by ·0 Comments

I met someone for breakfast in Newtown and, shortly after ordering, an old lady came in, purchased two bags of potato chips and sat by the door eating them.  She would ask us how we were doing and without a pause say “fine”.  After three such encounters, we moved to Starbucks and ran into her on the way there where she had a new bag of potato chips and again told us how we were doing.  On the way out and back to our cars, we encountered her again where she had acquired a fourth bag of potato chips and did us the service of having our smalltalk for us.

At least she didn’t call me “sexy legs”.

by ·0 Comments

Joe invited me the Newtown Blues and Brews Festival which combined several things I detest: white people playing blues, the inebriated, Newtown, hand stamps, and standing but I value Joe’s company and need practice at event photography so I steeled myself for the beer-washed masses and headed to Joe’s to be designated driver.

The line into the event was several hundred people deep but moved quickly.

20100925-4238-newtownbrewblues

While taking pictures an inebriated man came up to me to say that “The Canon 17-40 mm is only good at weddings.  There’s nothing it can do that the 85mm f/1.8 can’t”.  Yes, the only thing the 85 mm lens can’t do is get a field of view wider than 28°… Later someone walked into me, looked me in the eye and said “sorry, that was… *points to friend* her fault.”  One of the few people there I knew was Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick who said to me something like “I’m still trying to convince you.”  I had no idea what he was talking about.

The highlight of the day was a split between the Italian sausage and the guy who crazy looked like the detective from Hot Fuzz.

20100925-4284-newtownbrewblues

vs.

At the tail end of the day a person asked me to take their picture:

Him: Hey, Ansel Adams, take our picture.
Me: Ok
Him: Everyone Ansel Adams is going to take our picture.  *holds, guy walks in front*
FUCK YOU, TARGET SHIRT GUY  *holds, guy walks in front*
FUCK YOU, SAM ADAMS GUY *holds, guy walks in front*
FUCK YOU TOO, OTHER GUY
Me: Picture taken.
Him: Thanks, Ansel.