Monday, November 05, 2007

Me in the Patrolman's Eyes


37of365
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic
I know this rookie thought he'd really stumbled on to a nut job this morning when I asked if I could shoot my reflection in his sunglasses. He was pretty good-natured. In fact, considering how menopausal I am, I thought I was pretty good-natured about the fact that my neighbor backed into my beloved Dodge Caravan this morning, completely crunching the driver's side sliding door.
I was minding my own business, talking to the contractor that is doing some work in my back garden, when suddenly he exclaimed, "Oh. She just hit your car."
I looked up to see my poor neighbor pulling back into her driveway. We NEVER park our cars on the street, but I had made room for the contractor to pull his truck and trailer in.
So. She had gotten into her car with her three little boys and backed out without looking.
When this nice highway patrolman came, his patent leather shoes caught my eye. Trying not to stare down at them so as to appear like I had a shoe fetish, I glanced a few times, hesitated, and then said, "I'd really like to take a photo of my reflection in your shoes."
Taken aback but ever-friendly, he said. "Uh. Okay. But I doubt it would turn out very well. They are pretty dusty."
I explained the 365 project to him and while I was doing that I noticed how clean and unscratched his glasses were. Perfect reflections. So I asked if I could shoot that instead. After he agreed, I went into the house to get the camera.
The S3 really did not want to focus on the reflection. It really wanted to capture the lenses. I shot off about 6 in manual, program, and finally auto mode. Still felt sure I wouldn't get one.
But as we were saying goodbye, I quick whipped my camera up and just clicked the shutter. He chuckled and left.
I loaded the shots into Elements, lightened the shadows, and THERE WE WERE!
And that's all she wrote. Except that I am lamenting the fact that I could have really gotten a good one if I'd had the ability to focus manually. There is manual focus on the camera, but it's clunky and limited. I'm going to try to stop throwing off on this camera though. I need to just move on.
Me&Cop11.5.07

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your neighbor needs to get a Honda Odyssey with the back up camera. I looked up an Indian restaurant in Charlotte on my navigation system and it gave me a route that would take 18 hours to get there!

Anonymous said...

I bet that patrol officer has never had a call quite like yours!