evil

I'm afraid that, at the current rate of going, this blog will sink into hibernation before the heat of summer strikes. You're reading my fifth entry in five weeks, and I apologize for the paucity of posts. This is not what I set out to do, now a little more than three years ago. I planned to force myself to write, write, write. (Un)fortunately, life offers so much more, some of which better remain hidden from public view.

What I can write about are the mean moments at a one-hour photo the other day. I needed passport photos. As I've been living visa-free for a few years now, it's been a while since availing myself of the services of a photographer. I remember the process of having a picture taken much differently from how it unfolded.

Inside the Shepherd's Bush Happy Snaps, the salesperson asked me to stand in front of a patch of solid pastel hanging on a white wall and grabbed the point-and-shoot lazing on the counter. At this point I should have probably left, but I held out – and it got worse. With trembling arms stretched out in front of her, she turned the camera on but no additional lights, then asked me to take my glasses off because the glare from the flash would otherwise ruin the shot. Convinced that any shot would inevitably be ruined I beat a hasty retreat.

This experience was wrong on so many counts. You don't hold a camera at arm's length, and if your subjects don't move, you use a tripod. You don't use a point-and-shoot if it's supposed to earn you money. For portraits, you use diffuse lighting and maybe an indirect flash, with light arriving far from the axis of the lens. For someone who likes to take pictures and knows, in theory, what it takes to take good pictures, this was a truly evil encounter.

Later in the day, I my picture taken by a loquacious but very friendly machine in the Imperial College student union. I paid very little and got what I expected from a photo booth. The next morning, I submitted two of these mug shots together with my visa application at the Syrian embassy. The heat of the desert is calling me. Don't expect to read much two weeks from now.