I’m running away to join the, ummm, photographers

I did a fun thing at lunch today. A fun and daring thing. (And my finding it daring just shows what an antisocial, neurotic loon I am.) I went to a "Lunch and Learn" program at our campus arts center. They have these pretty often, and I’ve never been, but I couldn’t miss this one since it was about their photography competition that I’ve entered the last two years. Entered to no avail and never even gotten honorable mention although mine were WAY WAY BETTER than… oh, sorry. I’m back now! And I’m not bitter, not at ALL!! Actually, although last year’s winners did have me wondering what the hell kind of yardstick they were using, since apparently all you had to do to win, say, the Parkway category was to submit a picture of the Viaduct that’s just exactly like the 10,000 other pictures of the Viaduct that are everywhere you turn around here.. this year’s winners were really good. I approved of most of their choices. Despite being even MORE peeved because they had something like THIRTY winners and honorable mentions this time and they still didn’t even pick me for an honorable mention and WAAAAHHHH!!!!!. Today I found out they had 650 submissions. So, okay, I’m not so bitter anymore and I may even enter it again next year. Oh, and it’s open to professionals and amateurs both, which I always found odd, but according to this guy the winners were 40% pro and 60% not-pro.

I was very glad I went, though. And believe me, I had all kinds of reasons to NOT go. Baker B wasn’t interested, so I went by myself. Which meant I got to listen to myself obsess all morning about it. "What if I’m the only person there??? What if there are so many people there I can’t get a seat? What if I have to sit in the middle of the row and I have a panic attack and have to escape and I can’t because I’m hemmed in by all these people and although I’ve never had a panic attack in my LIFE what if this is the day I decide to have one???!!?? What if nobody else shows up and the speaker and I have to stare at each other for an hour because I can’t think of any good questions to ask? (Other than, "WHY DON’T YOU EVER PICK ME???", of course.) What if it’s boooooring and I can’t leave without being rude? What am I going to take for lunch? Is it okay to come without lunch? Will I be weird if I just drink something? (I did stop off for a sandwich to take with me, and then found this is the ONE "Lunch and Learn" where we weren’t sitting in a lecture room, but were instead standing around with nowhere to sit anything so it was impossible to actually eat my lunch. Amusingly two other people who had never been to one did the same thing. So we drank our drinks and carried our lunches back to the office.) What if they realize who I am and say, in front of everybody, "Oh, it’s YOU! You’re a TERRIBLE photographer wanta-be, you and your dinky little cheap digital! Please stop clogging up our submissions, looooooser!!!"   

It’s maddening being me. But I’m happy to say I didn’t let all my ten zillion what-if’s stand in my way, and I went to the lecture. And it was really interesting and very informative. The guy giving the lecture is one of the judges, and is also one of the two campus photographers. He talked about the mechanics of judging and how he doesn’t always like what the other judges like and he pointed out several photos that he would have either ranked way higher or lower than they ended up being, and why. I was quite pleased that he didn’t like the very few ones I didn’t care for. I also discovered that the campus media lab will make large prints for a reasonable price. Not cheap like the ones I get from Walgreens, but reasonable, and I bet they look much more true to what I see on screen with my digitals. And quite a few of the winners were odd and unusual photos. One was taken with an antique camera, another with a Holga, which is a relative of my beloved Lomo. They were very artsy. And he DIDN’T like the overly Photoshopped one, which pleased me.

It was actually kind of like having a little mini-photography lesson. It made me want to go out and be a real live photographer.

And I did not want to come back here. Where the air is rife with tension and anxiety and stress. Yesterday we found out via a campus-wide email that Insane Boss is now our permanent boss. It seemed to all of us that the polite and professional and courteous thing for Insane Boss to do would have been meet with us and give us the news before the email went out. As if we were, oh, a TEAM maybe. Like, together in this, and not just the domestic help which is how we’ve all come to feel. She, in fact, has yet to mention it to us, and none of us have said anything to her about it. Now it’s starting to just seem weird and awkward.

And I have much work to do, and much licensure to process, and I need to get back at it. And since I’m all full of photo-yearning, I’ll sign off with some recent ones. Although they’re not NEARLY arty and cool enough for me now.

Could it actually be SPRING???

This was in Blowing Rock – I feel like I have to critique everything now, so I’ll note that it’s weirdly crooked which I don’t like, but I do love the moss in the stream. And the general greenness of it.

Also in Blowing Rock. The Oz Shop, sadly, went out of business recently. For several days the people setting up the new shop had this very cute little dog in the window. Now he’s been replaced by mannequins and shoes, so I’m glad I took his picture when I did.

The Christmas Tree farm near our house.