Lots of Monkeys

The bag is black, nondescript, its handle extended in the way I’ve seen with commuter bags on the Metro.  In all aspects it is unremarkable save for one—it is unattended.

I started eavesdropping as I was without book or headphones.  This is how I first hear about the bag.

It is a group of young men, all possibly heading home after a night out.  They’re all well mannered, not too loud, but all discussing what to do about the bag.  What’s the protocol?  Is it like finding an unattended child in a restroom?  What do you do?  There is a lot of laughter that slowly transitions to disquiet when they realize, three stops later, that the bag is truly unattended.

I can’t see the bag from where I am sitting.  I wonder how long it has been on the train and whether or not I should get on the intercom.

A Metro employee boards the train and they tell him that it’s an unattended bag.  He tells them that he will take care of it.

At the next stop, I get up along with a dozen other people.  As we approach the door and the bag, he stops me and asks if the bag is mine.

“No.”  I say, as flat and as long as I can without it sounding like two syllables.  There is a pause as he looks me over.  There is an unspoken approval and I get off the train and on to the platform.

He asks no one else as we disembark from the train.

“Sure,” I say to no one in particular.  “Ask the one brown guy in the train.”

“Well,” a voice behind me answers.  “It was either you,” she pulls down her scarf, and behind it, I see a young middle eastern woman.  “Or me.”

And we laugh.

It was a bad day for the D70.  Out of ten photos, I was about to get less than half transferred to my laptop.  Two of which were the only ones I could salvage.

I had planned on shooting until the camera out and out died.  However, this quantum state of being broken and yet not broken* is really kind of frustrating.

Even more so when I can preview all of the pictures on the camera itself, but it only fails when it’s time to transfer photos.  Even worse, I didn’t even get any glitch photography out of them and I was really hoping I’d get at least something from the picture of the single gear bicycle I took a picture of in Adam’s Morgan.

Although I suppose that Flickr doesn’t need another picture of a single gear bicycle.

Rest assured that picture was awesome in a non ironic way.

* it’s kind of like a koan*

* and now I hear you groan

Kind of doing and not doing the 365 photos this year.

What I am doing is picking a lens each month and sticking with it for the duration.  There may be an exception, for instance, if I have to do portrait photography, I will switch to the appropriate lens—but for walking around, I’m picking a prime and then sticking with it.

My reasoning behind this is that I hope to relearn exposure and composition by getting rid of the zoom phenomenon.  With a fixed focal length, I can focus on aperture, exposure, ISO settings, and the actual composition of the shot.  This way I hope to reinforce some good habits.

Double check the settings before I shoot.  Don’t be too far from the subject.  Composition before I take the shot.  Proper breathing when I hit the shutter.  It’s already a lot to think about, but at least focal length isn’t an issue to think about any more.  I know that with the 52mm, what I see is what I’m going to be able to get.  Next month, I’ll bump to 75mm and then the month after that, I’ll bring it down to 35mm.  Each month, I hope to learn more about the abilities and quirks of each focal length and take a look at the settings for each photo in the lighting conditions.  This way I can see what works and what doesn’t work.

I’ll try to shoot everyday and post the pictures that I’m most happy with and maybe some that I’m not.

Star Blazers is the name of the US release of Space Battleship Yamato.  It’s a show that I remember fondly mainly for the space battles, which were important for me as an eight year old boy.  I guess I missed out on most of heavier elements of the story, but I clearly remember the wave motion cannon and the Black Tiger fighter plane squadron.

The US was in a very different place then in terms of dealing with foreign media, because they bowldlerized it to heck and back.  They even changed the name of the show to avoid the whole WWII reference.

Which is a far cry today, where there’s fan outcry if they get the subtitles wrong.  To be fair, a lot of fans are getting the high definition broadcasts with high quality translations over the grey market two days after broadcast in Japan.  It’s understandable if they’re a bit snippy when the DVD they’ve legally purchased contains a lower definition picture and subtitles that are outright wrong.  I guess I should slash soapbox here but it’s just the way it is.

But back to StarBlazers, or rather Space Battleship Yamato.  Today, I found this.

I just want to see it.

I guess I’m a sucker for a crossing the desert depths of space in search of the promised land space vaccuum macguffin story

The icy, biting wind is all I’m thinking about as I’m waiting on the platform.  Idly, my hand drops to the D70 and I then I’m thinking about the icy biting wind and the camera’s operational temperature range.

A few minutes later the wind picks up even more and then I’m wondering about my operational temperature range.

It is officially that “spouting profanity” level of cold.