It was about tradition. Reinvented in Brooklyn some time ago as East met West, this timeless French classic still makes for the absolute best opening to any day. Café au lait et croissants, façon Constantia.

A perfect blue sky would already be spread over Cape Town like a giant, crispy-clean table cloth thrown upside down over our mornings. It would rarely be much earlier than nine or ten o’clock, unless the day called for serious action in which case we might be brave and stumble out of bed at eight! Birds would be singing happily in the luxuriant garden and the flowers planted by our bedroom window would send a sweet cocktail of perfumes drifting into the room.

9 Sun Valley Avenue is a long, low-lying, adorable house with a garage at each end and a long corridor spanning the entire length with rooms scattered on each side. Very Hobbit-like, I’d say. In the front, facing a small cul-de-sac, is a small porch over the main entrance. On the night of big gatherings, candles in lanterns are hung under its roof. And in the back, perfectly hidden from curious eyes, is the garden - cornerstone, so to speak, of the place. Tasteful, beautifully designed and deeply loved, it gives the house its soul and turns it into a retreat for which one can’t help longing. A small pool sits in the lower corner underneath tall trees and at the opposite end, an even taller tree domes over the brick platform on which the main table is set for banquets. And groom inspections.

Finally, linking the house to the garden like a bridge between two mighty empires, is the terrace, where our days would begin. But first, breakfast had to be prepared in the dimly lit kitchen where Selina would probably already be busily moving around. Espresso would be brewed in the Bialetti, milk heated up, croissants touched up in the oven, butter sliced and covered away from flies, homemade apricot jam readied, extra toasts goldened, and this would all daringly be ferried to the table outside on a painted wooden tray, extra care being taken not to trip on the loving fauna.

Because you see, at number 9, there is always a pet available to dispense undiluted affection and good vibes. For those uninitiated readers who might wonder, here’s a brief description of the local menagerie: there’s Ben, the black lab, largest and softest of them all. A big bear with amazing patience who endures the annoying playful bites of Ted (see below) without ever flinching, but lets it all out when it comes to protecting the house, or its contents. Then there’s Maggie and Ted, the halflings. Corgis, they are. Long, caterpillar-like dogs with a sweet character and sad eyes. As Maureen once put it, too much body for not enough legs. Ted gets dirty, Maggie stays clean. Maggie chases a ball, Ted chases his tail (and Ben’s ball(s)...) Then there are the felines. Adorable Kehdi is mostly blind and responds to human voice like a parrot. She has a sweet thing for shoulders, in which she firmly digs her claws and then proceeds to inspect the world from above at her host’s pace, probably considering herself saved from said world’s many threats. There’s Andre Khamel, hilariously named by Henri after a defeated French opposition lawyer, a name choice that beats even my very own childhood Pompidou. There’s albino-like Spook, very old and fragile, soft as silk and looking like an owl in her pale ashen dress. And there’s Mr Wellington, part-time resident, the biggest of all cats with the weakest character - it must have been a trade off...

So there on the terrace, with Khamel lazily sleeping on a chair next to us and the corgis as footrests, we would begin our day. The southeasters, blowing strong at that time of the year, would only reach Constantia in the form of a nice breeze, gently brushing past the poplars of the nearby green belt in a long hush whisper. The green and steel-blue leaves would flicker above us and make the garden come alive. But even more alive, in the distance, would be the table cloth cloud, flirting with its mountain, caressing it gently while descending along the slopes, perfectly sharp white line against the immense blue sky.

We’d sip our coffee and dip the croissants, looking around, taking deep breaths, talking in a low voice about the day to come, planning a hike, a visit to a beach and penguins, a trip to the Karoo, an excursion into government land or lawyer practices, a scouting of antique jewelry stores, a shopping mission at Woolworths, a fabulous picnic watching the southern sun set, some lunch or dinner at one of many wonderful restaurants, an upcoming reception, or just un-planning life-changing events and joking softly about it...

And then the days would go by, as fast as scenery on a train. Never two alike, ever-changing, rhythmic, too fast. Punctuated by gorgeous lunches and sumptuous dinners. By noon champagne and late afternoon martinis and wine, always. By biltong and snoek pate. By power failures and the coughing of the generator. By flowers everywhere and custard cream on malfa pudding. By wild games with the dogs. By stories and by memories. By trips outside and trips backwards and inwards. And when the night came and doors were locked, and the house fell silent, we would go on, whispering about the day’s colors and smiles, about pictures in our heads and memories stored, muffling our laughs and already thinking about the next magical moment: breakfast on the terrace.

