Raimond de Weerdt: rdeweerdt@csu.edu.au

January 7, at a mini lab in Den Haag, Holland

Mini lab man: "Goeden morgen meneer."
RdeW: "Goeden morgen, I am here to pick up my pictures, de Weerdt is my name."
Mini lab man: "Ah, yes. Mr. de Weerdt..here are your negatives"
RdeW : "Something wrong?"
Mini lab man: "The machine couldn't print your pictures, they are no good."
RdeW : "What do you mean no good?"
Mini lab man : "Well sir, we have a very sophisticated machine that processes and prints photographs. It detects pictures that are moved or blurry or where the exposure is wrong, people do not want to pay for mistakes, and it seems that all your photographs are mistakes, we won't charge you anything."
RdeW : "Your machine has determined that all my pictures are mistakes?"
Mini lab man: "That is correct sir, our customers want clear sharp pictures, and yours seem all blurry and strange, therefore the machine did not print them."

RdeW : "Oh, does your machine detect other things about photographs, particular subject matter for instance ?"
Mini lab man: "What do you mean?"
RdeW : "Never mind."
Mini lab man : "You see, our customers value to have their precious memories printed as sharp clean pictures, gloss or high gloss. It would be a terrible thing to have pictures of a holiday or birthday that are all blurry. Photographs are about reality, and here in our shop we do our best to process clean, clear and sharp photographs. And yours are not!"
RdeW : "But there must a way to get prints done."
Mini lab man: "No, sorry sir your pictures are wrong,we can't print them here, besides our machine would automatically detect that your photographs are mistakes, they are a blurry rendition of reality."
RdeW : "Maybe. sometimes reality is blurry and unclear, maybe I want to have unclear and blurry memories."
Mini lab man: "I am sorry sir, I think you are in the wrong shop, we are not selling blurry things, I suggest you go elsewhere. Have a nice day sir."
RdeW : "Yes you too."