Paidika

We’ve been having thunderstorms at night, sun by day. I love the summer thunderstorms, in part because I’m lucky enough that around here they never turn into nor typhoon nor tornado. And I love in particular the weird mottling of the sky against dark houses.

For the above photograph I metered off of the lamp-post, not wanting to overexpose the photograph. The problem then of course is that everything else turns out black. I don’t have an independent flash stand, and the bush in front of our house has no roof above it off of which I could have bounced the light. I also lack a softbox. So what’s a girl to do? Well, I aimed my flash directly at the bush and of course whited the poor thing out—no good. So I sat on my front porch and hemmed and hawed, and then ran upstairs to grab a newly purchased white-cotton pocket square (“Very Frankie,” said the woman at the store), which I folded up to an adequate level and held in front of the light. It’s not great art, but it is fun.