Self-aggrandizement

I don't write much about my job here, because they're watching I'd rather keep my work and personal lives separate to a largish extent. But I do like my employer; we get to wear metaphorical white hats and enjoy literal bennies. One of the highlights of the latter is a full week dedicated to "we love our employees" activities, wherein there are catered meals, classes on gardening, seated massages, drawings for prizes, and other entertainments. It's dot-commular, except that we're intentionally not-for-profit.

This year I'm entering a couple of shots in the staff photography contest. Il Padre's skill with a camera has not transferred; whatever advice he's given about composition and technique has, quark-like, gone straight through my skull without penetrating. But even a blind pig et cetera, and I quite like the two pictures I'm entering.



This is the back field at my grandmother's, after a storm moved through. The thunder-heavy front rolled across the county as we were driving back from a hamburger supper at the local KoC hall, and had I not had my grandmother and great-aunt in the car I'd've pulled over 20 times to get pictures of the light shifting through buttery yellow into unearthly oranges and grey-blues, with a double rainbow arching huge across the sky. By the time we were home and I could run out to get this picture, the second arc had faded, but it doesn't matter here. The spanish moss in the trees by the watering tank makes them look strange and menacing, although to my knowledge they've never gone walking.



Getting good upward shots with a point-and-shoot in Recoleta Cemetery is a bitch. The lanes are narrow and the tombs poke up inconveniently; back up far enough to get something entirely into frame, and another bit of stonework is almost bound to jut into your field. This is some comfort when I look at all the pictures for which that excuse doesn't work. (Fortunately, certain subjects are so jaw-dropping that a photographer's lack of skillz is immaterial. Click the link and ask yourself about the person who chose that monument.) I'd be happier if this angel's wings weren't clipped a little, but otherwise it's not entirely terrible.

The prize for this contest is bragging rights: The winning entries are printed and framed in the office gallery. But everyone's pictures make it into the permanent slideshow, and keen competitors sharpen their lenses for the next year.