With a Sibelius-fueled side-epiphany.
After Day Two of the recent expedition, I downloaded the photos and wrote it up, then plugged the camera in to charge and went to bed. The next morning, I slotted the battery back into the camera, and to my irritation it refused to turn on.
For which reason I missed a fabulous photo of the barnacled-sandstone formations at Little Tribune Bay; but to be fair, not that much else; the old-time farm where we took the kid to look at the animals wasn’t that photogenic.
There was one other moment I would have liked to capture; making a ferry crossing late on the Sunday of a holiday weekend can involve hours of waiting to get onto the boat, in a vast sun-baked lot filled with weary sun-baked people of every description, the rough democracy of the ferries packs the Bimmers in with the beaters. It’s a unique kind of scene. Anyhow, as the ferry finally started loading up, we were all lying back in the car, listening to the opening of Sibelius’ Karelia suite, which has some sections with an urgent march-like quality. Just then, the cars began here and there around us to start their engines, with tail-lights flashing on, and motors revving in an aleatoric near-synchrony with the wide strides of Sibelius“ northern-landscapes-feeling march. Thus epiphany; the music fit the moment like a really well-chosen piece of movie soundtrack, the whole way more than the sum of the parts. But I digress.
Oh yes, since I’m digressing anyhow, if you want to do the ferries-on-the-weekend thing, don’t just drive up and wait; visit the excellent BC Ferries web site and reserve your departure.
So I looked at the battery and fiddled with the camera and eventually wondered if maybe the battery just wasn’t snugly-enough seated.
Victory! A little piece of note-paper, cut down and folded a few times, applied the necessary pressure, and the S50 is back in business. Which is cool, but a camera this allegedly high-end shouldn’t start suffering this kind of mechanical problem before I’ve taken 500 pictures on it.
The reason I wanted to fix the camera was another baseball game, and it was a honey; the Canadians won the game 3-2 with a couple of clutch hits in the bottom of the 9th. All in all, a good day.
