It's about Time.....

(you can't plan and pose a photo as great as this one)

I am in love with the self timer mode on my cameras.... that's right, cameras as in plural. Cause if there's ANYthing better then taking one photo of yourself with the self timer... it's taking two.
Now it's a little known fact that the self timer mode with a camera is also known by photo taking aficionados like myself as the *perv* mode. I like to sweeten that up a bit by calling it the happy mode, is there anything more joyous then being able to slap your camera down on a handy garden wall, table, or hood of the car and running, hell bent for leather, to get into position whilst the camera blinks, counting down till SNAP! Photo's taken and there's nothing you can do about it, forever immortalized with a slack jawed expression of surprise, half bent in a bizarre parody of some one about to sit down, or have a seizure.
I love the timer mode.
So many photos taken by human hands at the controls are soooo...what's the word I'm looking for? Predictable, boring, staid, regular...boring?
Too perfect smiles, with too perfect poses with too perfect everything, yeaaack, makes me sick.
Remember the good ol' days before digital cameras when photos had to be taken with that antiquated stuff called FILM? Oh you don't remember, you were drunk that year? Well shame on you, I remember. We had a sweet little 110 camera (I have NO fricking clue what the 110 means, but that's what we called it) and it was used as sparingly as any precious antique. Photos were snapped and if you were lucky a few months later the film was developed and that's when the magic happened. People would be horrified to find photos of themselves, forever frozen with their eyes closed, listing to the side, petting uncle Joe's ass. (all at once in some cases) There was such an element of surprise with film cameras.
Girls wondered if they looked fat and couldn't even find out for weeks, until the money was scraped up to get a measly 12 photos developed.
And people couldn't throw the photos away, a very few and very brave souls would grab the offending photo of themselves and run upstairs to their bedroom where they'd rip it into a dozen pieces and stuff the remains under their mattress to be later doused in kerosene and burned at a more opportune time. (the photo not the mattress)
Most people though recognized the value of the photo, the time, energy and hard earned moolah that went into 1/12 of a roll of film. Oh sure there were those fancy schmancy 24 count rolls of film but those were only for the rich people. Only rich people got twice as many photos of a birthday or Christmas. Us poor folk had to make due with a lowly 12 photos per holiday and you'd be damn lucky if you were in one of them.
Any one you know who likes to put on airs of richness, just have a look at their family album and you'll know soon enough if they're old money or new money. It would make you an ass for even wanting to know but I'm just saying, that's how you'd find out.
But of course all that has changed, the digital age means I can take 163 photos on our walk down to the get the mail, and on garbage day, oh mama I can take an easy 332 with out blinking an eye. You think I'm kidding?
That's why I love the self timer mode, brings the spontaneity back to photo taking. It brings the level of danger and excitement associated with snapping a photo up to whole new heights.
I've got photos of myself that are so stunningly horrific in their blurred, vacant eyed, vaguely creepy half seated poses that I am saving them just in case I need to black mail myself some day.
Also, when I die and people go through my stuff what a joy it will be to them to find not only the sweet perfectly arranged smile with the one quarter turn to the left and slightly raised right eyebrow photos but all the other embarrassingly weird and disturbing photos taken with the self timer that show me in a truer to life moment. Man that's gonna be so fricking sweet.
My only beef with the self timer is that it only goes as high as 25 seconds, I really, and I mean reallllllllly need a 25 minute timer. Some poses take longer to get into then others. (what have I told you about minds, gutter and filth? bunch-o-pervs see why it's called the perv mode now do we?)
Our dream pose with the self timer is to prop the camera on the patio, set the timer, get in the car and drive down the road and across the valley and up to the hill on the other side, get out, sit on the hood, arms extended up in a friendly wave, smiles on our faces where we will then freeze in that pose for how ever long we think is left in the allotted 25 minutes. I've got a pair of binoculars that I can watch the camera through to see if I can tell when the light on the camera starts blinking faster to indicate it's gonna snap.
I know, awesome idea right?
Until then I satisfy myself with setting the pathetic little 25 second timer and then run around the living room, heart beating joyously in anticipation of...what? I don't know! That's the cool part, who knows what wonderfully, unscripted moment the camera will catch.