the good thing about marousi is that it's cool during the summer night, and really quiet. it's an ideal place if you sleep lightly and cherish the night breeze. thus, it is only natural that murphy's law would apply - a perfect situation will always be disrupted by something surreal. up until a month ago, it was a rooster from the garden 20 meters away from my bedroom window. just as I noticed that the rooster had expired and gone to meet his maker, kicked the bucket, shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible, a new night-time torture began - the stork had blessed the house next to the garden with a newborn baby... so, yesterday morning I was woken up at 06:30 by the baby's crying. actually, the baby had been crying all night long, but that last bit got me fully awake, the sun was up, it was getting hotter, I just couldn't sleep again. so... I decided to capitalize on the morning light. I loaded up the fuji gw690iii with a roll of kodak portra 400 - I have been scouting the area around my house for a long time, so off I went, checking how familiar places were illuminated by the morning sun. the light meter was indicating a combination of 1/125 & f22, pretty good depth of field for the monster 90mm lens of the fuji.
7:23
the first frame was a no-brainer; I raced to my favourite scene and - lo and behold! - the daihatsu had not moved an inch. the sun was still too low, though, and I had to use a different angle because I kept getting my shadow in the photograph. one day I will make a book out of that daihatsu, really.
7:28
I kept cruising around, watching the shadows and the sun, when I saw another car scene that had dwelt on my mind recently - this abandoned fiat in the middle of a big empty piece of land was screaming for a portrait.
7:31
right back to another favourite place, an impromptu parking area, what greeks call "αλάνα" (and if you can find a proper english translation, I'll buy you a drink). I hoped to find a big truck here, the one I had photographed some days ago, but it was nowhere to be seen, so I had to settle for the only car available.
7:33
I immediately knew what the next scene would be - another place I've photographed in the past (although I still haven't developed that film), a nearby basketball court. the sun was still too low but the clock was ticking, so I snapped a frame and made a mental note to come back another day at 08:30 or something.
7:42
I was out of familiar places, no more pre-imagined scenes, and I had to push deeper into areas I had not scouted before - found this building, cursed the early time, this is another photograph that could be better at 08:30, snapped away, moved on.
7:46
uninspired by the places around me, running against the clock (the great deceiver...), more cars and people around, still three frames to go until the end of the roll, I decided to keep it simple - after all, everybody loves stop signs... don't you?
7:51
back to more open spaces, not much shadow play, but the sunlight was still sweet and kept giving a marzipan feeling to the buildings... had to snap away at something, looked around, a big white rectangle begged for a photograph.
7:58
the streets are getting crowded - it's the morning zone, and I still have one more frame before I can wrap this up. driving back to the daihatsu, I notice it has visitors. I'm thinking that there must be a place somewhere nearby where I can get a more interesting image than this, but my time is up, the opel twins wink their eyes at me, what the hell, they deserve a photo.
...later the same day, a trip to filmora for development, back home for scanning - always keep your head in the shade, the sunlight kills you and your photos during normal day hours - and here it is: thirty-five morning minutes, eight frames of sweet sunlight. I'm starting to like the neighbours' baby.