Ink Layers

Getting a tattoo is weird. It's a deeply personal and permanent decision, so naturally we entrust it to... some rando with good reviews on Google. I kept wanting to find someone I knew, or even just a good referral from someone I trust. Alas, the one person that might've filled the criteria lives in a different province and is raising horses now. Go figure.

I'd come around the idea of getting a tattoo about a year ago, and it took a good 3-4 months to figure out what I wanted. And when it clicked, it clicked. I knew it was the right answer. And yet it took a while to build up the courage to act on it. It is, after all, still a thing of permanence. Maybe there's some lingering YOUR BODY IS A TEMPLE rhetoric pinging around my subconscious.

But last week I did indeed pull the trigger. It was uncomfortable at times, but generally tolerable and over quicker than I thought it'd be. Now I get to obsess over the aftercare and stress over the permanent being permanently ruined if I don't keep it adequately covered. A corner of the second skin has peeled about 5mm and now I'm paranoid, even though it has to travel another 35 to reach the artwork itself.

Speaking of which: I wanted to choose something with adequate layers of interpretation. I was afraid of doing something that could be boiled down to I like cars so I got a car tattoo. I didn't always like cars and I don't know if I always will like cars either. The same thing applies to most of the things that've crossed through my life. That whole Favourite Thing paradigm is too temporal for an obsessive and restless mindset. But I remember the instant the right idea came along, and I never really had any doubts about it.

On the surface it represents the fundamental elements of design. It's also a geeky nod to my formative years behind a computer monitor. It represents a long journey that culminates in a destination permanently locked behind a gate. It is frustration and mystery, it's entropy's gravestone. It's something's absence. It's a joke that no one wants at their expense, and reminder that what you go looking for may not always be found. It's the postcard and the destination. Just as much a placeholder as the real deal, and a reckoning of the two. When combined with my professional aspirations, which I've dedicated so much of my life to with debatable outcomes, it's kind of a cruel reminder that you are not your job. Or perhaps you are not anything for long. Life is short, after all.

Anyways, here it is:

My grandmother passed away a couple weeks ago. I don't know if she would've approved of a tattoo or if she would've even understood what it depicted in the first place. But I know she still would've accepted me all the same. And her passing was part of the secret sauce to push me over the edge and get the tattoo done. So maybe it's also a reminder of the things you loved that are no more but you carry still.

It is nothing that can be everything. It's a perfect dichotomy that I can reinterpret ad nauseum and even hide behind. It's every hope and anxiety and existential angst forever. And, maybe, it's also a bit of acceptance. An empty glass is still a glass, after all. So, cheers.

-Cril

I have climbed highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you

I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

Jenny & Tyler feat. Sara Groves - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Shutterspeed 1/2

 Hey Reg. I did it, I got new batteries - all three of them. Yeah, the main ones were toast, but when I charged and put them in, things still weren't working. I thought maybe the camera had bricked entirely until I found a reference to a small coin-cell battery. Lo and behold, that was what I was missing. The camera went with me to Nova Scotia and performed its duties admirably.

I thought I'd post the photos on Flickr for old time's sake, but my account had long since filled up beyond its limits. I don't regret cancelling my Pro subscription a few years ago - looking at the site now, it's evident that nothing has changed recently. I think it's a dying platform.

Anyways, here are some photos. Consider them Creative Commons with Attribution, if there's anyone out there that still cares for such things.

I had a few more edited photos that I'm not going to post because they just don't quite warrant it. And way more photos I didn't even bother touching up that'll never see the light of day. Them's the breaks, I suppose - I'm not a photographer. But that doesn't mean I can enjoy the process, and it got me to look a bit closer at the world for a while. For that reason, the camera served its purpose even after lugging it around for a couple weeks.

We ended up staying in an old caboose at a decommissioned train station in Tatamagouche. It was really cool, and the original station was still there and used as the office/gift shop/cafe. Despite my best efforts, I just couldn't find a good photo anywhere for me to take. Hopefully you don't hold it against me. Still, I think you would've loved it.

I wonder if you'd ever visited the east coast. I bet you would've loved it. Oh well, the only answer to that question is long lost to time. At least your camera helped me stop time for myself in a few different spots.

-Cril

Shutterspeed

Hey Reg, it appears the camera batteries have died. By the time one has finished charging, the other (despite coming off the charger hours ago) is now flat. I can't win, they've properly given up the ghost.

