Wednesday

It is 10:30 and its already been an eventful and very expensive day.  First, I was very very neatly ripped off in a crowded Tube station on the wrong side of town.  You have to understand how I walk around with my my cameras--one is around my neck, and one hangs from one shoulder.  That camera has one of the new lenses I bought before I left, the $79.00 lens that was mis-labled at the pawn shop.  It was very crowded and in the scrum I felt a slight tug on my shoulder and then the crowd parted.  A little while later, I realized that the camera felt a bit light.  I looked down to discover the lens was gone.  I suppose it could have fallen off, but in the 35 years of using cameras with this type of lens mount, I have never had one fall off.  I suspect that someone intentionally pressed the lens release button and gave it a quarter turn and walked away in the crowd.  It would have been an easy move.

As mentioned, it wasn't that expensive, but it was more valuable.    And it is a pain.  I headed back to the hotel and drop off a lens-less camera and then I stopped at Starbucks for comfort and caffeine.  While sitting, and checking the news about Spain, the crowd jostled my table hard.  It spilled my drink, but more to the point, it knocked my other camera off the table onto the floor.  This was my good camera, one that costs more than I will ever be able afford again.  It fell and very neatly cracked the LCD on the back.  Or not so neatly.  The camera still works but it has the wrong colors and density and I think unless I tape it, it will keep cracking and fall apart.  I checked on the web, and replacing the screen on a 5D costs at least $600 if there is no other damage.  Now that hurts.  But the very nice German couple did buy me another drink, so I guess all is good.

It isn't that I really need any camera this trip, as photos have not exactly flowed into my vision.  Van Gogh said " At night, I dream of painting, and when awake, I paint my dreams."  I dream and think of photos and photographing things and people, but I am having a challenge taking them.  I could have taken photos that appear on a billion tourists' cameras, but I am avoiding that--it isn't even quoting but simply repeating and copying.  I am struggling for relevance and audience, real or imagined, and it is hampering my eye.  When the single biggest thoughts that strike you is "who would care, and how does it matter" it changes how you look at things.  This is not, I promise, directed at any single person or people in general who might look at this blog.  Right now, I just don't have anything to say that matters, visually at least.

That saddens me, and scares me a little--it isn't like I haven't tried and I can only think of one other time in life of photography when this has happened.   It also scares me a little because having nothing to say hasn't stopped me from sharing photos in the past!  As I am sure you have noticed...Come on Jason, another )*^!@$@$ sunflower?  Really.  It isn't, I guess, the fear of saying nothing, but my  resistance to saying nothing of significance to an empty hall.  Of course it doesn't stop this blathering on my blog, which obviously faces the same challenges.  It is easier right now, I guess.  The way I am going I won't have a working camera to take any photos with at all.  I suppose I could take my phone out and try that...

Oh well.  I will get over it.  Maybe when I get to Spain tomorrow, where the population is roiled by new and increasing austerity measures.  Protests, strikes, slowdowns, etc.  I wonder what I am getting into?  Maybe I will be able to just take photos of things happening like that.  Not much vision involved in that.

So to those of you who visit this to see rather than read, my apologies.  London looks like it does in a million tourist brochures.  I am seeing it all.  I am enjoying it all.  And maybe I will see something worth saying in the next few days.