For your consideration:
I've found it to be rather more fortuitous to carry a camera with me at all times (well, not 100% -- yet), even (particularly) in cases where I do not anticipate photographic opportunities to be in play. I've many excellent images eternally trapped in my brain, forever beyond publishing as they exist only as memories, tagged with "If Only I'd My Camera." I'm sure I'd be famous were that imprisoned cranial portfolio been published . . .
My relatively recent purchase of the most excellent Fujifilm X100T has significantly improved and facilitated my willingness to "open carry" [caveat: nobody dies, but I do capture souls . . .] Putting aside the camera's superb performance, its nearly feather-light weight, vis-à-vis my Canon 7D Mk II (plus any of several much-heavier-than-the-body lenses), makings taking a professional-grade camera whenever stepping out the door a no-brainer.
Not that I ALWAYS do . . .
Last Saturday posed the question: I was taking a close friend to a support group focused on a rather grim disease, which sadly is waging a relentless war his body. Thus several factors argued against my pixel yearnings. The most obvious: it would certainly be appallingly poor form to photograph such an intimate gathering, particularly as an "outsider", without advanced, unanimous approval. Secondly, I wasn't "out in the field" to pursue my art, but rather to facilitate another man's ability to connect with his peers in need. Thirdly, see #s 1 and 2 . . .
And yet . . . it so happens that my comrade is an enthusiastic admirer of my camera work, and in fact more than once has told me he derives great enjoyment simply watching me take shots of some of the bizarre, in-the-moment objects that catch my eye. Ergo, I had his blessings to indulge in my art a bit (outside of the group, of course).
Then, too: that often barely discernible nudge of intuition which advocates the "just in case" cause made its presence known . . .
Thus, this . . .
Taken shortly after the support group adjourned, this scene immediately presented a visceral, compelling tableau which would've instantly entered that aforementioned Pantheon of Missed Images in my noggin.
Not ironically, it struck me as Zen-like, infused with conflicting atmospherics: a sense of peace and order derived from the pristine couch and delicate, symmetrical arrangement of the glass orbs . . . beneath a massive pane of fog, from which tentacles with needle-like points are intruding . . .
The Twilight Zone, perhaps?
In any case, I spent a considerable amount of time -- well more than an hour, perhaps two -- in the post-processing of this image. For reasons I didn't fully understand, it was vital that I get THIS presentation Exactly Right.
I posted the result to my photography site just short of 5:00 a.m. this morning. It wasn't until early this afternoon that the photograph at hand struck me as an all-too-real metaphor for my friend's situation:
Despite his noble efforts to live a highly orderly life, with great attention to detail such that all is As It Should Be, The Disease, already emergent from the fog of its slumber, will conclusively have Its Way -- its spiked appendages are relentlessly piercing the talismans of comfort and normalcy, and will inevitably, impersonally subsume the remnants of a beautiful man.
§ § § § §
Sunset District, San Francisco (#DSF-1242);
© 2016 James W. Murray, all rights reserved.
(click image for full-sized version)
Details: August, 27, 2016, Fujifilm X100T; f/8 @ 1/200 sec; ±0 EV; ISO 200;
Fujinon 23mm f/2 ASPH lens
