05 February 2022

Picture purge

From quite early on, I have been peppering the walls of my house with pictures. A beautiful picture is beautiful, and the vast majority also comes with good memories. Most of them I have taken myself. I also had a few big frames, though, and I wasn't sure if I can fill them with pictures from my point-and-shoot cameras. But back in the days I was still a Thursdaynighter, and one of the others is a photographer, and he often brings an SLR underground. And he does manage to take good pictures. So I had several of his pictures (with his consent) printed, and had framed them. And then the night of the misogyny event happened, and its vitriolic aftermath. And suddenly these pictures did not represent good memories any more. The aesthetic value of the pictures hadn't changed of course; and initially I had thought to just leave them there. I left them there for years, actually. If this man can't behave in anything I recognise as acceptable ways, then let him be of practical use. He is at work. But it became clear that I can't separate the picture from the photographer, and if I saw any of these pictures, no matter how beautiful they were, I was just thinking of misogyny, bullying and cowardice. These are not good things to think about. So the pictures had to go.

I am almost complete with my purge. I don't currently have enough big prints to replace the offending ones. I will have to print at least one big picture especially for the occasion. But I have faith that will be okay. I have several large pictures that I took with my point-and-shoot camera, and they are okay, and I also saw several pictures taken with an iPhone that a friend had printed rather large. They were gorgeous! So I don't even need to restrict myself to pictures taken with a camera that is only a camera. I will now have an iPhone picture printed off, at a large size, and then I can complete the purge! And then I can look at each and every one of my pictures and think positive thoughts. Excellent.

Almost sorted. The small frame never had an offending picture in, and the two other ones on the left have had theirs removed, and now I only need to replace the picture on the right. 


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