Smile! I'm taking your picture

I wanted to set aside for the moment my commentary on engineering girl's ensuing fall to talk about something else that I've been doing lately. Which happens to be photography.

I've been working for a DJ company for the past six months, and it has been an experience to say the least. Since I've joined this company, I've moved from lowly grunt to all around goto guy for any critical task that must be done without error. I do everything but spin the music or direct the guests on what to do. In that time, I've discovered that I have had and still have an eye for photography.

As a kid, I received a fisher price camera that used a 110 cartridge as a birthday present. It was blue with black rubberized ends. I had received it a year or two before I moved out to Long Island. It had a candy bar style flash that fired its ten (five on one half, then you flipped to get the other five) flashes consecutively.

I remember carrying it everywhere with me, trying to decide whether or not something was worth taking pictures since my parents impressed upon me how expensive it was to develop these pictures. Especially since it was coming out of my meager allowance. I only stopped using it when the mechanism finally broke and I couldn't take pictures any more.

After that, I took a photography class where I learned how to shoot picutres using a 35 mm camera and develop black and white photos. I also remember that there was my father's very old 35 mm camera that he had bought while on tour in Europe. He had stopped using it because the shutter didn't work all the time. I tried my hand with it, but because the shutter didn't always work, I didn't stick with it for long.

While in college, I moved into digital cameras using a Sony camera that had a built in floppy drive. I must have filled hundreds of floppies with 640x480 resolution sized pictures. I even managed to sneak* onto an air field and snap pictures of the Blue Angel squadron. I even grabbed some great shots of them taking off on the runway as I stood on the service road beside the runway. All I can tell you is that four F-18's taking off at that close a range is positively deafening. (*This was many years before September 11th, so I only risked trespassing charges and I only had to worry about security, not M-16 toting MPs, if I were to be caught. Fortunately, the statute of limitations allows me to admit it now.)

There were several other cameras from that period until I started this job, but you get the idea that I've been taking pictures since I was a kid. So, we move back to the present time, where I am still taking pictures and now, I am even being paid to take them. Best of all, I still enjoy taking the pictures.

During the past weekend, I was doing what my company calls a live simulcast. I run around, taking about 100 pictures and then project them onto a video screen for the guests to observe themselves on a big screen. Usually, these pictures are displayed during slow sections of the party, like when they're eating dinner.

As the slideshow was running, I was standing next to the professional photographer the hosts had hired to capture the event on film while waiting for the cake cutting ceremony to begin. He turned to me and asked me if I had taken the pictures on the screen. I replied in the affirmative and he then said: "You take better pictures than some candidmen I've worked with."

For those who don't know, candidmen are photographers who don't pose their subjects when they take the pictures. They take, for lack of a better word, candid photos of what is going on at the moment during an event. The photographer I was talking to also did this. I saw that as a great compliment, since I don't really make a living taking pictures.

It has caused me to reconsider what I have been doing lately. For the past few months, I've been essentially killing myself to make ends meet, all the while going to school full time with the hopes of getting a four year degree. In fact, I've had an upper respitory infection for the past two weeks, and it continues to linger because I can't take enough time out to sleep as much as I would need to get back to full health.

The reason for my reconsideration is this: A candidman makes $300-$7500 (that's not a typo) a night snapping pictures and then providing either a CD with pictures or photographic prints of various sizes. Right now, I bring home, every week, a little bit more than the worse candidman does in one night.

It doesn't take a very bright person to do the math on which brings in the better pay. And apparently, my photographic instincts are good enough to be better than "some candidmen" as well. So, I am rethinking my employment plans. Unfortunately, I've discovered a financial roadblock. I've investigated the pricing of the equipment I will need to buy if I were even semi-serious about taking this path and the cost is a bit above $3500, or just about two fifths of my tuition each year.

There's no denying that I have to consider this option as seriously as possible, if for no other reason than to free me from the chains of working fifty hours a week while going to school. I am not slated to graduate until the end of next fall without any interuptions. Do I take off a semester so that I can pay for the equipment? Do I wait until summer?

She's in a relationship? Really?

If you read my last post, it's possible that I might have sounded a bit forlorn over a friend's attempt at gaining some happiness. And I don't deny that a small part of me is unhappy about the current situation. However, I intend to go into those reasons in another post. (See? I plan on another post so soon after this one! *grin* I just didn't say when.)

Apparently, since the start of my friend's budding romance, for those who know the both of us, speaking of her relationship in my presence has become taboo. I didn't hide my interest in engineering girl, but I also left her a lot of room to make her own decision about where this might go. I find it a bit amusing that my friends, out of deference for my feelings, have not spoken to me about her and her new beau.

