12-16-2010 Doncha Gimmie No Lip Boy

Decided to experiment with a "self designed bokeh," idea from some dude in Norway.
The experiment failed miserably, but it produced an odd object I can attach to the end of my lens for a faux-vignette effect. These photos are the result of me playing with my failure.
Not to bad really. Bottom right is what the odd object looks like.

Going to dog sit in Meadow Vista for a few days. Going to the cabin in Nevada City after that.
I expect massive backlog, with any luck.

12-29-10 Meth Fear, etc.

Festival of Lights Parade! Sugar Plump Fairies! Lights! Wigs! Terrible old men dressed as cats! I hadn't been involved with the parade since college, taking photos of it was amazing. It was like a very gentle concert, running at 5 miles an hour. Difficult to explain, but so damn fun to shoot. More of the Faries and the Parade here (http://picasaweb.google.com/sean.patrick.leydon/SugarPlumpFariesFestivalOfLights2010?authkey=Gv1sRgCNeewOCq9ezzhQE#)

That was a beast of a URL. Anyway. Below right is the aforementioned dancin granny/meth fear project. If it isn't immediately obvious, I was taking photographs of the television. Not sure what the impetus for this project was, or if I will do more, but I am somewhat satisfied with the end result. The black and white girl with the scabs, and some of the talking heads are from a tape I got at the library titled "METH: The Great Deceiver." And that hesitant looking pale lady on the bottom row is from "Dancin Grannies, For the Beginner." I blew this composite up (using blockposters.com) and put it on my door below my yip yip 8x10.

We have made a total of thirty frames for my upcoming Placer ARTS solo exhibition. I really need to recalculate the total amount of pieces that will be up, their size has changed a few times since my original figures. Wrapping it up, bottom left is my driveway. Thick fog and late work at our neighbors house resulted in that epicness.

I forgot watermarks.... ah to hell with it anyway.

11-15-10 to 11-28-10 Skate Fashionistas

Computer was down for a while, something had corrupted the registry keeping me from running any programs. So I read a lot of library books and developed a serious hankering for some vidya games. While the computer was on sick leave, my camera developed a bit of a back log.

Shot fashion type stuff for ramona lou in Auburn. That was a first. And it was insanely easy because the model had clearly done this before, or at least read enough magazines so she knew what to do. The skaters are from the Auburn skate park, one of the places I found myself with little work and without the ability to sink time into the computer. I was clearly an anomaly there. Thinking about pasting some photos up on the wall there. Maybe get a little side business going on.

It was good not having a computer, I think I spend less time on it now after not being able to use it for awhile. Started a new project the other day that that filled up my 4 gig CF card after about an hour of shooting. Its gonna be rad. It involves dancing grannies and meth fear. Kind of.

11-2-10 Balls Deep in Lincoln

So said Chris Walstad on the first fully fledged photography expedition I've been on in quite awhile. Way out past thunder valley casino in Lincoln. Where everything is flat canal and hiccuping grasshopper. He was positive that the sun would peek just between the hills and the clouds to create fire in the sky. He was right.

While he ran around with his crazy nice equipment (it all makes me drool. all of it.) I dicked around with some old ideas. Maybe it was back in early October or late September, I began jamming my fingers in front of my long 300mm lens when it was fully extended. At that focal length my fingers are reduced to small dark smudges in the image, the final result is something like dodging/burning in camera. I've been using that idea in conjunction with mild desaturation and the fact that my 300mm is a Quantaray with really cheap glass and it simply cannot focus tack sharp when fully zoomed in to create oddly aged and amateurish photos. Something about them instills an automatic sense of nostalgia in me, then whole goal is to feel like I took the photo fourty years ago although I am only twenty two.

Sometimes I just kicked reeds out of the way for Chris. It was an odd sensation to be hanging out with someone that knows as much photographic technical crud as I do, not that I mean to brag at all. He casually used the term "reciprocity failure," and I nearly had a heart attack. A good time was had by all, clearly.

10-28-2010 Aight Shit Goddamn

Been awhile since I've made myself do this, haven't been taking many photographs recently. Damn shame. A trip with that Chris Walstad today to take pictures of the sunset out in Lincoln reminded me to get behind the lens more often.

These photos are all from last weekend during a trip up North. Missed a lot of people. But maybe there are simply too many good people in Humboldt. That is a distinct possibility. All I really did was watch copious amounts of movies in my old house and drank like a... a what? A salmon or algae or something. Like it was my job. It was good, not depressing like it sounds.

