Day In The Life Of...

Munn Trees, 21 December 2004  (See entire set).

Over at Flickr yesterday, the arrival of Winter Solstice was commemorated with a picture project: A Day In The Life Of...

I had forgotten about it until about 10:00 in the morning, but then took a couple of quick shots around the apartment, cleaned up and headed in to East Lansing. My plan was to shoot all the way to the CVS store at the corner of Albert Street and M.A.C. Avenue, drop off the film, grab something to eat, pick up the film, then come home to post the photos at Flickr.

I also planned on shooting only things that I might not have come in contact of an average day, although in the end, I didn't hold myself to that.

I made it to the Red Cedar River and decided to capture a bit of what winter in East Lansing can look like now that it seems to have finally arrived. Carefully sliding down the river bank to water's edge, I found that the river has finally begun to freeze at its edges, and that the rocks are becoming glazed with the spray of the rapids just south of MSU's Administration Building.

I also noticed – almost immediately – a dead crawfish partially buried in the fairly fresh snow. I don't know much about the creatures (is it a crawdad? crayfish? what?), so I don't know if its presence was a natural phenomenom or a result of some drunken student having fun.

The rapids are (is?) an oft-photographed area of campus, no doubt, so I was looking for something a little less common to photograph. I was looking for something a little less "oh, isn't that pretty!" but wasn't all too successful (if you don't include the crawfish). I was actually running short of film so I held off on doing another panoramic at river's edge, so I tried to find an interesting view of the ducks that hang around that area. I was happy to have a couple of them walk toward me as if they were going to check me out, but they stopped short of advancing far enough toward me to where I could shoot without a tree branch getting being between us. I eventually made my way closer to them and got a decent shot of a female at an angle that displayed her speckled breast.

Wrapping up there, I headed in to town and dropped off my film. While at the CVS I bought another roll, stepped outside the store and shot a panoramic of Ann Street Plaza. I took that back into the store and off I went to Georgio's for a couple of slices of pie (pepperoni/mushroom and potato with bacon and onion – no sour cream, as much as I would have wanted it!).

Heading back home, I took the sidewalk that makes its way through the above trees and passed by Breslin Center. I had my Holga plastic camera with me and I thought about taking a shot of the Magic Johnson statue (Ugh!) with it, but it was too dark for a decent shot. I crossed paths with MSU's basketball coach, Tom Izzo, as he walked out to his car and we exchanged hellos (Actually, I said, "Hi, coach!"). That's probably as close as I'll ever get to a millionaire, so it was worth noting here. Hah!

I made my way home to edit and post my photos and check out what the rest of the Flickr world had done.

I noticed that there is a vast preponderance of non-people images. I would have preferred shooting people, but I guess I wasn't quite in the mood. Early on, I had the chance to photograph my apartment complex's manager and opted not to – I should have. Ah, well...

No day in this life is ever really perfect, is it?