About greg

Just another bozo on the bus.

ptsd morning

Posted on August 20, 2024 by greg

I’m getting over my very first case of Covid, which has been unpleasant but tolerable. I mention that because…I don’t know, maybe that helps to explain my PTSD episode this morning. Maybe?

It’s been a while since I’ve had one of those. I still have occasional lightning quick PTSD moments, but they’re mild and not disruptive. It’s like a jolt of static electricity–a sharp moment that passes almost instantly. In fact, the spark of this morning’s episode is my most common trigger: a light shining from under a closed door. I wrote about this…okay, this is weird. I just checked, and I wrote about this almost exactly ten years ago. August 21, 2014. I’m NOT going to read anything into that.

Okay, quick recap. DON’T READ THIS & DON’T CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE IF SUICIDE IS A TRIGGER FOR YOU.

A million years ago when I was a medic in the military I responded to an off-base call involving a patient in ‘respiratory distress’ in the basement of a hotel. The basement was dim, but you could see to walk through the corridors. There was bright light coming from beneath the doorway of the room we were led to. We opened the door to an Asian guy who’d hung himself a couple of days earlier. It was ugly. There’s more detail in the post from a decade ago, if you want that information.

Anyway, light beneath a closed door is such a common trigger for me that when I see it, I’ll usually say, “Dead Asians” and everybody understands 1) why I’ve gone quiet for a moment and 2) why they should probably turn off lights when they leave a room and close the door.

Normally, that’s it. I see the light, there’s a moment of shock, then I’m fine. No big deal. But for some reason, this morning when it happened, I found myself…well, fucked up. It was my own fault; I’d left the light on in the laundry room while I did something and when I started to return to the laundry, it hit me. I didn’t want to open the door. Which was silly, and I did open it, and of course there was nothing in there but the washer and dryer.

But for the next hour or so, I couldn’t shake the…I don’t even know what I couldn’t shake. A feeling, I guess. Not so much the image of the dead guy, which is still pretty clear in my mind, but the feeling of getting ready to open the door and seeing something so awful that it would still be with me decades later. I don’t know about anybody else, but on these rare occasions when the PTSD spanks me, I find myself replaying several of the other awful things I’ve seen and done. It’s like I’m getting all the horrific shit out of the way at one time, so I can get on with my life.

I took a photo of the laundry room because that’s what I do. And then I thought maybe I should write about the photograph, which would require writing about why I took the photo, and what the hell, I might just as well write about the whole thing, right?

Does it help to write about it? Nope, not really. Didn’t help to take the photograph either. I didn’t expect it to. But it seems…not important, but worthwhile to write about it, because that puts it back into perspective. I’ve lived the sort of life in which I encountered a big chunk of horrible shit. Horrible shit is supposed to stay with you; you don’t want to be the sort of person who isn’t affected by horrible shit.

But it’s worthwhile to remind yourself that it doesn’t have to live with you all the time. This evening I’ll grill out some chicken and asparagus; I’ll have a nice meal and a good craft beer and spend the evening with people I love. THAT is what lives with me all the time. The horrible shit…it’ll dissipate. And with any luck, I won’t have another episode for months or years. I’m okay with that.

in which I look at an old photo (part 3)

Posted on August 11, 2024 by greg

Okay, why am I looking at one of my old photographs? I explained all this back in May, but to recap quickly, I happened across an article on some photo website that suggested looking at and analyzing your old photos as if they were made by a different person. Although that idea strikes me as silly, I thought I’d try it.

And I did. Twice, so far. But I have to admit, I’ve failed. I mean, yeah, I looked at a couple of old photos and yeah, I tried to analyze them. But I didn’t analyze them as if some other jamoke shot them. I did try to look at the photos as objectively as I could (and I like to think I succeeded at that), but I couldn’t separate that analysis from my personal awareness of what was happening in the world around me when I shot the photo or my reasons for shooting it.

