5-6-2011 Eddie Adcock Brings the Noize

This here is Eddi Adcock. He apparently played his banjo as doctors were working on his brain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjX6ErmKY14. Damn. I think I remember them saying that the operation was about a year ago. While his triple bypass was more like five years ago. Given all the patching up this man has endured, and how skillfully he played last week, I have come to the conclusion that he is in fact a machine.

A banjo playing machine.

And while it is no small coincidence that all the good photos I took were of Eddie, mostly the reason I focused on him was the superior lighting on his wizened face. Most of the other players, his wife and my mothers dobro teacher among them, were positioned on parts of the stage with much worse lighting.

This show was at Constable Jacks in my hometown of Newcastle. Not sure if it was the spice of the gator burger lingering in my mouth, the delicious beer sloshing around in my brain and belly, or if I was simply in a good mood, but I officially fell in love with Newcastle that night.

5-3-2011 Robot Slaves Bring Me Sugar Candy

It must be subconscious. Whenever I do fashion photography, I end up doing skate photography soon after. All the other times it was within the same week, by chance. Not this time. I finished the HIGH FASHION photoshoot and thought to myself "Well what the hell am I gonna do now?" So I went to the skate park to see what I could see. Just what about fine clothing reminds me of juvenile delinquents? I've got to get to the bottom of this.

Anyway. There's Olivia! Up there! Olivia is the easiest person to take photos of, I just point my lens her way and tell her to wiggle. I know to stop when my buffer is full. Shooting with her at Ramona Lou is great fun. No stress or worries. It's basically hanging out with people I really dig, only there is a mild objective to our time together. Fantastic. Experimented with the presentation a bit. I think it worked out pretty damn well. It increases the efficiency of my workflow, decreases the raw amount of data to upload, and gives the viewer a better feeling for the outfits.

Meet up with Archie at the skate park. Taking photos at the skate park is how I met Archie in the first damn place! Huh. Think on that. So some guys were playing skate (horse with boards in lieu of balls) near the entrance. It was way too crowded to get anything worthwhile; also I ignored my telephoto when setting out for Ramona Lou. Maybe coulda gotten some good facial expressions if I had brought the tele. So I climbed the retaining wall and got some really extreme angle composites. The only ones that worked out were Archies. I'm not even being biased. I guess I was only there for about 20-30 minutes, makes sense that I didn't come away with much that works.

3-20-2011 Todays Episode is brought to you by the letter X for Xenophobia

My mothers volleyball team made the playoffs, then got crushed. I came along to practice poorly lit sports photography as I have a potential freelancing opportunity developing. So the volleyball images are pretty damn noisy, but I might be ok with that in a journalistic setting. It's a more functional environment you know?

It was funny being back to the park where my mom's league plays. I spent many days there as a boy. Playing zelda on my gameboy in the corner, climbing trees. The complex with the courts is strangely austere, I always wondered what it's flawless stucco was hiding. I took the bird photos on a walk around the pond at the park next to the complex. Couldn't get the geese to fly regardless of how much I chased them. The bastards.

3-19-2011 You Are A Big Squishy Brain

Chris Walstad had a party event last night at a house that isn't his own. These are photos of that. There were some knowledgeable photography people there. One of them chastised me for capturing in black and white and I defended myself with some bullshit about not wanting a big workflow for simple party photographs.

Wouldn't you just know that I wanted more control when I was editing these. Curse words. OH WELL.

Before teh partaaay my buddy Anton and I babysat/wrestled a child for a few hours. He has the most amazing collection of one liners ever "Lets kick each other and beat people up, "I'll destroy your neck so you choke," "You can't shoot missiles at him because he will go invisible because he is a double crackhead." Moral of the story is, you can never be as rad as you were when you were five.

AND a nonotthought first, VIDEO. Taken on my terrible phone. I get a visceral thrill out of how terrible its optics/processor/senors are.

3-15-2011 Abstract Roses

Where the hell did these come from? I don't take photos like these. Pretty flowers? Indecipherable madness? I HAD SOMETHING TO PROVE TO MYSELF. Maybe. Don't know. But these are certainly outliers.

In other news. My reception was superb. Saw tons of people I hadn't seen in ages. Successfully added a ton of other elements (multiple bands, wine, food, bald teenage girls etc.) to make it feel like the whole thing was more than "HEY EVERYBODY SEE HOW I AM AN ARTIST IT IS AWESOME."

Nobody can truly claim to be an island you know. Very basic sociological thought about creating culture etc ad nasum. Something makes all of us, thus I feel deeply indebted to everybody that has supported me. Basically I am the most humble person ever. Don't even think about challenging me to a humble competition, my complete lack of ego will ABSOLUTELY DESTROY YOU before the contest of ultimate humility truly begins.

3-4-2011 Under the Freeway, Over the Tracks

Went exploring a little bit after meeting my cousin Vicki at Placer Arts to show her Beauty in the Breakage. She and her husband Brett had apparently beaten me there by a few minutes, they had seen my show already. Which is good! Perhaps they shared some candid remarks amongst themselves before le artiste could show up and censor their true feelings. Anyway, I took em back inside and turned on my carefully pointed spotlights so they could TRULY experience the show. Hah!

As I was saying, while I was waiting for my other cousin Elia to get off work, I eventually found myself down on the railroad tracks in this cavernous overpass built to accompany seven lanes of traffic above and large trains below. It was an imposing place. There is a possibility that I am becoming obsessed with it.
A good possibility.

3-4-2011 Fashion Shoot em Up with Ramona Lou

Went and did a photoshoot with crazy fancy vintage boutique Ramona Lou in Auburn yesterday. It was a good time. The model Olivia and I were insta buddies and everything was a joke. We even had a makeup artist, Tanya Hibbard, who did some damn fine work.

Anyway. My favorite two of the day are the bottom images. Particularly the bottom right. I really took it more for my own enjoyment than to give to Ramona Lou's. Just look at all that madness. That's the lot at the tire store in Auburn. Gah. I love that image.

So I realized the way I approach this fashion-type photography is an odd combination of the way I work while doing commercial studio stuff and my Beauty in the Breakage project. I don't direct the model at all, I just point my camera at em and make jokes. Really similar to the way I make little kids with soccer balls giggle by making fun of them or myself. There were some images I took yesterday, that if they hadn't had Olivia in them would've made perfectly appropriate images for Beauty in the Breakage. The faded colors and dirt and texture, it's all there.

If you wanna see the whole shoot, head over to the dump http://www.keepandshare.com/photo/367919/ramona-lou&vo=lt. You can even download em!

Have a nice day.