Flash Of Red

I was having fun taking photographs on my commute home last night - - we'll all have to wait for the results since I was shooting film.

While taking pictures of people on a subway car a woman who I wasn't taking pictures of erupted into a extreme fit of rage.

The woman, twice my size screamed at the top of her lungs, "Don't you go taking pictures over here! Don't point that camera at me! You ain't allowed to take pictures of people!

I replied softly, "Can you relax?"

"Don't tell me the relax!", she yelled back.

Again, almost at a whisper, "You're yelling at me."

"Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up!"

"I don't know why you're yelling?"

"Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up!"

At this point I just stared directly at her as calmly as I could. Her friend looked at her oddly and people stopped looking at her too. No one else said a word to me and as far as i could tell, no one was looking at me either.

At the next station stop the woman dragged her friend off the train and went into the next car.

The idea of giving her one of my nifty new Flickr cards crossed my mind.

Is It Like?

Originally uploaded by Runs With Scissors.

Is digital photography like writing?

I write and cross things out and discard words without much thought - - what happens to the blurries, poorly exposed and missed shots that out number the images that seem refined and ready for 'publication'? Are these like the pieces of writing that have found their way through a fine process of revision?

Are the smaller pieces of writing no less valuable as the larger, well crafted ones they later become, sometimes?