…to talk like this and act like that.

How do people see you and the world around you? There was an interesting day recently when I was pondering that very thing due to several interactions I had with people in different contexts, all of them related to photography. The right combination of moments all conspired together all in one day to give me a different appreciation of just how differently people can see the same world. Not only how they see what is around them, but how it is sometimes difficult to see it outside their own perspective

A thing I have learned after years of attempted photography is that people perceive you differently when you are holding what they consider a “real” camera and related equipment. I suppose it is one of those collectively learned reactions that is spawned from generations of ingrained association of big cameras with some sort of media outlet. But even without a “PRESS” card tucked under the band of your rumpled, felt fedora, there is an undeniable reaction that a lot of people have to seeing someone carrying a big hunk of photographic equipment. Sometimes that reaction is simply an extra glance or two your way, other times it is a cautious stare. Whether the thought going across their mind at the time is, “Ooo, I wonder who he is photographing for!” or, “Who does this guy think he is?!”, is a little hard to tell. Quite often though,  people tend to feel the need to acknowledge further.

“Gettin’ some good shots?” is by far the number one friendly ice breaker. I never really know what to say to this question. Do they really want to hear me discuss the how the glare right now is messing with my ability to see the correct focal point quickly, causing me to delay every shot a moment or two while I compensate, thus missing the perfect shot by a couple milliseconds? And, on top of that, did they also want to know that I forgot my extra battery so right now I’m not even checking the display, which means I am rationing my shutter clicks because I know at any moment, nothing will happen when I press the button?  I am quite sure that is not what they want. What is a good shot anyway? I could scroll with you through the 300 I just took and say “I guess I like this one … so yes I got one good shot”. But that isn’t really what they are looking for either.  Most of the time, I think people just want to acknowledge that they see you, and see what you are doing. Sometimes, even want to feel a part of it. They just don’t know how to express that feeling. I have yet to hear “Camera huh? Is it yours?” But I don’t think I would be surprised if I do sometime. I feel as though I understand that feeling of wanting to be involved, so as much as possible I try to respond in kind, but be brief. My typical response to the “good shots” question is as much of a warm smile as I can manage and “Oh, I’m tryin’!” followed by a comment on the weather, or the event, or how many people there are around, or how pretty the sunset is tonight. At that point both parties are usually satisfied with their level of involvement, and I go on about my business.

So that brings up another thing I have learned. If you want to meet new people, walk around carrying a big camera. I don’t care if you don’t even know how to use it, people will talk to you out of the blue and assume you really know what you are doing, or at least are doing something really important. For an extreme introvert like myself, this can be a little bit terrifying, and for the highly self-critical amateur photographer in me, this can be, well … even more terrifying. It would be rather nice to be paid by the number of times I heard “Are you with the paper?”. It wouldn’t make me rich, but I could probably buy a fairly decent lens! I have never said, “Yes” to those questions, but I’m sure people would be quite chatty if I did.

If there isn’t a connection to the paper or to National Geographic, I think that occasionally people have a hard time computing what you could possibly be spending time taking pictures of.  Sometimes I imagine the thought process of someone trying to work out the object of my camera’s attention. There is nothing obvious that indicates the cave-man-ish “I was here” in your shot, you aren’t pointing at people, that certainly isn’t food and you are focusing way too intently. What could possibly be that cool?

