A glimpse of a different world

That's what I get at every photography class. It's amazing. After running like a mad rabbit from wherever the taxi dropped me off into the class, I sit down panting, 10 minutes late, only to realise that the speaker (a professional photographer) is just getting warmed up.

And by "getting warmed up", I mean he is rolling up his shirtsleeves and shifting the laptop with the slides into a comfortable position. Then there's the mandatory 10 minute discussion of how, in the good old days of film photography, there wasn't any nonsense photoshop to make life easier for all the amateurs, and young photographers have it so easy these days blah blah blah. Not to sound disrespectful or anything, but he did agree to teach the "DIGITAL SLR Basic" class after all. Not the "Old Fart Film Photography 1940s Nostalgia" class.

The good thing is, I did get the opportunity for the first time this election to see my MP up close and personal. The same one that's expecting to get voted in for another term. In the middle of a series of slides to illustrate portrait lighting, a studio photograph of George Yeo appeared on the projector, larger than life. That's really the closest I've been to him during this election period. I don't think the rest of the class understood my snorting and laughing, but anyway, they're probably not in the same constituency.

My point is, am I expected to vote for a photograph? There's not even the courtesy of a pre-printed mass mail flyer in my mailbox from the man. The only time I've seen him is when I look at the lamp-post next to the main road. For all his form-submitting shortcomings, at least I've seen poor James Gomez in the flesh, riding the WP lorry through Serangoon Gardens. Maybe George has never failed to submit a form in his entire life but at least the courtesy of a pre-printed flyer should not be too much for his constituency members to expect.