Sinister: Blind Ambition (or, The Bad Photographer)

[Will Salt]

Look, I *know* this post doesn't have any content.  Don't read it if
you don't want to.  If you don't like it, let me know; I want people
to tell me when I'm not liked.

Ambition's a strange thing.  I got thinking the other day about all
the ambitions I've had, and how they're all contradictory and I'll
probably never fulfil all of them.  The first was to be a train
driver.  The second was to read the Shipping Forecast on Radio 4.
I love its monotone rendering of the seas of Europe. It's poetry, you
know.

South Utsire, Forties, Cromarty, Forth.  South-West or South 5 to 7.
Snow Showers.  Good.

We had lots of snow in Scotland this week.  After it had stopped, but
whilst i knew it would still be lying thick on the ground, i went out
for a walk with my camera.  I walked up the hill by the Royal
Observatory and crunched about in it.  There was an icy crust on top,
but in places it had drifted and was still powdery-soft and feet
deep.  I took photos of the snowy city; i took photos of people
walking their dogs, and i took photos of the snow itself, its surface
all iced over and churned up.  After that, I walked down into the
wooded glen behind the hill, and old women walking their dogs said
hello to me.

German Bight, Humber.  East or South-East backing North-East 4 or 5.
Fair.  Good.

I want to take more photographs.  I suddenly had this urge, which i've 
not had for a few years, to go and take pictures of beautiful things.
I want to travel all round Scotland with my camera, and take photos of 
the little things which nobody looks at but which are amazing every
day.  To my mind, the most photogenic building in Glasgow is the
ticket booth of Kelvinhall underground station.  Take a detour next
time you're in Partick.  Then, I want to photograph a girl standing
outside Hillhead station, waiting to bump into a song writer.  You
never know, they could be in a band someday.

Thames, Dover, Wight, Portland, Plymouth.  East backing northeast 5 to 
7.  Rain, then showers.  Moderate or good.

The third ambition is a bit bizarre, but would be so great.  I want to 
make the *first* commercial for "feminine hygiene products" that
features lots and lots and lots and lots of red liquid everywhere, in
a horror-film type way.  Seeping from the walls, and everything.  The
Chosen Product would make it all go away, of course.  I get *so*
irritated by all those adverts with little vials of blue liquid, and
I'm a boy.  I hate to think what all the girls out there must think.
I mean, it looks like mouthwash.  Or the stuff you used to see in big
glass bottles in the front windows of chemists.  I'd like to see a bit 
of reality advertising some day, even if it does put me off my fish
fingers.

Sole.  Cyclonic becoming northerly 5 to 7, occasionally Gale 8,
becoming variable 3 or 4.  Rain then showers.  Moderate, becoming
good.

Sometimes, I make ink polaroids of photos i never took.  Like the old
man who talked to me in a cemetary in the Outer Hebrides overlooking
the ocean; he was old, weatherbeaten, and told me he was just visiting 
a friend.  You can see the smile on his face, the glint in his eye,
which could be happiness or sadness.  Fog banks are coming off the
Atlantic behind him.

Malin.  Westerly 3 or 4 backing southerly 7, perhaps Gale 8 later.
Snow.  Moderate.

I don't know if everywhere will look good in a photograph.  I've not
seen everywhere.  But I want to try, at least.  It's an ambition I can 
at least have a go at.


x

will


-- 
"one day, everything will be grate, as long as you are willing to make it
to be..." -- John Maxwell

ICQ 66321009

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