preraphaelitepunk.com

Along with the planned MacBook, one of the major purchases being spurred by my trip to Stockholm is an actual film camera. Yes, I know film contains gelatin, and I feel very guilty indeed. I’m a bad, bad vegan, but I’m also a not terribly affluent vegan, and cannot afford a digital camera that would allow me the same quality and control that a modestly good film camera can provide. (Not that I’m good enough to warrant a really fancy-schmancy camera, anyway.)

The point is that I’ve got a secondhand SLR reserved at one of the local camera shops (link included in case they get around to putting an actual page there — currently it’s just a “Coming Soon!” blurb), with 50 mm and telephoto lenses. No, I can’t remember the exact model; I want to say it’s a Canon, with a name that’s vaguely reptilian — Dragon? Komodo? Skink? — but have gone embarrassingly blank on the actual details. It’s a black rectangular box with a handle thing on one side and an opening in the front, okay? The important thing is that it gives me way more control over shutter speeds, apertures, focus, etc., but also has fully and partially automatic modes for when I’m particularly lazy or in a hurry. Secondhand, the total cost comes to roughly what I’d pay for a new mid-range digital camera.

I think I shall name him Skink, because it amuses me.

(I’m not sure where I contracted my habit of naming inanimate objects. I want to blame Stephen Fry and his delightful book, The Liar, in which I could’ve sworn that one of the main characters* named his favorite possessions; I can’t locate the passage now, though, so maybe I’ve made that up. Would hardly be the first time.)

So I’ve effectively added several new tasks to my already fearsome list o’ Things to Do before November: refamiliarize myself with manual focus, read all the books Cindy and Greg have lent me on photography, and practice like hell, especially in low light. Also, try to conquer my shyness about pulling out a camera in public: I know cognitively that no one cares or even particularly notices, but some part of me is convinced that they’re all secretly sneering at the dreadfully gauche tourist snapping away at mundane things and getting in people’s way.

Hmm. Assuming I can still afford the MacBook — must recheck budget — then exactly how much weight will I be lugging around Stockholm? MacBook, digital camera, film camera, telephoto lens, iPod, PDA, emergency phrasebook (note to self: must buy emergency phrasebook), wallet, emergency vegan-friendly snacks, and city guide, at a minimum. Maybe I can find an eBook version of the phrasebook, to try to economize.

obDragonCon Update: Adam Baldwin, Matthew Lewis, and Warwick Davis have all cancelled; presumably this is work-related for all of them, so I suppose I should be glad on their behalf. Still, rather cranky; my inner 15-year-old will have to go without her Neville fix, I won’t get to ask Warwick Davis what was up with his character’s drastic makeover in GoF, and no mass singing of “The Hero of Canton” in the Firefly/Serenity forums. How sad. Adam Baldwin was particularly sweet last year, when this tiny child went up to the microphone to ask a question — he brought the kid up to the stage and the cast table, so everyone could see and hear. I’m still excited to see Alan Tudyk and Summer Glau, neither of whom I’ve seen before, but it won’t be the same without The Man They Call Jayne.

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*And after whom I named my first car, Adrian. The late Honda Insight, smashed on the highway by what I suspect was an 18-wheeler, was named after Henry VII of England; Sid the Beetle is, of course, after Sid Vicious, who probably would not have appreciated the sentiment but is dead and so can’t sue me or smash my windows.