January 13, 2020 Delusions of Grandeur

Do you ever have delusions of grandeur? When I was in college, I learned how to play the guitar and used to sit in my room for hours playing and singing. I left the window strategically open so that any talent agents that just happened to be wandering by might hear me. I used to enjoy imagining the conversation if one of them came to our door:

Doorbell rings. Mom or Dad answer.
Agent: Hello, I just heard the most wonderful guitar playing and singing from your house. It was so lovely and mesmerizing, I just had to come up and see if I could sign that musician up for a multi-million dollar contract.
Mom or Dad: Are you sure you’ve got the right house?

That charming little scene never happened, but when I was visiting a friend of mine at her college, I spent an afternoon singing and playing the guitar in her dorm room while she was in classes. I took a break to go and get some food and ran into the janitor, an older man, out in the hallway.

Him: Was that you makin’ that noise?
Me: um… yes.
Him: I thought it was a somethin’ like a dog howling.

That really happened! Pretty embarrassing and awfully humbling. I think he was pulling my leg, but to this day, I’m not sure.

All these years later, one would think I’ve outgrown such nonsense, but today as I headed out for a walk, I decided to carry along my extra lens and unbidden, the thought came to me: people will think I’m a professional photographer! I blush even to write that. Today was definitely not a professional photography day for me and not a soul even saw me wandering around in the nature center. I ended up clumsily exchanging lenses after having to walk a bit to find somewhere to put the extra lens where it wouldn’t be in the snow (I bet professionals wouldn’t get stuck in that bind). While I was using the zoom lens, I wanted my regular lens. Just as soon as I switched to the regular lens (oh, my cold fingers!) I wished I had the zoom lens back on. I found out it’s confoundedly hard to take photos of animal prints in fresh snow – the camera kept saying “What? What are you trying to photograph? I can’t SEE it! Don’t expect me to focus.” And then I decided to experiment with all of the special effects that this camera has. Halfway through them I realized how dumb it was to use settings like “super vivid” “pop” (for color), “photo illustration,” “miniature effect,” “toy camera effect,” “selective color” and “silhouette” in a mostly snowy, colorless landscape.

Gah! All of my delusions of grandeur were no more than just some dog howling. But you get to see some of my photos anyway, including ALL the ones I took of a stand of trees using every single special effect. Please don’t unfollow me, although I probably deserve it.

I really might delete this in the morning – a higher probability than usual.