My wife and I were exploring some towns and sights in Northern Michigan when I had my full day of illuminating interactions. For the first encounter on my interesting day I found myself standing along the edge of a quiet street, looking at how the sand from the beach of nearby Lake Michigan glistened in the sun as it laid in stark contrast against the slowly melting black asphalt.  I followed the edge of the street looking at the different formations of the grains of sand and I came upon a iron manhole cover. The sand had piled up a little along its edge and I thought this was the perfect setup for a black and white photo.  I swung my camera around and moved in to find the perfect angle, adjusting my height up and down, focusing, snapping a few shots.  While I was snapping away, out of the corner of my ear I heard footsteps crunching the gravel on the asphalt as a man crossed the street a dozen yards away. I glanced up and he bellowed “Did you lose your keys?”  It was a bit comical, but I really didn’t know how to reply with anything other than the obvious. “No,” I chuckled, “just taking some pictures.”  Did I really look like I was looking for my keys? I wondered a moment or two just how I might be conveying that scenario since I wasn’t standing near a car and had a camera pressed up to my face. Perhaps this was something he had experienced in the past. Maybe I did drop my keys and not notice, I actually even checked to see if there was a hole in my pocket that might have made it look like I dropped my keys. Nope … keys still there. He smiled and shuffled on, and I went back to my sandy manhole.

A couple hours later, I was walking through an area of the sleepy town that was adorned with several quaint shops, the kind that have been standing since your grandfather was born. Over the years their different owners have come and gone, and they used to sell grain or lumber, until people stopped buying those things and wanted T-shirts and coffee mugs instead. I found one shop that stood two stories tall near a giant shade tree.  A small flower garden nearby was being tended by a thin, greying lady who was arranging some petunias closer to the store entrance. An electronic ding-dong sounded from a device clipped to her pants pocket and she hustled from the garden to greet the new customers just walking into the front door.  As she passed by me I smiled at her and she cheerfully said, “Hello, nice day today!”

I wandered the flower garden for a minute or two, camera at the ready. But, I kept looking at the shop itself and how majestically old it appeared. The recent coat of yellow paint glinted brightly in the sun, but there were areas where you could see decades of paint jobs chipped away down to the siding.  Standing at the right angle, you could see small sections of the paint peeling away and hanging down in gentle curls away from the straight lines of clapboard. Zooming in with my lens, I focused on finding curly rinds of yellow paint and I started snapping a few shots.  The shopkeeper came back out of the store to tend the garden again, but she stopped nearby and tried to focus on what I was photographing. “What kind of pictures are you taking?” she asked, seeming a bit bewildered. “Oh, I’m taking a few shots of the paint peels up on the siding.” As soon as I said that, I thought that it sounded a bit odd. “Oh,” she said shaking her head a little bit, “they’re supposed to be scraping that all away and painting it right.” She commented as she walked towards the garden “It was supposed be done this spring, but they didn’t do it again. Who knows, maybe it costs too much, I don’t think they’ll be painting again this year.”  Clearly she got the wrong idea of why I was taking the picture. I thought what I saw was beauty, but that seemed too difficult to explain successfully in the moment.

In another town, we made our way to the beach as the sun was starting to hang low in the western sky.  Scores of people were standing and watching the sun slowly slip between the clouds and behind a silvery, glistening stretch of Lake Michigan. I started hauling my gear out of the car and made my way down to the water to capture the silhouettes of figures walking across the concrete breakwater at the mouth of the harbor. I snapped dozens of shots, attempting to catch the intense orange glow beaming from behind the dark figures.  The sun was setting quickly, so I did not linger. I slung my camera bag over my back, propped my tripod on my shoulder and started briskly walking down the deserted, thin strip of beach between the tall beach grass and the cool lake waves.

Glancing up a few minutes into my walk, I saw a couple sitting in beach chairs at the edge of the beach grass ahead of me that I had not noticed previously. They were facing towards the disappearing sun with its orange aura happily reflecting off their skin. There were barely three feet of sand between the waves and their beach chairs, and I’d be walking right in front of their glowy entertainment … interaction was inevitable! I scrolled through a few things that might be said, but I didn’t have much time until I was right in front of them. “‘Scuse me,” I tried to say in a way that implied an attempt at being as unobtrusive as possible, as if somehow on command my body suddenly became a bit more transparent. “Gettin’ some good shots?!” came the familiar greeting. “Oh, I’m tryin’!”, I replied to the man without even thinking, “it’s a great night isn’t it?” I glanced over without breaking my stride. I saw him point enthusiastically at the sinking sun, “I’m guessing you saw that?!” I chuckled a little and replied “It’s a little hard to miss tonight eh? Very pretty!”

