Trask Avenue

I was leafing through my digital photo files as one with digital photo files tends to do when I happened upon the thing above created sometime during Dubya’s Reign of Mispronunciation. When I first began diddling with photography back in the olden days of aught 5 I quickly became enamored with the various hoo-ha’s and dimwhittles available in your basic photo editing software packages. (Or was it aught 4? Maybe aught 3? I ought to know, but I asking me to remember that far back is like thinking Mickey Rourke is the perfect choice to lead your prayer meeting.) My attraction to the software was accelerated because I had no clue about photography. If someone had asked me the best way to frame a photo I would’ve told them to get their arse down to Target or Wal-Mart and buy a frame. And they’d have to pick the size because how was I supposed to know the picture’s dimensions? Did I look like some sort of soothsayer? Anyone with a pinch of smarts knows I’m not a soothsayer. Besides lacking a crystal ball, I look lousy in a turban and positively dreadful draped in layers of scarves. So being totally ignorant to photography basics, much like a clown is totally ignorant to comedy, I became fascinated with these nifty tools.

Okay, let’s backup a bit. I wasn’t totally ignorant about photography. For example, I was relatively confident you looked through the little window thingamajig on what seemed to be the back part of the camera to see what the front part (called the “lens”) would photograph once the button thingy was depressed which set the whole whirligig in motion. (I really should give myself more credit for knowing stuff.) So I knew something. Yet the results wrought by depressing that button thingy were, ironically enough, depressing. One might even say brutal, much like a botched facelift. However, I had the proverbial ace up my hole. Wait. I mean the sleeve in my ace. The hole in my sleeve? Whatever. You get the point. The difference between the botched facelift of my photos and the botched facelifts of Jocelyn Wildenstein was this marvelous software which could somewhat repair the terror. Poor Jocelyn, science has yet to come up a solution for her. You know things have flown south when Joan Rivers thinks you’ve gone too far.

I dabbled with these computerized toys like a kid belly-flopping into his first mud pool. I was Van Gogh without the rigid discipline, rising from the muck of Art Hell like the bastard child of Jackson Pollack and Quasimodo. Except the only starry night in my future was an actual starry night where there were visible stars in the night sky. In these parts, they ain’t easy to come by. Oh Montana, how I envy you!

Aside from the minor problem of (almost) total ignorance, I had no clue what to photograph. Yes, even the idea of starting with something as basic as flowers didn’t occur to me. Instead I’d stage these elaborate productions in the safety of my home with the verve and naïve enthusiasm of Rooney and Garland getting ready to put on a big show to save the school from the evil grips of Mr. McScumoneybags. Never mind that I had no proper lighting equipment and my home gets about as much natural light as Dracula. I had a lamp or two and by gum, that was good enough. Plus I had the software, that glorious Savior of Saviors. So after much trial and error I’d construct something awesome and mind-blowing like the above whatever the hell that is. Then I’d reach deep into the creative well and cleverly title it something like “Albums.” Pure genius.