Cup 34: Blood Flash

class
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: computer lab, Lengyl Gym, University of Maine, Orono
When: 8 am to 10 am, Jan 19 2005
Who: a whole bunch of college students
Coffee: Maine Roasters
Mood: awake

8 am and I'm teaching digital image editing techniques to a group of art majors. It is dense stuff. Simultaneously among the least creative and most important material of the class. The kind of techniques used by professional photo retouchers. Boring, but actually useful in getting a job, and doing it gives you a good base to work from when getting more creative. Start with a good image and everything else is more likely to fall in place. Still, I'd probably hate it if I were a college art student and it was 8 am.

With the cold snap any moisture in the air has dried out, and my throat is sore and scratchy all the time. The only way I can keep lecturing is to keep sipping the coffee. It is the only way I can make it through. I notice that none of the students have coffee with them. The fools. I should make it a class requirement.

A happy accident. The Nikon Coopix 2500 that I keep in my pocket when I don't feel like lugging my Fuji around has an annoying bug. The flash doesn't stay turned off when I restart the camera. Today I didn't feel like fiddling with it to turn it back off, so I just covered the flash with my thumb. Nicely, it flooded the lens with warm red light as the flash strobed into my blood. A neat effect!