#2 Eyes Front, No Talking ...

(Click here for the start.)


They’ve waited. Waited for you. Now you’re here.

Great.

You watch the barman’s back as he scurries through a door and shuts it behind him. He wants no part of what’s about to happen.


Neither do you, really.


You realise the only drunk in the room is an old man. No-one else has drunk a drop. No half-drained beers going warm or lonely.


Of the crowd, only about half-a-dozen men held bottles. And those bottles are strangled upside-down by the neck by meaty fists, bases smashed into furious angry glass teeth, lusting for your blood.


If this had been a scene from a Western, someone, would step up and make a speech now.


“Turn back now, boy,” or, “You’re a long way from home, ain’t you?”


If it were a Western, you’d riposte pithily, then mop the floor with their asses.


But it isn’t.


All it is, is one old bloke and 30-odd built angry locals, and six razor-sharp bottlenecks itching for your arteries.


Nothing like a Western.


And yeah, maybe you are a tough nut, toned and able to handle things with your hands.


But you’ve never been the guy who had eyes bigger than his stomach.


The only variable here is how badly you are going to lose.

#1 Eyes Front, No Talking ...

This blog deserves a better class of post. Photos of the week? C'mon. No wonder I haven't been back for weeks. I think you'll all enjoy this a lot more.)

B--

***

They won't like you.

They never do.

But you need them.

Yep. They'll have to do.

You ain't ever been in so deep before. How you gonna get outta this one then, Mister?

Same as always, one way or the other. Run, walk, crawl.

You hope.

Go on, you think. Shake that inner dialogue out of your head.


It will do you no good, an unhelpful tennis match of Doubt versus Hope, Desperation two-sets-and-a-break up on Despair.
Get it out of your head.


You aren't much on despair.

You push through the double door and cross the threshold from hot, sweaty, squinty outside into dark, cooler (marginally) inside.


Mind on the job, you focus on the task before you. Your irises relax, expand, suck hard and inhale every bit of scarce light that bounces round the room, a barroom, you can see now, as you drag the details out from under the pool table, barstools, dead animal heads hanging on the walls … details kicking and screaming, fingernails dug in and dragging on the floor.

Yep, it's a bar, alright, and not a very nice one. And that's just the decor.


The clientele … well, they look like they would, and probably do, snap toddlers.

But you expected that.

This, of all things, wasn't designed to be easy.

So, you push your left foot ahead of your right foot, and force yourself not to look back outside.

Outside … where your road ends, hope dies and a final -- and impossible -- task has been set for you, failure guaranteed … and preferred.

Same unwritten law applies now as the one men follow at the urinal wall of a public bathroom.

Eyes front, no talking.

You look at them looking at you, feel, like, no love at all, only hatred.


Then you noticed the broken bottle necks in the hands of a half-dozen of them.

Six pairs of broad, angry hands intent on harm.

You aren't about to break the silence.

(READ the next chapter.)

# 4 Sky, lights, road.

[Panasonic LX3, Aperture Priority, ISO 100, 1/2, f2.0.]

Just can't get off my fat ass, lately.
When it comes to anything other than Laura, it feels like the clutch between knowing what I'd like/should/need to do and doing it, is burned out.
I've got to ride it like a bastard to get myself in gear.
It's the little things, at the moment, that I struggle to do, even though experience tells me the benefits of getting them done are worth it.
Email to the boss instead of chewing on a gripe, update Benography, go for a walk, take a picture -- these things make me feel better, yet I can't be bothered with them. The camera has been left in the cupboard instead of coming with.
Can't help feel that I've been poor company, lately ... for that, I'm sorry.

Here's the photo that helped me realise this, took it tonight as I forced myself to post a letter. Brings me a smile. To me, it made the walk worth the effort, which wasn't really that big a grind, once I applied a little perspective.

Nice how an out-of-focus shot can show me a little clarity.

--Ben

# 3 Lost, (wet) and running ...

[Canon40D, Aperture Priority ISO 250, 1/1000, f2.8. Canon 28-70mm lens @ 70mm]

Ever felt like this guy?
I know I have.
Found this little guy on the ground when I went to cover a soccer match that wasn't on, (called due to weather) during a typical Tasmanian winter.
(Winter has the run from early March to very late December, down here.)
Just me and this guy, out in the rain. Otherwise alone.
Still, he's a hopeful kind of chap, in a way -- despite being drenched in rain and covered in muck -- he still has the strength to shine bright and keep on running.