But, whatever. Here I am, doing it again. I’m just going to ignore the original idea and continue my pattern of…of whatever it is that I’ve done. I’m even creating a new tag: greg looks at an old photo. I’ll probably do this once every month or two. Probably. Anyway, here:

I chose this photograph for two reasons. First, because the Iowa State Fair is underway (I’m planning to attend soon). And second, because it doesn’t quite work as a photo. It almost works. Technically, it’s a tad underexposed. I shot it with my wee Fujifilm X10, which is a fine little camera but it doesn’t allow for quick exposure changes (this was shot at f2.2 at 1/100 and an ISO of 400). If I’d had time, I’d have fiddled with the exposure compensation dial. But that’s the thing about shooting photos that are about people living their lives. They’re not there to be photographed; they’re there because they’re there. You just have to take what’s given. So, underexposed a wee bit.

I’m happy with the basic composition, although the exposure detracts from it. Obviously, the young couple are the primary subject of the photo, but as I approached them I noticed some sort of vacuum/blower device on the floor; it was almost the same color as the top the young woman was wearing. This is where the exposure hurts me; the vacuum thingy gets lost; you can barely see it in the lower left corner of the frame. Still, the quietness of the young couple is, I think, nicely balanced by the other activity in the barn. And I quite like the cow portrait in the upper right of the frame.

So yeah, as a photograph it’s technically flawed, but (I think) well composed. What I really wanted was to depict a moment in the lives of these kids. For almost two weeks, folks from farms all over the state basically live in these massive barns, along with their livestock. They arrive before the fair starts and often don’t leave until after it ends. The Cattle Barn, the Sheep Barn, the Swine Barn, the Horse Barn—they all become small, temporary communities. Over the years, I’ve taken dozens of photos of people in these barns—napping, eating, playing (young barn kids seem to enjoy playing practical jokes on fair-goers), making friends, living a weird approximation of their ordinary lives. There’s something rather sweet about it, something simple (and something rather uncomfortable for those of us not accustomed to barnyard smells). Because they’re only here for a brief time, all these human interactions—the friendships, the squabbles, the romances–become compressed, more immediate.

Another thing about this photo that appeals to me: the transience of these relationships is in marked contrast to the stability of the Fair itself. The Iowa State Fair has been held almost every year since 1854 (they skipped 1898 because of the World’s Fair in Omaha, and missed three years from 1942–1945 because the fairgrounds had been turned into a supply depot for World War II, and the Covid pandemic axed the fair in 2020). It’s been held at this same location since 1886; some of the buildings from the early 1900s are still in use. The barn in which these kids are having their moment was built in 1914.

This particular moment took place in 2016, but you can easily imagine a similar moment in the same barn a hundred years ago. Different fashions, different hair styles, different chair, but the cattle haven’t changed much, and the barn is almost exactly the same. Imagine how many of these moments have happened over the years.

we got us a presidential buddy movie

Posted on August 7, 2024 by greg

“Alright, buddy, I’ll see you soon.” That’s how Democratic POTUS nominee Kamala Harris ended her phone call asking Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate. She calls him ‘buddy.’

Buddy is one of those familiar terms with a murky etymology. It’s thought to have evolved from butty, an 18th century term for ‘work-mates’ associated with Welsh coal miners. It’s a wonderfully informal word describing close but informal friendships. Buddy has been mostly associated with men, but these days gender is a lot more fluid than it used to be. Oddly enough, that cultural shift has been supported by popular culture in the form of buddy movies.

Buddy movies are basically male rom-coms. Romantic comedies between hetero men. They’re not sexual (usually), but they’re about two people who are intimately close to each other, engaged in some sort of adventure. And people, that’s what we’ve got with Harris/Walz. We got us a buddy movie. Kamala and Tim’s Excellent Adventure.

Sure, in some ways it’s a non-trad buddy movie. I mean, we’re talking about a whip smart mixed race woman former DA from California and a classic Midwestern Dad who’s a balding former social studies teacher and high school football coach. But in all the ways that matter, it’s an absolutely classic pairing. Most buddy movies revolve around two people from different backgrounds with different personalities who go through episodic shit and in the end gain mutual respect and a stronger relationship.

