Shoot Only The Good Stuff

When you take pictures on vacation you shoot only the good stuff. You don’t generally photograph the dirt in the hotel room or get a picture of the guy at check-in goofing off when he should be serving you. For documentation purposes photos of these things make sense but it’s the good stuff you want to remember so that’s what you shoot. Today had its high and low marks but I’m focusing on the interesting stuff.

Joan the homeless lady was one of my first customers this morning. Joan stands near five feet tall and like many homeless is thin as a rail. She is usually dressed nicely and seems all there. Her hands cupped together she came up to the register pinching a plastic container in the pinkies of her hands so as not to separate them.  She asks if I have a way to punch holes into the top of the container. “This little guy ran into a window,” she says. She opens her hands a bit to show a baby bird which immediately sees light and boogies for the window. Joan managed to retrieve the bird and brought it outside. She later informed me that it flew well but didn’t know how to brake and land.

Speaking of not landing well…An elderly lady approached the register. We spent a minute, as we always do with the unitiated, discussing types of coffee drinks. She ordered from me (a white guy) and turned toward Luis (who is brown in color) and began speaking to him in Spanish. Funny thing is Luis speaks no Spanish.

Speaking of horses of a different color…It was motorcycle weekend in Palm Springs. Anecdotal reports indicate there were 15,000 riders downtown. Though most wore leathers customers report that women were riding bare-back. That happened in the afternoon. I hate to think what the town will be like after sunset.

Speaking of ‘partying’ there was the customer that was in a hurry to get back to the motel with his purchase of Advil and Iced Vanilla Latte with Soy. Makes sense going with soy, because after all you’d hate to put anything unhealthy into your body, right?

Saturdays in tourist season make for interesting photos. Granted I had interactions that were like the hair behind the hotel room bathroom door or the lipstick stain on the coffee cup. The beauty of shooting digital is we can delete what we don’t want. Then we can focus on the good stuff.