week #4/52: the static
Every night, part of me says, find a day job. Find something responsible, teaching piano lessons, or audition for symphony work. Likely both if I want to support a family. The other part of me says responsible is the last thing I want to be.
I come home late most nights, the same time of night that drunks get kicked out of the bars, stumbling and laughing through the streets. Lara sleeps on the couch, TV on mute, book slipping out of her hand, two empty wine glasses on the table. Two glasses is not unusual. She has friends. I can’t expect her to spend all these nights alone. She breathes so softly, but I can see her chest rise and fall. I don’t hear her breaths, but instead the breaths of our girls, asleep upstairs, sound carried by baby monitor fuzz. We tried all the different brands, all combinations of channels and frequencies. I insisted on this house, she always likes to remind me. Constantly she likes to remind me, this one is my fault. It must be the spot, this one spot, the radio waves or cell phone towers give us inescapable static. We learn to live with it. We tune it down, still there, crackling beneath our perception like background noise.
– Pat, from “The Static” a neglected short story
notes: I’m not exactly impressed with this shot. I did actually drink the wine out of those glasses, lol! So perhaps I wasn’t in the most creative state of mind. Anyway, the static on the baby monitor was hard to do, and I ended up bringing the base into the living room to make it buzz. (Note, my actual child was sleeping at the time, and I didn’t want to make too much noise.) Also, baby monitor interference is annoying to listen to while you take fifty-million shots of the monitor lights 😉
I don’t know what I would have liked it to be. I don’t think I like the composition. Not sure how I would have done it differently though, because the other arrangements I tried were mostly fails too.
Here’s one outtake that I liked, and almost chose for the “official shot”. I wanted more of the wine glasses in it, but overall, I like the composition of this one better. Ah well, let’s call them both “official” shots, lol!
Posting this week 4 shot a little late, so I’ll probably follow up with week 5 pretty quickly here. I do already have it taken.