Just Do What You Want (And Of Course, Photograph It)

Hi there:)

A photo I took, called “Shadows on the Wall:”

I took this picture last summer in the middle of the night behind a government building, with my family. It was awesome because we’re a super PG group of people, and we were just loving how our shadows looked on the fence – we were doing slow motion stage combat, shadow puppets, the classics. Too fun. Then suddenly this light shot out at us; it was a security guard with a really bright flashlight. He ran over, yelling, “Hey! What are you guys doing back there?” And we’re like… “Um… shadow puppets?” He just started to laugh, either because he thought it was obvious we were lying or because he thought we were exceptionally pathetic compared to the hooligans that usually hang out behind government buildings. Anyway, totally okay with it.

So, a general photography tip: embrace your PG-ness, and don’t hide it in your pictures. You don’t have to do anything crazy or performance-art-ish or illegal (though that can be awesome too – I’ll post about pictures in illegal places in the future, I promise) and you don’t have to give up on a subject just because someone else has done something weirder with it in the past. Just do what you want and take a picture of it.

RJ

One Day, I’ll Stop And Talk to You

Today in the subway, there was this woman with her dog and they were yelling and barking about something. And I just followed everyone else, through the other turnstile and away from the scene. I don’t know what I was supposed to do – I mean, is there anything you can do in those situations? There must be. But I can’t figure it out. Or maybe I’m too scared to try. Anyway, I wrote this poem as my way of starting to work through it. Still don’t know what I’m going to do next time though.

We Ignore Crazy People in the City

They’re everywhere.

On street corners,

At the subway,

Waiting for help.

And here, we just pass by.

We call them crazy and leave them behind.

But we’re just the same.

On street corners,

At the subway,

Waiting for help.

Maybe they’re calling us crazy

And letting us go.

RJ