cosmicshoplifter

The photo above of yours truly is creepy, I admit. It represents one of the first of many future attempts to really learn how to use my camera. "Light-painting" was the technique used and it and involves leaving open the shutter in a dark room while, with flashlights, painting the void with photons. 

And apparently, it's hard for me to use this technique without producing something a little chilling.  Have you ever seen a flower more unsettling?

A similar technique involves catching star trails by leaving the shutter open in a dark world, allowing the Earth's rotation be the hand that moves the photon-brush.

This is, I guess, true cosmic shoplifting, just stealing photons and working from the movements of celestial bodies.

And I'll get better at it. With an enthusiasm that always walks alongside new projects or hobbies, I'm learning new things, like how to spot the North Star, how my camera's image sensor works, and how devastating Ontario's blackflies really are.  And I'm remembering that Earth is small potatoes in the cosmos--a perspective that let's you let the unimportant to simply slide without the "ah fuck it" attitude. Of course, the insight is one I easily forget. Gravity is crueler to the heavy hearted.

Looking up appears to be the theme these days.
A local newspaper I E-mailed recently has been corresponding with me and this week I've been assigned 3 pieces, all due at the end of the week.  I'm excited to be chasing down stories and writing, regardless of how small potatoes the stories are.
And, if it works out, it'll get me away from the graveyard shift at the grocery store, where exploited workers are just game pieces in the capitalists' quest to win.  One of the guys working there, who was actually doing the store a favor by covering another employee's shift, was reprimanded for eating a bag of chips that he bought at the gas station. The supervisor was cranky that this employee didn't get and keep the receipt for said chips.  (Guilty until proven innocent is the way of things for those at the bottom rungs). The employee, who had fairly paid for his chips, said he wouldn't be covering others' shifts any more, since it got him no gratitude. To which the supervisor replied, "oh, well you have no gratitude for the extra money you're earning!".
The message I took from this: "Come work for us, where you'll be treated like a thief, worked hard from night until dawn for minimum wage, and expected to be grateful for fixing out scheduling problems".

I'm reminded of the only politically-oriented slogan I ever remember liking:
In capitalism, man exploits man.  In socialism, it works the other way around.

Oh well.  Writing articles for a local paper won't pay much better but it's a step in the right direction, in my mind, and if nothing else, stirs my interests and sense of excitement.