Yesterday, I've met with Theo.

Theo, one of the most friendly and cool people I've ever known, is the guy who introduced me to analog photography's greatest vices: B&W film, and developing and printing your own. Before that, I never knew what the real pleasure of photography is. And I may as well have never found out.

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I was a soldier at the time.

I had already messed with digicams [easy to find, easy to borrow, easy to use and yeah, easy to abuse!] and some P&S film cameras, even a Canon SLR "borrowed" from my uncle, with so & so results. Not at all that fascinating, but the whole thing bugged me since then. I mean, technically, I could see there was something wrong with the pictures. But imagination-wise, I was already enjoying photography. I had the bug to envision a scene and shoot it, or catch the intense or different moments that were all around me.

And then, I met this kinda nutty guy, had a chat about a Clive Barker book that I was reading at the time that evolved to a full-blown conversation on visual arts, photography, time, capturing one's soul, etc etc -- and wasn't even drunk. And he promised he'd take me to the darkroom when we'd be done with all these army shit.

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And he did.

So there's me, and him, and a couple of red lights shining, and I'm trying to figure out what the heck he means when he says that the enlarger has f stops too. Or "fixer". We didn't break something, did we?

Two weeks later and I'm hooked. Yeah, now I see what these guys meant when they talked about "capturing time". Why photography is so damn easy and way too difficult at the same time. Why digital is OK, but it ain't the same thing. What a fixer is

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So I've spent some hours talking about these times yesterday.

And it did me good. And gave me some of the most valuable inspiration to keep up with all the films I have to develop, but most importantly, all the ideas I have to develop.

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As lately, I've been into this strange state.

I've got a ton of ideas, but most of them revolve around portraits. Strange portraits. And firstly, I do not know of anywhere I could do portraits such as these, plus I don't know jack about studio lighting. A strobe or an umbrella -- what's the difference? Is flash sync similar or even close to a banana, or maybe an onion? A water melon?

Secondly, I've got no people who are crazy enough to do the stuff I want the portraits to show, even if I went the natural light way -- which I have experience on and can use to achieve some decent results.

So I limit myself to ideas that can be executed using objects, such as C1 & C2, both of which are results of this "strange state" I'm at.

This whole thing bores me a bit, and I needed an extra push. Now, where can I get some balloons, a laser light and a fool but handsome man with a bra instead of a hat?