Eric
Yes, for fun if not profit... fun?
Yesterday, Sunday, I did something I haven't done since Novemebr '08. I got up at 07.30 and found myself at the local market about 45mins later. Ann and I used to go every week - she loved it, the same old stalls, the vendors and the delightful, real produce, and she loved cooking. Frankly, I haven't had the balls to go back on my own, quite apart from the fact that I can't cook.
It was bitter-sweet. I couldn't, wouldn't, avoid a certain old lady who was aware of Ann's condition for the four years she had it, and who lost a niece to the same damn thing duing that time. This lady is 80 years old and still runs an orange stall, which since she lives and farms in Soller, a long mountain drive away, makes me feel not a little guilty at my own pampered and slothful existence. Anyway, she hadn't forgotten a thing, and had deduced the reasons for my absence. It was difficult for both of us.
But, photography. I trawled around said market for a while and also around some cafés with their little outdoor tables, waiting for something to happen, HC-B and Doisneau running through my head, and their conviction that you find a stage and await the actors... mine were all on friggin' strike.
Anyway, from there I moved down to the coast and the beach, with its millions of touristas, and wondered what I was doing there. I eventually stumbled across a lady of indeterminate age - late 60s? - with the most amazing and amazingly cantilevered and exposed bosom I have ever seen. I simply couldn't raise the camera. I discovered a sad truth about myself: not a voyeur, or if a voyeur, a cowardly one at that!
All in all, I must have been walking the land from about half-past-eight until half-past-one, by which time I figured it was sunstroke or lunch. I settled for the latter, which I think I made at home. Later, in the afternoon, I decided I had to face the computer and see what I’d got. It’s amazing how, at a first run-through, one can discard so much stuff! It was never like that with my work days! The trick was finding the best, a different choice altogether; I am not used to seeing so much crap, all my own, at any one time.
I don’t think ‘street’ was intended for me.
However, I’ll persevere with the few, current, provisional keepers, and if any are, indeed, kept, will pop a couple into the web.
One thing: I felt quite smug at being able to manage five hours on the foot at one go! Those pills must be working after all. But the D700 is not a camera for carrying on a strap. It’s a killer.
Rob C