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Seemed to be a lot of fuss going on outside, so still blipless for the day, I grabbed my camera and went to investigate. The family living in the big house over the road were having a birthday party. All the fuss was the security guy trying to find parking space for all the cars. He had kept my door front clear for my bike, so I gave him permission to park a car there, as he was really struggling.

I figured that this was kind of a fate type deal and that I was meant to blip the car that parks in front of my house. I returned an hour later, to see what the blip monster had brought for me and found this grey colored Honda space wagon type deal. It had nice lines, so I took a bunch of photos of the sweeping A pillar and a few reflection photos in the wind shield.

I processed the first batch and was disappointed. The lighting contrast was very awkward, causing the image to wash out in the brighter areas and just didn't look good at all. The windshield reflection photos were not bad, but the squished bugs and a splash of bird excrement was spoiling things.

I returned to the car with a bucket of water and a sponge and washed the windshield and a few marks on the A pillar, after making sure that no one was looking of course. I repeated the shoot, this time with various exposure compensations and returned to the lab. Still no good. I solved the washed out areas, but was now losing the shadow areas. The reflection shots were quite good, but a bit plain, so I went down for another look, to see if I could find a fresh idea.

The grill looked good, so I rooted out my kneeling sponge and got right down to it. By now, my neighbor and the security guard had come to watch me working, but determination had trumped embarrassment by this time and I took about twenty shots of different angles and lots of bracketing, as I did not want to return a fourth time. Fortunately the processing gave me a blip that I was satisfied with.

An hour later, the noise started to rise again, so I went down to investigate again. It was a children's party and they all came out at once to board the fleet of cars and a couple of angkutan kota's (Indonesian public transport, based on a minibus). The kids looked great in their best threads and the girls wearing head gear, they all looked so cute.

By now I had realized what the blip monster was giving me and it was not a Honda grill, but it was too late. By the time I could return with the camera, it would have all been over, so I stayed and enjoyed the moment. All the kids wanted to practice the English language that they were learning in school, asking my name and where am I from. Lots of giggling and laughter, it was fun. As they were driving off and everyone was waving like mad, I pretended to run after the bus, this sent them into fever pitch, I could still hear them screaming as they disappeared into the distance. So funny, but all I got for you was a Honda grill. Sorry.

Dave