Woke up, forced myself to get out the door and into the pouring rain which seemed heavier than it has been for quite a few months now. It's the kind of rain that you really don't want to feel at 7:40am in the morning. Sometimes, I actually enjoy the rain of the morning, walking to the bus stop. It wakes me up. But on a morning like this morning, it's just bad.
Once in town, the rain only got worse as I made my way to college. Finally there, I said hi to Stan who was waiting in the classroom on his own.
After a while Alan appeared, asking me if I had anything I needed doing. I told him that I still needed to take some shots for my CD cover, but that I wasn't about to go out in the pissing down rain and snap away and he agreed. I explained one of my ideas to him and he seemed luke warm about it. However, after explaining another idea to him, he liked this one and said that he had a few shots of his own which may inspire me. What he brought back from the staff room were about 15 black and white, high contrast shots of various stuff, but mainly trees. They were excellent. They looked so professional.
There was one in particular of a baron beach landscape which stood out to me as being a great concept for a shot that I could use on my CD cover. I asked him where it had been taken. He said Crosby beach, which is about 35 minutes on the train from college. At this point, I was getting eager to go somewhere like in his shot, but I didn't fancy going when it was raining so heavily. He asked me if I had brought my packaging box with me so I could take pictures of that in the studio instead. I didn't have it with me though, since every time I've brought it in in the past, I've not been able to take shots so I just gave up.
After a while, Jamie, Fisher (Andrew) and Dave arrived. I asked if anyone fancied going to Crosby beach with me. Of course, I got no answers. I don't blame them of course, considering it was raining heavily and by the beach it'd be even worse no doubt.
I pondered how I was going to get my shots with this background that I was now intent on getting. I needed at least one of them to come with me, since I wanted a person in the picture.
In the end, Alan decided to take us the darkroom. Jamie and Stan had proposals to write up on the computer, since they'd done it by hand first. I offered to type it up for them instead, since i'm a lot quicker than them at typing. Jamie gladly accepted my offer. However, although he'd written enough to fill an A4 piece of paper, with the amount of linespacing he'd used, and the amount of spacing between each word, when I'd typed it out on the computer, it took up no more than a quarter of A4. Still, if he's not willing to write more than that then it's not my problem. I typed it out in a few minutes and then asked Stan if he'd like me to do his too and he accepted. Stan's wasn't much longer either.
In ten minutes I'd completed their proposals. We went back to Alan after that and by now, the idea of going to Crosby beach was beginning to fade, as no one had said they would go with me. However, after asking Dave once more, he said that he'd be willing to go if I was and now I was unsure whether to go.
After break, we all went to see Alan once more and discussed this little trip to the beach in the rain. In the end, I decided I'd go, regardless of the weather and Dave was still willing to go. I asked the others if they wanted to come and because Dave had said yes, so did Stan, then Jamie, then Fisher. It's weird how the group only seems to cooperate in a sort of chain reaction.
Of course, it wasn't to last. By the time we got half way to the station, they'd all decided that, since they'd had their EMA forms signed (Education Maintenance Allowance - �30 a week grant from the goverment), that they were now simply going to go home instead. It kind of annoyed me that they'd almost used me as an excuse to get out of college early. Most of the time that's all they seem to be bothered about. Getting their EMA form signs and getting the hell out of there. There is no real will to learn.
Thankfully though, Dave was still with me in my plan and we continued on to the station, paying for a pass. Just as I was going through the gate, the guard stopped me, since I hadn't scratched off the date.
"Pass it to me", he said, "that way if you get it wrong it's ok", and he began to scratch off the date, the month and the year.
"You don't trust me, do you?", I asked him.
"No, it's not that. Just helping you out". He wasn't very convincing. I knew he just simply didn't trust me to actually scratch the correct date off, in order to make travel on any other day with the pass, invalid. I looked at what he was scratching off...
"See, you've done it wrong now", I said to him, pointing to the fact that he'd scratched off January, not February.
"Oh..err...shit", he replied, "hold on".
He then proceeded to get a black marker and scribble out January and scratch off February instead. Then, just to make things even more 'secure', he decided to poke a pen through the pass, where January had been written and if that wasn't enough, he then wrote the correct date on the back of the pass, handing it to me as if he'd done me some sort of favour. Really helpful guy...
Caught the train to Dave's station and got off there. He said the beach was only 10 minutes walking distance and thankfully he was telling the truth. The rain had thankfully stopped pretty much by now, though since we were right by the sea, it was getting pretty windy and cold. There were huge puddles on the path which were quite deep and to dodge them, we had to walk on the equally wet grass, which our shoes sunk into with each step.
As we walked up a hill, I decided to take a few shots of Dave, walking up the hill. I know it doesn't sound very interesting, but i'm hoping that once you see the pictures, you'll know why I did it.
After walking for a few more minutes we got to the beach. It's not a particularly nice one. There's a load of junk on it, along with a lot of seaweed so it doesn't make for the most nicest of postcards. However, all of this junk seemed to remain at the end closest to us, which meant that further into the beach it was clear. I told Dave to walk straight ahead to the sea, while I stood still and waited for him to get to the correct distance. I kind of felt a bit cruel at that point, making him walk and ordering him about, but it was he who offered to be my model.
I used up the end of my first roll of film and put another one in, using about 12 shots just on panoramic landscaping, while another 10 were of things like reeds and bushes. And a duck.
The rest of the second film was taken in a park and by this time I was getting pretty bored and Dave had been bored for quite some time before. I was very appreciative of him being willing to help me.
In total, I took about 42 shots. I hope at least a few turn out ok, especially the panoramic ones.
I went home with wet feet, wet pants, and stinking rather much of the sea.
And that was my day. Beats my usual day anyway.
And now for the best news of the day - I talked to Hana on the phone for the first time ever! And it was so nice to finally hear her voice. And what prompted this call to her? The fact that on the 18th of this month...I AM GOING TO SEE HER! :D
I can't wait.
I'm going to stay over at hers for the night and it's going to be so nice seeing her and being able to hug her lots. She says she is incredibly excited too. I will finally meet the girl that means more to me than anyone in this world.
And if that's not good news, I don't know what is.
