Well, this past week, we had the rather bizarre news that two billionaires who don't pay taxes pulled off sending themselves to space. First it was Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines, then Jeff Bezos of Amazon. The other billionaire who has declared the intention of going to space, and who actually has a thriving space business with his Space-X company, has also declared his intent, and in his case, his rockets have actually sent astronauts to the space center. But still, these vanity displays of bravado are upsetting and idiotic. We have billionaires who are are in the league of the richest people on Earth, and they will not pay their fair share of taxes, but want to be admired for sending themselves to space and supposedly representing the optimism of humanity. Balderdash.
So, I have this 35mm camera from Lomography called the Sprocket Rocket. It is a toy camera with a plastic lens and a retro design, and it is meant to take 35mm film and shoot panoramic photos. I bought it along with a few books on toy cameras as I was laying in bed after my surgery in the summer of 2018. I was in dire straights, I could hardly eat back then, and I could not regain my strength. I had to distract myself somehow, and I bought the camera, thinking I might be able to take a few photos in my back yard because, anything further was out of the question. There was no way I was going to be able to engage in any trips or photo outings, although I did venture out eventually. I remember that I took the camera to the Ecuadorian parade in Los Angeles in August of 2018 and shot a roll. It came back with every other frame unexposed. I did not know how to wind correctly, but I did confirm that it worked. The results were not spectacular, though. The quality of the lens was about on the lines of the Holga, with the edges extremely dark, and in essence, I thought its use as a panoramic camera would have to be limited. But it was one of several things that got me through the year of my operation.
The next years was shaping out better, although my dad was doing terribly. He was not looking well at all, and we looked in horror and dismay at how frail he had become. He was not the lion we had known, and I thought this often when I looked at him. It is something that will weigh me down in guilt for the rest of my life, because I did not recognize that my dad was in his downhill climb, and so, in 2019, almost to the year because it took place at the end of June, we lost my father. It was the year of sequential calamities. I made it through my surgery but my dad did not make it through his. It has traumatized all of us, but that is what it means to become an adult, you work through trauma. I have asked my dad's spirit to forgive me, and I know he did. He loved us, after all, although we had a problematic relationship. I think I might have used the Rocket Sprocket again, maybe at a festival. I was back to the usual grind of photographing dance groups, although I hated it. I didn't want to admit it, the way, perhaps, I didn't admit that my dad was dying, but the routine was weighing on me.
Then the third calamity struck us, the Covid pandemic of 2020. We were forcibly confined at home ("shelter in place"), and it was a cold spring. The summer seemed brighter and the death toll seemed to recede, and we were allowed to venture out, but with precautions. That was when the phrase "social distancing" entered our vocabulary. It was, stay six feet away from each other or risk getting transported six feet under. We were also in the midst of a vicious election campaign with a deranged president, and it was all I could do to find places to escape. Suddenly, I jumped full board into film photography again, and started using a variety of cameras. I had actually done it after my dad's passing, but now, it was the only game in town for me.
A year later, things have settled down. The deranged man is now ex-president, although he keeps on threatening us Americans. He has a zombie-like following of angry and mindless Republicans who continue to hail him as their leader, and he will not let his death grip diminish on them. But we are in a safer place. I have been visiting many public gardens in the year of the pandemic, and now, eight months after the arrival of the vaccine, we are threatened again with facemask mandates and closures because the Republican base refuses to vaccinate, and Covid cases are increasing again. They are risking all of our lives, because they will prove to be the hosts and breeding grounds for the next variant that will defeat the vaccines and put us all at risk. But I am trying not to think about it.
Here is a roll of photos I took with the Sprocket Rocket in the early summer of 2021. It must have been in June or early July, and I was using slide film. When I look at the images, they have the same problems. Only the center is defined, the edges are dark, but that is how we are living as well, with darkness on the edges as the Republican maniac refuses to go away and incites his legions to attack. Yes, I am making a Lord of the Rings reference, and Dr. Fauci would be our Gandalf.
Here are the photos. Why only 11 images? I don't know. It seems like a waste of film. Don't pay attention to the dark edges, there will always be darkness surrounding light.
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