Instead of going to Boston, I decided to catch up on some sleep. Tonight I'll get to bed early so that I can head out around 8 or earlier.
I'm wondering what this subtle pain in my side is. I hope I don't have a hernia or something. Since I don't have medical insurance anymore, if anything serious happens to me, I'm a goner. Oh well.
It's a little creepy walking around at night. Lawrence's population is roughly 70,000, and I'd estimate that 99.9% of those people do not walk around at night. I walked up around the reservoir, which seemed a little eerie on a slightly foggy night like tonight. Everything takes on an orange hue under these sodium vapor street lights, and the dark shadows always look as if there's something lurking inside...
I think I'll try to go to Boston today or Thursday for an all-day photo shoot on the T and elsewhere. It seems like a good idea. I just have to wake up early enough, and it's already 1am.....
What a jam-packed day I had yesterday. For starters, I went to South Station for the first time. There, I met up with Amie. Aside from her irrational fear of sidewalk-grates, she's cool. It's too bad we didn't get to hang out for very long.
Next, I rushed to my darkroom class and spent a long time listening to a lecture, causing my butt to become sore. But then, we got to the fun part -- developing film. I'll be sure to scan the prints when we start printing next week.
Since the class ran late and I stayed to wait for my negatives to dry, I had to take the last train out of North Station. But it was a really interesting experience. Some kid from Lowell started talking to me about Drew Bledsoe, Tom Brady, alcohol, and weed. He asked me if I smoked and was surprised that I didn't. BUT, it was his lucky day. You see, earlier, on my way to South Station, I dropped my coins on the floor before the turnstile. When I picked them up, I noticed that someone had lost a small bag of green, oregano-looking substance. Aha! Of course, I snagged it. And since I had no use for it, I (generously?) gave it to the pot-loving kid I met in North Station. Maybe it was laced with poison-- I have no idea, but at least someone will be able to enjoy it.
Oh, but that's not the end of the North Station story. Another person I met there was a guitarist who plays a fretless guitar. How unusual. While we were talking, he noticed my photo stuff and asked if I had any pictures he could see. When I showed him the negatives that I had just developed, he noticed that I took a picture of a drummer named Jacob (who played in Harvard Square last week), who just so happens to live with this guitarist in Winchester! What a weird coincidence. Anyway, we exchanged phone numbers and just might jam together one of these days.
Ok, every body sing with me, "It's a small world after all! It's a small world after all!........"
Continuing this week's photo assignment, I went to the Rockingham Park Mall in search of motion. I took pictures of people on the escalators, people walking, old men sitting. In this area, people are generally uncomfortable about being photographed. Bostonians are perhaps more "blind" to photographers, or maybe they're less paranoid. I took one shot pointing down the mall from upstairs with my wide angle lens. The whole time I was setting up my tripod and figuring the exposure, the ridiculous guys working at a cellular phone kiosk kept staring at me as if they'd never seen a camera before. It was almost funny. I felt like doing something to really creep them out, like mouthing, "I'm watching you." and then laughing maniacally. Or I could have pulled my hood over my eyes and pointed at them menacingly.
The other day in Boston I was shooting on the T on the red line. I was pointing my camera in a direction near the window, and a guy sitting seemed to think I was pointing at him (actually, I probably was), and he looked really nervous. He was squirming in his seat the whole time I had my camera out. I can only imagine what he must've been thinking. I think people need to relax a little -- so what if I'm trying to steal your souls!