And Coach Walz is perfect casting. He’s the polar opposite of the GOP notion of masculinity. He’s not loud, he’s not a bully, he’s not aggressive, he’s not domineering, he’s not suffering from testosterone poisoning, he’s not brutally competitive. He’s compassionate, caring, practical, thoughtful, considerate, helpful. Walz is the kind of guy who’s not only loan his neighbor a hedge trimmer, he’d also offer to help trim the hedge. And he’d know HOW to trim a hedge.

Tim Walz appears to be a sort of counter-Kamala, but he’s not…and that’s much of what makes this buddy team work. He’s what Kamala Harris would be if she’d grown up a white boy in Nebraska. And she’s what Coach Walz would be if he’d grown up a mixed race girl who moved frequently as a child. They bring together a weird melding of experiences and cultures that work perfectly together. (Editorial Note: yeah, I don’t know if that whole ‘who they’d be’ business is accurate in any way, but it like it so I’m keeping it.)

I’m telling you, we need a campaign poster in which Harris and Walz are dressed in Men in Black suits and shades, with the tagline “Protecting the earth from the scum of the universe.” We need a poster of them in ordinary clothes and the tagline “The Not-So-Odd Couple.” We need a poster of them in Wyld Stallyns t-shirts, standing outside a phone booth, with the tagline “Be excellent to each other. And party on, dudes!”

This presidential campaign is going to be different. Yes, it’ll get ugly at times, and yes we’ll probably be disappointed by something Harris or Walz does, and yes yes yes we’ll still have to see Trump and JD being creepy and hostile and mean-spirited. But buddy movies are all about two people overcoming that shit by being supportive of each other. And the very best buddy movies, like the very best rom-coms, have happy endings.

And let also say this: we fucking deserve a happy ending.

goddamnit

Posted on August 1, 2024 by greg

Let’s talk about Neil Gaiman. No, wait. Let me first offer up my creds.

I was, for several years, a private investigator specializing in criminal defense. I helped criminal defense attorneys defend criminals. That sounds awful, I know. But two things. First, the US Constitution says every person accused of a crime deserves a fair trial, and a fair trial means the accused has the right to challenge the evidence of the State. The other thing is this: my job was to investigate a criminal case and report facts and evidence to the defense attorney. Not facts and evidence that HELPED the defendant. Just facts, just evidence. It didn’t matter to me if the facts/evidence helped or hurt the accused. A good defense lawyer needs an unbiased account of the case.

I’m telling you this so you can judge for yourself whether or not I’m full of shit when I talk about Neil Gaiman. He hasn’t, to my knowledge, been charged with a crime. He has, though, been accused by multiple women of sexual abuse.

I believe them.

I wish it wasn’t true, but it almost certainly is.

A lot of feminists (and I like to count myself as a feminist) say we should always believe women. I don’t always believe anybody. If there’s anything I learned as a PI, it’s this: everybody lies. But as a criminal defense PI, I never had a case in which a woman lied about sexual assault. Some women may have confused some of the details of the assault (no surprise; sexual assault is pretty fucking traumatic), but I never had a single sexual assault/rape case in which the accusation was unfounded. I’m not saying women don’t lie about it; I’m just saying I never had a criminal case in which a woman lied about it. (I should amend that; I never had a case in which an adult woman lied about it. I did, sadly, have two cases in which adolescent girls lied about sexual assault—one apparently out of spite, one for no apparent reason. Kids don’t always act logically.)

But back to Neil Gaiman, a writer I’ve long respected and admired. He always struck me as being thoughtful, caring, sensitive, and honest. He may actually be some of those things most of the time. But based on the reports I’ve heard and read, I believe he also used his position and influence to coerce or pressure women to engage in unwanted sexual acts.

When the first woman reported, I hoped it would turn out to be an isolated incident (which, of course, is one incident too many). That was my hope, but I fully anticipated there’d be more. It’s always safe to assume influential men will be assholes. Hell, it’s always safe to assume all men, influential or not, will be assholes. I mean, patriarchy is built on a foundation of men being assholes, and believing in their absolute right to be assholes.

