Not all my Shots are Cheap...

In honor of the Anti-Crisis Business Networking Meeting in Bucharest today, here is a small reminder that other than wasting my days away diatribing on a blog, some of my other endeavors actually have some value:

(click for a larger version)

That's right, tremble in fear, mere mortals... I own a camera! HAHAHAHAHA!

In point of fact, with the evolution of convergence technology, specifically cell phones, it's getting harder to find people out there who don't own cameras. And don't pooh-pooh those camera phones, either. My Nokia N93 had a 3mp camera with Zeiss lens and a 3x optical (not digital) zoom. That gave it the honest equivalent of a 9mp camera. And my new LG Renoir is 8mp right out of the box. Considering some of my early floral shots from 2003 were done with a 3mp Sony Cybershot, it shows how far digital cameras have come, and ironically, how little of "good photography" is determined by megapixel count. In fact, unless someone out there comes up with some REALLY good software, and in which case he will have to be sequestered with Salman Rushdie to avoid the angry wrath of the world's leading photographers, cameras, no matter how good or expensive, remain in the category of tools. You either know how to use them or you don't. The world's most luxurious and well-made hammer, say, for example, the kind for which the Pentagon pays $2,000 each, is still useless in the hands of someone who can't hold a nail steady. A hydraulic automobile lift is worth nil if you don't know a generator from a geranium. And the new 21mp Canon EOS 5D Mk. II (and my birthday is coming, hint hint) is naught but a very glassy and metal-ly paperweight if you think "composition" is the report on amoebas your kid has due in Biology class on Monday. But I digress.

I take good photos. There's no getting around it. I'm not saying nobody's better. There are some awesome photographers even in my own small circle of friends. But if you like good photos and can't quite get the hang of doing it yourself, give me a ring up and let's talk. Some people have actually been known to pay me real money to take photos for them. If you would like to join this small but elite group of connoiseurs, I promise not to stand in your way.

It's a sign of something, but what?

A year or two ago, I traveled with a Romanian comrade back to the US. In touring major cities like New York and Washington, he commented on the sheer number of signs lining the streets. Directives for speed, parking, direction, litter, wipers, lights, turns, limits... his mind boggled. "Do you Americans need signs to tell you every little thing?" he asked. I couldn't argue. There are a few reasons why this is true; in America the law system is clogged to a standstill with stupidity (Google "frivolous lawsuits"), so the result is to attempt to pre-emptively spell everything out beforehand with signs to take the guesswork out of what should be done... and to minimize the lawsuits from idiots who drive their cars into the river because there wasn't a sign telling them NOT to. This couples well with the secondary but more historical reason for these signs: Americans just like being told what to do. We're too lazy to think for ourselves, or else we don't want to accept the responsibility of what might happen if what we think for ourselves turns out to be wrong. So we've empowered our government to think for us, and common sense is now attempted through legislation. But I digress.

The point is, with the million or so signs in each city block of any US metropolis, they are at least organized and displayed in a clear manner. Not so in Bucharest! While driving in Piata Victoriei, my attention was called to this amusing foul-up:

Leave it to these guys to screw up the display of not hundreds, not dozens, but just TWO signs. One is immediately in front of the other, the photo is not a trick of perspective. There is maybe half a meter between the signs. The one in front shows neighborhoods, the one in back shows highway directions. If you were not already familiar with the city, which sign do you think would be more important to you?

Ahh, forget it, I'll get an ulcer with this kind of stuff. Let's go read about those great street cleaning folks again.

Respect!

It's probably a result of the recent elections, so don't expect it to last very long, but throughout the city, at all hours of day or night, you can see these intrepid souls in all weather. All they do is sweep the curbs and keep them clean - to the best of their abilities, of course... they're only human. I see them everywhere I go, and I go a lot in this town. Lately I've noticed they've become less cautious, or more defiant, or both, about working in the way of heavy traffic at rush hour, and you have to dodge a bit more than before. Still, they always appear to be working hard, never lounging around smoking or other leisure postures that one might expect from unionized labor. In a city that offers so little worthy of respect, this is one thing. Smile and wave if you catch their eye, and for any taxi drivers reading this, try not to hit them directly as you toss your complete McDonalds meal trash out your window...

