A Scenic World

What a fear to have.

But even I have limits to what I’m willing to claim as a self-portrait.

Today’s lesson: stop and smell the air.

I took 2,544 photos while I was in Spain and Morocco in October. They were almost all taken in RAW format, which meant my poor hard drive has had to store 35 gigabytes these many months.

But now that I have Lightroom, I’m thrilled that I kept those files. When I made my first pass through those photos, I found about 100 that I really liked. I processed them with Photoshop, but only 35 made the final cut.

This weekend, I went through all of them again. With Lightroom, I could finally realize what I had envisioned at the outset for many of the photos. With Photoshop, there are so many things you can do with any given photo that it’s easy to become overwhelmed. But Lightroom makes it easy to immediately see how the photo will look processed with all of your presets. The trick, though, is to start with RAW. Jpegs processed in Lightroom are just vague, bland versions of their RAW cousins.

For instance, here’s the original photo taken inside the Atocha train station in Madrid:

When I revisited the RAW shot and applied my presets, I found this one that I liked better than the original:

But had I only saved the “original” version in jpg, I would have been left with this when I applied my preset:

Another example: an overcast day in Nerja, Spain.

The original:

The RAW file converted to black and white:

The JPG from the original RAW converted to black and white:

I took a long walk today. I walked past the library, past Persona, past the Atlantic and the Top. I walked through the Thomas Center gardens and cut through the Turtle Amphitheater. When I came to the Duck Pond, I took the road to the left. It was the long way home.

I’d brought my camera along, but the need to take photos wasn’t there today. But luckily I had my music. From “Sinnerman” to “Starman” to “Section 9,” my music kept me company. When my thoughts turned again to my time in South Carolina, I had to listen to Jump, Little Children.

Their song “B-13″ is among my favorites. It always reminds me of “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” one of Woody Allen’s more macabre movies (and one of my favorites). So today, I tried to re-create the sad hope that Cecilia takes with her to the movies.

It wasn’t until later that I realized the one photo from today that I actually liked bears a striking resemblance to Cecilia.

Warning: If you haven’t known me for at least ten years, this is going to be of no interest whatsoever!

“The Last of Her Kind” by Sigrid Nunez is a beautifully-constructed story of two girls, strangers at first, who lived together for two years in college and went on to lead very different lives. From the outset, one of the characters reminded me so much of myself that I very nearly didn’t read it at all - it was a bit too uncomfortably familiar.

But I finished it this morning over my first cup of coffee and went to check my email. And of course, I have an email from my first college roommate, a girl I’d never met before we  were paired together, and with whom I ended up living for two years because we got along so well. We’ve drifted apart since we graduated, but with my own memories stirred by the book I was reading, I was curious about her whereabouts. And then that email! I’m happy to report that she is happy. :)

And I’m always happy for inspiration for my 365 project. I went through all my old film negatives and found a particular negative of a photo taken exactly 10 years ago to the day (well, I’m 98% sure it was taken on January 20th, 1998 - it seems we had gone to the Biltmore Estate to celebrate something) of me and Kathy.  Such good times!

I went to work still reminiscing about my time in college and all the people I’d met. Near the end of my shift, someone needed something written on a birthday cake. I think my mother would die of shame if I couldn’t or wouldn’t help someone out in that regard (she makes wedding cakes), so of course I obliged them. I asked them what they wanted written. And their reply?

“Happy Birthday, Ankit.”

So Ankit, happy birthday, wherever you are. :)