At this point, I think three more women have now come forward with accusations against Gaiman. Why is that important? Because any form of abuse can be a single act. A person might get roaring drunk and piss their pants once and never do it again. A person might get angry and hit somebody once, and never do it again. A person might pressure somebody to have sex once, and feel bad about it, and never do it again. Everybody is capable of acting badly. But a pattern of behavior is what defines an abuser. It’s necessary to distinguish between a person who commits a bad act and a person who’s a bad actor.

Neil Gaiman, it appears, is a bad actor.

Is it possible he’s being unfairly accused? Sure. But it’s highly unlikely. Is it possible that he believes all these acts were consensual? Sure. But he’s forfeited any claim to actual innocence, and my experience suggests these women are telling the truth.

EDITORIAL NOTE: This is further evidence (as if we need any more evidence) that we must burn the patriarchy. Burn it to the ground, gather the ashes, piss on them, douse them in oil and set them on fire again. Burn the patriarchy, then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart should be, and then set fire to the stake. Burn the fucker one more time. And keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations.

the bleeding ear of trump

Posted on July 28, 2024 by greg

I confess, I’m a wee bit disappointed. I mean, yeah, I’m glad Trump’s idiotic but hypnotic control of the MAGAverse is waning. But I really thought this might happen. I’m talking about the potential for an Ellen Jamesian moment.

Now some (okay, probably most) of you right now are wondering, “Greg, old sock, who is this Ellen James of which you speak and what would that moment entail?” I’m going to tell you. Back in 1978 novelist John Irving published a novel called The World According to Garp. It won the National Book Award for Fiction the following year. Garp was the first novel I’d ever read that explicitly examined toxic masculinity, and the first novel I’d read that featured a trans character in a positive way. It also looked at ideological extremism and cults of personality. One critical element of the narrative revolves around a group of women who cut off their own tongues in solidarity with an eleven-year-old sexual assault survivor (Ellen James) whose tongue was cut out by her rapists to silence her.

When I first saw a Trump supporter wearing a sweatshirt with a ‘Diapers over Dems’ logo and other supporters wearing adult diapers with the logo ‘Real Men Wear Diapers’ I thought his cult of personality might have hit a high water mark. Then came the assassination attempt. Trump’s ear got pinked, possibly by a bullet fragment. It doesn’t matter what pinked his ear; it got pinked. It bled. He had to wear a bandage for a few days. And some of his supporters adopted the bandage. People actually put bandages on their ears. It looked ridiculous, but that never stopped them before.

I felt all the elements of an Ellen Jamesian moment began to coalesce. I actually thought there was a chance–not a great chance, but a chance–members of the MAGAverse would pink their own ears. But no. The cowards stopped with the bandage. Sure, there was at least one guy who got a tattoo of Trump surrounded by Secret Service personnel with his tiny fist raised and an angry look on his face. But that was about it.

I truly believe that if the assassination attempt had happened a year ago, we’d have seen some MAGA fuckwits piercing their own ears. A year ago, a bleeding ear would have been seen as Trump stigmata. Maybe the most dedicated Trumpists died of Covid, maybe his people are just weary of having to support every idiotic thing that rancid motherfucker utters, maybe JD Vance has hollowed out some of his support, but a year ago Trump’s bloody shirt would be enshrined at Mar-a-Lago. A year ago Trump would be selling cheap-ass Chinese-made white shirts with symbolic blood on the collar. It seems clear (to me, at least) that Trump doesn’t command quite the same passion that he did a year ago.

And yes, that’s a good thing. A very good thing. But I did sorta kinda want to see Trumpists tearing out a chunk of their own ears.

madam president…oh, that sounds good

Posted on July 25, 2024 by greg

President Uncle Joe has done something amazing. He made the decision to voluntarily relinquish the most powerful political position on Earth. He did it under some pressure, to be sure. But he did it with grace and dignity. Compare that to all the ugly bullshit Comrade Trump pulled in a desperate attempt to cling to power–the lies, the threats, the violence–even after he was legitimately defeated in a fair election.

