The General Conversation Area

I was just subjected to some very nasty street harrassment about 40-50 minutes ago - they've moved on now but it was v distressing - have called the housing officer and the security people for the building. They were very intimidating - They were hanging out just outside my building, one of them was coughing a lot and I apologised for moving away trying to explain that it was nothing personal coughing just makes me anxious, another one of them then deliberately coughed up close to me and spat on the floor in front of me, and laughed, I was angry and said what the eff is wrong with you and he shouted at me, said my dress is **** and some other nasty things (was funny that he thought saying I looked like smth out of Cinderella was an insult - that's the point of the dress lol). The housing officer will contact the security people as well and they'll send someone round, I also messaged a relative who is a police officer to ask their advice and have let my PA know as well so he's aware to be careful walking to and from his shifts with me (if another incident occurs/the harrassers are around when he's about due to arrive I will notify him of that as well to try and make sure he is safe). IDK what's wrong w some people, they were rly nasty and I don't think they were drunk either for the record, it was just plain old bullying. A couple of nice Middle Eastern men who I know fairly well who work at a nearby shop came and moved them away a bit trying to diffuse/keep me safe and I really appreciated that - the lot who harrassed me were white and working class in this case, but I've def met lots of people who fit that description who didn't bully or harrass me and were lovely and kind. IDK how I'm coming off rn but I'm just rly anxious and upset and also worried that these people might return and harrass other tenants in my building which is specifically for people with disabilities/mental health issues/chronic illnesses and so on :(
 
What never ceases to amaze me is how some people go out of their way to be complete and total assholes. I would imagine the way most people want to be treated goes back to the old golden rule-treat others the way you would want to be treated.
 
One of my drinking buddies was over earlier this evening to visit - we made ourselves a few doubles of gin and tonic while we watched an electronic music concert on YouTube - we picked Schiller - Klangwelten Live (Aus Dem Ballhaus Neue Welt), one of his older concerts that is a big favorite of ours - just two synths and two drummers in a very small, classical theater. so much more of a cozy atmosphere than his later large concerts like Atemlos and Sonne.

My friend said to me that we ought to check for any concerts in our area we could go to, and turns out we found that Brit Floyd will be in Reading, PA in less than 3 weeks, on Sunday evening August 9th, with their "The Wall, The Moon and Beyond" tour, so we checked for tickets and was able to snag a pair of seats in Orchestra Center, Row M, so 14 rows from the stage - that actually should be a perfect distance from the stage to bask in their light show. I was surprised any seats were left at all this close to the concert date, especially front and center seats like that, as they usually sell out their concerts months in advance. Can never get too much Floyd - Can't wait!
 
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Continued from the "What did you buy today" topic since it's now off-topic:
Girls with Guns said:
Yeah, same here. I've always been a big railfan ever since I started my first job out of College. I worked in a service department that had a 4 other techs who were railfans, so we formed an official club and would plan six weekend trips each year traveling to scenic locations with lots of trains to photograph and video tape. We had anywhere from 4-15 people attend these railfan trips; we used ham radios to keep in contact as we spread out along the tracks for different photo angles; and we did this for 15 years before we finally disbanded the club. I have about 7,000 Kodachrome slides and probably 100+ hours of 8mm video taken on these trips, all slowly rotting away in storage now.
Click to expand...

I kind of did this, on a much smaller scale. The small place I grew up in had a train depot with a very small switching yard that could barely be called that, but enough of one that cars and locomotives did sit there for periods of time. When I was in high school with money from some job I had, I bought a Nikkormat FTn 35mm camera and one of the main things I took pictures of was trains and that station. I also only took slides, usually Kodachrome since I preferred that but also Ektachrome especially if I needed something faster. I did take some black and white negative film too which I processed myself, but for whatever reason I do not believe I ever took any train pictures that way.

Your mention of Kodachrome stood out to me because I think you had to be pretty into photography to take slides instead of using negative film for prints which was far more common at least among the general public.

I never took anywhere near the quantity you did though, primarily because I couldn't afford that and where I was there just wasn't that much to photograph.

I think I still have some of the slides, but haven't really looked in a long time so I'm not sure. A lot of it must be gone though, probably thrown away over the years when looking at again and feeling they weren't that great in composition or some other quality issue.

I'm not completely sure what sparked my interest in trains. I had a brother that was quite a few years older than me (now deceased) and he had model trains and a lot of magazines for that which I was exposed to as a kid so that was probably it. Long ago I had some model train stuff too, but not all that much compared to him, and never had room to do a layout and I finally sold or gave most of the stuff to a friend who was interested in it. A few years ago I considered just collecting a few locomotives that I like, but never did that and probably is not yet another hobby I should start spending money on. :rolleyes:

Random link showing the camera I had, except mine was black:
thenoisyshutter.com

Classic Camera Review: Nikkormat FTn - The Noisy Shutter

Another great mid-century camera that will probably outlive me.
thenoisyshutter.com thenoisyshutter.com
 
cfx said:
Continued from the "What did you buy today" topic since it's now off-topic:


I kind of did this, on a much smaller scale. The small place I grew up in had a train depot with a very small switching yard that could barely be called that, but enough of one that cars and locomotives did sit there for periods of time. When I was in high school with money from some job I had, I bought a Nikkormat FTn 35mm camera and one of the main things I took pictures of was trains and that station. I also only took slides, usually Kodachrome since I preferred that but also Ektachrome especially if I needed something faster. I did take some black and white negative film too which I processed myself, but for whatever reason I do not believe I ever took any train pictures that way.

