Over there is an elaborate temple – gold, red and blue.
And over there—
No. This is the most heinous thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
A photo with actual light trails made from car taillights.
Who takes these pictures?
For real, there are horrific things I can kind of understand. Skintight trousers on fat men. Non-alcoholic beer. Old folks who drive fancy sports cars at forty miles an hour on the motorway.
But light trail photographs?
To make up for the massive Fuck You Sean on the wall, I grab my camera out of my bag, walk over to the window and draw the curtains.
Heavy, grey skies. Tall, grey buildings. Not a landscape to take your breath away, just the kind I like. Down there, Taipei simmers under its tight lid of clouds.
Camera to my face, I frame and shoot, then push the film advance with my thumb. The whir and the click of the lever soothes me.
Shooting film, it’s reassuring. You’ve got to know how to expose your picture properly. You have to understand the relationship between the shutter speed and the aperture and the rating of the film. You have to take into account the lighting conditions.
You only have thirty-six shots (even less if you’re shooting medium format), so you have to make every single frame count.
And if you’re a real photographer, you have to learn how to process and print your film with your own hands.
Take away the digital crutches of your average photographer’s phone or camera, and they wouldn’t know what the hell to do.
And that, well, that makes me feel good.
There’s this photograph by Elliott Erwitt, Bratsk Wedding. In it, there’s a young couple waiting to get married, sitting on a row of chairs in a registry office. Next to them, a smooth, handsome young white dude in a suit.
This dude, he’s smiling, looking at something out of frame.
And this couple, they’re staring at this dude like he just slept with the bride.
Shot with his trusty Leica M3 on Tri-X 400, a frigging documentary masterpiece.
Why is the guy smiling like that? What the hell is happening?
Stories for days.
I sit down in the armchair and rest my camera on my lap. Now what?
Back to bed, that’s what.
Someone knocks on the door – three short, sharp raps. I get up and look through the spy hole.
The girl from breakfast.
She pushes past me as I open the door, no hello, no nothing.
Nice underwear, she says, perching herself on the edge of the bed. I don’t know many guys who wear lilac briefs.
My monkey is limp. The condom comes off, goes into a tissue and gets chucked at the bin. I miss.
The front desk girl gets up and turns the shower on. Steam drifts and swirls through the open door.
I would never normally go for an Asian girl, they’re not my type. But sex with this girl was a whirlwind. More one-sided than not, which suited me just fine.
I try and wave the image of Mia’s face beneath mine away, but it won’t budge. Sex with Mia was for sure less of a whirlwind. More intense though.
Fact: she’s the only person I’ve ever come with at the same time.
Anyway, who gives a shit? Shooting my load is shooting my load. Better with a girl on top of me than into my hand, that’s what I say.
The girl is out the shower. A white towel wrapped around her body, another one piled up high on her head. She walks to the armchair by the window and sits, staring at me.
You were better the first time, she says.
(Of course he was.)
I say, Well that makes two of us then.
Remember my name yet?
Sorry.
She sighs. It’s Akemi.
