The ass-kicking you like to endure...

A photo-shoot might be like childbirth. (So I’m told.)

Hell of a process with joy in the result.

In my case, it’s cause of that bastard/friend inside my camera.

Bastard slash friend because it’s like he’s two different guys. With me one second, against me the next -- kiss with a fist.

Evil twin thing going on here?

Nup -- I can tell it’s the same guy.

When this guy’s on he is so on! Like a magical angel, sprinkling fairy dust over my lush tonal range.

But when he decides I need a pasting, I get slayed.

Dusted.

Grabbed by the ankles and crutch stomped WWF style.

Blood everywhere, highlights blown.

Super bad.

Sometimes it really feels like we really hate each other. More often it feels like he’s bigger, faster, tougher stronger.

All I want is for him to slip his Tinkerbell wings on, but no, his fairy powers have packed in the Good Fight and assumed the fetal position in the corner of a fateful dark alley.

The flash compensation dial feels like it’s FOR DISPLAY PURPOSES ONLY, the focus insists on parking two feet behind your subject (if it ever stops hunting) and all that’s left of your ‘gun’s batteries is a pathetic wimpy whine.

The goblin is darkness, is evil, the outstretched suffocater, closing in, bearing down.

Cackles and sneers.

Victory is his.

Bend over, sweetie ...

Then ... the switch ... it flicks.

Tinkerbell winks and calls in Voltron’s sword. Raises it high.

Reminds  you to keep faith.

Why? 

Because while the blackness will take all, it takes only takes the glow from one tiny fairy’s wings to push back the shadows.

And that moment is  when everything clicks, and that’s why I’ll line up behind the lens the next day to go through it all again.

More inside than dust and a sensor

There’s an actual being (likely mystical, possibly magical) inside every camera I have ever used.

Yes, it’s true.

Logic tells me it is very small (duh), quiet and fairly light, as my Panasonic LX3 camera has never felt heavier all of a sudden, or unbalanced, as though a portly chap suddenly teleported inside.

Being a compact, fixed-lens camera, there are also very few ways inside an LX3, which further supports the smaller-stature hypothesis, I’d venture.

Now ... this isn’t a new theory of mine.

I’ve thought it a long time.

It’s just that I’ve been reticent to share this on the public record, as, believe it or not, stating an unwavering belief in things unexplained and mystical could possibly reflect adversely upon the writer.

Only once have I told someone about my camera dweller.

Afterwards, the person stared silently at me for three very long moments then quietly walked away.

Later I found myself un-friended on Facebook.

It’s one thing to think something, yet another thing to commit it to print and actually write the words: “Yes I believe a powerful (if undersized) creature dwells in my camera.”

Especially when I’ve never seen it.

Or heard it.

Even smelled it.

And I certainly haven’t found any evidential scats or droppings to prove it.

But I’m sure he’s there.

Yes, it’s a “he”, and I’ll tell you about that later.

But I’ll tell you one thing about him now:

There are several of him.

-- Ben.