-i.d, buddy demands leaving his house and closing in on me.
-what?
-i.d. you were photographing my house buddy is late 20's with a giant barking dog in the concreted back yard.
don't have one and i can photograph your house but actually it was the speed bump.
hand goes up out comes the iphone as he photographs the police.
says that his brother is on the force, gives a pretty good description of me which wouldn't be hard as i am standing in front of him. while he is talking i photograph some kiddy drawings on the pavement of a neighbouring house. when he gets off the phone - i ask if he wants to see the photo i am using a dslr for the outings have to learn lightroom by the autumn when school starts.
-don't want to talk to you.
i carry on, down the block, out on 55th street - i was by midway airport playing bus tag. hopping on one until i see something i find interesting then hopping off making the snap then finding another bus. stop at a park then as i am photographing a slew of ketchup packets on the pavement outside a kfc a cop pulls up.
you know that guy was by far the unfriendliest person i have ever met.
yeah when he said what you were doing i thought scoping his house with a professional camera do you mean a realtor? these people are so frightened of the world that everything is a threat. he kept saying that his brother was on the force etc. i had to check it out and when i did saw this banged up car and thought oh wow something did happen. but speaking to him well what can i say.
we chat for a bit his wife is a photographer so he is the sherpa when they head out on holiday. after a bit he leaves i return to photographing the ketchup packets.
we both wish each other a nice day

game on...

no sooner than i pressed the send key than this arrived in the post box. the ultimate minimalist address that wasn't ding dong ditched as i saw the letter carrier - who wasn't the regular - place it in the box.

it started with a slightly incorrect address, or a comment added to the name, but it should been expected when dealing with an fluxus fiend of a former professor - well not really a former professor as i was in his class for all of two sessions when i went up to him, promised that i would never draw again and he let me out.

not really a former professor for the entire time i was at college we would speak through his wife even if we were standing beside each other. ding dong ditches originated with him only i would make sure that there was someone at home - frightened a house sitter once.

after moving to the safety of a high rise condo, i had to resort to more traditional methods.

but anyway at some time we started modifying the names and addresses.

for example - say his name was carl becker, misspellings would occur karl becker. carl pecker, horrid pecker, cool pickles, come on heckler, knarly necking. concurrent with this would be a free associating of the address say, off shore drive, oh sure drive, old whore's dive, cold sore hive.

what would remain constant were the address number the flat number and the zip code.

buddy here was astonished that they got through so much so that he would put return adddresses on his - and consequently watched them get bounced back. i reckoned that mine would get through as all the important information was there and letter carriers have specific routes so they know the houses. this comes from the care my post cards were handled when i live on a rural route - separated by the carrier, hand cancelled at the post office and critiqued the next time i went in. i also thought that without a return address - don't like them they kill the surprise of a posting - the carrier on his end would work a bit harder to make sure the missive got through. but his comments began a paranoia - i started using the zip plus four. thinking again there is a bit more information so that there can be less doubt.

then it happened it seems that a book and a post card didn't get make it. i can only indirectly surmise as he didn't respond to the post card and didn't critique the book, but the name and the address weren't all that outrageous, pretty mild in fact.

it has given me pause, i am thinking that the postings didn't make it through because it wasn't the regular letter carrier on his end. writing the next card i resolve to put on a proper address. somehow though the label still had misspellings in the name and address.

it was getting to be too easy and thus i became sloppy.

out to the oak park austin district border to do a ding dong ditch between meetings. i was wary as buddy was on sabbatical and could possibly be at home. normal urban residential street no one was out made some snaps of lawn ornaments and the most useless gate that i have ever encountered.

closing in on the house i checked to see if i saw any movement in the windows. all the blinds were drawn. before turning up the walkway i looked to see if there was a light on in the hallway, didn't much care for the full glass door but since it was dark behind it i reckoned that i was safe. besides people are rarely in the hallways.

tried not to make too much noise climbing the wooden steps to the porch, i fear the vibration more than the noise. placed the two packages - a tube and a book - on the bench so that it would be hidden from the house, then thinking that no one was home and being austin district - i made an arrangement on the opposite side of the bench that was invisible from the street. walking more rapidly now i headed down the steps and toward the green line cta stop. passing the driveway i saw a parked machine - a saab of course.

then i got greedy, more daring, four houses away i decided to head back and make a snap with the digital camera of me in front of the house the way that minnesota flats would have done it.

made one and wasn't pleased so made another it was fine. back near a computer i would send a jpeg to his email account.

back to where i had been when i had decided to take the snap i heard my name being called out.

'i'm not him.' but a bought of proper manners came over me and i went back to make small talk before racing toward the train while replaying what it had gone wrong.

i wanted to use a digital camera for my mother's 90th birthday. while i thought of the irony of using a technology that isn't really equated with ceremony and tradition, i reckoned that people seem to be more into getting cd's of snaps or simply having them uploaded that real prints seem to be a hassle - although when i am around people are ready for a hassle. digital seemed a good choice as the age of my cameras means that they develop "quirks" when they are not welcome.

after the choice that i had was a canon eos1 full frame with a zoom lens that weighed close that that of the deardorff, i decided to risk a leiquinha and ziquinho - the most reliable of my cameras.

felt pretty comfortable with the decision as i was sure that other family members would bring a real dslr that i could borrow, what being the official photographer whenever there is an event.

i am truly being left behind in this world of new technology. only two people brought cameras and they were point and shoot digital. everyone else simply used their phones. while i hear that the quality can be pretty good now, it seems strange that a significant event would be consigned to the disposable camera of the digital world. listening and watching it seems that the snaps aren't even shared via facebook but instead kept on the phone. i am guessing this as phones were being passed back and forth.

humouring me, people said how much they like film how they couldn't wait to see the black and white snaps and then went on pointing their cameras which in a group of fifty-somethings and up looked as if everyone forgot their spectacles as they held their phones at arm's length.

of course my fears came true, the snaps made with ziquinho and a flash are so poorly exposed that they may even be beyond saving by photoshop. some were saved with the flash-less leiquinha. no matter my mother said someone sent her a colour camera phone snap.