A Leg and a Cape

Originally Posted Monday, May 5, 2014

 spent most of Sunday looking through old images that have never been processed, thousands of them.  I hadn't realized I'd been such a naughty boy.  I could start another more intriguing blog elsewhere.  But instead, I give you. . . this.  Something more current.  A leg and a cape.  A portraits of our time. 

Not such a very good one, though. 

All weekend, I've been trying to watch "Finding Vivian Maier."  And all weekend, I failed.  It is on Pay Per View, and every time I click to rent it for $6.99, I get to watch for two minutes.  And then the movie stops and a message comes on the screen that says my cable provider can't process something or other.  So I have watched what I can in two minute clips, renting the movie and skipping ahead to where I was each time.  Eleven or twelve minutes into the movie now. 

I used to correspond with Maloof when he first put the images on the internet.  He needed me, but I was busy.  Now I am sorry.  Now I can't even afford a print.  My life in spades. 

I had the camera like the one she shot with, a Rollieflex TLR.  It is a sweet, sweet camera.  Mine was given to me by a friend who was cleaning out his father's things.  I used it for just a bit before it broke.  I've always wanted another one, but they are still very, very expensive.  To buy one made in the 1950s that is in average shape will cost around a thousand dollars if you are lucky.  They still make the camera, too.  $5,000.00.  Yes, it is a film camera.  I got my broken one out last night to fool with.  I may have to get a used one.  It is a very different way of shooting. 

Diane Arbus used one for a long time, too. 

That is the way with camera folk.  They love their tools.  Even bad photographers and middling ones like me obsess over cameras.  A camera is a way of seeing, and they each have their own way of letting you see.  A camera shapes the style of what you do.  I have a lot of cameras.  I would like to have many more. 

We won't speak of lenses. 

I read an article in the N.Y. Times today that scientists have reversed aging in rats by supplementing their blood supply with the blood supply of younger rats.  Everything improved--brains, muscles, hearts.  So you know what I thought right away, don't you.  I've always tried to be a youth vampire.  I will need a bevy of young girls whose blood type matches my own.  They younger, the better I say.  Youth will wash away my sins and evil deeds and self-destructive behavior.  I will try a pint a week.  At first.  Just to see. 

As my friend CC says. . . what could go wrong?