You know, there comes a time in everyone’s life when they realize something that they’ve denied up until that point, some ugly facet of themselves that they really never wanted to believe was true. Sure, they might even joke about it, make an admission in a self-deprecating way before someone else does, but they never quite believed it even then. And since that’s what a blog’s for (especially if you don’t take photos of your food,) I’ll come right out and say it: I don’t do “cute.”
Wasn’t I supposed to feel this great weight lifting? Didn’t happen. But yeah, I’ve always maintained that I could easily shoot cute photos, I just wasn’t running across the subjects as much as, say, praying mantises dismembering their meals (I said nothing about photos of something else’s food,) but when months go by without anything that even remotely fits the bill, I find myself facing the fact that it just doesn’t happen. I never thought I was avoiding it – I figured I could stop shooting creepy things whenever I wanted – but without realizing it, I must be seeking the bugs and snakes and such, my feet tracing the paths that carry me to subjects that will never grace a greeting card.
Is this a bad thing? Should I devote myself to changing it? I tell myself that there’s a niche for everything, that someone has to break the pattern, provide the balance, provoke the disgust. But maybe that’s just rationalizing; I’m the supervillian justifying his own existence as necessary for the superhero. In other words, if it weren’t for me, there wouldn’t be the market for cute photos that there is.
Or maybe I’m the rebel, desperate to show to everyone that I don’t care what they think, which is self-contradictory when you think about it. Maybe I’m denying that when I’ve tried cute pics, they’ve generally not come out well, and rather than work on it, I lash out at others instead. “Take that!” I say with my thousand words, “Let’s see you dissolve into baby-talk now!” And I can sit back, looking at the statistics for visits to this site and cackling as if the short time periods most visitors spend on the pages is intentional and planned.
Or I could be just an asshole. But that’s a stretch, I think.
Anyway, we’ll go back to 1999 I believe, a trip to Big Cypress Bend boardwalk in the Florida Everglades, and an alligator taking advantage of a small patch of shade to drowse pleasantly within. I’ll let you decide exactly how this should be qualified.
