An intriguing possibility

I stopped off for dinner last night at Bite. My friend Kirsten was working, and we chatted some in between her duties.

Not long ago, I made a print of the image at left to give to her, since it was taken there at Bite, where she works. I was pretty happy with how it turned out, and I thought she might like a copy. When I gave it to her, she put it on the door of the big refrigerator behind the counter, which is crowded with other pictures, newspaper clippings, the schedule for the waitstaff, and I don't know what else. She said she wasn't sure if she'd just leave it there or take it home. I never saw it again, but was afraid to ask her if she'd taken it home or not. I didn't want to hear that she'd thrown it away.

When we were talking last night, she told me the fate of that print. The owner of the restaurant had seen it and liked it enough to ask her for it.

"Well," I said around my straw. "That'll sure be helpful when I come to ask him if I could do a show here."

I was joking, but not joking. I had planned to approach him this summer, provided I had a sufficient number of shots that I liked well enough to show. Bite rotates out the art on the walls on the first of every month. They've had some nice stuff, and I've actually bought a couple of paintings off of their walls. Seems like they don't do photography all that often, but that might not mean anything. Maybe just more interest from painters.

I was not expecting Kirsten's reply: "Actually, he said 'He gets some stuff in frames, he could show here.'" He apparently said this without any prompting whatsoever. Kirsten didn't even know if I'd have any interest, so it's not like she was hinting at him or anything.

I can get my stuff in frames. Which means maybe I could show some stuff there. I could potentially have a show of my photography on display in public. It's, you know, only in a restaurant, but that still seems pretty exciting to me. Who knows? I might even sell a print or two. Even if I didn't, it'd be a fun thing to do.

I only have a handful of pictures that I would think of as being the kind of quality I'd want to frame for display in public. I don't want to approach him until I have a couple dozen that I would be proud of. I want to be ready to do it before I talk to him.

So now I have further incentive to get out there and take some more photographs, to play with my camera when the weather is fine. In less than two weeks, I'll be finished working for a while, and I was originally planning on immersing myself totally within my novel, but I think I can spare some afternoons to wander, peer, focus and shoot.

Sometimes it is good to get outdoors.

If you'd like to see some more of my photography, click the Flickr link in the sidebar.