Even more amazing, Biden did something no other politician has ever done. As an old White man, he is willingly surrendering his power to a Black woman. Think about that for a moment. He didn’t have to do that. In fact, by most reports, the majority of the Powers That Be in the Democratic Party opposed that approach. Even a lot of Harris supporters said they preferred a more open contest to determine who’d be their nominee. Biden deliberately scuttled that idea by quickly voicing his support for Kamala Harris. He basically challenged the Democratic Party, saying, ‘Don’t even think about denying a Black woman as the Democratic candidate.’ That was ballsy.

He didn’t do that out of pique; he didn’t support Harris out of spite, just to thwart the people who’d refused to support him. He did it because he believed it was the right thing to do. And lawdy, our boy Joe was right. The organic groundswell of support for Harris has been nothing short of astonishing.

The timing couldn’t have been better. I’ve no idea if this was deliberate or not (I hope it was deliberate), but Biden waited until Trump had weighed the GOP ticket down with JD Vance, the oleaginous Senator from Faux Appalachia, as his VP pick. This effectively pits the most joyless, misogynistic, racist tag-team in US political history against a young(ish), vibrant Black woman who laughs and dances and embraces diversity (along with a PTBNL).

Biden’s move has totally disrupted the MAGA election plan (such as it was). At a rally yesterday, Trump was reduced to claiming Harris “is totally against the Jewish people” despite being married to a Jewish man, and complaining that she was disrespectful by refusing to attend Bibi ‘War Criminal’ Netanyahu’s speech before Congress–which is risible coming from an asshole who refused to attend Biden’s inauguration.

Joe Biden wasn’t my first choice for POTUS in 2020. He wasn’t even in my top five. But he’s been the most effective president in my lifetime, and he did that without calling much attention to his effectiveness. In a normal election year, Kamala Harris wouldn’t be my first choice. But she’s completely changed the dynamic of this election cycle, and she is without a doubt the most authentic candidate of this generation. I couldn’t be happier.

This kid? She’s gonna be the President of the United States of America. How great is that?

I not only feel hopeful for the 2024 election, I’m beginning to feel something approaching confidence. Of course, I was confident that Clinton would win in 2016, so I distrust my confidence. But I absolutely believe that the ONLY way Trump can win is by successfully ratfucking the election–by challenging legit vote counts, by voter suppression, by installing corrupt election officials and MAGA-friendly judges. And if SCOTUS is any measure, that’s a distinct possibility. So while I’m confident that Democrats will win the election, I’m only hopeful they’ll gain the presidency.

President Harris. I like the sound of that. If we work hard and we’re fortunate, the first conflict of the Harris administration will be whether it’s Madam President (my choice) or Madame President.

EDITORIAL NOTE: A reminder that we must dismantle the patriarchy. Pull it apart at every joint, disassemble every element, demolish every component. We must gather all those fragments, douse them in oil, and set them on fire. Gather the ashes, drop them in an acid bath. Enclose the acid in a titanium container and launch it into a distant sun. Then have tapas and a colorful rum drink with a tiny umbrella in it.

speaking of photography…

Posted on July 21, 2024 by greg

I have a complicated history with Instagram. I downloaded the app and joined 11 years ago today, on 21 July, 2013. I did it under a pseudonym–Knuckles Dobrovic–because, like every good photographer I knew, I assumed Instagram was trash and I didn’t want to be associated with it. As I wrote at the time,

We sneered at Instagram for being a cheap, easy, lazy way to turn crappy photos into images that look artsy. Not ‘artful’ or ‘artistic’ but artsy. We sneered at it because the learning curve for using Instagram is — well, it’s hardly a curve at all. It’s almost a straight line. You shoot a photo with your cell phone, you flip through a couple dozen preset filters until you find one you like, tap to apply it, and hey bingo, you have yourself an artsy photo of your drunken friends at a tacky Chinese restaurant.

