First Random of 2016

Before we tackle any other subject, it must be noted that the prized exhibit of this series of shots is the absolutely worst picture taken of the festive trolley bus by anyone this season or, possibly, ever. If Henri Cartier-Bresson considered the decisive moment to be the best moment for taking a shot, this particular one was clearly taken at the worst moment. Since it’s also one of the first pictures of the year- well, I don’t know what that means, hopefully that it’ll be all uphill from here.

The up side is that, since it’s such a splendid failure, I very vividly recall the moment it was taken- I have a few other shots like that, mostly concert snaps which happened about a millisecond after the decisive moment, and are therefore of a somewhat undecisive nature. Yet, strangely, I remember them, in their possible yet never materialized glory, better than I remember some shots I actually took.

The rest is mostly fog and sunrises, as January is always about the mornings- the sunset comes so quickly that I am almost always caught up in something else and miss it altogether, whereas at dawn I am prowling after coffee just as the light breaks. Or alternatively I am getting chilled to the bone by a decidedly londonish wet fog, which looks great in pictures but is a pain to be in- literal joint pain and the very real struggle of pressing the shutter release button. 

Fog Moves in Mysterious Ways

I like to take proverbs (and mostly anything) with a pinch of salt, but it's dawned on me recently that I quite agree with the Romanian one stating that you know a good day by its morning. Which in my case, in utter conflict with everything my younger self believed in, is an early morning. Possibly a disgracefully early one, which in winter involves freezing on pitch dark streets and then warming your numb limbs in the empty office to the pleasant hum of the dispenser warming the first tea water of the day.

I had planned this morning to be the same, but, as every so often, fate mercilessly intervened, setting my whole day on an awkward trajectory that culminated with an hour long wait to reach a stammering call center assistant, or, pardon my rudeness, service professional, who most likely judged me by the stupidity of the issue with which I was ruining his day. (Infernally stupid would be a mild way to put it, so I valiantly accept his assumption.)

Before I ramble into further nonsense, let me return to the reason of this veering off orbit: as I peacefully approached Andrássy avenue, I noticed something odd. I couldn't see a damn thing, although, according to my wise weather app, the sun should have risen. Well of course, fog again! I had waited for this fog, on other days, days for which I had no grand designs, besides shooting the fog. And were they splendid days- of unfiltered, uninterrupted, undisturbed sunshine. And no fog. But now it was all around me, thick like insolent candy cotton. So I decided to go wherever it would call me. 

Island in the Fog

One of the most exciting things about going to Óbudai island when it is not ’THE’ island is stop in your tracks, intently stare down some bushes and ferns, and over-excitedly go ’oh, this is the Colosseum!’. You might even shriek a little to accompany your discovery, thus scaring stiff the occasional random dog or squirrel roaming about with no care in the world. (Before your appearance, that is.)

This Saturday the excitement was doubled, as the fog was so thick, that a) you saw no shrubs and trees until you nearly bumped into them and b) any shrub/tree could have been any venue after a while. The contrast between the festival ready main stage area and it’s ’everyday” counterpart reached tantalizing heights, with everything being pretty much one continuous mass of milky white mist. With a dog in it, most likely, a dog you could not see, only hear the pitter-patter of its tiny paws bringing the possibility of an invisible drool assault ever closer.

As a result of this we wandered off to the beach in something of a daze- Alice in Wonderland feeling reloaded, with the end result being an arrival to what could have very well been the surface of Mars when it still had water.The Danube is so low these days you can wade in to what in more plentiful days is almost the middle of the river, and listen to the ghastly calls of crows and seagulls (yes, I am being over-polite here, their noises sounded decidedly more sinister than a call) and get slightly surprised when a tugboat dignifiedly emerges from the fog. For some reason this actually felt like a perfect setting for a Jamie XX song, so here, a first name on my wishlist for next summer. 

Given this special foggy day, and the accomplishment of having made it to the island at what is a horrifically early hour even on a weekday, but more particularly so on a Saturday, we took a truckload of shots, almost as if we'd been out on normal Sziget duty. Come to think of it, we might never have been on the island quite at this impossible hour- yes, we are of the weak minded sort who go home to have a relaxing night's sleep away from the madness. There's that one time though when our friend was disassembling his Mazda in the parking lot after a Manu Chao concert, and that might have been at dawn. But more of that in a 'what happens on Sziget most definitely does not stay on Sziget' post, let's stick to some intensive visual coverage of the island in the fog.