In a coordinated effort for raising awareness while delivering a strong message to the powers that be, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is once again behind the Earth Hour campaign encouraging individuals, organizations and businesses in nearly 200 cities worldwide to turn off their lights between 8:00 and 9:00 pm local time tonight, Saturday March 29th.

Goal of the exercise: making a statement about Global Warming*, diminishing our energy footprint and having fun. Candles are cool. Darkness can be revealing. And that it will be, at the Vancouver Lookout, where people will enjoy a better view of the city than ever before, weather(!) permitting. As a matter of fact, Canada is said to have the highest anticipated participation rate. In Vancouver, major lights will be turned off on the Olympic flag, City Hall, the Lion’s Gate, Burrard and Cambie bridges, Science World and of course, Harbour Centre.

Various worldwide events and places will also go dark at 8:00 pm local time, such as a crab dinner in New York and the Google Home Page.

It is such a small step, a few percent of our energy consumption shaved off from one single hour out of almost 9000 in a year. But that’s how we are going to make it. There are no miracle solutions to the problems we are faced with. If mankind is going to win the escalating battle against itself in time to save the planet that supports it, it will be by taking small steps at first, unrelentingly, no matter how small. If each one of us takes a small step simultaneously, we are going forward. If we keep doing it all the time, we will be leaping.

It’s all about awareness. About changing bad habits today. About waking up. And about gathering momentum. More than ever, we have amazing communication tools that can actually let us witness in real time that we are not alone taking small steps. The internet can act as a global live reporter and as such, it has a tremendous role to play in the battle.

*BUT:

We must always be sure to act for the right reasons, not because it is trendy. I support energy saving theories and practices because they make sense. A wasteful lifestyle is definitely a sin, even if only from the point of view of equality: while we waste energy watching crap on TV, others across the world do not even have a hundredth of that energy available to take a shower or cook. Same deal with recycling, limiting pollution and the systematic rape of our natural resources.

However there are those who challenge mainstream ideas about Global Warming and are pointing out a disturbing lack of scientific consensus on CO2 as a planet-heating pollutant. For the sake of our planet and in order to keep an open mind and not to fall into yet another planet-wide manipulation of the masses, we owe it to ourselves to verify our sources and ask questions, and make sure others do, too. Here are two very interesting examples to illustrate this possibility. They are not meant as a call to anarchy or an attempt at trashing the efforts of environmentalists worldwide. They are simply the work of people who like understanding the reasons behind any fashionable trend like the current Global Warming debate, and who have become concerned that, once again, the lust for money and power might find its way all the way up to the top of the news and take control of even the best intentions behind what we have come to accept as our only hope: environmental activism.

The first is an AIM article titled Will Media Expose Global Warming Con Job? which I found recently and that echoed to my own doubts and concerns with surprising volume. My problem isn’t with Global Warming itself, but rather with the fact that I just had to capitalize it. I am extremely worried because just like wars, catastrophes and the sex lives of movie stars, Global Warming sells. It’s worth a fortune to the media world and also potentially to the smartest of international powers. The article above refers to the following New York Times piece, In 2008, a Hundred Percent Chance of Alarm. I quote: « Today’s interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels. »

Even author Michael Crichton had a go at this angle of things in his recent State of Fear novel; he actually took heat for it - that’s what you get for going against the flow and botching up your research on the topic. But whether he is right or wrong isn’t really my priority. I just like being reminded that not everything always is black and white, and that the media will at times act as a major disinformation tool and become the toy of shadow puppeteers, the ones that really control the world. When a politician wins awards for a documentary on climate change, my alarm signals go off. Those same politicians are waging wars all over the globe and fighting to control the world’s fuel supplies. Why on Earth would they give a damn about the consequences of Global Warming, unless it means that it will, one way or another, yield a substantial influx of green little bills in their hidden pocket.

