Paul Lester Photo

Thanks for the memories

“Life must be lived forward, but can only be understood backward.” – Soren Kierkegaard

There were a couple of posts that I found interesting. The first was this post by Thomas, entitled: Life needs to get simpler. In it, he talks about revamping his blog and, basically, casting aside all of his previous content and starting anew, or as he stated, tabula rasa, which means blank slate. I had to look that up! Anyway, it was a bold move on his part and, I’m sure, somewhat liberating.

The second post, along those same lines, was when Paul Butzi was musing about what to do with his old, static website content. In his post he talked about feeling no obligation to keep old, outdated stuff alive or maintained.

I’ve thought about this many times, too. As I approach completing the 4 year mark on my blog, there is lots of old content hanging around. Sometimes I think of just purging the database of everything older than say, one year, as no one probably even looks at it.

I will, on occasion, look back at it, read, and think about the things that I’ve said and what my thought processes were at that time. Sometimes I’m amazed at how I thought, other times amused, yet other times, flabbergasted. So, in that respect, it is useful to see, if for no other reason than to understand that there is constant change in life and all things pass. I think that’s why I like the plug-in that finds similar posts. I’ve changed it to only look at the past 12 months though, finding that older posts just don’t seem relevant anymore.

The photo that accompanies this text reminded me of that. I photographed it on Tuesday developed it Wednesday night. I pass this, now defunct, Checkers once a week, on my way back from Charlotte. It has always caught by attention, but I didn’t know why. Finally, after months and months of noticing it, I finally when to photograph it – the reason still unclear.

I’m pretty sure that when the person opened it, they had high hopes and probably no thoughts that it would ever close, yet, here it is, closed and abandoned. The only thing remaining is the shell of the building, some empty tables, and a sign thanking anyone who is willing to look.

Things change constantly. Life must be lived forward …

Tough times in Philly – Olympus 35 LC – Ilford Delta 3200
The other day I received a notice on the door of my apartment. It was an incentive to sign my lease early. It said that if I signed I could get a free carpet cleaning as well as a ceiling fan installed in any room that I wanted. Further, if I signed beyond the normal 6-month lease period, I would get a discount in my rent, $31/month discount for signing for 12 months, $51/month for signing for 15 months. Neither one of these savings are incentive enough for me to sign a longer lease, but I get the point.

In talking to the manager a few days later she said that they had to do this because other apartment communities are offering similar incentives AND, the big reason: Previously, they would decline about 10% of the applications that they received, due to bad credit. Now, with the flaky economy, people have gotten behind and let their credit go bad. They’ve started declining a full 2/3 of every application that they get! Therefore, it’s difficult to keep a high level of occupancy, so … incentives.

Housing markets are still really soft, too. One thing that worked to our advantage: We had an adjustable rate mortgage at 5 % that we got 5 years ago. Our adjustment periods starts this year and we were informed that our new rate for the next 12 months will be 3.5 %. It works for us, but it is a sign that things are not well. About a month ago, we bought Tony a car. The dealer made us an offer that was a bit below market value, especially for a car in such good shape. We bought it. When I asked the sales person why he sold it so low, he said that it is very hard to sell a car these days and he needs to sell to keep food on the table, thus a motivated seller and a buyer’s market.

Hopefully things are getting better! One interesting thing, like they say about weather: Bad weather makes great photographs. Certainly, bad times make, perhaps, memorable photographs.

Note: About the photo. I took this through the window of the train. The whole ride from Trenton, NJ to Philadelphia International Airport seemed depressing. The train goes through some very run down areas.

Better Photo folks

The more that I hit the streets, the more that I feel the need to have business/contact cards. The photo above is yet another photo from my NYC excursion. I noticed this group of photographers sitting on the steps of the public library. Tom and I had paused for a bit to take in the sights when Tom noticed that they were taking our picture. What?! Someone’s taking my picture?!!! Well, of course, I couldn’t let that sit. I had to go over and investigate. So, I got up, walked up, positioned myself in front of them and said: We’ll, since we’ve all got cameras, I might as well take your picture, too! Of course, they agreed.

We learned, after talking to them for a few minutes that they were instructors from Better Photo. That’s interesting. I had taken an online class with them; however, the instructor that I had was not in attendance. He was off doing some boring stuff like a trip to Antarctica!

Eventually, it came to the point of: “Hey! Do you have a business card so that we can stay in touch?”. My answer: Ummmm, no. Each time that this happens, I could kick myself! I have some cards that I ordered long ago, but they are of cheap stock and I don’t like them very much, so they stay in the drawer. I don’t know why I’ve not thrown them into the trash and ordered a new set, but I haven’t.

I think that I want a new set of cards that look simple and professional, just in case I do want to take some additional photography work. So, do you have any cards, if so, who often do you find yourself giving them out?

Man: Excuse me, sir!
Me: Yes?
Man: What do you think about Halloween?
Me: I’m cool with it. It doesn’t bother me.
Man: Well, my brother, let me tell you why it should bother you because …
Me: (thinking) Oh brother, here we go!

Well, that’s how it started. Fortunately for me, I just decided to walk away because I wasn’t wanting to really hear what he had to say. On the ground lay a number of posters, some with pictures of President Obama. Click on image for a larger picture to see the types of things they were saying about it him. I guess that not everyone was happy with his election. I’m not really sure what their beef was; they just seemed to be angry about something, anything.

I stood by and watched an argument between a youngster, perhaps 14 years-old (on the right) and this man on the left. The young man wanted to know why the group was calling President Obama a devil. The man, in my opinion, never did come up with a good reason, he just spoke louder and louder thinking perhaps that volume made up for substance! The argument continued for some time with more and more people stopping to have a look. Meanwhile, I just kept moving around and snapping pictures. Soon, it got too crowded and I had to move away. Of course, the argument was never resolved, but I did get some interesting photography experience!