The Clerk and the Postmaster

I don’t suppose it matters much to him, the job-provided wardrobe. It takes the pressure off. I should ask.

And while I’m at it, I should pose the question to her from a slightly different angle: did you think of today’s photographs as you dressed this morning?

He did not smile for the first five years. Lord knows I smiled. Then I tried sarcasm.

She, her first day.

He saw me in my suit one day last year. She did not. They talked about it for days.

Both are good people.

I go to the Post Office every day of the week except Sundays. Neither of them work on Saturdays.

I got a bit fancy with these shots, removing all but the blue and red from the images, and bumping those two colors up anywhere from 10% to 20%.

I started photographing the pair last Tuesday. I planned on taking the last of a series today. And I had another question for her: Why no uniform?

He said she was in meetings all day in Portland. He also remarked about my attempt to get candid shots.

I had given some thought to the other clerk, equally pleasant.

With a genuine smile. But uniformed.

******

I had two, maybe three problems with this series. The light from outside and the overheads were problematic. The room is shallow, which made it difficult to step back far enough for wider shots. The last photo of two people is an attempt to remedy both of these issues. It also adds some much-needed variety. The third problem is one that continues to haunt me: taking my time to get the shots right. In this instance, however, I cannot be too harshly criticized. These people are working, and I did not want to interfere with that. I worked around and between customers, and thought it best to get in and out as quickly as possible. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. Nor some kook dogging them with a camera.

Crossing the fence again

I went back to the Widow's woods with the creek in mind. Plus, I wanted to try some new camera settings on some earlier attempted shots. A little video too, which I will playing with tonight.

Nature is seamless.

Mixed messages

This week’s photo assignment is the clothed body. I had some ideas, older ideas of capturing some attire in town. But, it is a small town, which is a bit daunting, not wanting gossip or close scrutiny, even if, for the most part, these people are strangers; and besides, most of the people walking around are teenagers, and I worry about legal ages and such. Still, I must say, to see men in near rags or sweat-stained work clothes, and the kids going goth or skate punk or hip hop, I see stories told, everyday stories of frailties (as that is where and how I am drawn); yet I am not confident enough in my camera or a mustered gregariousness to ask if I can see them again, just as they were, uninterrupted, before the social mask was installed to receive my query. So, I look elsewhere.

This is the first study.

JW has asked that we share the failed attempts as well as the final products. This to diagnose better, to advise a path forward. This patient has a long recovery, for his ailments are many. I continue to frame poorly, rush myself unnecessarily, and suffer in presbyoptic proportions. Consequently, I end up cropping away a lot of pixels that would have otherwise provided a sizable portrait; I neglect to fully bracket a shot; and, I cannot tell when a photo is slightly blurred until it is up on the big screen. Even though I may enter the field with confidence, I often find out too late that I have left my maps and compass behind. Thank God for digital cameras and PhotoShop.

 

Atrocious light

 Left side is dead air.

These crutches, of course, are equivocal to the process and product, and it shows. What might be good ideas at the start lack certain production qualities upon realization no matter how much tweaking is done. Inasmuch, I am left with the hope the notion behind the attempted images is of sufficient interest to encourage the viewer to look beyond, even if to means to dim her own lights of expectations.

The clichés are rampant: clothes make the man; dress for success; and on and on. Yet, there is always some truth for them to become rubber-stamped so, and from there I proceed.

A few weeks a go a friend asked a question about a photo attached to a résumé, and if that might make a difference in a job search, specifically mine. How would I go about such an item in a manner that would adequately, if not accurately, represent me? A difficult task, indeed, even for the inner being that I should know better given the intimate nature of our relationship. Down right complicated. Unsettling. Even absurd. And since I am looking for a teaching position in an (any) art department, it might just work.

Assuming the position for Final Critiques

Back to the woods

It being another partly sunny day, DW and I headed off to the woods to take some pictures. I also wanted DW to see this beautiful little holler.

Upon our arrival, we heard and then saw a four-wheeler and its driver moving about on the hill, removing little pink strips of plastic from trees. We waved and he came over to us. Although cleared with the widow, we wanted to make sure we wouldn't be interrupting his business. We chatted a while, and eventually the conversation got around to the big stump. There are no hand holds or springboard cuts visible because the tree came down with the help of a strong wind some fifteen years ago. He told us of his plan to put a tin roof over the remainder as both he and his mother as children had played under the old growth's canopy.

Saying our good-byes, DW and I set to work, evidence of such you will see tomorrow; but in the meantime, I intend to show you something else.

This is an ant mound. The home of the thatch, or mound ant. There are several in this woods, and according to our friend Lucinda, these ants have resided here as long as she remembers. They collect fir leaves and twigs to build their mounds. I must admit, on my first visit to these woods I asked myself why someone would go to the bother to rake up piles of leaves and twigs.

Up close and personal:

Gone bad good

Unexpected, yet poker related

I was the first to arrive at R’s game. He had told me there would be a cash game at 6:00 and a tourney at 7:30. I’m dead money in a tourney (even though I played to the best of my ability, this night was no different), yet I also feel that as an act of goodwill, it isn’t a bad idea to sit in the tourney every once in a while, and if I am a bit lucky, I might be able to pay for it from my cash game winnings.

The next player didn’t arrive for another half hour, which gave R and I some time to chat about his business (changed the name and status to an LLC), his birthday trip to the local casino (he won big), and show me the 500 new chips he bought (14 gms).

R already had quite a large amount of chips, easily another 750 white, blue, red, green, yellow, black… you know, the usual home game variety. The new ones were classier, and in a different color scheme, or rather, more pastel. A birthday present to himself?

