My Dam Pictures!

I worked for an hour this morning. Apparently no one thought to tell me not to come into work, but that really doesn't surprise me. There was nothing to do and no one there. I sat there, waiting for someone to show up or something to happen, and it didn't, so I waited an hour and decided to leave. Fortunately, something told me to bring my camera equipment. Mr. W. called to tell me I had left my make-up at their house. I told him I was leaving and he said he would have breakfast ready. Have I mentioned I have phenomenal friends?

I persuaded him to come on yet another adventure with me. He's ex-army and kind of tough, so I figured having him along for the ride was a perfect opportunity to take pictures in all the nastiest areas of Nashville today. He was my photo-bodyguard.

We were driving towards Bordeaux when I suddenly noticed an old neon motel sign that had previously gone completely unnoticed, even after driving that road scores of times. I pulled into the driveway and we discovered a photographic goldmine - an abandoned motel with loads of junk and about the best neon sign in Nashville. Mr. W. borrowed my Nikon FE2, and after a little instruction in the ways of "analogue" camera technique, started shooting away, and quite successfully (I already mentioned how cool that camera is, didn't I?).

We snaked around Nashville in the gorgeous weather (when I post the pics, you'll see the gorgeous deep blue skies dotted with little independent puffy cotton-wool clouds) and made our way through scary neighbourhoods (Bordeaux, Buena Vista, Jefferson, Dickerson Rd.). We were only yelled at once, by an Indian woman who scowled at me and told me I couldn't take a picture of her crappy hotel sign. She doesn't have much choice about it if I take it from the street anyway, but I didn't want to get into the legal specifics with her. The great thing about shooting a TLR - no one thinks you are taking a picture because they don't see you raise it to your face. Sneaky.

On Buchanan Street (a street filled with photographic gems - I would love to go at night, but simply lack the bravery/stupidity to do so), I took a picture of an old laundry/dry-cleaners. Across the street, the Nation of Islam mosque blasted their sermon via loudspeakers for the surrounding blocks to hear. On Easter, the effect was quite surreal. On Dickerson Road, a bum carrying a brown-bagged 40, who stumbled across the street oblivious to the cars swerving to miss him, asked me to take a picture of him. I declined as I only had two shots left and still had to backtrack and shoot the Last Chance Liquor Store, but I should've.

After driving through Nashville's nether regions, Mr. W. and I went back to Wolf Camera to see Miss L. and get our rolls processed. She, as predicted, had already developed our film from Friday night. A few of mine came out great, especially one taken on the pier at Old Hickory Marina. However, we deduced I might have a shutter-sticking problem, because three pictures in row came out severely over-exposed on mine. Strangely enough, they were all pictures of Old Hickory Dam. Miss L. exclaimed, "your dam pictures didn't come out!" Dam pictures!

I got some prints of my latest rolls too, but I don't have a scanner here at the moment. I promise pics soon!