Day 77

77/365, originally uploaded by Aaron LaRue.

So it was 11:30 tonight and I hadn't taken my picture yet. I had taken some pictures throughout the day, but I wasn't in love with any of them. I was in the process of taking lame pictures of lame things in my room when JT called me out hard. "Haven't you already done a picture like that?" he tells me...


And he was right, that bastard! My brain is fried from the holiday weekend, but that's no excuse to take crappy pictures. So I started angrily bouncing ideas off of him, and one by one he rejected them (and rightfully so, because they were not good ideas). Then I had an epiphany. Probably not the greatest of epiphanies, but an epiphany none-the-less. When I get stuck, I said to myself,  I'll just try and take a picture that explains something about me. Hopefully, that will generate some ideas, and I can salvage a decent picture on a slow day. 


So today, I would like to proclaim to the world one of my biggest fears (hopefully this doesn't come back to bite me). I absolutely HATE razorblades. It's totally irrational, I never had a bad experience as a kid or anything, there's no real reason why I don't like them, I just don't. They are super sharp and menacingly precise in construction and I can't seem to get away from them. 

My best friend Kyle uses them for almost everything. When we would install car stereos, he would ALWAYS use them to cut wires. When he needed both his hands, he'd pop it in his mouth. Not only that, he'd play with it, moving it around between his lips with his tongue, it made my skin crawl. When I went to edit 16mm film for the first time, I was shocked and appalled to find out that I had to use a razor blade to cut the film. Every time I had to pick the blade up off of the table, I prayed I wouldn't cut myself, and I would set it back down as quickly as possible.


Why, I'm sure you are asking yourself, do I have a bunch of razor blades sitting around if I hate them so much? They are so functional on a film set that you are stupid not to have them. They cut tape, rope, can be used as a quick screwdriver in a pinch, you name it. I carry one on me at all times, and it drives me crazy sitting in my pocket. 


So today, I took a picture of some razor blades. I busted out a flash, slapped a Honl 1/8" grid on it to control the spill of the light, had JT hold it above the blades, and fired away. Quick and dirty, but 10000x better than a photo booth self portrait.