Continued: Professional Curtsies

So what about that street sign and the notion of its acquisition at a (five-finger) discount? I confess. I did set my alarm for 3:15 a.m. the next night, dutifully awoke, went outside, remarked the beautiful night of stars and gone-away thunderclouds. And sat down to write something.

Sometimes things are like that. I can't explain it. 'Something' — did not stop me exactly, but did retard forward motion. Late that following afternoon, an afternoon filled with bright light and passing clouds, I overcame my inertia and dragged myself and the thirty or so pounds of camera stuff downstairs, loaded the bicycle and pedaled over to the sign. My mission would be to make one straight-ahead 'record' of the sign. It should be a good candidate, the reflective surface enamel richly crazed from years exposed to the western sun. So I did that, but examining the ground glass image noted a strange reticular form off to one side. It was a recent office block, striking in both its architectural emptiness and for its geometry in contrast to that of the sign. Not trusting logical thoughts arriving during moments of photo-embrace, so to speak, I noted my impression and set about packing up to go.

In the few moments required to put away film holders, focus cloth, and camera I glanced up at the pedestrian signal on the opposite corner, an icon of a human figure illuminated green, amber, or red as need be. Beyond that there was an electrical substation, a jerky mess of projecting towers, glittery insulators, and connecting cables arching from one to another. In the corner of my eye I caught part of the sign, the icon of man-with-handcart. Trying not to think, but to focus energy on the physical difficulty at hand, I slid the tripod over a bit and remounted the heavy camera. Some wiggling this way and that, backing up a little too close for comfort to the passing traffic. The man-cart icon hunched itself in one corner of the ground glass, the pedestrian signal figure in the other. Electrical symbolism, or whatever it might become in the photograph, rose up in between.

Now this really is thinking about it too much, and after the fact at that. At the time these were not clear thoughts at all. More like vague hunches. Or grudges, but happy ones. Such as are to be acted upon, photographically, in true religious observance.

Good thing nobody stole that sign.