The bottom line is, let’s do what we feel is right for the environment, and let’s do it now. And tomorrow. And the next day. Let’s fight for it and force a change. But let’s do it for the right reasons. Not because the media tells us that we are in deep shit. Not because Al Gore found a new path to glory by becoming a movie star. Not because we go with the trendy flow and if all the sheep will go green, so will we even though we don’t really understand it. Not because God’s wrath is upon us and doom unavoidable. Not because others say so.

Let’s just do it because in our hearts, it feels like the right thing to do. Let’s be curious about the mechanics of it, let’s look behind the scenes and let us question established facts if they are not supported by evidence. Let’s empower ourselves as the engine of change, rather than just its fuel.

It was summertime by 33 degrees south latitude and 18 degrees east longitude, but on that day, a howling wind from the southeast sprayed the coastline with a winter coating. Sand flew, horizontal and abrasive, and the ocean was like an endless field of whitecaps, fluffy white flowers on a bed of blue grass. So the dogs played in the sand and had a blast while we got sand-blasted. But there was more in the air then just salt and sand. There was... something. And Cézanne would have loved the light.

And then there was fish & chips. The dogs got a chip each, but that’s a secret.

Picture the middle of nowhere. Then move away from it, slightly. Turn around and face sideways. Look behind you. Blink. Look again. You’re there. It’s Prince Albert, Karoo. South Africa.

A lonely main street lined with a few miserable shops and some restaurants. Tall trees recently chopped down to the size of tall cacti. An unforgettably dry golf course frying under an unforgiving sun.

You look for an internet cafe and are directed to this strange multipurpose store that serves bad coffee and supposedly good pies, sells souvenirs, is staffed by an exiled Peruvian and hosts the only public internet-equipped computer station in town, perched on the upper level of a large room where the warmest air is guaranteed to collect.

But then you find the Dennehof Guest House, hidden on a dirt road on the periphery of this odd oasis. You check in. Mimosas. Cypress trees. Prickly pears. It could be Provence. Your room is charming, occupying an small free-standing house that might have been a mill. It looks old and rustic. The outside walls are bleached. Inside, everything is warmly decorated and welcoming. You sit on the terrace and have a drink. You think, this is great. We have arrived. Two nights and two days of doing nothing, in the best company. You could get used to it.

Of course, doing nothing is not in your character. So the next day you decide to go on a 120 km dirt-road trip. And at 5:00 am you catch yourself swearing at a rooster. Still, what peace and quiet.

May tainted blood
Water our fields!

And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there

Let us band together,
We are ready to die

Scatter our enemies,
And make them fall!

Brave the enemy’s gunfire, March on!

War, war!
Take the national pennants and soak them in waves of blood.

And seize the forehead of the tyrant
And destroy him!

So we have taken the noise of gunpowder as our rhythm
And the sound of machine guns as our melody

In case you were wondering what all this was about, well, these lines are not part of a war movie script, nor are they some kind of extreme-right propaganda. No. These are the words (some of them translated) to which a lot of supposedly civilized people rise and place a hand on their heart, hat dropped and tear in the eye. These are national anthem lyrics.*

In so many countries, the song meant to embody everything dear and sacred to the national character of its citizens is more bloody and hostile then a first-person shooter video game. That proves one thing: somebody somewhere, in some government circle, has achieved a great scientific breakthrough. A non-intrusive lobotomy of the masses.

So let me ask you a question, you who are standing with your hand on your heart among a crowd of people standing too, and you, and you, and you too; what on Earth are you thinking? When is the last time you were grateful to your country? Or proud of it? I hear complaints about politics, and inflation, and taxes, and the price of gas, and crime, and pollution, and war, but what has your country done to make you happy lately? What are you actually proud of, or satisfied with? And yet, when the anthem plays, you stand.

This is the 21st century. We’re trying to move out of an era of nationalism and colonialism. It’s time for borders to drop, for races to mix and for people to sing about tolerance and peace. It’s time to be proud for the right reasons.

Would a country dare drop its old anthem and adopt a new one speaking of tolerance, respect and unbranded freedom? And most importantly, would a country do all this, and then abide by it?

* In order, those belonged to the French, US, Italian, UK, Chinese, Mexican, Lybian and Algerian anthems.