My destination was a small beacon structure on the very end of the concrete breakwater at the mouth of the harbor. From this point I could frame the distant lighthouse against the backdrop of the sunset and maybe catch some passing boat traffic at the same time. I set up my tripod and framed the scene, then just waited for the sun to set a little further and hopefully not be obscured by the thick, stormy clouds at the edge of the horizon. As I waited, I could hear the low rumble of slow-trolling boats coming up the narrow waterway to make their way onto the lake. They are required to move very slowly in this section of the harbor, so slowly that I was picking up on the conversation that two boat owners were having as they converged, heading in the same direction. They amicably quizzed each other on their vitals for the few minutes they had in each other’s relative company. “What year is yours?”, “What’s her horsepower?” and “When did you first get the bug?” Questions and answers that I couldn’t relate to, but both captains used as shorthand to become fast friends in passing. They parted ways after a few moments with a “Good Luck” and a friendly wave.

One of the boats was turning towards my camera’s field of view fifty yards out. The captain was barely visible on the deck through the dusk of evening as he floated by, but I could see we made something akin to eye contact. He waved to me cheerfully and I waved back. “Am I going to ruin your shot?” he hollered to me across the water. This was new! I have had people do all sorts of strange things to get out of my way, or completely ignore me and get in my way, when they see me shooting (usually, they do the exact opposite of what you hope they will, but that is another story). I had never actually had a vehicle of any sort offer to literally change course for one of my shots. “No not at all,” I hollered back. “Go right on ahead!”  The boat glided beautifully into frame between the lighthouse and the horizon, as he floated by I fired off several “ruined” shots.

Earlier the same day, we were driving through a vast park with gorgeous open spaces punctuated by majestic expanses of trees. I was driving, but still watching the sides of the road to soak in as much of the scenery as I could. We passed by a large stretch of pine trees and I slowed the car suddenly, coming to a stop on the gravel-strewn shoulder as I flipped on the hazards. I checked the rearview and saw no cars, so I hopped out and grabbed my camera gear. I tossed a casual “I’ll just be a couple minutes” to my wife and I waded into the waist-high grass at the side of the road. I stood a few yards off the road, assessing the view. I took a few shots, crouched down and took a few more.  I could hear a car approaching, slowing down, slowing more and passing by our car at a crawl. Glancing over my shoulder I could clearly see the passenger’s curiosity as to what I had found.  Another two cars repeated the maneuver as I snapped away.

Another car approached and slowed noticeably, coming to a stop right behind me. Taking another look over my shoulder I was greeted by four curious faces. The passenger window rolled down and a young man hanging over the side. “What do you see?!” He asked in somewhat of a shouted whisper of excitement.  “Oh! Just trees!” I replied enthusiastically. The look on his face was a bit hard to describe. A combination of  disappointed, bewilderment and a dash of annoyance.  He sat back in his seat a little as he said, “Oh, OK”.  For some reason, when I saw that reaction, I felt the need to say, “Sorry.” They hesitated a moment or two, then the window rolled up, the car drove away, and I went back to my treeful forest.

Although the chronology is ever so slightly skewed via artistic license, this episode completed my interesting day full of perspectives on the world. I don’t quite know how to most effectively bend the “forest for the trees” cliche to fit my experience that day, but I think if I tried, it wouldn’t quite match the uniqueness of what actually happened. Why did I say sorry to that young man? Part of me was sad about his disappointment in not experiencing the exciting thing that he imagined was out there. Part was also sad that I assumed that he wouldn’t have the same level of excitement or appreciation for the beauty I saw in the trees just standing against the light. Later, I was mostly sad because I assumed correctly, he couldn’t see it, at least not in the moment. I like to think that as they drove away, maybe from a different angle, he saw what I saw.

The beauty in those trees, that boat, that paint, that sand, it is there for everyone to see, they just need to be seen differently.

