This shot depicts the beginning of taking down the Christmas decorations this morning – a job I hate so much that it invariably brings on a rash of displacement activity. Today for example I found that I had a sudden and urgent need to research the setting of white balance in-camera via Kelvin values, which was clearly related to neither the packing away of decorations nor the taking of a mono image.
Sadly it’s not a difficult thing to learn (though remembering to change the settings from shoot to shoot might well be trickier), so it didn’t keep me from the decoration boxes for very long. I tried a few more distractions: laundry, eating biscuits, recommending Blipfoto to some other photographers in a Facebook group I belong to… but by mid-afternoon I’d run out of excuses, so I buckled down and got the job done.
And my reward for this selfless devotion to the cause of restoring the house to normality? I get to go and see the new Star Wars film this evening – a prospect for which I can barely contain my lack of enthusiasm. It’s totally my own fault: R was quite prepared to go on his own, but like a child who’ll submit to a supermarket trip or a visit to an unfavourite relative simply because they’re terrified of missing something, I declared myself willing to go – and with the tickets already booked and paid for, I feel that I just have to grit my teeth and go through with it.
I’m sure it’ll be fine. No, really…