 « Is there a time to walk for cover
A time for kiss and tell
Is there a time for different colors
Different names you find it hard to spell »

 U2

Cuisine Savoyarde is among my favorite on Earth. Rich, thick, tasteful, cheese-based, it makes for perfect meals at the end of a long mountain climbing day. To really enjoy it, you must be exhausted, happy and sore. You should still be wearing your mountain boots and a fleece, and you might even be a little stone from breathing so much fresh air.

So I was recently lost in utopia, contemplating an attempt at gratin dauphinois from Patricia Wells’ Bistro Cooking (thanks Marie) and went shopping for supplies. While at the store, as I was losing my focus and my thoughts drifted towards hazy horizons, I suddenly remembered my third favorite Savoyard dish, la tartiflette (the first and second being cheese fondue and raclette, respectively). I instantly decided to bridge the two recipes in order to come up with my own weird concoction, which I would name Vartiflette, with a V for Vince, Vancouver or Viljoen. My excitement must have reached that of Dr. Frankenstein after he drew the plans for his creature.

While similar to conventional gratin, tartiflette involves lard (a classic French ingredient, so hard to come by here), onions and a touch of white wine. Qui plus est, I vividly remember eating an amazing variation in Chamonix that incorporated chanterelles mushrooms. So I shopped some more. The creature was taking shape.

Of course, this being Vancouver, I couldn’t find creme fraiche and I had to replace it with whipping cream and lemon juice at the suggestion of my personal adviser (it was too late to go back out and buy sour cream. Duh.) Then it turned out chanterelles were out of season. I hesitated forever between skipping mushrooms altogether and trying another kind, which would no doubt be a crime since chanterelles’ taste is so particular. I ended up taking a chance on shiitake.

Here’s the recipe I put together, amalgam of 2 or 3 different templates found on the web for gratin and tartiflette. It’s a total improvisation - purists please close your eyes.

• some amount of potatoes. I think I used about 1 or 1.5 kg, not sure they were the right kind, but pretty certain they were potatoes;
• 1 onion; wow, now that I think of it, it must be the only ingredient I aced;
• some lard; I used old bacon found frozen in the fridge, from the last Ice Age by the looks of it;
• chanterelles; yeah, rub it in. I used nice shiitake instead;
• creme fraiche; again, replaced with my own mix of whipping cream and a bit of lemon juice;
• reblochon cheese; yup, didn’t find it on time either, so substituted with emmental;
• a cheap bottle of white wine; come on, I was already torturing the recipe so much I wasn’t about to get a super-expensive Oyster Bay;

Ok. Here’s the deal. I started with the shiitake, frying them alone to get a sense of the taste, which ended up being all right with garlic. I put them aside and followed with the chopped onion and bacon. The French recipe said « faire suer »; the hell if I knew what that means in a kitchen, so I sweated myself instead and waited for them to look sort of cooked, but not too much. How scientific is that? Meanwhile, I had peeled the potatoes and cooked them whole, as it was suggested in my original tartiflette recipe. BIG mistake. Then I rinsed them and sliced them. Too thick.

The Moment had come. The organ started playing and echoed through the high walls of my castle. I had to use my awesome Le Creuset pot ‘cause I love it, and ‘cause that’s all I own. Half the sliced potatoes went in first, then half of the onion/bacon/mushroom mix, then the rest of the ‘tatoes, the rest of the mix, I poured the cream over all that and then added a glass of wine (another mistake, I should’ve started with the wine and then finished with the cream, not to dilute it away from the top layer.) And finally, the cheese, sliced and layered over the dish. I stuck my Vartiflette in the oven preheated at 230°C and waited... I must have waited about 45 minutes until I just couldn’t take it any more. The cheese had turned a nice color and I reminded myself that I didn’t have to wait for it to turn black like the top of my flan. Too late. I wanted to create something beautiful but that picture just looks awful!

Result: I had fun playing with my toys. But the Vartiflette didn’t live up to my hopes of glory and the creature was rather ugly. For one thing, I decided that pre-cooking the potatoes was a mistake and I should have sliced them much thinner, and left the damn thing in the oven twice as long. There wasn’t enough cream, either. And my emmental didn’t succeed at replacing reblochon. This being said, I ate the entire dish in 3 meals. That’s the pig in me.

Oink.