I hadn’t actually looked at Instagram; I was just operating on the assumption it was trash. I had to join it in order to confirm my assumption. And hey, I was right. It was, in fact, trash. It still is trash, mostly. But eleven years ago to my surprise, I also found a healthy dose of really fine photography. All sorts of photography, from street work to portraiture to landscape to editorial work to fashion photography. There was (and still is) solid work to be found on Instagram.

I used the Knuckles Dobrovic account mainly to explore IG. But I also felt an obligation to participate, so I used it as a platform for a hastily cobbled together project. After a few months, I decided to more fully embrace IG; I created a second account under my own name. Originally, the account was devoted to square format monochrome photos. Now, of course, it’s my main IG account for all types of photography.

I continued to use the Knuckles account as a platform for random photo projects (for anybody interested, I’ll include a list and a description of those projects in an addendum at the end of this post). The last Knuckles project ended in April of 2023. I haven’t posted anything under the Knuckles account since then.

Until today. My IG anniversary. I’m starting my 8th Knuckles project. Appropriately, it’s going to be pretty similar to how I began my personal IG account. I’ve always had four simple rules for a Knuckles Dobrovic project.

It’s got to be simple (which means I won’t have to do a lot of planning or a lot of post-processing).
It’s got to be organic to my life (which means it’s something I can photograph during the course of an ordinary day — whatever that is).
It’s got to have at least one intellectual component (which is more accurately described as a pretentious bullshit element).
It’s got to be able to keep my interest over time.

So here we go. Simple: high contrast monochrome, which is made easy with my new Ricoh GR3X camera. Organic to my life: my normal flâneur walk-about style plus whatever I happen to see that catches my interest. Pretentious Bullshit Element: my ongoing fascination with the Japanese Provoke-style photography, which is NOT how I normally see the world. Keeping my interest: Well, yeah. I’ve played around with this style of photography before and I see no reason why I’ll ever stop. At some point, I may feel the need to start a 9th Knuckles project, but until then…well.

ADDENDUM: Previous Knuckles Dobrovic projects.

Things on a Table — I put a thing on a table and photographed it.

My Feet on the Earth — I took walks, stopping periodically to photograph my feet. I selected two or three of the images during a walk and created multiple exposure images.

One Hundred Appropriated Google Street Views — This was sort of an homage to Hiroshige’s ‘One Hundred Famous View of Edo’. While playing the online game GeoGuessr (which involves finding a random location based on Google Street View), I made screen captures of interesting vistas. I converted those screen grabs into square black & white images.

Slightly Dislocated — During the enforced isolation of the pandemic, I shot square format photos during my solo walks or masked errands. I diddled with the color a wee bit, digitally sliced the image in thirds, then re-arranged the pieces.

Are Bure Bampot — I’d been playing Geoguessr again, and during a break I read something about Daido Moriyama, the godfather of a photographic style called are bure bokeh, which roughly translates as “rough, coarse/crude, out of focus.” That same afternoon, on Twitter, a Scots acquaintance referred to somebody as ‘a total bampot,’ which I was told means “an idiot, a foolish person, a nutcase”. For reasons I can’t explain, the phrase are bure bampot came to me, and I decided to follow through on it. As before, I made Google Street View screen captures of scenes and locations in Scotland. This time I modified them using the are bure bokeh style.

Geoguesser Bus Stops — A bus is the most democratic form of public transport. They’re most commonly used by the poor and working classes, but the bus stops for everybody. A bus network is fundamentally simple: a series of designated routes with consistent designated arrival/departure times and stable designated boarding locations with predetermined fees. It’s a predictable, reliable, efficient dynamical transportation system in which bus stops act as fixed point attractors. Bus stops are ubiquitous; they’re everywhere because a bus network is socially elastic–the design can be stretched to fit almost any community anywhere in the world. Bus stops are both local and global.

the flâneur school of photography

Posted on July 20, 2024 by greg

There are people–lots of people–who like to name things. I know people who’ve given names to their car, who’ve named their computer, who’ve named their favorite camera. I’m not one of those people. I don’t anthropomorphize gear. A camera is just a tool. You choose the tool best suited for the job you’ve got planned.