Breakfast at the IHOP

In the US, a popular pastime is going out for breakfast at a franchise restaurant named International House of Pancakes. Since Americans are inherently fond of saving effort, this has been shortened, even by the restaurant itself, to the acronym IHOP. It is pronounced "eye-hop."

In Bucharest, it appears that breakfast at the IHOP is also popular, at least among the Gypsy population. Except in this case there's no acronym, breakfast literally means "IHOP over the locked gate to your trash can, slice open the bags therein, strew their contents all over the place digging for edibles, and feast on the opposite curb" (see my earliest blog entry).

So one morning I finally had my camera phone working at the right time: here's the breakfast nook all set up, complete with customer:

...and here's the chef, upper left, in mid-climb over the padlocked gate to the trash can, lower right. Within minutes the area around the can was piled with rotted, smelly loose trash and the girls were munching away on leftovers.

Before anyone gets on my case with an attempt at "but they have no choice," recall my earliest entry in this blog which points to sociological surveys that prove these people choose to live this way rather than joining society and working for a living. Therefore I feel neither guilt nor shame in including them among the stupid or criminal factions which provide my blog with endless entertaining material. Bon appetit!

Never a Sucker Gives an Even Break

The last few (sunny only of course) days I've driven to work, at the corner of Fundeni (Morarilor) and Pantelimon, there are a few boys working the stoplights handing out little printed ads to motorists. They appear to be gypsies (this is not racist, there is a physiognomy just as with any other culture and ethnicity) and they are having no luck handing out their ads. It's so cold out that nobody is rolling down their windows if you were handing out money, much less spam.


There is a woman on the corner watching them with concern, whom I deduce to be their trainer, supervisor, whatever, but who is clearly dismayed at the lack of results in this effort. Between red lights, the boys mope back to her and they argue animatedly. Gestures and body language suggest they are exchanging ideas of how to be more efficient, and simultaneously their opinions of each other's ideas.


A few thoughts cross my mind as I observe this over the course of several stoplights (Bucharest traffic, I might've mentioned it). First, I recalled that this type of marketing only seems to work when the distributors are shapely young women in revealing attire. Summer also plays an important factor, where windows are much more likely to be open. Combine the heat of the season with the allure of the approaching spammer and those little slips of paper get snapped up like euros... which are also admittedly little slips of paper so the metaphor is not as dramatic as it could be. But I digress. Expecting this formula to work as well with the small substitutions of subfreezing winter and grubby apathetic future vagrants was a loss before breakfast was even drunk.


Next, it occurs to me that while my personal opinions of gypsies may be considered racist, albeit overwhelmingly shared by the populace and, not insignificantly, supported by facts, data and even the most casual observation (see my earliest blog entry), I try to give everyone a chance. And the fact here is that there appears to be at least two gypsy boys actually trying to make an honest living, and exerting a real effort for a job that's got to pay a pittance at best. This deserves my respect.


So, a few days later when I'm driving the same way to work, I see the same boys working the same intersection. My respect actually raises a notch because now I can add "perseverance" to the list of unexpected qualities before my eyes. So, this time, as they work the line of cars which mostly refuse to open their windows (it is still subfreezing after all), I am now inclined to open mine and take one for the team.


Instantly a small booklet is pushed into my hand. It is a booklet about roofing materials. I'm wondering how someone fills a whole booket with a roofing ad when the pages of the booklet begin to slide apart from each other. They are in fact unattached to each other, and they are all identical in content. What I have been handed is a stack of single-page ads.

While I'm absorbing all this, I realize the boy has been talking to me through the window. I still don't know much Romanian, but being a daily motorist in this town there are a few phrases I've learned very well, and "bani, te rog, cinci lei, domnule" is one of them.

So, let's sum up. Not only is this little bastard falsifying his success rate at his job (now obviously measured by how many papers he gives away), but he's using it as a cover for the standard tactic of begging at stoplights. Now I'm sorry to say this, but in 5 years of daily driving in this town I can absolutely put stoplight beggars into 3 distinct categories: pensioners, disabled and gypsies. Since our young entrepreneur was obviously young and hearty, only one category fit him and it seems my lesson for the day was that a leopard does not change his spots.

W.C. Fields said "never give a sucker an even break." I wonder if one becomes the sucker by trying to give an even break?