I had an itch.* Granted I’ve never been much of a long distance runner. I get bored. Anything over an hour and my mind starts yawning or focusing on unnecessary things like the bloody pain. But it had been two years since I’d done over 15 km and I had much accumulated energy to release. So I set out for a half-marathon. From what I understand, the half-marathon is a loser’s run. Not even close to hurting as much as a full marathon does, not requiring much commitment, nor extensive training. It’s half the distance but two thirds less difficult. Totally me.

Of course I was concerned I might fail even at the loser level, so I carefully bred and raised secret sophisticated excuses for aborting early, while the day was going by and I tried to psych myself up for the evening. I always run in the evening, or late afternoon. It’s the time of day at which I am less of a wimp and more of a worm, which is better. In the morning, I wouldn’t last a mile. My metabolism doesn’t kick in until late and I am barely able to hold a full coffee cup with one hand.

So I uploaded 50 or so additional songs to my MP3 player for the circumstance, mostly Sisters of Mercy and Rammstein. The mercy, I would need. And I don’t understand most of Rammstein’s lyrics, a good thing. I grabbed a gel, a fruit bar from Trader Joe’s and planned on hydrating a the 2 or 3 water fountains I’d pass by on the Sea Wall, around which I was going to run twice. Exactly double my usual 10.5 K loop. At 3:00 pm, it already seemed like a much worse idea than it previously had. By 5:30 pm when I headed out, it felt like sheer madness. A bottle of Stoli and garlic-stuffed olives were calling me back home. I don’t know how I resisted.

I ran the first half of the half-marathon at almost half my normal speed, half-worried I wouldn’t have it in me to venture into the second half. (It’s one thing to run a straight line from A to B like I’d done in Duluth; it seems harder to complete a loop and launch into another, when the finish line is so near and tempting.) Old ladies were passing me. Running dogs were passing me. Even a three or four-year-old little girl who had barely learned to walk managed to scurry past me in a triumphant sprint, until she plunged head first into a resting Canadian Goose that thankfully took the insult quite calmly and simply relocated a few feet away as the girl was crying and trying to rub all the guano off her face.

But I knew what I was doing. I was pacing. I was buying life insurance. Putting money in the bank. Gathering supplies for the hurricane to come. Being la fourmi instead of la cigale. Wise. Chicken.

So when I hit the half-way mark and still had most of my energy untouched, I figured I could resume at my usual pace. The strange thing is that I was only about 3 or 4 minutes slower than I would have been on a 10K run. Funny how differences are so insignificant. Just like the margin between happiness and sorrow. Thin razor’s edge. Sharp.

I then threw myself into the bottom of the first hour, furiously rowing to pick up the slack. I passed every single old lady I could find, looking straight ahead and making sure I painted a look of intense concentration and sheer determination on my face. They must have been stunned and moved. Actually I almost literally moved one but that’s because she had a bit of a vacillating style and suddenly stepped sideways as I was passing her. Dogs would run back to their master tail between their legs. Children did not dare compete with me. I was the king of the path. Thank God, for some odd reason, no real runners happened to be tackling the Sea Wall on this gray week-day.

At the 3/4 mark, things suddenly went sour. My legs turned into lead and running became as complicated as handling an engine failure while flying an IFR approach. I suddenly felt like I was multitasking. If my breathing had allowed, I would have stuck my tongue out to concentrate better. It’s amazing how complex a simple running motion is, once you’ve lost the automatic drive. So many muscles are involved and they all want to do something different. But then I crossed paths with a guy who ran all over the place, apparently supporting his stride with wild random motion of his torso and arms. I hope I only cracked up after passing him. It made me feel better about my own shortcomings - until I remembered reading that Emile Zátopek himself was well known for having a horrible style that went against every rule of proper running form.

I dragged my sorry ass through the last stretch, cursing at myself for even coming up with such a stupid idea and pondering the reasons that make us do what we do. I finished in 1:51 hour, unknowingly having run 20.4 km instead of 21, I had my calculations wrong. Oh well.

So here’s my theory: we run because it hurts. It hurts because we’re lazy. We’re lazy because of gravity. Gravity is hopelessly fighting entropy. Entropy was the only possible outcome of the Big Bang. The Big Bang was our universe’s greatest achievement; everything since then has been boring. And hence, we run. To avoid the boredom of a universe still expending but decaying as it does so; to forget that we too, even while growing and learning and maturing, are slowly but irremediably decaying and succumbing to entropy.

