Hah! You'll never guess what font I used. Yes, it was, in fact, Garamond Premier Pro. Hey, I didn't have to print it,
right?
I figured I'd only say that one little bit about the Virginia Tech story, but then as soon as I moved on to other stuff I
ran into this graphic on MSNBC. The first thing that jumps out at me is that there were 183 people killed in four blasts in
Baghdad. The contrast is staggering and the numbers depressing. Then there is an abortion headline. Brilliant. I know this
is the general news round-up box, but these other stories don't feel very appropriate.
In case you are wondering, and you'd have to read on through the second page of the article to find out, the photo in
the box is of Jeremy Herbstritt, a victim of the shooting. You think they could at least put his name up? I'm just saying...
It's been raining a lot here in Boston. My landlord actually called me to check so see if the
sump pump was still working. I told him it had been running for about a month. We both chuckled. Then I said, no, seriously, it's been
running continuously since it was repaired about four and a half weeks ago, but thankfully, there's no water coming in the
basement.
We got a Nor'Easter earlier this week (all rain, but lots of it). So today when it started to pick up it was just gloomy.
On top of that there's just an indescribable sadness in the air because of the Virginia Tech shootings.
I had about ninety minutes to do some errands today. I ran into this umbrella just a few streets from our house. It seemed
to sum up the mood of things.
Then, life interupted. Although I had clearly just been taking pictures of this umbrella, a couple of teenagers came
by and one of them it out of the drain and threw it up into the air. That would be the one looking back in this photo, holding
two ice cream cones. Now he's checking me out, but bear in mind that I am half a block away with a very large telephoto lens.
But he knows I'm looking at him. The moment after this shot, he glances back towards the umbrella, then decides to move along.
Now before you jump to any conclusions here, let me tell you that these guys didn't yank the umbrella to yank my chain.
I shot three or so sequences of the umbrella but I hadn't found the right composition yet. However, it was raining and I took
a short break to wipe the front of the lens. I had my back to the umbrella at that point.
Frankly, there's been a few times over the last few days that I've felt like throwing an umbrella, so I'm certainly not
going to blame these guys. As for the umbrella, well, it changed completely.
Now here's the deal. I wouldn't have stuck the umbrella into the drain to 'pose' the picture without disclosing it. It
was that way when I found it. Since these guys messed with it, the umbrella now made a different subject in a different composition.
And since, as far as I was concerned, it was still a 'found' object, it was fair game. Plus I like it better.
