Of stories, photos, and the past
I submitted a short story of mine to a fiction contest over at Narrative Magazine. It’s a great e-zine filled with fantastic fiction and poetry, and, best of all, it’s free. You should definitely check it out. It’s a free sign up and you can access their archive of great fiction. I’m feeling confident about it, though even after submitting it I’ve found areas for improvement. And so it goes with one’s art. It’s never good enough, but I’ve released it to a small part of the world hoping it will be received in good graces.
The recent announcement from Polaroid they will soon cease production on their instant films has me nostalgic for the look. Remember the sound the camera made as it spit out a square of white plastic?
Remember shaking the snapshot while you waited for it to develop? Remember how everything was tinged a little brown? I’ve recently discovered this great little app called Poladroid for Mac. It takes your photos and converts them into old looking Polaroids, as I’ve done below.
Click on them for larger versions.
In another attempt to feel nostalgic, I have also been using film a little bit more than most. I’ve rediscovered the joy of thinking about a photograph before I snap the shutter. I’ve also discovered my love for the program Aperture. I spend all day with Photoshop, and I’ve gotten a little burnt on the over-production done on most all images these days. I remember the hours I spent in high school and college slaving in the pitch black of the darkroom developing film and printing with an old style enlarger. It was fantastic. The thrill of seeing a latent image emerge in the swirling waters of the developer bin was amazing, and is one of the art forms that will soon only be practiced by nostalgic artisans. I myself have stopped for monetary and time reasons; it’s expensive to maintain a darkroom full of chemicals and washes. Plus, you have to dedicate an entire room of your house to the pursuit, and I don’t have that kind of space right now. What I love about Aperture is its limits. For the most part you can only retouch digital images the way you can in a dark room. Saturation, color, vignetting, cropping, exposure, etc. This forces you to actually think about how best to work with flawed images to best present them, rather than simply snapping away and retouching it to death. I love it. I’ll use Photoshop for intensive graphics work and web design, but when it comes to simple photography, Aperture is now my application of choice. It is what I used to touchup all but four or five of the images in my photo gallery.
I’ve also been watching the HBO Miniseries “John Adams.” Amazing. Paul Giamatti is one of my favorite actors, and I love watching him play Mr. Adams as he ages. I read the McCullough book a couple of years ago, and they have done a wonderful job of bringing it to the screen. Everyone would do well to learn from the struggle these men undertook to begin the work of our nation that continues to today. Watching the show reminds me that the greatness of the United States comes from the struggle itself and not the sudden notion that we’ve arrived. The striving is what makes our nation strong, and flawed as we are, we continue to press forward. Look at what happened this election. The struggle of great Americans paved the road Barack Obama can now drive freely over.
The late 18th century has always fascinated me, and I have a great idea for a story set in this time period. It needs serious fleshing out, but I feel it has merit and is worth pursuing. Too often this period in America is only viewed through the context of the birth of the United States, and we often forget about the other things that were happening simultaneously.
Finally, here is a great little video I came across a few weeks ago. It has nothing to do with anything I’ve mentioned above, but it makes me smile and I hope it makes you smile, too.
