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Friday Slide Show: Bayside
13 November 2015
We had to wonder what we had been thinking in 2008 when, a new Nikon D300 strapped to our wrist, we wandered along the side of the city that meets the bay. It was late in the morning and we were in the company of several other local journalists gathered together by Nikon to show off their new dSLR.
It's almost seven years later, so we can be forgiven for forgetting whatever it was that inspired us. Naturally, we wrote about it but what we wrote was mainly about the marvels of Live View, Auto ISO, Auto White Balance and other by now well-established technologies. Too quaint to quote. Too retro to reprise.
But what can you tell about what we were thinking by looking at what we captured?
We think the images in today's slide show (which we almost invariable mistype as "side show") indicate we were in a good mood. Receptive to the ironies around us.
But what can you tell about what we were thinking by looking at what we captured?
There are the large contrasts between the natural world where harbor seals swim and the one of nuts and bolts where tractor-trailer trucks rumble. Or the old steel of the piers in contrast to the refurbished arcade of the Ferry Building.
Then there are the smaller ones, contained in a single image, like the sun pierced by an arrow or a truck reflected in the shiny side of a Vespa. The bananas even have a little joke to them (we'd been advised by photographer John Blaustein that nobody has ever gotten in trouble for warming up the daylight so we pushed the envelope on those bananas).
Ah, youth. Full of good spirit. Undiminished hope. The joy of being alive. We can, as we said, be forgiven for forgetting.
But to our credit, we still take that walk and we take along a camera (sometimes the same D300) and we look around with amusement at the joggers and strollers and maniacs that people the waterfront with the seagulls and seals that wisely stay out of their reach.
Photographers are by nature of a good disposition. Put a camera in the hands of a scowling philosopher and in five (or eight) years they'll be nothing but smiles, dying to show you some baby pictures or sunsets (guilty, guilty).
We can't help but love life. And be amused by the turns it takes. There's really no need at all for cable TV or streaming video. We each have a free ticket to the big show.
Just don't forget to charge your battery and bring your camera along.
