Slow Year

Photo: © Stan Banos         The Pride of Madeira

Yeah, I know, I know... haven't been posting much of late- true, true. Last coupla days I've had a cold that's just been kicking my ever lovin' butt three times till Christmas! Other than politics where things have been ramping up every bit as bat shit crazy, sick (and funny) as one can imagine, it's been pretty much as I foresaw last year- there just ain't that much cookin' in my neck of the woods. I've had some pretty productive years in a row, more than I thought possible (least for me that is). But I damn well knew that it was absolutely inevitable that my lucky streak was bound to come to a screeching halt in the current ghost town that is San Francisco. 

As if to emphasize the obvious, I was sizing up a possible photo op involving a homeless person, when some guy walks by screaming and castigating me for attempting to photograph "Low Hanging Fruit!" Later, I discovered that he's considered by some as San Francisco's premier street photographer. Strange that a fellow photographer would assume the accusatory mindset that would automatically have me taking an exploitative/demeaning photograph of a homeless person, the same mindset that would have a nonphotographer assume someone taking a photograph of a public building or monument was a terrorist! I would have been happy to discuss it with the guy, apparently, he was just out for the late afternoon reprimand as he briskly ambled onward.* Second time I've been scolded for photography in public this year; previously, it was the young lovers fiasco. 

So, here I am, reduced to taking pictures of flowers awaiting perhaps a proper floral condemnation- especially since these somewhat attractive flowers transmute into the foulest of eyesores the rest of the year as one's forced to persevere their barren, decaying stalks towering throughout the city...

*I once noticed a photographer on Fifth Ave. in NYC wearing a motorized Nikon on one hand (with a black leather racing glove no less) and a Leica on the other. What a douche I said (to myself)! A coupla weeks later I actually got to see his work, and I quickly learned to withhold judgement until one sees the finished goods. That's not to say that the end always justifies the means, but...