Active Somnabulism

Have I used this photo here before?  I can't remember.  I ran across it yesterday when I was looking for something else.  It has the look of film, but I think it was taken with the Canon DSLR and a plastic Holga lens.  I love that combo, but I don't use it much so that I don't become too repetitive.  I do, however, enjoy the look.  It must be an old photo because the woman has a sweater.  Last winter, perhaps.  Maybe I've shown it before, but I can't remember doing so.  I try to shy away from showing too many butts, but I really don't know why.  I get a little paranoid, I guess, but I like the anonymity of butts not heads.  And I love the motion blur.  There is a lot to like about this image, I think.  It is soft and dreamlike.  Or dangerously not.  Let's call it somnambulistic.  I like that.  Maybe I can put together a series with that title.  

Somnambulism.  

See?  With a title like that, it is transformed.  Fixed.  Legit.  

I took a beautiful Saturday to clean up the study in my home.  Staying home on the most beautiful Saturdays has become something of a psychological malady.  Those are days when I know I should get out among the weekenders.  I should be out making pictures.  I can't make myself do it, though, for whatever reason.  I know the reason, but I can't even confess it.  I am hideous and afraid to come down from the belfry.  

But I put the day to good use.  I should put more days to use, too.  My study is a mess of photo paraphernalia.  It is small and gets cluttered up quickly.  I decided to take it apart and organize it. Much of the mess was paper.  Lots of it.  Many different kinds.  Some of that is inkjet papers--bamboo, rice, matte, glossy, thick art stock.  I've tried printing on anything and everything.  I cut newspaper and magazine pages.  Yesterday I printed on some blank 4x5 film.  I have many expensive sheets of art papers for doing dye transfers and hand coloring and slathering in paints and gels.  There were many unopened packs of vellum and transparencies.  So, of course, I had to do a little printing on my small Canon printer.  Experiments.  I have many experimental pieces.  I need to move beyond the experimental stage, I realized, and turn some things into projects.  To do that, though, I would have to go back through a billion uncategorized files and organize them.  And therein lies the rub.  I am terribly disorganized, always in a hurry.  

"There is nothing that can't be done tomorrow."

I was more efficient at cleaning up yesterday than I usually am.  I tried keeping distraction at bay.  I spent three or four busy hours discovering things that had been buried under stacks and piles and put them someplace.  I'm sure I won't remember where, but now they are somewhere out of the way.  

My work ways spilled over into other rooms.  I did laundry.  I threw away a many of old images I had been holding onto.  Big boxes went to trash.  I stored some items in other rooms.  Digging into the storage under a bookshelf in my bedroom, I found many brand new Gap t-shirts I bought years ago but hadn't worn because they were too long.  I grabbed a beautiful pair of large shears made in India for cloth cutting that I bought decades ago at a Restoration Hardware in Berkeley when it was still a yuppie hardware store and cut the shirts to an appropriate length.  They are now gym shirts.  

When I finally felt done with organizing for the day, I went through drawers looking at what was there.  Oh, man, I have hundreds of old Polaroids in boxes.  I used to make Polaroids of everything.  Going through those boxes was overwhelming me, so I stopped and put them away thinking about posterity.  Yea.  What will happen to all this beautiful intriguing stuff?  There is so very much of it. 

Irrationally, I started thinking about buying another big printer to make more.  Why not?  I want to make large portrait pictures printed on diaphanous papers.  I decided to try making them on the small printer first, so I ordered some expensive paper that will just fit.  Now I need some interesting faces and the chutzpah to approach them.  

Planning is the easier part. 

Experimenting is fun.  

Making the final product is portentous.   

The weather prediction for today is windy.  There are markets going on about town, and I think about going among the crowds with camera, but I get anxious about it.  I will try to force myself to go.  If I were ready to do it, I would find those good faces and give them a business card.  

"You have a great face.  I'd love to photograph it.  Here's my card.  Call me if you get interested."

Of course, they'd want to see samples first.  I need to make a website.  Have I ever said that before?  I need an assistant, a young, aspiring female photographer preferred.  Why?  I think I listen better to women than to men.  With men, it is always a competition, and I find women much more creative.  I need their Yin to my Yang.  

Mother is not feeling well and has gone back to bed.  She complains constantly about pain, though I can't believe she feels anything with the large amount of narcotics she takes with her own supplementaery supply of pain meds.  She has bottles of stuff hidden everywhere.  I believe last night she mixed up a cocktail of oxy, whiskey, Tylenol, Advil, and a prescription muscle relaxer.  She was up before I was today, so there is no telling what else she took.  She looked on the nod when I made coffee.  There will be no getting out of this house early today.  I'll need to wait until she gets up again so I can make her a meal.  If I do get out among the throng, it won't be until the afternoon.  

By then, I might just decide it is a better idea to cull some photographs for printing.  I think today's photo might look good printed large on a Kozo thin white paper.  

Let me look at the price of 24" printers once again.  Fuck it--it's only money, right?  

Legacy.  Posterity. 

Ha!