Your mention of Kodachrome stood out to me because I think you had to be pretty into photography to take slides instead of using negative film for prints which was far more common at least among the general public.

I never took anywhere near the quantity you did though, primarily because I couldn't afford that and where I was there just wasn't that much to photograph.

I think I still have some of the slides, but haven't really looked in a long time so I'm not sure. A lot of it must be gone though, probably thrown away over the years when looking at again and feeling they weren't that great in composition or some other quality issue.

I'm not completely sure what sparked my interest in trains. I had a brother that was quite a few years older than me (now deceased) and he had model trains and a lot of magazines for that which I was exposed to as a kid so that was probably it. Long ago I had some model train stuff too, but not all that much compared to him, and never had room to do a layout and I finally sold or gave most of the stuff to a friend who was interested in it. A few years ago I considered just collecting a few locomotives that I like, but never did that and probably is not yet another hobby I should start spending money on. :rolleyes:

Random link showing the camera I had, except mine was black:
thenoisyshutter.com

Classic Camera Review: Nikkormat FTn - The Noisy Shutter

Another great mid-century camera that will probably outlive me.
thenoisyshutter.com thenoisyshutter.com
Click to expand...

My camera was not quite that old, our raifan club existed from 1988-2003, and I bought an SLR camera just for railfanning. I had two Olympus cameras during that time, I only remember that one was the OM2 Program. the other may have been an OM1. The first camera I had I accidentally left sitting on the roof of the car during one of our railfan trips, and I drove off in a hurry to catch a train on the move, and never saw it again. The OM2 I had a standard 50mm lens, a 20-125mm wide angle to short telephoto, and a 100-300mm long telephoto lens. The 50mm lens somehow fell apart during another trip and made me miss a train with a colorful multi-road lash-up pass by. I got so mad I threw it in a very high arc as hard as I could, right into the ice covered river we were standing beside; it pierced through the thin ice with a satisfying "thunk!" and was also never seen again. Good riddance.
 
Girls with Guns said:
My camera was not quite that old, our raifan club existed from 1988-2003, and I bought an SLR camera just for railfanning. I had two Olympus cameras during that time, I only remember that one was the OM2 Program. the other may have been an OM1. The first camera I had I accidentally left sitting on the roof of the car during one of our railfan trips, and I drove off in a hurry to catch a train on the move, and never saw it again. The OM2 I had a standard 50mm lens, a 20-125mm wide angle to short telephoto, and a 100-300mm long telephoto lens. The 50mm lens somehow fell apart during another trip and made me miss a train with a colorful multi-road lash-up pass by. I got so mad I threw it in a very high arc as hard as I could, right into the ice covered river we were standing beside; it pierced through the thin ice with a satisfying "thunk!" and was also never seen again. Good riddance.
Click to expand...

Haha. I didn't have any mishaps like that, intentional or otherwise, though it would've been hard for me to replace things at the time so I was very careful with everything.

I believe I'm slightly older than you, and was definitely doing this a little earlier than you; it was the mid 1970s. I didn't think to mention lenses...I believe I had a 28mm and a 105mm. Some of the photography magazines of the day as well as some professionals eschewed the 50mm as "boring" and as that was generally what came with every camera if you got the kit with a lens, it at least felt a bit generic, and there was some debate if 50mm really reflected what the human eye perceives and that 35mm was closer to that; I tended to agree with that then. Anyway, given I needed to be careful how I spent money at the time, I decided to skip the 50mm; it was also easier for me to buy a bare camera body first and then get a lens a bit later, though the wait once I had the body I couldn't yet use was kind of painful as a typically impatient teenager . Zooms of the time were quite poor in quality, expensive, and large and heavy. I took on a more methodical approach so liked using fixed-length lenses--no one called them "primes" back then or at least I never heard the term. To this day, while the quality is certainly far better, I've never liked zooms.

I did somehow replace that with a Nikkormat EL (another random link) because I was apparently convinced I needed that. The FTn was a completely manual camera, while the EL was automatic where you set the aperture and it set the shutter speed. I did like it better but it didn't really take better pictures or anything. Later I replaced that with a Canon A-1 (random link #3) which I liked but not as much so always regretted the switch; part of which was that I never managed to get any lens for it other than a 50mm, and the only time I bought a zoom, which I happened to absolutely hate.

I never photographed any live, moving trains though. Don't think I ever caught one at that location; if I had I was probably too shy at the time to go near it so maybe it did happen but I don't really remember from so long ago.
 
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