This isn’t a recent story, but even though it is just a little old, I thought it would be a good thing to share as a cautionary, yet humorous tale.

It was summer, and my wife an I traveled down to Peoria Illinois for my brother’s medical school graduation. It was a great day and I was very proud of my formerly little brother on his big day. He had worked very hard for years to get through medical school, and it was great to see him pass this significant milestone. After the graduation ceremonies, the family spent time in the hotel restaurant and lounge area talking, eating and having a generally great time. In the middle of our evening, a tornado warning interrupted our celebration and the hotel staff whisked us off to a conference room to wait out the demon wind. In the end, the storms came and passed with lots of bark, and luckily, not much bite. All the excitement from the celebration and predicted doom of storm was more than we could possibly handle, and figured it was time we adjourned for the evening to spend time with our beloved sleep.

Back in our room, we began unpacking all of the things that we pretend to be a necessity for an arduous two-day journey 110 miles from home. Creature comforts that we, never quite successfully, attempt to transport from from our home-life and inject into the fabricated reality of a hotel room. After making as much of a temporary home as possible out of 350 square feet, I turned my attention to the very practiced art of the bedtime routine. Of course, this routine relies heavily on the not-so-artful practice of packing with foresight. Very quickly, an error in the forethought process was uncovered: a missing container for my contact lenses. Normally this wouldn’t be much of an issue except for the detail that the contact container was for my Clear Care lens solution.

If you are not a contact wearer, the name of this solution may mean nothing to you, but allow me to explain. One type of contact cleaning method uses two solutions. Step number one uses a mix of chemicals that remove enzymes on the lenses, and the second step uses another solution to rinse and neutralize the harsh cleaning chemicals that you use in step one. Clear Care is a one-step hydrogen peroxide based liquid that reacts in a special container over 6 hours to clean the lenses and, in the process, break down the hydrogen peroxide into oxygen and water. I’m sure you noticed the choice of the words “special container”.

Yes, it is THAT special container that I had so brilliantly left out of my “packing with foresight”. But, being the prepared, resourceful and ingenuous Eagle Scout that I am…no hold on, that should actually be Dr. Eagle Scout…and perhaps more important, it is not actually me, but my freshly graduated brother. So to rephrase with even more accuracy: being the tired, unprepared former b-average college science major that I am, I started to formulate a plan for getting this contact solution to work without it’s so-called special container!

Step one, figure out how this solution works. Here was how my brain broke it down: Clear Care is based on a low percentage solution of hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide is sensitive to exposure to light and oxygen and will break down quickly when in the presence of one or both. So, therefore if this is a low percentage solution, and it is exposed to air overnight and then sunlight in the morning, it should break down some of its potency and should have a similar effect as using the special container…right?

Let me state at this point, that I’m normally not prone to this type of dangerous experimentation, but exhaustion was creeping in quickly, and I just wanted sleep. I wasn’t really thinking about how smart this was, and I wasn’t really thinking about…well I can stop there…I wasn’t really thinking. I pondered the wisdom of my idea for only a moment or two and then spent a significantly longer amount of time than that mumbling aloud about how silly it was to forget an item so simple. No matter, on to step two. I grabbed a clean hotel glass, squirted in an eighth inch of Clear Care liquid, and dropped in my sight-saving discs. This whole process took a frighteningly short amount of time to clumsily rush through. At this point, it was easy to stumble on to step three: collapse on the bed and fall asleep to whatever fascinating, albeit mildly blurry program that was playing on the History Channel.

After sleeping in for a sufficient amount of time to clear a foggy thought process, we awoke to a bright and sunny morning. It was at this point where I began to question the wisdom of my eye care plan of the previous evening. I rehashed the logic in my mind, and I had a nagging doubt if this was going to work correctly. However, I had convinced myself the night before and I was not dissuaded so easily. I approached my contacts with only slightly hesitant confidence. I fished the first disc out of the crystal clear liquid in the drinking glass where it had been lazily floating all night. I placed the contact on the tip of my finger as I stood in front of the mirror and paused a moment. “Well, here it goes!” I placed it in my eye.

