Cole Coffee & a video(!)

You can watch this without the sound, if you prefer (I do, slightly):

Well. Something different was bound to happen eventually. You could accuse me of having a short attention span, or lacking focus, or something harsh like that, but I prefer to think of it as having an open mind, paying attention to how things change, looking for openings & possibilities, & learning—always learning.

It was good for a while to not work on this project when it was rainy & gloomy out, fine to notice when I just didn’t feel like asking strangers to take my picture. But today I stuck my camera in a waterproof purse, opened my umbrella, & walked through the rain for a lunch date with a friend, who never showed up because she thought we were meeting at her studio, & I thought we were meeting at the cafe.

By the time I finished my sandwich, I knew we’d miscommunicated somehow & she wasn’t coming. I settled in to being alone with my tea, & thought about asking someone to take my picture, but it was really all wrong for that. Cafes are particular; people in them often wrap themselves in a little cocoon of daydreaming privacy that I tend to respect, having done much of the same myself.

I thought about how this project in one sense is a study of my time alone in public—a very specific slice of my life—& how cafe space is so much about that. Why not enlarge the parameters, just a little, to include how I see the world when out alone, what it looks & feels like to me when I’m not talking to strangers? Instead of having a project on/off switch for sunny extrovert vs. rainy introvert, how about a dimmer that allows for something in between?

Looking Glass

Looking Glass is a Berkeley institution, sort of my own photographic mothership. I remember when it was several blocks south, closer to the corner of Alcatraz. I remember when it moved & was painted a cheerful blue color. I remember when they used to charge more if you used a credit card. (They still have a $10 minimum.) I bought my first Holga there, & the young dyke who sold it to me enthusiastically demonstrated how to load the film & tape it all up (not a small job!) so I would know how to do it myself, plus I walked out of there ready to shoot.

Because of all this history & relationship, I gave today’s photographers more direction than usual: I wanted a picture not just of me, but of me in front of the Looking Glass, preferably with the sign.

Yes, photographers, plural. Well, does the first photographer count if she didn’t actually take a picture? She was a teenage girl, with—I quickly saw—that particular teenage sensitivity to weirdness, so I felt a little sorry that I was making her uncomfortable with my weird request, but she was a good sport & really made an effort, backing up to the edge of the sidewalk to try to get the sign in the frame. After all that, she handed the camera back to me, I thanked her, & she was gone before I pressed the review button & saw that she hadn’t actually gotten the picture.

I was quite surprised, but got back on the horse & asked the next person who came along. This was a Chinese woman about my mother’s age, walking with her husband (presumably), & she also made great efforts, stepping off the curb & warning me that she could only get part of the sign in. Of course I said that was fine.

In the future I will frame any potentially difficult shots myself to make sure I’m not asking too much of my photographers. But I must note: they still tried, they really tried!

Bus stop, with pigeons

On my way in to the post office, I passed by today’s photographer waiting at the bus stop with a child—perhaps his granddaughter?

I thought, if they’re still out there when I come back out, I’ll ask him to take my picture. Even though I took the time to sort through my mail & read some of it, sure enough they were still there.

As I approached, I saw they were watching some pigeons who had made a home in the facade of the fortune teller’s storefront. I walk by there all the time, but I’d never noticed this big hole with the birds milling in & out.

“Oh wow,” I said, “those birds are living in there!”

He replied; his unexpected accent (African? Caribbean?) threw me off for a moment & I had to ask him to repeat himself.

“And having babies in there too,” he said again.

“Oh dear,” I laughed, paused as we all watched the birds for another moment, & then asked him to take the picture.

He asked how the camera worked, & I explained.

“I don’t know you,” observed the girl, who was sporting a bright magenta velour tracksuit & neat fro.

“No, we don’t know each other,” I agreed, & then I’m not sure what else I was going to say, but then the man asked for confirmation that he had understood my instructions.

He took the picture. I asked, “Did you get it?”

“I don’t know, you look.”

“Yep, there it is, see?”

“I don’t have a camera,” he said.

“Well, you did a good job.”

Kaiser

Just so you know it’s not all ice cream & beaches around here… sometimes I have to sit in the Kaiser waiting room, too.

This was definitely the weirdest place yet to solicit a photograph; I had to say, “Excuse me, I know it’s a little weird, but, would you mind taking a picture of me?”

She did not ask me why or what for.

I picked her because everybody else was doing something, & she was just sitting there, waiting patiently.