I had to renew my driver’s license, which is a boring, thankless task. I did it during the snowstorm last week, thinking the weather would keep the typical crowds at home. It still took 90 minutes for my number to be called. I passed the eye test with no trouble at all. I keep upping the magnification of my reading glasses but so far my driving sight is still dead on. The young man who ran the camera suggested I do a retake after he saw my first photo.
“I don’t really care at all what the picture looks like.” I told him. He looked at his computer screen and said “Yeah, you’re gonna want to try it again.”
So we did. That first one must have given me horns and a goatee, cuz the one we went with is NOT flattering. At least, I hope it’s not. It’s funny how the camera never sees us the way we see ourselves, isn’t it? I look in the mirror and think “Okay, that’ll do.” I look at a photo of myself and think I should never leave the house without a bag over my head.
I know from painting class that the lens does not see the world the way the eye does. First of all, we have two eyes, so we have a perspective the camera completely lacks. Second of all, the human eye is capable of taking in a far wider range of values and colors than the lens can. I’m sure some very talented photographers, with the best equipment in the world can get closer to nature than my cellphone does but still; no comparison to a pair of working eyes.
I use my phone camera to record the set ups I do in class but its also a handy tool for composition. Once I get my set up lit the way I like, I snap a photo, then use the edit function to place it on the canvas. Plopping your items in the middle of the plane is visually boring. Comparing the set up in front of me to what the camera shows has been a stark demonstration of the difference between what my eye takes in and what the camera does.
I’ve been clearing out the gallery on my phone. I have so many videos of the kids that there’s no more room. That means the edit function hasn’t worked lately and it got to the point where I couldn’t even take more pictures. Technology is great until you don’t know what you’re doing and it eats you.
This week, we used eggs in our set ups. One gal brought a carton of six white eggs and another brought a small frying pan and cracked an egg into it. She used the shells as part of her set up. I’m the only one who brought colored eggs. I haven’t dyed eggs in years but I spent two days last week experimenting with food colors. I ended up with eleven gorgeously colored hard boiled eggs and six that we already devilled.
Jay was not happy that I took the eleven off to class with me but he cheered up when I promised he could eat them when I brought them home.
I had so much fun painting them (I got to use all my colors!) but I didn’t finish. Rick was kind enough to let me leave my set up and he said he’d text me if he was going to be in the studio over the weekend. You can just imagine how disappointed Jay was when I came home without the eggs!
Saturday afternoon, I spent three more hours painting. I got to really beef up the colors on those eggs and push the shadows in the bowl back while Rick worked like a dog, cleaning his space.
The downside of all that studio painting is that I had exactly no time to get any paid work done and I can’t afford to take time off. Good thing I don’t take the weekends off.
Josie came over this week and we watched This Is Spinal Tap, which she had never seen. That’s right, there’s a generation of kids out there who don’t understand taking it to 11. (Now you begin to understand the depth of the sadness that infects the millennials. )
It’s so strange to watch old movies with younger generations. Spinal Tap was a hit with her but 15 years ago, I watched Tootsie with Zack and he didn’t think it was funny at all.
You know the society is in the crapper when a guy in a dress is no longer considered funny.
Josie loved Spinal Tap, so there’s hope for the future.
Friday, Jay and I took all the filets out of the freezer and brought them to Mom and Dad’s house for a fish fry. My brother Woody and his wife Kathy joined us. It’s rare to have a gathering of so few. In the old days, it never happened because Mom and Dad’s house was designed to hold dozens of people but the new place isn’t. Six is perfect and it gave us a nice opportunity to actually talk to each other, as opposed to the noisy chaos of several dozen people in the house.
The fish, walleyes and crappies, was fantastic! We ate every morsel of it. There was salad, rolls and hashbrowns as side dishes but I felt like they were all superfluous; I wanted all the room in my belly for fish.
Is it cheating in Lent if the fish is better than meat? Nah, they’re both God’s creation.
Now we’re heading into the last week of Lent. As with everything else, it’s gone by faster than ever this year.
Still trying to nail down the specifics of how we’ll celebrate Easter this year but it’s shaping up to be nice and relatively stress free.
With any luck at all, I’ll have a new grand daughter by next week!