 I have some bad news. My trusty Canon powershot S500 (pictured above) is dead. I bought it way back in March of 2004 and took approximately 45,000 pictures with in the last 4 1/2 years. Stupid me dropped it while trying to carry too many things from the car. Ever since then it had been acting up, but it still took pictures. Well, this past Tuesday I saw something on the road that I wanted to photograph. Despite having my new Leica, the first camera I usually reach for is my Canon. I snapped one picture and then another. After about the third I noticed that the screen wasn�t showing the picture, it was just black. Upon arriving at work I tried to figure out what was wrong. I took a few more pictures and confirmed that the camera was just not rendering any pictures. I�ll snap a picture and all that comes out is black. So yes, it�s dead. Normally this would simply be an opportunity to buy a new camera. I already have my eye on this beautiful Canon ELPH with all the trimmings, and 14.7 megapixels to boot. But, times are tough right now and I need to pay off my property taxes, some bills, and Monday I�m going to the dentist and paying out of pocket, because I don�t have insurance. So obviously I can�t very well go out and by a $400 camera right now. Not when I have another camera that works, and all those bills. But yeah, it�s sad that my trusty camera died, at my hands really, because it was such a workhorse. Here�s the last picture the camera took, number 45,4495. It�s in black in white because I was fooling around with the settings when I took the picture.  This is going to be a photo filled entry because I have another picture to share with you. Thursday morning it seemed like EVERY freeway in town was jammed packed with cars. There was a fire alongside the 405 in the Sepulveda pass, which means that the only way to get to Westside from the Valley was clogged. El Patron got stuck in that traffic and it took him three hours to get to LAX from his house in Northridge. The 405 is always bad, but that is truly monstrous. Anyway, now my picture that illustrates the carpet of cars that was the 101 on Thursday morning.  Friday I went to a friend�s thesis show at the art gallery at my old school, which will soon turn into my current school again if I get accepted into the master�s program there. There�s an old saying that you can�t go home again, which is exactly what I�m attempting. I hate unfinished business. In my mind it stews and stirs, never really every settling, because things haven�t been settled, they�ve just been ignored. But the reality is you can�t rehash these things because the act of ignoring the white elephant in the room is that everyone has agreed to ignore it for the better good. Whatever THAT might be. What we�re afraid of is change. I used to fear it like the plague, which is ironic because even as I feared it I also embraced it. Now at this point this soliloquy can go many ways, but I�m not sure where it might end up. Let us bring it back to the original thought, my friend�s thesis. It marks the end of a lot of work, and the beginning of a lot more work. I was happy for her, her accomplishments, and that wonderful feeling of just not knowing what�s going to come next. Because that feeling, thought scary, is also the acknowledgement of opportunity. My old buddy Joe used to jokingly say that there was nothing a man can�t do tomorrow. Of course he would sometimes says it, �there�s nothing a man can�t do... tomorrow.�  I know it�s hard to understand the difference between those, but I tried with the ellipsis to convey that little pause he would put into the phrase, changing its meaning. I keep going off topic. The picture above is of the event, people came to see my friend�s work, the culmination of an accomplishment if you will. Here�s another picture, one that my old boss, El Patron, set up and asked if I would photograph.  So anyways, I best get going and getting ready for work later.
End Communication. |