It is a little difficult to describe what happened next since the descriptive timing is very skewed compared to how much time actually elapsed. It seemed as though about 10 seconds passed as I waited for my vision to adjust to the contact, but in actuality it was more like a tenth of a second before I started to feel that something may be wrong. And when I say that I could feel that something “may” be wrong, I mean that I became very disturbed by the sort of hyena-type howl filling the hotel room, while simultaneously feeling as though I had somehow managed to place only my left eye in the path of a shooting jet of molten lava. I concede that it would be very difficult to imagine what the searing pain of a volcano vomiting directly into your eye could feel like, but I still contend that it would be about as equally comfortable as what I was feeling at that moment as I hopped up and down in front of the bathroom mirror.

I believe a total of 2 seconds of jumping and howling had passed before I started frantically clawing at my eye to attempt removal of the shard of flame sticking in my cornea. At first I could not overcome my eye’s seemingly sensible instinct to clamp the eyelid shut to protect itself, but it was too late for protecting and was now just in the way, it had to come out! I finally managed to pry my eye open through the pain, but now I had difficulty actually holding still long enough to stick my fingers in to pull out the contact. Removal attempt one failed miserably, more hopping ensued. Attempt two failed, as did attempts three through ten. It seemed as though it was not only sticking on and melting my eyeball, but was burning a hole right through my head to the back of my skull.

After many painful attempts, I was finally able to wrest the offending circle of silicone from my eye and I practically threw it onto the counter expecting some sort of relief. In more ways than one, I was sorely disappointed. I did know that one of the worst things to do was rub my eye, but the temptation was impossible to resist, and to be perfectly honest, I didn’t think at the time that It’d do much more damage than a magma bath. I was conscious enough to stop rubbing and remember that the best thing to help in this case was an eye wash. A little luck! The hotel had one of those high arc faucets in the small, cramped counter space that passed for a kitchenette. This gave me just enough room to stick my head in the sink and have my eye directly under the flow of water. Although the wash provided some abatement in the pain, having my body doubled over the counter with my head under a running faucet was far from my ideal way to start the day.

After about ten minutes of running water directly on my eyeball, I felt safe to retreat from the sink. At this point I felt immensely relieved, but far from comfortable. My eye was sore and throbbing a strange combination of numbness from the cold water and menthol-like burning from the caustic liquid. I could feel the veins in my eye bulging and rubbing against my eyelids, which were tender from some twenty minutes of prying, and now the whole side of my head was wet and dripping cold water down my shirt.

Then, I looked in the mirror. What I saw looking back at me was a little frightening. There was no “white” of my eye anymore, it was now completely red. I don’t mean “ow, I got an eyelash stuck in my eye and now I need some Visene” red. I mean full-on “oh my God call a priest, we have a total Exorcist possession and I can see Satan glowing in his eyes!” red.
Really…it was freaky.

I was still hurting, but after a quick trip to Wal-mart for an eye wash kit, and some more rinsing under the handy-dandy hotel room faucet, the danger was gone. The rest of the day was spent trying to hide my eye by holding it closed, wearing a baseball hat down low, wearing dark sunglasses, anything to shield my satan-eye. I had to tell the whole story several times to the rest of the family…which fortunately for me, contains several health care professionals. A couple of examinations inevitably ensued to ensure that there was no serious damage…after which everyone was free to laugh at the situation. Other than my bruised ego, there was no long term damage.

Every now and then I look back on this experience and seriously question my sanity. The packaging of Clear Care is now a little more jarring in its warnings about how to NOT use their product, and it is possible that it may have helped me avoid that painful experience. But I have to be completely honest, it’s also possible that I would have done the exact same thing. It is a little hard to say, but my little bout of ingenuity might have even over-powered the bolder and stronger warnings of impending liquid doom.
And there is where the moral of the story arises.
Even if you’re not using a Red Ryder bb gun, be careful, you can still shoot your eye out!