- November 20, 2008 -
But no more! And so you get a surprise season of 50 Days.
One of the things I love about taking light rail to school is when the northbound and southbound trains pull into a station at the same time. I look over into the other train, and it's fascinating to watch and study its occupants. Quite often they're stuffed full as commuters ride back to the suburbs just as I'm heading into the city for night classes.
I also love watching the reflections in the windows after dark, which give the effect of a ghostly double exposure. Beautiful through a photographer's eyes. So today you get to see me spying on a man on the other train.
Season 4 was a disaster, for several reasons. I was trying to shoot with the DSLR every day, which is a hassle to carry around and is far too bulky to be inconspicuous or spontaneous, which I've found to be absolutely vital to the 50 Days Project. I had too much going on with work, school, and moving all happening at the same time. A few months later there was a tragic computer crash that ate most of my harddrive, including over a year of photos that hadn't been archived. With my photo processing workstation so badly broken, I couldn't justify another attempt.
Until now. This time around, conditions are more favorable. There's the free time I already mentioned. A new desktop arrives on Tuesday. And, in addition to the D80, I now have a "purse camera" - an 8 megapixel Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS Digital Elph that's roughly the size of a desk of cards. It's no match for the D80 in quality, but it's not exactly chopped liver, either, and it gives me considerably more freedom to shoot on the spur of the moment, and without being noticed.
Here's to promising new directions. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all unfolds.
Voyeurism
I find myself with unexpected free time. It's not unwelcome. In fact, it's been quite liberating so far. One of the positives of the situation is that I have time to reconnect with my photography, which has sadly fallen victim to a deadly cocktail of full-time employment and grad school.
tomorrow