We run.

* For those of you who instantly thought of Daniel Craig, funny, I did too.

« I was not talented enough to run and smile at the same time. » Emile Zátopek - Winner of three gold medals at the 1952 Olympics for the 5K, 10K and a last minute decision to run his first marathon.

As Marie was mentioning it, linking to this interesting article of the New York Times, the bees must know something... Here’s my interpretation of it:

They’re bailing before it’s too late. Everyone, grab your copy of the Guide and brace!

Once in a while, to change the routine or take a break from intense photo or design work, I’ll allow myself to Stumble for a while. Here are a few interesting sites discovered on my last ride...

A rather interesting awareness test. Read the final credits. Smart of them.
Some motivation if you feel like you are failing. I feel better now.
Very funny aircraft snag book entries. Ok, maybe you need to be a pilot to laugh at some of those...
Science-fiction meets the present at the hands of good writers.

An interrupted white line rushes by me with a boring, hypnotic but fascinating rhythm. The trance is shallow, though, and easily broken by a change in speed or a nervous tick in the driver’s wrist which instantly bring me back to reality. Seven people is too many for a single bloody car, even a Honda van. I feel like a sardine in a can and can’t escape the dullness of our destination, a trade show in Seattle. We have agreed to declare at the border that we’re attending a simple reception in order to avoid paying the stupid annoyance tax. NAFTA my ass.

Upon getting there, we run a few errands - and yellow lights, pay visits - and parking, setup for the show and check into our respective hotel nests. Nearby Pike Place Market isn’t too busy but fish throwing never stops, to the great delight of passers by. Our show starts late in the afternoon and we smile and bow for over two hours, exchanging business cards and forced compliments, promoting the baker who puts bread on our respective tables, looking for extra butter, to ease things in. A crowd roams by, like seaweed carried by a strong tide, wandering about and wondering why they bothered. Oh yes, it was for the food. Which smells rather good to the right, but is left out of bounds for the hunters, who will get their treat later on at the Edgewater. For now, let the preys feast and let us pray they will fall. In our nets.

Then comes the call. It’s my fault because it’s my initiative. But caring knows no schedule. There’s no reason, that’s the reason. Time and distance are grinding away at the substance of life. The lights go down. The show is over, inside and out. I follow the herd to the cocktail, hunters only. There’s pizza and burgers and salad and beer and wine and beer and wine. And wine. Whining too, but in the best of spirits. The hunters can let go and arm the rifles, and shoot at empty space, and tell hunting stories. Booze flows, pizza keeps reappearing. Tongues get agile, mouths are big enough to accept feet, but nobody any longer cares. Cheeks are now bright and eyes shiny. Then those turn red, and slightly blurry.

I’ve paid my dues, time to escape. To retreat to the darkness and let it match my mood. They drive back, shame, they shouldn’t. I’ll walk. I need the fresh air and the neon lights and the sea breeze and the time alone with my thoughts. Camera across a shoulder, I follow the waterfront, taking the night in, eyes wide open but half turned to the east where sleep must have taken over and brought rest, if nothing else.

Neons, headlights, stoplights, my head is light, too. It must be the wine, or the whining. Gossip turned sour. It always happens at that time of the party. I take deep breaths to cleanse my mind. It starts to rain. I won’t be able to sleep, might as well have a coffee, after all this is Seattle. The warm cup in my hand feels like a lifeline, a compass and a map. It steers me towards the Vintage Park Hotel and away from the night. The streets are empty. I must have stayed out longer than I thought. Will it matter in the morning?

There’s another appointment, a last call of duty, to be fulfilled. We are to pay our sister tower a visit. The Space Needle is a big sister, humbling, impressive, like a splinter in our minds. So near and yet so far. No matter how far one has walked, there always seems to remain more distance ahead than lays behind. It must be one of those optical illusions.

Later, we hit the road again, after a ritual stop at Trader Joe’s to gather groceries and food for the soul. In my near future, across a few hundred kilometers, a border line and some traffic, towering over my day, is Voice Over IP, the skypescraper. It’s not that great, but it’s a hell of a lot better than nothing, and it usually helps lachrymal glands, too.

Bad, moody pictures, hand-held, cheap lens, low light, high ISO, too much grain, it can’t always be HDR.