After going to the medical tent & getting a crutch and other fun things (SO MUCH FUN!), I couldn't deal with just staying around camp anymore and eventually made my way to the porto potties and then Center Camp. Getting there was it's own adventure, for another time. As it turns out, people talk to you even more than normal when you have a crutch at Burning Man. For someone like me, who would generally just observes and doesn't talk much until I can get a better feel for what's going on, what aspects of myself and my personality fit with the people/conversation and generally not making small talk, this was a rather weird experience. Normally I like to kinda quietly do my thing, but I couldn't go very far without getting caught into another conversation of some sort. After a couple spoke with me, adjusted my crutch and offered more padding for the crutch, I awkwardly just said I had to do something else because the social part of my brain just about exploded from overload. I knew suddenly why I liked being with someone I actually know semi-well and can feel ok with so they can share the social load while I just think for a while instead of having to talk and I can more easily read them and talk with them to help make things less difficult. I also like having something in particular to say (which is why I was fine working on radio stations and doing things like volunteering with the Greeters Station at Burning Man, even though I thought it would be one of the most terrible things ever before I did it.) The number of people and socialization is what kept me from going to Burning Man for a while until I found out how I could find some alone time with so many people around. This trip deprived me of some of that planned alone time and it had the kind of effect I had kinda anticipated. It's both good and bad to know yourself...
Regardless, I did manage to take a few photos in Center Camp!:
I believe this woman's name was Hummingbird. We were next to a huge book that had a prompt asking people to write down their first memory & she told me about trying to grab her boxer's tail.
......and for other random ramblings, this roll and another roll of film I developed this weekend have convinced me to not buy Shanghai GP3 Film anymore. While theoretically the weird shit this film does could be endearing, it just ends up making me frustrated more than anything most of the time, especially combined with the Holga being a Holga. On Saturday as I looked at the negatives I just kept wondering what I was thinking when I dropped it in the camera.... I know I was thinking "oh, yes, 100 speed! That is good for the brightness of the playa!", but this stupid 100 speed film almost looks more like 200-400. There's also the annoyance of it curling like crazy and how it's usually cut all wonky on the end. This makes developing & handling it in general a giant pain in the ass. This film is the reason for the random numbers, bubbley looking things and weird textures in the photos...
Is that first photo an actual person or a statue?
ReplyDeleteStatue!
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