The star of the blog, again, can't help myself

One of the bits of photographic advice I've heard is to always have your camera with you. Then that leads to which lens on it, which leads to carrying around a whole bag of photography gear. Let's look at that again, shall we?

There is a table down in the basement I use kind of sort of use as a photo table. Most of the actual macros are taken there, and most of the photo gear sometimes lives there. Sometimes the light is such that I run for the camera, and change lenses, so I like to have it all handy. Just in case.

Or, Curtis. He's just so darn photogenic.

Technically, there's lots wrong with that photo. The focus is soft at best. The point of interest is almost exactly in the centre. The distortions from the wide lens are obvious. But it perfectly shows the mood Curtis is in. I'm not even sure he was awake; I got several photos of him like this.

I love the library! They have a great selection of DVD and Blue Ray discs. Some of which I think probably ought not to be in a library because of the violence (Looking at you, Game of Thrones!), but I'm no censor. I'm just assuming that if you are old enough to have a library card and reach the checkout scanner, you're old enough to decide what to watch. That, or you have obliging parents. Whatever.

In any case, it's nice to be able to flip through the movies, read the back cover, and take things home just in case you might enjoy them. Free. We do this all the time, and there's been a few turkeys we pop out early. Some we watch in horrified fascination, and say that we're glad we didn't pay to see it. We like a good bad movie.

Curtis mostly likes watching as well. He'll curl up with us, and sometimes snoozes, paws up and tummy exposed. Sometimes he actively watches the show. I think Elementary is his favourite. Last night I was watching 24 Frames, and this happened. He actually hopped off the sofa, and stalked toward the TV. I had to get up and hang on to him. I was afraid he was going to launch himself out what he clearly thought was a window. Why? Look carefully, do you see the birds?

The movie is from the Criterion Collection. They aim to put the greatest films from around the world on disc in a pristine condition. Often they do extensive work to clean it up. I remember watching Seven Samurai in the theatre and being unable to read most of the subtitles. The Criterion version is stunning. If you haven't seen it, put it on hold at the library and set aside an evening to watching.

24 Frames is by Abbas Kiarostami. He is an Iranian photographer, and what he did here was animate some of his photographic work, imagining what had happened before or after he took the photo. I suppose if you were familiar with his work, you'd know which frame of the roughly 4 and a half minute mini-movie was the actual photograph.

I have to say that I didn't care for what he had done. He was trying to mix photography and movie making, and I'm not sure they go together like that. Some of it looked Photoshopped, and I don't mean that in a good way. It looked slightly less than real in a non-photographic and non-movie way if that makes any sense. It was actually a bit disturbing.

But Curtis found it fascinating. Celina didn't even visit.

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