oh, if only I were back at the house...
I had a few hours to kill here in town so I figured, why not stay on campus and get some photos from the last week of August onto Flickr? Great idea, I thought. So I came into the computer lab, put my disc in the machine and copied everything over to the hard drive (they have a separate partition for temporary use that is presumably wiped as soon as someone else logs back in).
But then I was rotating my pictures one at a time in the picture and fax viewer, so that wasn’t the same as before.
Then I looked around me. Most people were working on papers or just surfing. I’d be the only one sorting photos.
But the thing that really stopped me is that I realized that this was a private activity. I didn’t want people to walk by and look at, say, a photo of me in overalls - dear no, not until it’s published, and in some sort of context! And the myriad of pictures I took at Mill River - I’d look like a goof sorting through all those. (“Hmm, do I keep the underexposed shot of the sand trap, or the overexposed shot of the sand trap?”) I also have a tendency to talk to myself as I’m doing the work, and break out into sudden fits of laughter.
Anyone who’s ever tried creative writing will sympathize for the need for privacy, and I had no idea the same urge would creep up again during the seemingly unrelated activity of sorting photos.
So I ended up putting everything away and promising myself that I’d do this later, at home, somehow. I get a lot of reading to do these days, but it’s no trouble so far to keep up, just an effort, so the pictures will come in somewhere.
For those interested, I just checked out Paul Lutus’ latest adventures in Alaska. It’s more of the same great stuff, although I wish there was more. I enjoy reading about his mechanical breakdowns and related difficulties, which come vividly to life thanks to his sardonic wit.
But then I was rotating my pictures one at a time in the picture and fax viewer, so that wasn’t the same as before.
Then I looked around me. Most people were working on papers or just surfing. I’d be the only one sorting photos.
But the thing that really stopped me is that I realized that this was a private activity. I didn’t want people to walk by and look at, say, a photo of me in overalls - dear no, not until it’s published, and in some sort of context! And the myriad of pictures I took at Mill River - I’d look like a goof sorting through all those. (“Hmm, do I keep the underexposed shot of the sand trap, or the overexposed shot of the sand trap?”) I also have a tendency to talk to myself as I’m doing the work, and break out into sudden fits of laughter.
Anyone who’s ever tried creative writing will sympathize for the need for privacy, and I had no idea the same urge would creep up again during the seemingly unrelated activity of sorting photos.
So I ended up putting everything away and promising myself that I’d do this later, at home, somehow. I get a lot of reading to do these days, but it’s no trouble so far to keep up, just an effort, so the pictures will come in somewhere.
For those interested, I just checked out Paul Lutus’ latest adventures in Alaska. It’s more of the same great stuff, although I wish there was more. I enjoy reading about his mechanical breakdowns and related difficulties, which come vividly to life thanks to his sardonic wit.