I'm not saying they are great images. Nope. What I am saying is that I got out of the house with my camera and trained it on actual live people. I like reinventing old photos with A.I., but getting out and taking new pictures gets the old blood flowing.
The gall darn things looked awesome to me when I first unloaded them. Now that I am going to share them with you, though. . . I don't know. Just give me a little bit of slack. It's been a long, long time.
I had to go out of town to do it. I can't shoot in my own little village, and I've walked the streets of Gotham too many times, so I drove to a town with a huge farmer's market twenty-five miles north. I hadn't been for years. It is a small town with a big and wonderful downtown, bigger and nicer than the Boulevard. It is difficult to justify this, but it is true. There is a broad avenue with lanes running opposite one another on either side of a big median island, beautifully landscaped, each side of the road filled with restaurants, coffee shops, and bars. Upscale and down. There is a good bookstore and a lot of little tchotchke shops and clothing stores. Side streets and alleyways, too, are full of shops and restaurants. But the farmer's market takes over the town on Saturdays, and it has doubled in size since the last time I was there. This part of the state is agricultural, and the produce is spectacular. Big bins filled with mushrooms as big as your head, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, potatoes, squash, and pumpkins. . . the list is never ending. Vendors line the streets selling every kind of food, jewelries, pet supplies. . . I don't know what all. My head was spinning. I was out of fucking town!
I took two Leicas, one film and the other a Monochrom digital. I was using the film camera first. Shooting film is fun, and the shutter on that Leica is just a whisper. I had no idea if I was hitting focus, but the day was bright and brilliant, so I set the f-stop to 16 and had great depth of field. I have always been pretty good at shooting from the hip, but it had been a very long time. I ran through the first roll of film pretty quickly, so I sat down to reload. . . but I couldn't. I hadn't brought any film. I searched the bag over and over again. Really? All part of being out of practice. I put the camera into the bag and pulled out the black and white digital. At least I had sense enough to bring that.
I wandered around for a long while, but I had gotten there late and in awhile the stalls began to close. The crowd was thinning. I'd been limping around with a bad neck and bad knee without thinking about the pain, such was my pleasure. But now. . . I bought a coffee from a great coffee shop and took a table outside in the broad alleyway bordering the Main Street. I thought I might take some pictures from my perch, but the fellow at the table next to me looked at my camera and said, "So you're a Leica man." I nodded. "So am I," he said. He was a fellow probably my age. He was wearing one of those silly pro bicyclist outfits with a rear view mirror attached to his head. He was with a younger woman who turned out to be his step-daughter-in-law.
"So where's your camera?" I asked.
"They are at home."
I pulled out my other Leica and said, "If you were really a Leica guy, you'd be carrying two."
Turns out he has two old Leicas, an M2 and an M4. He doesn't shoot them anymore.
"You can't get film for them now."
"Sure you can."
"Where do you get it?" he asked. He was living in another town nearby and there was no camera store there.
"You can buy it online. Amazon."
We chatted a long time. He had retired and moved here from Colorado. He told me all about his photo career. It was pleasant to sit and drink coffee and talk on a pretty autumn afternoon. It felt good. I was almost content.
When he left, I sat for a bit by myself and watched the crowd before I decided to saunter toward the car.
"I'm a saunterer," I thought, "a perambulator. Isn't that something."
I looked into the shops. I followed some people in Halloween costumes into a bar. The bar was small and packed to the rafters. It looked like fun, but I wasn't ready to start drinking yet. It was a loud and rowdy crowd, and if I could have fit in, I might have taken some pictures, but I couldn't squeeze in further than the door, and so I retreated back to the street.
I wandered a bit more and took a few pictures, but the market was closing and there were only stragglers now. It was over. The thing was done.
Back in the car, I decided that I would take my roll of film to the new photo lab in town. They would develop and scan my film in a day. When I got there, though, to my surprise, for an upcharge, they could do it in an hour. That was amazing, I thought. O.K., I said and paid the premium. I wanted to see what they could do.
I crossed back through Gotham to my own side of town, but rather than going home, I decided to have a mimosa on the Boulevard at my buddy's place. It was two. Maybe I'd get something to eat.
The place was busy, though, and service was slow, and it didn't seem the little bartender had any affection for me. After awhile, I got a mimosa, but she didn't come back to take a food order. My buddy was there and came over to chat. He told me they had been doing great business, but that they were fucking up sometimes. It was taking too long to get people's orders. I just nodded and said nothing, and when he left, I paid up without ordering food. Yea, he needed to get some things straightened out.
By the time I got back to my house, the scanned files had already been dropped into my mail. I was excited to see and opened the We Transfer files right away.
Awful. Just awful. The scans were grainy, dusty, and in a few frames, scratched. I was pleased with some of the images, but when I tried to work with them. . . they were just too shitty.
I did the best I could, but I would have to pick up the negatives the next day and see if I had good exposures. I would scan them again myself and see if I got a better quality. I worked my ass off on this image of the bartender at the Irish pub, but I couldn't pull any details out of the file at all. I sent it on to my Miami friend with apologies and a note saying I would scan the negs myself on Sunday.
I won't use that lab again. I'm much better off developing and scanning myself. It is just a lot of work.
There is a big difference between the digital b&w and the film. I like them both and can't choose one over the other. The digital images are gorgeous and easy to work with, but the film images have a lot of character. They are truly and simply different beasts.
It is another pretty day, and I could, I might, I should go to the farmer's market in Gotham. Maybe. Somehow it feels redundant. Or, perhaps, I have "the fear." Having done it once, can I do it again?
I am thinking of afternoon mimosas.
Next week is busy. Appointments every day. So if I am going to make pictures, today is it.
O.K. So let me tell you about No Kings Day.
What?
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