0126D: O Bar Archivist and Keeper of the Lore

My legs are still aching from last night's mind-blowing night at O Bar. My throat feels a bit dry from shouting at the top of my lungs to sing along with this or that song or even just to carry a conversation. And before we decided to indulge in a massive Hap Chan Chinese cuisine dinner, my head was feeling ridiculously heavy. It's rare that I go to O Bar more than once in a week given my work schedule. But in the past 7 days I've gone at least thrice - and we're going again tonight.

I'm not complaining at all. The pain and the aches and the weariness are worth the enjoyment of friends, fabulous drag queens and all that good stuff.

Last night I ended up taking over 500 photos - almost unthinkable considering how packed the bar was and how difficult it was to many any decent shots. But hey, I guess I was more determined than I myself expected - plus all the lights were so pretty! This is a bit of an increase considering before my average was about 200 photos a night that spiked last Friday to close to 400.

Admittedly, I'm no professional photographer by any means. I have no patience of studying the hard science of the medium and I don't bother with all the little settings for exposure, aperture and all that jazz. My philosophy when it comes to photos is pretty simple - to capture the best possible moments in as short an amount of time as is possible. After all, the best moments are natural and serendipitous and not staged. I could get into trying to take more professional shots as a side hobby or something. but I really don't see that happening.

I've even had friends comment that some of the photos that I take, whether at O Bar or elsewhere, tend to follow so and so artistic principle or clearly I was using so and so camera settings. But I don't do any of that - and I don't say this to boast. It's just too much effort for what is a side hobby at this point and something that gives me something to do while at the bar. I learned early on in life that the joys of holding a camera at a social gathering is that it will always seem like you're interacting and being sociable with others without extensively talking to them. You just need to potion to them to get into the shot and things just sort of go from there.

Mahar has started to call me the O Bar Archivist, to which I add the appended title of "Keeper of the Lore" or something. It is funny to consider how I've come to take so many photos at O Bar even though I'm not paid to do this nor am I featuring them in the hopes of getting into a magazine or something like that. Part of is  just my honest enjoyment in documenting key events in my life with Tobie in order to have something to look back to, something that is fully supported by the digital photography medium versus older film cameras.

And at the same time, it's reached a point when the different performers like the drag queens and the ledge dancers seem to be looking for photos of themselves to get a better idea of what they're doing when they're up on stage or for use in their own portfolios for getting future gigs.  It's flattering for people to think that my photos support that sort of thing. If anything, I'm just glad that I'm able to have something to more or less "hold onto" in terms of the evening's festivities so that if I ever feel like it, I can always look back at my photo collection with Tobie and laugh at all the crazy, amazing things we did together.

In that sense, I admit I am an archivist of sorts - but the main subject that I'm trying to document is my life, and especially my experiences with Tobie. They make for great material for future stories or sharing with our eventual family (here's to hoping!) and children. And they're just fun to have.

I don't know where all this is going to lead up to. Maybe I'll just end up with a ridiculous number of photos of half-naked guys and transvestites lip-syncing some really popular songs. Maybe I'll have enough photos of the fantastic light patterns that the poi dancers create during their perforances that will lead me to think there's a secret message hidden in the pretty lights. Whatever I end up with, I know it's going to be something to treasure. And having other people enjoy the images that I manage to capture (many times by chance) is just a bonus on the side. Quite the cheery cherry on top of this particular sundae.

Just don't expect me to fulfill the role that the likes of Doc Tony fulfills for Bed (at least before - I haven't been there in ages so I have no idea if he still takes photos). I just do this for my personal enjoyment and I don't see myself doing this professionally in the immediate future. In a weird way, I'd like to think of my photo documentation efforts as a way of supporting the bar and the many people who put so much time and effort into making each O Bar night memorable. That's good enough for me at this point. I know getting some degree of clout would be cool so perhaps I can get people to stop jostling me while I take photos. But bah, I've never been one for that sort of thing.

I'm just a guy with a camera with a clear idea of what I like in terms of photos. And thankfully, a lot of people seem to like the stuff I come up with as well. My areas of "expertise" due to sheer number of photos remain isolated to close-up shots of food and random photos at the bar despite the horrible lighting conditions. Other than that. I'm still just another geek. Yay me.