yyt

when heading to charm city, i over packed but then again i had great plans. i realise that i have become too specialised for my own good. i took the dslr for the internet version of ding dong ditch up when i made it up to inwood. i brought along a leiquinha for a day of wander while making my way to the upper reaches of manhatten. it was the camera of choice as the last time i was in the city early morning wanders with the leiquinha worked well. i brought joãozão even though i constantly worry that one day it will simply not function anymore while i am in the middle of nowhere.

he is the camera of choice for while i talk a brave talk in the entries, it still takes me some time to get used to the ambience of violence that overwhelms the city. the camera has this chameleon quality that when folded can be passed off as a book, no one dares stare long enough in charm city to notice that it is not a book. i can have it out and almost ready but folded when i feel somewhat threatened. even opened it looks cheap.

didn’t get to nyc. the cameras meant for it became extra weight in the carry on. while playing bus tag i did take the digital but only used it those times when i met someone and mad a snap of them. the leiquinha seemed superfluous and was only on an outing when i meet chi for brunch - being timid i didn’t want to whip out joãozão to make a snap of her.

it came to me that i lug around extra cameras from the assumed expectations of others. i felt that the dslr was justified as after making the snap on the 54 i could validate myself as a photographer by turning the camera around and showing her the snap, the same happened with tom, willie girts and and the woman awaiting the 54. but in truth they could care less. it was my insecurity proving to them that i was a photographer, really.

i also used the dslr for snaps of family which again seems strange as i still don’t take the camera seriously, it is still mainly used for entries here and while i did photograph everyone i met with the dslr last year i think it had more to do with that immediacy than quality of the snap. i find this action strange as one would think that snaps of one’s family would be considered important - especially when they are so rapidly ageing - and thus worthy of a mode of documentation that has some permanence to it. once again i saw the use of it as a 21st century polaroid, the act of making the snap was more important than the snap the party atmosphere of the digital but with real photographer pretensions. i may have been scarred when photographing some kids in petty harbour, they wanted to me to turn the camera around to show them the snap, they didn’t understand the idea of film.

in the last bus tag trips i didn’t take the dslr at all. it seems the only area that suffered was pictures for the entries. but it also means that i am not making the same snap on two cameras so that i can have snaps to show as i ws doing in denmark.

so it looks like i am taking a step in my usual direction - backwards. there is more of an engagement with film, the wait, the extra care when in front of the subject. once again an awareness of as much as possible before firing off the shutter. none of the make a snap then after seeing how lazy my composition was, making another. once again i am more aware of the edges, of junctions in the frame, of the direct view of the rangefinder. the feeling of progress as rolls are changed - forgetting that they seem to need changing when something important is happening or i am in the most problematic of neighbourhoods.

i realise also that if the world weren’t so paranoid with foyers locked, gated condos etc, i could do a simple object based ding dong ditch.