With my strong personality, my presence can easily dominate a room. So, when I am feeling low, it can be much like a rain cloud hanging over all of our heads. Since I won't deny this girl her happiness, I've made a point of mentioning her romance to each of our mutual friends and then asking what they thought of the relationship. Each and every single one of them has demurred to comment.

At best, they would agree that these two did appear to be in a relationship. One even went so far as to say that he was pretending not to notice that there was anything going on. I can only shake my head and wonder at it all. I'm far too perceptive not to notice the small actions of endearment that those in relationships often share. To me, her actions were like hanging up a 40 foot tall billboard in front of my face. I would be blind not to see it.

What I do hope against is that she may have entered into this relationship just to get a reaction out of me. I am old enough to understand that a woman isn't a possesion you fight over. For if she was fought over and her affection won, she would not be the type of person I need in my life. This woman would be someone who would demand constant attention and I am not the person who would give those overt displays of affection very often.

In fact, I would be much more pleased to discover, if ever a situation arose where I did fight over a girl, she would slap us both for being silly and tell us that she wasn't interested in either of us for attempting to duke it out over her. This is the type of woman I want. Someone down to earth, who has an upbeat personality, and knows what she wants. (Which happens to be me, of course. ;)

So, while I hope she is happy in her new relationship, I have to hold back my reservations about it and strike a path between what I feel for her and how our friendship will remain strong when she finally falls. For she will fall. And those reasons will be part of a new post that I might even get written up by next week.

Don't know what you've got until it's gone

Alright, alright. I admit it. I am jealous. There's no use in denying it anymore. As is usually the case, you generally don't want something until it is no longer yours to have.

It's a bit vague, so I should (and will) explain a bit better. As some of the people who have been reading for a while, I've been writing about several females that have expressed interest in me lately. I've been in a "wait and see" mode because of several reasons of my own.

It has been said that feeling regret is a sign that wisdom has been gained. In the matters dealing with women, I think I must be one of the wisest men on this planet (or the greatest fool). So what, if I ignored the advice of people who have suggested that I go and ask the girl out. After the last episode, rushing into things hasn't been a good idea for me.

You all remember engineering girl. She is one amongst the many women I have met in my life who not only holds her own in field dominated by men, but also has the intellect to master the subject matter on her own without relying on her uniqueness. (For those who don't get it, she's the only female in a room full of guys.) She's one of those people who isn't fazed by the attention she garners either.

As the semester started, one of the guys in my class that I hadn't met before made a concerted effort to get to know her better. Since this wasn't the first time that a guy had tried to be more than friendly with her, I didn't concern myself at all. Little did I know about the advantages he had. Those advantages consisted of being able to speak her native tongue, looking like a personal trainer and having the willingness to ask her for help. (There is, unfortunately, no way that I could ever counterfeit the appearance of not knowing the subject matter, so this one is a big advantage, as I well know.)

Instead of the usual polite conversation that centered around school work before she gravitated back to me, she was receptive to his advances. She spent the next half hour talking to him in a foreign language that I couldn't understand. As the days continued, he would make a point of speaking to her in their shared native language on matters I could only begin to guess at, and I could do nothing but try to ignore it.

In the past few weeks, I have watched her share long conversations with him, share meals with him, laugh at his quiet jokes, and when we received assignments back, show her grades to him first. I tried listening to music loudly and focusing on my work to avoid being distracted as these two budding love birds create their new relationship together. The only problem is that the random song that came on when I turned it up happened to be Mandy by Barry Mannilow. Ouch.

Helplessly, I've watched her increase the time she spends with him, and seen her waiting for him to leave class so that she can walk with him, all the while, conversing in their native tongue. I've turned around to ask her a question and would realize that she wasn't there to answer me. We used to walk to our cars together, now, as soon as class lets out, she walks out with him.

I suspect that had this happened outside of class where I didn't see them together four days a week, I wouldn't be bothered very much. This is not the first time she has told me about some boy she found interesting, so it wouldn't have been anything I'd feel threatend by. Having a front row seat to their shared steps towards a relationship is much harder to manage or stomach for that matter.

So, I've finally admitted it. I am jealous. I didn't realize how much I appreciated her continued presence until she found someone to draw her away. The true catch 22 about this situation is that she is first and foremost, a friend, so I want her to be happy. I don't want to let my own selfish feelings create unhappiness for her. And in this case, this happiness might well be found without me.