At peace
So, here I am near the end of month 9 in Charleston, SC. I’ve gotten quite used to it, actually. The trips home are not a problem and I’m thankful that I can visit home each and every weekend. I’ve not missed a lot of basketball games because quite a few were on the weekend. I’ve hired someone to cut the grass at home because I don’t want to have to come in and do that on the weekend.

I feel that new pathways are being etched into my brain. Pathways of acceptance. Let us say that for the first trimester of this journey, there was the ache to return home. The next trimester, there was the dawning realization that perhaps it would be a little longer. At that point, I signed a 6 month lease. A little more acceptance. Now, here in the deep end of the 3rd trimester, I’m considering buying some small amounts of furniture so that I can save money on renting it. I’ve accepted a position as a full time employee, complete with benefits. I’ve finally accepted that I’m going to be here a while, perhaps, it may come to pass that my family will join me in South Carolina in a couple of years. Who knows how it will play out.

Although it is not my ideal climate, hot and humid, I’m starting to explore the area more. Yesterday evening I went to the Ashley River to look for alligators. I didn’t see any, but I did see a vulture, lots of crabs (it was low tide), and a number of small fish. I donated a bit of blood to all of the insects who decided that I was a nice buffet, and just enjoyed the evening. As I arrived, I saw the gentleman pictured above, sitting at a picnic table engrossed in some type of writing. I was going to go over and ask to take his picture, but he seemed to be very much at peace and into what he was doing, so I just found a place between the trees and plants and took a few pictures. This was my favorite. He seemed so at peace. It was my favorite picture of the evening.

I must say that I feel a lot better now that I have totally accepted my situation. I feel at ease. That tension to find a way home is no longer there. It will happen when it happens and that will be the right time. I’ve grown a lot since being here and, if I were to say that I had a bag full of insecurities, I could say that now the bag is half-full, or would that be half-empty? :-) Anyway, I’ve done lots of work and am happy that this opportunity came my way. Life has a grand way of providing us with the things that we need for growth if we are willing to see it that way and accept the lessons.

I’m still learning …

 


Tri-X Lightroom Preset

Since I talked about film in my last post, I might as well talk about my fantasy camera in this post! That camera was the Nikon F3. It was the Cadillac of cameras back in the day. I worked in the camera department of a store similar to Best Buy. The store, Jewel Mart, had a camera department and I was fortunate enough to work in it. At the time, I was shooting a Minolta XD-11, which took me a long time to save for. At that time, I was making only $3.10/hour and working about 15 hours/week. The XD-11 cost nearly $300 if memory serves me correctly.

One day, we got a new camera in, the Nikon F3. This tank sold for about $750 at the time. According to an online calculator that I found, that puts the value of the camera at about $1,960 in 2009 dollars! Well, this girl was certainly out of my league. A guy making about $45/week just cannot afford a woman like this! But, each time that I got to work, I took her out of the case and fantasied about going out on an assignment, or just out to the parking lot with a pocket full film and a lot of time on my hands!

Ah, what good days those were! :-) Every once in a while I’m tempted. It’s amazing what you can get now if you are willing to shoot film. You can get Nikon’s flagship film camera, the F5 for about $200! What a steal!

If you were around in the film era, did you have any fantasy camera?

© 2011 Paul Lester Photo Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha

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