SEEING THE WORLD IN COLOUR (AND THE BLACKTHORN IS FLOWERING)

I've seen a car I want. It's rust coloured (matte) and like an oversized VW Beetle only wider, and taller - which is just as well because the hair of the young man driving it had been cut as a flat topped mohican. It looked as if he'd stepped straight out of 'The Incredibles' and he wouldn't have fitted in the car if the roof hadn't been so high.

I don't approve of cars (with a few exceptions) and I don't drive. They fill up the roads and towns have become little more than collections of car parks with shops and dwellings scattered loosely between them. They're not much good for the atmosphere either. But if I had a car, that would be the one.

* * * * *

I saw this car when I was walking into town to buy a replacement for the camera phone I dropped down the loo. It was going the other way.

* * * * *

So far, I've spent nine hours walking in and out of town, trying to buy a new phone. One and a half hours of that was when I was returning a phone I didn't like and left the charger at home - which meant I had to go back to fetch it and the journey was wasted. (It's three-quarters of an hour in each direction.)) Another hour and a half was spent going to buy a different one and finding I'd left my purse behind so I had to go home for that too.

Reasons for Returning the Phones

(Remember, I don't want to phone on a phone but to take pictures with it.)

One - was five times as expensive as that I've been using. It was on a contract, which made me nervous, so I'm glad I didn't like it after all but everyone seemed to recommend it - on the internet, in the shops - so I plunged in.

How come I'm the only one not to like it?

Well, to me, it made the world look murky.

This has challenged me about the way I see things. Perhaps the world really is murkier than I've imagined. Almost all the photos I took on the old phone came out with what were, to me, true colours. There are few exceptions. One is some bark which looks yellower than in real life - but the patterns are crisp and interesting so I used it on Pictures Just Pictures all the same. And the walls of the tunnel in the Roots and Water post aren't as brightly orange as they appear. But at least you can see them, so I used them. But almost everything else has come out just right - leaves and trees and skies and toadstools and all.

This is where the car comes in. There are some things, things as well as people, that one simply bonds with - as I bonded with my phone. It's light. It fits in my hand. It and I see the world in the same way - so we are friends.

* * * * *

Presumably, the people in the shop and the people on the internet who recommended this other (expensive) phone must see the world differently from me. They must see the world as shown by its pictures.

The young men who sold it were very kind and patient. I could tell they were trying to see things from my point of view, understand my interests. They explained how the camera on the phone searches for faces and focuses on them. It will even wait until the people in the picture smile. (I didn't ask for how long.) (Nor what it would do if some people smiled and others didn't.) So, I told them about my blogs, and how I take pictures of plants. So they talked about how to take photos in the snow, or on the beach, about front lighting and back lighting . . . for instance, they said, if you were taking a photo of a plant in a night club and the strobe lighting was on . . . they even showed me which buttons I would need to press.

* * * * *

Since taking it back, I've been trying to see the world as that camera sees it - all dull and murky and bland. And I can. It takes a bit of effort and it's taken me a while to do it - but, now, I can.

It's like listening to a huge orchestra and picking out one instrument, intentionally being more aware of the 'colour' of that sound than usual. I'm not meaning exaggerate its influence or listen to its tune or rhythm at the expense of others, just being more aware that it is there.

* * * * *

The other phone was more straight forward. It didn't focus properly.

However, before I took that one back, I had a go at the black and white setting. Strangely, the focus was sharpened - but its idea of black and white turned out to be not in the least like mine - I saved some of the photos I took on it and am using them to liven up this post.

Talk about seeing the world differently!

P.S. It had a 'grey' setting too. The photos on that setting came out . . . grey.

P.P.S. I've found a phone like my old one, on ebay, new . . . fingers crossed . . .

If it's an identical twin of my old one (which can't be guaranteed, every single object has its own character, there's no such thing as a clone . . . )

Well . . . perhaps in a fortnight . . . I'll be up and running as usual.

And happy.

_____

P.P.P.S. The Blackthorn is flowering.

PHOTOS IN THIS POST

Header - Rambling Rector Rose and Spanish Broom.

Then:-

1. Tea Towels on Washing Line.

2. Antarctica Fern.

3. Rambling Rector Rose (again).

4. Shoes and Broom (of the sweeping kind).

5. Cordyline Palms

6. Trunk of Madeleine d'Angevine Vine and Japanese Anemone

7. Wild Blackthorn and Gorse

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For the Next Post - Two Letters, Two Trees and Some Weeds

For the Post Before This - I've Dropped My Phone Down the Loo