Tripping a Frozen Sunset, pt.2
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January 14th, 2010by Patrick – 12 great comments. Room for one more!
…continued from previous part.
Where was I again? Oh yeah, I’d been spending a Sunday afternoon staring intelligently into the sun.
At the rink I was asked to take a photo of someone with their camera, but I was sure before I took it that it would come out awful. Look, just because I’m carrying a unit don’t mean I know how to work yours. Or even necessarily want to touch it for that matter. Those awful Sonys with their awfully massive focus reticles – what the heck is in focus out of the three quarters of the screen they cover?! Don’t even get me started on the automatic exposure. *pfft*
Anyhow, I managed to extricate myself from the situation before plis-you-take-picture-me-there man (bloody immigrants!), managed to hunt me down for another pose. Upon his eagerly gesticulating insistence, it took me, like, two minutes to kinda get his Sony to shoot directly into the sun, with him in front of it as a darkened blob on the LCD. I wasn’t about to go through that again. RTFM, sucker!
That might’ve been another reason why I ended up by the docks. To get away from that kind of responsibility. Imagine when they get home, “Oh yeah, here’s the photo that nimrod took. Look at this shit, that my asshole or something? Fucking useless Torontonians, I’m going to interweb this until I’m blue in the face.” Presto, Patrick singlehandedly quashes tourism in the city. Toronto City Life becomes Toronto City Killer, I’m forcibly ejected from my flat, and Ollie leaves turds of disgust on my garbage pillow in the alley. Damn.
In the solitude of the docks, this is not a concern.
I think it was at this point that I got that far-out feeling. Not only were the ice heads still gliding gently across the ice, but the boat also added a river Styx vibe to the place. And tucked in farther along the shore, a frozen beach:
Cold, yes. Serene, also yes. Can’t have one without the other, I suppose. Or so I supposed. For no sooner had I emerged from the canopy of neglected metal protuberances than I hit upon a roving pack of vacationing photographers. !!
This time there was no salvation. They were three Japanese women proudly brandishing Sonys, thrusting them at me menacingly with smiles and slight bows. I knew this would be the final encounter.
... with pictures
... with sounds
... with videos
... with opinions
... that's shorter
... that's longer
January 14th, 2010 10:11 pm
Hope those guys don't see you again the next time…:)
I am so looking forward to what happened to the three Japanese woman.
Sony's are really bad. I had one a few years back, which had trouble with the lens getting in. I had to manually push it in each time. "It was both manual control and Manual push back inside"…lol
January 15th, 2010 1:27 pm
Well, Mr. Stupid, I had my first "lens error" out there at the docks. She still recovered gracefully (the camera just reboots itself automatically), but this is literally the first problem I've had with any Canon camera. It's not that I hate Sonys, or any other brand for that matter, I just don't like the way they function. Also, the little pocket units are good for taking pictures of friends in front of stuff but push-button manual (the Canon has a job-wheel), is *way* too slow to capture stuff as it's happening.
January 15th, 2010 2:24 am
i have to agree re: sony digital cameras — my experience with the one i had was not great. the camera was fine when it worked well, but it often had problems and the lovely folks at sony simply would not admit that it was a lemon and made me jump through hoops to get it fixed (which it never was).
btw, that image with the umbrellas is a beautiful capture. good work.
January 15th, 2010 1:29 pm
Thanks, rws :) I also find Sony anything to be unnecessarily expensive. Their Vaio line, for example — seem like decent enough computers but for those specs you could probably buy something at half-price the proce. It's what I think of Apple too.
January 15th, 2010 11:05 am
Terrific photos! I especially like the blown out sunshine that closely resembles a nuclear detonation. Being that close to an actual atomic explosion would have of course been your last encounter and spared you the run-in with the shutterbugs from the East. Land of the Rising Sun, indeed.
January 15th, 2010 1:45 pm
Thanks, wngl. Glad you were able to finally comment (my apologies!)
Funny you should say that about the sun — I believe that it's literally a massive nuclear explosion. Unfortunately, the Japanese are among the best-equipped to deal with that kind of thing :(
January 15th, 2010 5:26 pm
Awesome shots, well done!!!
January 17th, 2010 8:31 pm
Thanks, Man Over Board.
January 15th, 2010 6:46 pm
Your pictures are once again, fantastically beautiful. I always look forward to your blog. Just wanted to put that out there.
So thanks.
January 17th, 2010 8:31 pm
Thanks, Kato. Without someone to enjoy them, there's not much point :)
January 17th, 2010 3:17 pm
the number 66 is good luck in some chinese/japanese cultures. Yet the number '666' is bad luck for some people here.
Ditto with "13" .. some view it as good luck, while others don't and avoid it like the Plague. .. which still doesn't explain why bikers everywhere come on Friday the 13th to Port Dover, Ontario… :)
Infamous former President Ronald Reagan was born feb 13th..
January 17th, 2010 8:39 pm
Aha! Well there you go, Karl … that pretty much sums up the numbers game! Reagan … history's greatest monster, but somehow still better than the Bushes. I know that doesn't make much sense, and I don't think it needs to :)