And look at all the people in my photographs! I normally hate people in my viewfinder. But these all please me. From the bottom, no-look photos of people in a restaurant. This is a rare habit of mine, but when I have my gear with me, I like to shoot no-look photos of peoples faces in as they eat/converse in restaurants. I felt that these were particularly successful. The black and white images are from Halloween in Arcata. My gait becomes very forceful when I drink, so I stomped around the streets of Arcata taking blinding candids of the party goers. The resulting imagery is distorted in many ways. Got a water bottle thrown at me, but I think that it was unrelated.

The photo depicting multiple examples of gun violence was taken in the Fort House, my old place (even though I still talk about it as though I live there currently). It is a very odd photograph, mysterious and confusing. I was there and it still befuddles me. The last photograph up top is one of the newest additions to my decay project, for my upcoming show at ARTS in Auburn. I saw the building with this questionable health on the way to Arcata, and made sure to stop there on the way back.

10-5-2010 Obscura Mattress Fingers Tickle The AIDS Wolf

So.

Made my first camera. Out of a bathroom. There it is up there, on the left. That is the view from my bathroom. Camera. Which needs to come down (I will destroy it tomorrow) before the blue tape does that weird I-used-to-be-malleable-but-then-I-changed-my-mind-and-ruined-all-your-stuff-tape-puberty thing. I'm not telling the secrets that I used to make the top right image, but I will share the facts that I used no photoshop (aside from the watermark) and that it was shot digitally.

Went to the 90.3 KDVS Restore Maximum Freedom shindig with Tina. To see AIDS Wolf (bottom left) although my PBR-addled brain didn't recognize them, even as I took photographs of them. I was all "Oh! Another woman-fronted harsh noise quintet! That's cool. When does AIDS wolf play?" during their set. Ludicrous, but I think that it made me enjoy them more honestly. Or something else that sounds less like drunken rationalization.

All the lopsided haircut, bra strap exposin, vintage shit wearin people there seemed to enjoy (or "get,") AIDS Wolf. They were one of the gentlest crowds I had ever encountered. Let me go wherever I wanted. I think the drunk middle aged farts on the grass at the Sleep Train Amphitheater when Steely Dan played there frightened me more. But I was about fourteen at that concert, and though all middle aged people made me wary back then; the hypothesis that middle aged men wearing club shirts and drinking beer from plastic cups are not to be trusted has certainly maintained its veracity.

Basically the incredibly hip are fun to look at, but generally harmless; while middle aged men who still "go to shows," are all little pieces of the Antichrist.

9-22-2010 I don't care about the color of your eyes

Work has finally congealed into a thing I can manage, although I'm still too busy with it to do much else. Work aside there has been progress on my ARTS exhibition; met with Shawn the secretary/assistant/load-bearing pillar of ARTS to figure out what I need to do, measured the walls etc. Mikie has taught me how to use the miter, table, and circular saws, but we're going to work together this Thursday and Friday to try and put the first frame together.

I just picked up the first run of ten prints from my print guy Pekka the other day. For the show I'm going to use a combination of 35mm color slides I shot in Humboldt, along with new digital work in the same vein (right images) that I've done here in Placer. I was worried about the digital images not having the same richness in tone and color, but given the the fact I shot in RAW, the sly edits I did to them, and Pekkas ability as a printer, they came out great.

The weather has begun to change its mind, nights are consistently cold. Bottom left image was the first truly epic cloud formation of the Fall. I took it on my way to class, and everyone inquired if I had taken such an image. They were pleasantly surprised, those valley people all have to look straight up at the weather, but not we hill folk. Top left is Mikie laughing at something Jimmy said during a fancy dinner party we had. It got cold enough that we were forced inside. Can't even say how nice the cold feels. It's about damn time.

9-3-2010 Rest in Peace Zelda, Princess of the Foothills

Zelda was very old. We put her to sleep last Friday after a rapid decline in her health. Couldn't see, could hardly walk, wasn't eating or drinking. The dear heart. We were all there with her when she left, it was a relief to feel and watch her body relax peacefully.

When we first picked her up the staff at the pound told us that she had escaped, but had hung around the pound. This was the main reason my mom chose her, a smart dog that would stick around our property. So when my mom asked me if I had strong feelings about what we should do with her body, I said "We bury her in our yard. She knew this was where she belonged, we keep her here." Or something to that effect. It was a stressful day. We buried her down by the orange trees, some of which were sent to us by an insurance company (I think) after my grandpa on my mom's side died. Apparently they knew he liked citrus. So despite the oddness of their source, the trees have become a little special.

