Scranton & Crow
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
I know. It sounds like a new series on Netflix, a clothing company or a law firm: Scranton & Crow. But they are actually the names of two tugs whose photos I cannot seem to locate. Instead of scanning, I have taken to viewing each full image, one by one by the sounds of Marvin Gaye - What’s Going On? on cassette. Despite Mr. Gaye’s soothing voice, I get a tad frustrated. The whole process felt overly tedious. I swear my eyes were the first parts of me to head to bed at the end of the night.
After two attempts, I had only one photo of each and neither was the “right” one. And Lenny chose right. The two prints in his binder represent excellent compositions, although I am realizing that he zoomed in/cropped and may have intentionally darkened one of the prints for added drama/impact. I’m not sure.
I wish he had taken notes. Maybe he did. If I were to look in the silver briefcase, perhaps I might discover something. But I feel strongly that what is in the blue binder is what I am meant to work with. And I just feel like it is a respect thing. The silver case should stay closed.
But that creates the dilemma of finding what now appears to be more than just a couple of “missing” slides.
So I spent this day working, on and off I have to admit (it was a school day), only tackling missing Chapter 2 & Chapter 3 slides. None too exciting but I think that it is worth the effort. Once I have made it to the “end” of Chapter 9, I will rename the slides in each Chapter folder sequentially, based on the order in which they appear in the binder. Part of me is a bit nervous about quality and the degree to which dust and other “imperfections” may show up if/when the images are enlarged. This is part of why I hope to find a publishing company to work with. But the reason I kind of hope that I *don’t* is that they may pressure me to compromise and switch things up. And so I return to the self-publishing option. Either way, I will create a “sample” so to speak, using a company (maybe saal) to see how the layout looks and what is possible on my own. I have to face the fact that thousands upon thousands of people will not buy a photo essay on tugboats, despite the fact that I know it is going to be awesome.
