to go, but I get a thrill at seeing the images emerge.  Damn, I think, I used to be able to take pictures.  It makes my heart yearn.  

That is pretty much, by and large, as interesting as my life has been for awhile.  Oh, there were some texted photos that a friends sent me from their journeys on the road.  Those, however, are of little interest to you, I think.  In fact, I find that my reports on "friends"gets under some people's skin.  It's o.k.  Often enough, the thing itself is both its own punishment and its own reward.  

I used to ask students if they thought there was more happiness or unhappiness in life and in the cosmos.  You'd think that an assemblage of people would say it was 50/50 on the average, but the answer coming back time and time again was overwhelmingly on the negative side of the ledger.  There is more suffering, they would say, than happiness.  

So. . . I am not alone.  Maybe it succors us to think there is no escaping the downside of things.  

I have photos from many other countries to cull, but much of that was taken in the pre-digital era, shot on film, and much of it was later scanned poorly, so I don't know how much of it I will use.  I may be tempted to re-scan some of it, but that takes a LONG time and the results may not be much different.  How much do I need for a website, anyway?  I only want to be able to show people that I am a "real photographer" when I ask them if I can photograph them.  You can't be a "real photographer," it seems, without some social media or other online platform now.  It is that kind of world now.  

"Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada."

Yesterday, my phone informed me that it had made some videos for me.  Crazy.  One of those was very, very long.  AI, I guess, had taken video I had shot with the iPhone and edited it in some crazy but fascinating ways.  I was fascinated for a bit.  There were things I hadn't seen in a long time, video I had forgot taking.  But after watching my life in digital time for quite awhile, fascinated by my movie self, I thought, "Holy shit!  Where else does this go?"

I mean Apple might own it for all I know.  It may be part of the permanent digital cosmos.  

It made videos from my photographs as well, mostly from the time of Ili.  

I think I am much more handsome now!  It is true.  

But that isn't saying much.  

Who said, "90% of life is just showing up?"  I think it was Woody Allen who makes a film every year.  That is more than just showing up.  Whatever the other 10% is, I need to do more of it.  When my surgical wound has healed, I will hit the road a little in an attempt to make stories and art.  Stick with me.  You will see.  I can sometimes be fascinating.  

Ho!

Until that time. . . there is this.  Enjoy.