Well, I wasn’t able to do any more blog posts for a bit due to a) A maddening series of computer issues, ones which required me to purchase a new hard drive and reinstall Windows, and b) work, in a semester that’s starting earlier than before.

I do not miss the summer, however, or at least not the temperatures of summer. I’m just starting to get out with the “real” camera again (read, a dedicated camera, not a smart phone), and will post some shots from it. Thanks to the pandemic, however, I haven’t had many events to attend or taken trips for photo purposes. I have one of those planned for December, but I’ve been avoiding crowds.

One thing the pandemic has clearly taught me is that the camera is a way of getting in with a crowd, and studying places and people. I’m not making any sort of introverted images, or ones that involve self-reflection or reflect inner moods, necessarily. If my images do that, and I’m sure they do, they only do so indirectly.

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What could seem like a possible exception are photos I took from inside the pool downstairs at my place this summer. I don’t have a thesis or anything for them, though. I just liked the way the shots looked, really, and love the way the pool looks at night.

But I do think they reflect something personal in that I’m a longtime swimmer. I started 20 minutes or more at least three or four times a week starting 2001, after saying sayonara to Big Tobacco. I’ve had periods where I’ve also been into jogging and cycling, and then just cycling and swimming for a bit. I’ve worked with a personal trainer as well. But swimming is my first adult exercise love.

During the summer, meanwhile, I was in the pool downstairs for more casual dips, but still doing flip turns and kicking from below to stir the water up, doing dolphin kicks under water for practice, and the like. Water is so heavy, so powerful, and mysterious, and I enjoyed watching it do its thing in a way I hadn’t in a lap pool.

There is, again, no deeper thing to say here, except maybe that the pool is my Great Escape. And now it’s over for a summer, except for the lap pool (for which I’m ready for more pandemic months, with water shoes, wet socks, and a parka ready so I can get in and out of the gym ASAP).

Oh, also I took a series of photos with a toy shark! Lest we forget. Farewell for the year, downstairs pool.