I’ve found that trying new things makes me happy.  I know, trite statement, but it’s true.  Kind of sitting and doing the same thing all the time is boring.  Why not do something strange every so often?  Why not go somewhere you have never before?

Don’t worry.  I’m not going to get all philosophical up in this joint.  I mean this is Wrong Side of the Camera, a blog that appreciates the stranger aspects of life.  And feels the need to photograph them constantly.  I spent last evening relying on this man for permission to the go to the bathroom:

Another view:

Looks like some kind of a king?  Well, is a king.  A king of a place called the Medieval Manor, located in a place called South Boston. Oh was this ever fun.  The inside of it looks like the stage set from Shrek and the whole evening had rules.  He, I mean this man above, had to give us permission to go to the bathroom, or as he put it “walk the Canterbury Trail.”  If we in some way angered him, no Canterbury Trail for us.

There were servings of food the size of my head and believe me, I had a large head and performing.  It was a fun evening and honestly more fun than going to some kind of bar or club where I’d have to scream over someone to hear what they were saying and drink some kind of overpriced whiskey sour.

Ah and the performing.  It was pretty good.  I tried to get some relatively all right shots of it.  I didn’t have my giant camera, just the little water proof one because I thought we’d end up getting food thrown at each other, because there were no utensils.  Luckily that didn’t happen, but better safe than sorry.  The diva only comes out when it is necessary and the diva stayed home last night.

Still the Canon D10 did an admirable job of photographing everything.  See:

I made them black and white because there was a heavy red tint on them.  Pretty OK, right?

In all the excitement about Boston Oktoberfest, Occupy Boston and the Bahamian trip, I forgot about this one:

OK, OK, don’t all angrily write to me all at once.  I am not making light of what they Occupy (fill in place name) Boston people are doing.  I respect their seriousness of purpose and am generally in favor of movements that originate with the people.

None of the following signs indicate that I am in favor of what is in the signs.  Don’t write to me about that either.  If the Tea Party were out in Boston waving banners, I’d be out there photographing it as well.  I decided a long time ago that I would not use this blog as a forum for my political beliefs.  People who know me who read this blog know what my political beliefs are.  And using this thing to express my opinions would be kind of lame, in my opinion.

When I take a photo, I have to see some kind of merit, color-wise or compositionally.  Politically, I don’t need to see merit.  In other words, were Mitt Romney to be standing in front of me and his face were to be arranged in an interesting way, I’d be snapping away.

OK, enough time on the soap box.  I just expended all of those words to say I am not on a soap box.  Now I am off the soap box.  This is a picture blog, so let’s have some photos.

An interesting manifestation of humanity:

 

The 99%:

 

Every good protest needs at least one ninja:

This brought a kind of be-in feeling to the whole thing:

And these are just kind of general protest photos:

And a few things that aren’t people:

And the original non-violent protester was there.  Well, sort of:

 

 

Go out and take photos like this:

The trip to the Bahamas was great.  Short, but great.  So great in fact that Tuesday morning, I nearly forgot I was home and just wanted to be on the beach.  I want to keep the tan, of course, but it will fade.

Something about these photos reminded me of a couple things.  When I was a child, I would go to the sea with my parents for vacation. We have all kinds of black and white photos of those trips.  They were in black and white not because that was cool or anything, but because that was all we had money for.  But I love those photos as photos, as they are tonal and beautiful.  And hey, who doesn’t want their childhood photos to be in beautiful black and white.

The feeling I wanted to capture here is a faded vacation memory.  A memory that is going away.  Not gone yet, but not clear anymore.

See:

Sometimes I get philosophical up in this piece.  And then sometimes this happens:

And hey, why not smile when you are underwater.  Well, as my blog faithful know, I took a little excursion to the Bahamas in the past few days.  Of course I took both of my cameras, the serious one and the one that looks like it belongs in Sponge Bob Square Pants.  The Bob Sponge camera took these photos because as I mentioned before, if the other camera even sees water, it throws huge diva tantrum that can only be mollified with care and attention.

Anyway, so I went underwater with these people.  Yes, I know them, they are my friends and I have to say, they were incredibly funny and game to do this underwater stuff.  I think it part of the reason the photos turned out so good.

Let’s see a few more:

Some people sell their work as artistic, but I’ll tell the truth.  The Bahamian sea was ANGRY after a storm and it was spraying all kinds of water at me and my beloved camera, so the photos got more “artistic” as time went on, as the camera refused to focus and the lens got fogged up on a constant basis.  So really it didn’t get artful.  It just got salty.

Witness: