Here are some more that I forgot to post…

Just a few days ago, my cellphone display turned to snow, making it impossible to see anyone’s number (or text them). I was forced to dig up an old phone, one that has a camera of such low quality that the images look more like paintings than photographs. Which means they respond quite well to treatment with Photoshop filters. The filters cover up the extreme pixellation with a bit of this and that and some of them even turn out to be pretty. You can see some examples below.

I’ve been posting cellphone pics over at Red Bat Photography for a while, and I’ve been thinking about moving the whole cellphone pics concept over here to my personal site. That seems like an especially good idea now that I’m using this resurrected phone. The cellphone pics aren’t really indicative of anything about my work with Red Bat. They’re more of a personal hobby/addiction.

As Red Bat takes on a life of its own, I’m becoming more aware of the fact that I am not synonymous with my photography business. Red Bat is way more professional and sane than I am, uses better equipment, wears the right clothes for the occasion. Red Bat wants to make that photo of you come out perfectly exposed and in focus, whereas I personally might have other priorities.

Two years of hard labor have gone into getting Red Bat Photography up and running. This moment, the one happening right now, seems like a perfect time to detach from all of that frantic laboring and remember who I am outside the boundaries of commerce. I’ve been aided in this recollection by some recent highly productive journaling sessions (and by the way, in case you’re wondering, the Earl Grey iced tea at Caffe Pergolesi will kick your diary-scribbling into high gear). It stuns me to realize that ever since Red Bat started, up until these last few weeks, I’ve spent most of my journal-writing time making notes for Red Bat, planning slideshows, thinking up shoots. It was an obsession. Meanwhile, my poor journal has cried out for me to bring back the confessional drivel that makes writing so satisfying.

Actually, it’s only about 50 percent confessional drivel. The other 50 percent is bizarro philosophizing. I’ve got a huge stack of these notebooks. My sister is supposed to burn them all if I get kidnapped by aliens.

If you were like me, you spent a lot of time reading poetry in college. And you may have, like me, memorized and analyzed the hell out of a Wallace Stevens poem called “Thirteen Way of Looking at a Blackbird.”

What’s that? You didn’t? Hm. Well, this isn’t about you, is it? Is today YOUR birthday? Is YOUR name Rebecca? Are YOU posting in your personal blog for the first time in a year? I didn’t THINK so.

If you don’t know about “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” I suggest you do some research. It’s a freaking wonderful poem, people. It had a powerful impact on me and many other English majors. It still baffles me and gives me the creeps and makes me feel sad and hopeful all at once. Go read the original poem here. And if you want a taste of what we did with this poem in college, read this Wikipedia entry.

Now go reread my Field Guide to Your Boyfriend post.

I’m going to transform this marvel of modern poetry by changing every instance of the word “blackbird” to “boyfriend” and we shall see what happens. This is my present to all of you on my birthday.

Oh, one more thing: what’s nice about being me is that I know people who can do weird, weird stuff on command. After the poem ends, you get to see something my friend Patrick made specifically for this post, even though he didn’t know what the post was about yet. He was just following my mysterious directions. Thanks Patrick!

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Your Boyfriend

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of your boyfriend.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three boyfriends.

III
Your boyfriend whirled in the autumn winds.
He was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and your boyfriend
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
Your boyfriend whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of your boyfriend
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how your boyfriend
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That your boyfriend is involved
In what I know.

IX
When your boyfriend flew out of sight,
He marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of boyfriends
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For boyfriends.

XII
The river is moving.
Your boyfriend must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
Your boyfriend sat
In the cedar-limbs.

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 33 years old.

I’m too tired to write any more, about anything. The past six months or so have been all about Red Bat Photography and endless work. Every day I see more signs of exhaustion on my face and in the way my mind skitters from one topic to the next like a hamster on amphetamines.

Which is why I’m so surprised when I wake up still excited about whatever I happen to be working on. I don’t think I’ve ever worked this hard on anything without becoming thoroughly sick of it. But with photography, there’s always more to learn, and the more skilled I get, the more interesting it becomes. It’s not just the artistic aspect that I enjoy- the business part is fun, too. I wasn’t expecting that when I started this gig.

The human relations angle is the most fascinating of all: how people react to being in front of the camera, how they respond to seeing photographs of themselves, and the many, varied purposes they find for the images we create together.

But dang, it’s a lot of work.

I relax by spending time with ever-more-beloved-nephew Jasper, who has four teeth now and will celebrate his first birthday next month. Joye took this picture of the two of us last week. The hand you see belongs to Steve. That red thing is a voice-distorting megaphone, not that Jasper’s voice needs amplification. He’s known for his high-decibel squawking.

After several years of intense grieving, it has felt good to take a break from constant reflection and simply do things. But I miss writing. I miss daydreaming, too. I hope I’ll get a chance to do both again before too long.

Click to embiggen.

Chew cardamom pods and stare at the screen; strain eyeballs to keep up with the rendering; end up in weird but entertaining states of mind; drink PBR in a clear goblet with ice cubes stacked under a plump slice of lime; enjoy the possibilities!

Oh, and listen to the birds chirping channel on Birdsong Radio, 128 kbps, Live Dawn Chorus Relaxation.