Saturday we took in a whole bunch of film for processing, got them back in one hour's time as promised, then passed a long lunch at Puffin Café looking them over. I perused them again while sucking down a dessert of iced chocolate milk - thick milk. They may as well have backed up a cow to the table and handed me a teat. Problem is, no matter what color the cow is on the outside, the milk is never chocolate.

My fears were confirmed: Dave's photos from Japan are the only ones worth keeping. Here I am, lugging around this super-duper big and expensive camera all loaded up with 25 ASA film just in case a shot or two is good enough to enlarge and hang somewhere. It happens... rarely, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared. Plus, I like good color saturation, even if I never print them larger than 4x6. When we got to Japan skies were overcast and all the temples were dark; that is, dark wood. I couldn't take one damn shot without a tripod and well, my wimpy REI one just wasn't cutting it. Too difficult to find perches and branches for it, so I ended up setting the camera manually to a slow speed and a low f-stop. Nearly everything was underexposed for that roll, which was the primary roll. Later I loaded some 400 ASA, realizing the error of my ways, but that roll is still in the camera. (I couldn't bring myself to dump a whole roll. I guess I'd rather underexpose 36 shots than toss away 5 bucks.)

My camera really wears me out, which why I don't carry a full-size tripod anymore: The two together are too heavy. The camera is worse. I only have a 100-300mm lens that weighs a ton. All my pictures are abstractions because I can never back up far enough. And the light has to filter through the long length of that lens to reach the emulsion, significantly chopping down the shutter speed. We decided I just need to get a new camera. I've had the thing for 8 or 9 years, so I guess it's time. Still, they are expensive. I think maybe I'd be happy just for a nice 25-50mm zoom.

Meanwhile, Dave trounces around with those throw away things. Usually I hate the pictures they take: The film always seems so grainy and forget about trying to set up any kind of composition. Basically, you just hold one up in the direction of the thing you want immortalized and hope for the best. But this time, Dave took some really good snapshots. I mean, really, really good. Embarrassingly good. Makes my pictures look sorryass. His will grace the Kyoto page when I get it up, not mine. He says I have to put up an acknowledgement to him.

Well, we're gettin inundated with pictures. Dave's parents sent some from their trip and my cousin has started sending me photos in email messages. Also, in the multiple rolls of film we had processed today were some shots from eons ago that I would've liked to put here. That's the problem. I take a picture of a thing, talk about the thing here, but the image remains undeveloped for months. And Korea has crappy photoprocessing. I swear. After this batch I think I will really send all my film to the States, but that will just prolong the ordeal which is already way too slow. Right now, somewhere - maybe on your continent - I have a roll being processed. Who knows when it will show up, but I guarantee the quality will be better than anything I've ever gotten done here.

So I thought it might be fun to do a little picture walk-through today. Nothing special, just a few pictures to complement some things I've talked about in the past. A little visual aid. You can start here.