“We were short $40 in the late cash game payout last time, and $100 short the time before. Now we’ll use the old chips for the tourney and these for cash.”

Very disconcerting. Someone had been palming chips from the tourney table and cashing out of the cash game with them. But who?

R didn’t know, yet he had a short list that he discreetly didn’t share. I must admit I had a list forming in my head as well. The problem, of course, is getting the goods on someone, which would be nigh impossible with the new chip arrangement. Add to the dilemma that for the most part the people who come to R’s game are pretty much the same folks each week, and it’s been that way for two or three years. We’re supposed to be friends; sure, friends who take each other’s money, but we look each other in the eye when we do it.

Eventually, enough people showed up so we could start a cash game. (I made a little money in the hour we played, but it was just a short run that quickly dried up.) Of course, people commented on the new chips and R told the story. People were aghast. Who would do such a thing? Certainly no one who was sitting there at that moment.

I listened carefully. One remark stood out, and I made note. It was a remark, unlike the others, made as a subtle plea of “not guilty,” and therefore, a confession. It was a horrible irony,  and from a person so far from my initial suspects that I tried to put it out of my mind.

People who know each other in an intimate group talk freely in the absence of the person who becomes a topic of conversation. My contact with these people I play poker with is limited to the time I spend at the table. Still, I have learned much about whose marriage is in trouble, who has a gambling or drinking problem, or who is in hock up to their eyebrows. On my drive home, I remembered a conversation about the person in the last situation. Yes, the very same.

How can I be certain? I can’t without incriminating myself for past misdeeds, regardless of an expired statute of limitation. Though from destitution more than debt, I have known such desperation, so I may very well be projecting. Or, it takes one to know one.

It took a lot for me to write that last paragraph, but it is the truth, or at least a reasonable facsimile. We all have done things we are not proud of, no? And this brings me back to sitting with R on his couch as we discussed the thievery. He was upset but not incredulous, and there was no talk of canceling the game. He merely took steps to remedy the situation in a way that would, hopefully, insure that it wouldn’t happen again. After all, these were friends, and in some instances, very good friends.

The times...

From time to time it bothers me that I don’t post much poker-related material, and what with the game being up there in the bigger print, one would think that it would be a subject more often than it is. After all, didn’t this thing start out with NLHE as a focus? It is a good thing, I suppose, that so many of my poker-playing readers are proficient with a camera. And, as Mojo has commented in the past, I suspect that most readers don’t hit this site to see a rehash of a hand. Not anymore, anyway, and that’s fine.

Other readers have little or no interest in poker. They are long-time friends, or, more recently, a few photogs, writers and artists with whom I’ve established relationships. They hit the site to read my (for the most part) daily thoughts or frequent my images.

I am either having a déjà vu or I have written something similar to this in the past. Yeah, it’s been on my mind for some time.

To tell the truth, I haven’t been playing much poker lately. “Rush” on FTP  doesn’t count. But “much” is a relative term. I’m down to an hour or so a day. For some, that might seem like a lot, the daily aspect. And even though I am planning on going to R’s home game tonight, the last time I had planned on going, I bailed at the last minute. I opted to stay home and read from the pile of journals and art periodicals I have next to my desk.

This shift, as my buddy Akileos would probably agree, is a good thing. I quit reading, and even making art for a couple years. I suppose it happens to a lot of folks, and I had my reasons, just as I have my reasons for returning to those interests, nay, those passions.

Still, if I do go to R’s tonight, I will most likely want to share thoughts about the game and company, and will stay awake into the wee hours to write about it. So, as long as poker remains in my life, I will write about it.

This, of course, brings us to farming. Again, about an hour a day. These days, aside from the occasional dead animal and egg count, there’s not much to report. And even when we were growing stuff, well, I’d venture to say that out of the 658 posts in the last year and year and a half, maybe 5% have been farm related.

Still, one thing that comes across loud and clear though the archives is that DW and I live out in the country. (Cue the C&W music.)  And as I look at my blog page now, I read the little profile blurb: “I live on some acreage in a beautiful part of the world. Sometimes that is enough.” I don’t think that needs any revision.

I suppose I could write more about others in the area who do farm. For instance, I just got off of the phone with Lucinda. They are lambing right now. Today saw the yews spew three sets of twins and a set of triplets. I offered to help, and was declined. I almost asked if I could come photograph the process, and while I am certain some readers might find the subsequent photo essay interesting, I cannot in good conscience stand around with a camera while others do all of the work.  It just ain’t done.

I called Lucinda to get the phone number of the widow who owns the property I photographed last week. I wanted to clear another visit or three before I went traipsing back in over the barbed wire. I want to follow up on TM’s query, plus Lucinda told me about an aspect of the area that had peaked my interest on my initial visit and merits further investigation. And, I have an idea for next week’s photo class assignment.

Of course, you, my dear readers, will be the first, and perhaps only, people to know/see what I am teasing you with in the above.

But I’m getting off the subject: we don’t farm anymore, unless you count all of the stuff that needs to be done to this place before we pass it on to someone else who will. And if I’m not going to get up close and personal with farmers while they work, do I get rid of that word in the title? And if so, what, if anything do I replace it with?

Such petty considerations, perhaps. Things change. Get over it. But this is what I do, think about these things. I want to get it right, and the title of this blog should be no less accurate as the intended focus of a photo I take.

The above paragraph would make for a pretty smooth transition into considering the art-related aspects of the blog, would it not? It would, except for you and I both know that above all else in my day-to-day, this “avocation” I hold most dear and would be the last to go. Yet, I am reluctant to make this space solely an appendix to my art website.

And therein lies the answer: a title indicating not particular avocations, but their genesis.