Friday, November 21, 2008
San Francisco - Travels Without My Camera
...once stateside, I soon realised, SF was a tougher challenge than I could have imagined. From the straight-up grandeur of the Golden Gate to the calligraphic chaos of Chinatown, from the Tex-Mex melee of Mission, to the venerable Victoriana of Nob Hill, California's hipster capital is a very lonely place without your digital camera. And it's not just the beautiful stuff that begs to be photographed either, it's the crassness and kitsch too: the pirate themed cutlery shop called 'Here be knives,' the hick tourists posing for their obligatory Golden-Gate-in-the-background shot and trying so hard not to be discomfited by the adjacent gay couple...Believe me, when you've just quit smoking, you can smell tobacco everywhere.
Moreover, I started to notice how many other people were taking photos really badly - dammit, I was just itching to jump in and say 'No, you don't want to do that...' For instance there was this guy desperately trying to take that perfect but perfectly dull-photo of Alcatraz. Yet just to his left a grossly obese couple were walking a pair of greyhounds in front of no less than three fast food outlets. It was a great all American shot, yet it was also quintessentially SF (for they were lesbians). And here my man with the flashy Olympus was, squandering his energies on replicating a postcard.
Worse still, for someone trying to get the photographic monkey off his back, temptation was everywhere. DIGITIAL CAMERAS - ONLY $39! screamed a sign; I have to admit, I was tempted... Or how about a disposable camera? Just the one, go on. Or even the camera in my phone? I found myself reaching for that several times. But the pictures are so awful it's no substitute - a bit like drinking cough syrup when you really want heroin...
Continue reading Travels without My Camera
0 comments
...once stateside, I soon realised, SF was a tougher challenge than I could have imagined. From the straight-up grandeur of the Golden Gate to the calligraphic chaos of Chinatown, from the Tex-Mex melee of Mission, to the venerable Victoriana of Nob Hill, California's hipster capital is a very lonely place without your digital camera. And it's not just the beautiful stuff that begs to be photographed either, it's the crassness and kitsch too: the pirate themed cutlery shop called 'Here be knives,' the hick tourists posing for their obligatory Golden-Gate-in-the-background shot and trying so hard not to be discomfited by the adjacent gay couple...Believe me, when you've just quit smoking, you can smell tobacco everywhere.
Moreover, I started to notice how many other people were taking photos really badly - dammit, I was just itching to jump in and say 'No, you don't want to do that...' For instance there was this guy desperately trying to take that perfect but perfectly dull-photo of Alcatraz. Yet just to his left a grossly obese couple were walking a pair of greyhounds in front of no less than three fast food outlets. It was a great all American shot, yet it was also quintessentially SF (for they were lesbians). And here my man with the flashy Olympus was, squandering his energies on replicating a postcard.
Worse still, for someone trying to get the photographic monkey off his back, temptation was everywhere. DIGITIAL CAMERAS - ONLY $39! screamed a sign; I have to admit, I was tempted... Or how about a disposable camera? Just the one, go on. Or even the camera in my phone? I found myself reaching for that several times. But the pictures are so awful it's no substitute - a bit like drinking cough syrup when you really want heroin...
Continue reading Travels without My Camera