We've been working a lot this weekend. The table holding a small shrine for Zelda got swarmed with remodel flotsam and jetsam. I had a copious amount to drink the other night and proceeded to take a picture of my hand. I had also edited it a little, and it looked insane, huge blow outs and noise everywhere. The work also involved tinkering with our greywater dispersal system, spawning the top left photo. I basically got to play with water all day.

OTHERNEWSOTHERNEWS I got a letter from the Placer Arts Gallery Committee. They want to schedule me for my own show sometime in their 2011 calendar. Which is huge. Learning to use the miter saw tomorrow so I can start framing stuff. PSYCHED. Also looks like I'll be teaching photography at my old elementary school.
How things change.

8-28-2010 Howlers, Mutilators, Nekromantix

Show photos from last... what? Saturday. Yes. Saturday the Nekromantix played the Boardwalk in Orangevale. Howlers and The Mutilators opened. Whatever prefix you wanna add to billy (psycho, hell, rocka, punk, vomit) type of goodness abounded.

Howlers pictured on the bottom left were good, they got the normally boring Boardwalk crowd to move a bit, but they were nothing surprising. The Mutilators frontman (woman?), pictured top left was a real throwback to drape freakdom. That dude (dudette?) played in pantyhose, a long blond wig, and a blood drenched nurse uniform. The generally lousy Boardwalk crowd put up with this guys (gals?) antics to a surprisingly high degree. The Nekromantix destroyed. Duh. Kim Nekroman may be the most photogenic lead that I have ever shot, though you can't quite tell in the photo here (top right).

Brought my younger cousin, Elia to the show. She even hung around the edge of the pit! Yanked her out of there right before the encore, which was all for the best as most concert goers are all about climaxes. The crowd all went mad for the last Nekromantix song, and we slipped out a few seconds early.

Sometime in August; Do Not Visit Me or I Will Punch You in the Face So Many Times

Ross is such a big baby. Every time I see him he just complains about stuff for so long until I have to punch him right in his nose to make him stop. That or his delicate sinus system can't handle plummeting altitude change coupled with the blood thinning effects of alcohol. That bloody nose of his became borderline biblical. Look at all that Ross blood. We couldn't get it out of our kitchen tile grout for WEEKS. All this bloody excitement got me thinking about taking a lot of pictures of injured things, like my messed up hand. But then I ran out of injured/bloody things to photograph, had to work a bunch, and the idea fell to the wayside.

Started my last college class. It's basically beginning drawing and beginning painting wedged into one class. The puttering old man teaching the class takes too long to complete even the simplest acts of instruction, but he is very nice and he does get the point across, eventually. Drew them friendly men on the butcher paper that was on the tables in our class room, the idea was lifted more or less from one of David Firth's Jerry Jackson videos.

IN OTHER NEWS, there is none. Burger receipt has made its way through many thousands of pages. It's been my bookmark for Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, currently residing a bit more than halfway through the third and final volume. The bookmarks blunt and dirty character has become particularly enjoyable over the course of its use.

8-7-2010 Tosser

Been awhile! Too many legitimate excuses, no point in typing rationalizations. These photographs are older than some. From when Jessica was around a few weeks ago.

We went to a park in Auburn that I used to spend large chunks of time in during the summer. A type of day camp was setup there. We kids used to run that damn place. Chants for food that went unanswered resulted in widespread chaos and disarray. Marching en masse across the park yelling in semi-unison "OOOOOOOREO, WHOAAAAAAAO!" was a daily occurrence. We thought the combination of the winged monkeys from Oz and oreo cookies was something extremely clever to be looked forward to with relish.

So we walked about. There were still kids in the pool when we got there. A few birthday parties, some couples having picnic dinners. And me, wildly flinging my camera around in a bid to gather some interesting unanticipated images through the method of camera tossing. Fair amount of success. You can just see Jessicas head in the bottom left image. Top left image was taken on the back roads drive home, didn't realize that peacocks and deer were on such good terms.

8-5-2010 Self Titled

Mostly running on autopilot recently. Work is scheduling me a lot more, which is good, because what the hell else do I have to do? A bit stressful though. I've an aversion to things that I don't know how to do. Thus far this job is either; things I know how to do changed drastically or, tasks I have no familiarity with. Ah well. It's good for me to be thrown out of my comfort zone.

Jessica, beautiful girl that she is, bought me Starcraft 2 as a surprise, totally unexpected. Had major issues installing/patching it. With it running and the increased hours at work, I have been a lazy boy.

Stupid carpal tunnel.

The photographs I took today, still working on the complicated "Nature is a blind malignant force that wants to eat your children," project. I'm conceptualizing a rad way to display these. We shall see what happens.