If he can, I can, I've told myself sometimes, to keep on running.

What does he say to you?

--Ben

#2: Something for Kate's drummer

[Olympus E500 Manual, ISO 400, 1/2500, f5.6 @ 300mm. (600mm @ 35mm equiv.)]

Animal was always my favourite Muppet.
I shot this on Australia Day, 2008, the day after the Sydney Big Day Out. I was with Zeb, Claire W, and Claire's sister Eloise, somewhere in Sydney's sort-of Rocks district, if memory serves (which, it frequently doesn't, please tell me if I was off course).
We'd spent the day wandering the city soaking in the Australia Day celebrations -- It was the BDO when Aussie flags and paraphernalia were banned, remember -- and stumbled on these live concerts at various locations. Amongst other acts, we saw Evermore and Something For Kate, this being a shot of Kate's drummer Clint Hyndman as he abused his skins.
Awesome set, not just because of the music, but because I had my Olympus E500 and 70-300mm lens on me. I'd just bought the lens that week, and had been frothing for a chance unleash its ponies.
Keep in mind we're talking Olympus here -- crop factor x2 -- that's a 600mm @ f5.6 at a rock concert, that I could swing one handed.
Now I lug around a Canon 300mm 2.8 at work most days, so you can go all glass snob on me if you'd like and say the Olympus is cheap rubbish, but you're wrong. For so many reasons, I love my $600 Olympus lens so much more than Canon's white-and-black technical triumph. Yes, the Canon is faster and cleaner and sharper than the Olympus. (If you can buy a camera to focus it.)
I won't argue -- but big glass like the Canon is like 12 times the size and 12 times the weight, (not to mention 12 times the cost). You can't get the shot if the lens it too heavy to carry, or to dear to afford. And how are you supposed to mosh with that on your shoulder, anyway?
In the un-cropped shot that I got a black shadow running down the right side, perhaps from a dude in the pit getting in the way, and at first I thought it spoiled the pic, but that black strip actually works brilliant when the pic is my Mac's background, as I can run my Dock and shortcuts etc in that dead space. Or, if you were a sub editor, you could run story text down there.
Conundrums like that make cropping that much harder for me, and I still struggle to get it right daily. (Just as my boss.)
As for the shot -- I darn well love it. Takes me back right away. And Clint's face packs emotion. If anything, I'd have liked it to be a bit sharper, but, then again, it's as least as sharp as anything ever taken on a Canon these days…

How could I have done it better?

--Ben

For Sean, the boss who warned me never to come back with just one...

I take a lot of pictures.
I'm not talking Jo McNally a lot of pictures, or Chase Jarvis, but I do probably reel through about 300 or so each day and maybe 50 or so most weekends off. Way more on holidays.
A lot just sit around on hard drives and memory cards. I'm not good at throwing things out. Trouble is, I just like the whole click thing too much.
It's fun, sure, but, for me, it's practice. My first editor Sean said you can't take a good picture if your don't bang the shutter, and the more you squeeze it the better your chances are.
He was right. And always will be.
But what to do with them?
Only so many make the paper. And only so many of them are the ones I'd like to see there.
I can't print them out and hang them because we rent our place and every extra hook in the wall is another nail in the coffin as far as our bond goes.
The best thing about getting published is that people comment on your pictures.
"That one's cool."
"That one sucks."
"Dude, that one's blurry."
All feedback good.
So, I'm going to try and throw one up here at Benography every day (or so) and, hopefully, some will give cause for you to react to them. Even if you just like them in facebook, or send a smiley face. And if you don't like it, please say so too.

Thankyou, and Happy New Year.

-- Ben

ABOUT THE SHOT: (Aperture priority, ISO 80, 1/250, f2.8 @ 60mm.)
Taken on my Panasonic Lx-3, in Oliver's bakery in Ulverstone, Tasmania. They do awesome mini sausage rolls there, and I've noticed this smartly-dressed gentleman in there a few times. I'd lined him up for a quick snap when this young person popped into frame as my finger went down.
Instantly, I liked the whole picture a whole lot more.
Do you?
What would have made it better?