11.10.05

Little things

"When I was a little girl, my mom told me that I was always late to school. One day she followed me to see why. I was looking at chestnuts falling from the trees, rolling on the sidewalk, or ants, crossing the road, the way a leaf casts a shadow on a tree trunk ... Little things."
--- Celine, Before Sunset
I never had to do much walking to school. As a kid, the going-to-school routine involved dashing out the door before I missed the school bus or my ride. The only walking I did was between the front door and the vehicle, and between the vehicle and the school entrance.

Now, I take about a ten-minute walk to the bus stop, take a five-minute bus ride (excluding waiting time), then walk another ten minutes to get to work. Lots of time to stand and stare.

Okay, usually, I just stare (though not the "what the hell are you staring at" kind of stare that Mark blogs about) but today I stopped to stand, stare and snap, often enough to almost be late for work.

First, there was a black cat snoozing on the roof of a white car. Dramatically striking, but the few pictures I snapped off before the cat woke up didn't turn out very well. I swear, cats have a sixth sense when it comes to sensing digital cameras activated within a one-metre radius of them. So you'll have to use your imagination, with a little help of wahj's newly created Singapore Cats pool at Flickr to help you.

Then, there were mushrooms.


(Cropped with Terz's excellent assistance.)

Edible? Smoke-able? I dunno, I just take the pictures.

Then there was another cat, this time white, but it was in a difficult-to-photograph corner in a drain, so no pictures of that either.

To make up for it, I took a picture of what was next to my feet at the bus stop.



I have no idea what this does, but it's good to know that my tax dollars pay for some subterranean and no doubt highly efficient system of lightning protection.

And then I was almost late for work.

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9 Comments:

At 10/11/2005 10:28 am , Blogger wahj said...

Nice set of shots - very ethnographic - "A day in the life of a bus-stop" = )

 
At 10/11/2005 12:11 pm , Blogger Wes & Jo said...

good pix tym and good crop terz

wes

 
At 10/11/2005 9:05 pm , Blogger NARDAC said...

Nice pretty mushrooms. Does Singapore produce any edible wild mushrooms. Methinks not.

 
At 10/11/2005 9:10 pm , Blogger limegreenspyda said...

noticing. it's good to take time to smell the flowers, literally. could make the world a better place sometimes.

 
At 10/12/2005 12:58 am , Blogger ampulets said...

that's a healthy colony of mushrooms...looks like having a sart-looking camera makes you wanna use it more ;>

it's kinda strange how we all now need a "viewfinder" to see what's around us, the way some tourists go through their whole journey/travel with their eyes clued to the screen of their digicam. do you also find yourself saying that something (i.e. a person, a scene) looks exactly like a photo/movie/comic? it's reality imitating the created image, or reality interpreted according to the created image - and no longer vice versa! whoever coined the term "viewfinder" was sure prophetic.

 
At 10/12/2005 3:16 am , Blogger wahj said...

Well, the viewfinder is literally and metaphorically the lens through which we see the world and understand it.

I was just thinking about this watching Lost, and how the depiction of the castaways on the island has surely been informed by the looks of previous seasons of Survivor (esp the first one).

 
At 10/12/2005 12:58 pm , Blogger ampulets said...

Hey, Tym. Good news! Y found a third party lithium ion battery for me (TOHA's so well-loved:). It is charging now - the 8-hr routine - should be no problem. Only $40! Go get one! The shop is:

Photocam Electronics City
#01-03/04, Penisula Plaza

Shoot-away! yay! - TOHA

 
At 10/13/2005 12:26 pm , Blogger Tym said...

Nardac > No idea. The mushrooms were gone the next day, so I have no idea if they were rooted out by an animal/person, or if they simply dematerialized of their own fairy accord.

TOHA > Thanks! Will check it out. also recommends Camera Workshop.

ampulets/wahj > I remark that things look like something out of an image/movie all the time. But the strange moment today was realising that a very cinematic description (as if the camera was pulling out of a scene) that I covered in literature class today came from an extract of a novel written in 1941! So people have been 'seeing' things through such viewfinders for a long time now...

But I don't really 'see' photographs on my day-to-day doings. For now, it's more of a desire to capture the moment or because I see something neat --- neat in and of itself, not just because it makes a nice pic. The ethnographic/journalling approach, I guess?

 
At 10/13/2005 12:27 pm , Blogger Tym said...

Typo in the code of the previous comment. I meant to say that Terz also recommends Camera Workshop.

 

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