It's not surprising, I guess. I bought the Canon 40D (and batteries and lenses) from you back in 2012, and I think you'd already owned and used the whole setup for a few years prior. To find that date I had to go back into my old spending records and was able to even confirm I paid you $1300 for it. I don't know why, but I correctly remembered that price all these years later. Apparently a similar setup, minus the lenses, now goes for about $150 if you're lucky. Like you mentioned, though, the glass still holds the real value.

The question is why you decided to sell me the camera in the first place. I remember you saying that your arms and wrists just couldn't take the weight any more. I think you first asked for $2000 from me, and the best I could do as a poor student was $1300. You agreed for some reason that escapes me; you knew other people in the local photography community that you could've unloaded it to for a better price. I also knew you weren't rolling in the cash at the time, and were having a hell of a time keeping that Mistubishi van of yours on the road.

Either way, you ended up selling it to me. I made three payments of $500, $400, and $400 over two months. Probably once per paycheck. You used the money to buy a little Leica, if memory serves.

I hate to admit it, but I haven't used the camera in years. I think it was last for a trip to Nova Scotia in 2018. I never really developed a 'specialty' or 'style' of photography, mostly just taking shots of opportunity where I find them. Most are unremarkable, I'm sure, but what I liked is how carrying that bulky camera bag around forced me to look at the world in a different way. To continually scan for the beauty. I never really captured it effectively, but I kept trying.

It's been difficult to lately to get back up on that horse. Over the last three or so years, doing creative tasks seems like more of a sisyphusian task. I push, push, push, and when I take a step back to look at my progress, I'm instantaneously further down the slope than where I started. I'm even having a hard time sketching. My drive seems to be withering away. After dominating so much of my life, like how I was back in 2012, it feels like I'm walking around with an empty room in my soul. Maybe there's a single picture on the wall of the young man you knew me as.

That could be why you sold the 40D to me at such a discount; you saw my drive to create just for the sake of it. Skill and reception be damned.

Do you remember our autumn drive in 2014? You loaded a coworker and I up into your van, and you took us of a tour to the south west of the city to 'appreciate the fall colours'. Man, what tall order for Alberta; that's not something it ever really excelled at. But you found us a remote dirt road in the fog, a waterfall, lonely fields, and yes, even patches of colour. You didn't take any photos yourself, but I think that trip was a bit of a passing of the torch. Or maybe you just wanted to make sure your camera went to capable hands. Hopefully it did.

But how do you explain the record player? How on earth did I end up with that? And the shells your father brought back from the Second World War. I moved a couple years ago, but I still found a place for those to be on display. As for the large format printer, well, I did my damnedest to get it to work but everything came out looking a bit green. I blew through a lot of the (rather expensive) toner reserves trying to clean and calibrate the thing, too. That might be a lost cause in my hands, so I'm considering passing it on down the line. I hope you don't hold it against me.

I'm not sure what I did to deserve some of those gifts, and I wish I could've asked why. I helped you buy and setup a new mattress once, was that it? You knew your time was coming and made sure to move your precious possessions went to people who would appreciate it. I imagine that must've been a bittersweet process. I hope I'll do the same some day, and be able to give new lives to the things I'd loved.

Anyways, this weekend I made plans with my wife to go for a day trip around Southern Alberta, much like we did those years ago. The camera tickled the back of my brain from its place on the shelf. "Yeah, but it's heavy," I told myself, "and it's not charged, and the memory cards are full of who knows what, I'll need to process whatever shots I take, and my new phone probably shoots better anyways."

But I figured I'd take out your camera anyways for this trip. Maybe because the weight and bulk and single purpose imbues a sense of responsibility. If you're lugging something like that around, you better use it. Until the batteries give out for good, at least. It was a rude awakening to realize that they were done, and how long it'd been since I last used the camera, and how long it'd been since we shared brunch at a Denny's together. It kinda makes me feel bad, like I haven't kept my end of the deal on the purchase.

I ended up bringing my smartphone and took some 'images', as you used to call them. Despite the superior technological quality, none of them really turned out well. Flawed from the get-go, I think, because I wasn't moving through and observing the world with the same intent that the big 40D bastard demands. It was a good day out nonetheless, and at one point I stopped in at a small town apothecary and picked out an old vinyl record to bring home. The player, you'll be happy to hear, is still operating just fine.

There are some new batteries available online, two for $27. I'm hesitant to buy them, because if I do, that means I'll have to use the camera and confront my lack of creativity. Maybe that's all the more reason to do it.

I miss you, Reg. I hope things are going well on the other side of wherever you are. 

And I got ahold of your old license plate from the Kia. The plan is to hang it up in the garage once I get the insulation and drywall done.

-Cril

Glenn Miller - Rhapsody in Blue