I say that, but lawdy, I’m starting to develop a relationship with my new camera. My Ricoh GR3X and me, we’re becoming buddies.

Why? Because this camera seems to have been designed almost specifically for the way I shoot photographs. I’m not a street photographer, although I enjoy shooting street. I’m not a landscape photographer, or a fine arts photographer, or a portrait photographer; I don’t really belong to any of the more common photographic traditions. I belong to what I like to call the flâneur school of photography.

If you’re not familiar with the term, a flâneur is somebody who roams around idly observing the world while being somewhat emotionally detached from it. Somebody who’s not necessarily involved in what’s taking place around them, but is keenly aware of it. One writer described a flâneur as “an amateur detective and investigator of the city.” The term is usually applied to urban life, but it’s a philosophical approach to the world that can take place anywhere. It’s a strange nonjudgmental balance between being analytical and emotional.

(By the way, the term flâneur is French but it’s derived from the Old Norse verb flana, which meant “to wander with no purpose.” And if you’re wondering how a French word is derived from an Old Norse word, you need to read more about Vikings.)

I don’t think those guys were intentionally walking in step, but…

That’s how I shoot photographs. Hell, that’s largely how I’ve lived my life. I’m a flâneur both by nature and by training. Almost every career I’ve had involved the same basic process: observe, analyze, filter the analysis through emotion (or the emotion through analysis), then act. It’s a skill set that helped me as a medic in the military, as a counselor in the Psych/Security unit of a prison for women, certainly as a private investigator specializing in criminal defense, and even (to a lesser extent) as a teacher.

In terms of photography, being a flâneur just means noodling around, paying sharp attention to detail, and seeing stuff in terms of composition. What’s cool is that when it all comes together–the scene, the light, the moment–there’s an immediate emotion, a serotonin hit that’s generated whether you have a camera or not.

My Ricoh GR3X is ideally suited to the flâneur school of photography, partly because it’s so compact and easy to carry everywhere. I’d heard you could carry it in a regular pants pocket, but I assumed that was mostly bullshit. It’s not. I’ve done it; I’ve walked around–I’ve ridden my bike–with this unit IN MY GODDAMN POCKET. It also turns on almost immediately, which is incredibly handy. Best of all (I’m not sure this is actually the ‘best of all’ because there are so many ‘best’ things about this camera), you can shoot with one hand. Even in the manual mode, you can control all the settings you need with one hand.

Seriously, you can pull the camera out of your pocket, turn it on, compose the shot, adjust all the elements of exposure with one hand, take the shot, turn the camera off, and put it back in your pocket…and you can do all that in just a moment. Which is pretty much what I did with the photo above. As I was walking down the street I noticed the ginger cat. I stepped off to one side so as not to spook the cat, which is when I noticed the woman’s legs. Her legs were in shadow, so I had to quickly adjust the exposure to make sure they’d show up in the photo. Then a step back to include the tree and the window in the frame, and there it was. Maybe ten seconds from seeing the cat to taking the shot. One hand.

It’s not a perfect camera; I’d love for it to be weather-sealed and dust-proofed, but I’m not sure it’s possible to do that without making it bigger. It’s more important (to me, at any rate) to have a camera I can tote in my pocket than one I can shoot in the rain. There have been a couple of instances where some fill flash would have been handy; the GR3 series doesn’t have a native flash. But, again, that’s small beans.

The fact is, this camera has already allowed me to get some shots I couldn’t have done with any of my other cameras. And it’s allowed me to get some shots quicker and more easily than with my other cameras. I could have made the shot above with any of my cameras, but it would have taken longer and I’d have had to use both hands. It’s not a great photo (I shot it largely as a reminder to go back when this bar was open), but I was able to get the depth of field I wanted with a minimum of fuss. That absence of fuss is like heroin; it’s fucking addictive.

So yeah, it looks like me and the GR3X are becoming good buddies. I look forward to spending time with it.

gregfallis.com

it's this or get a real job

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