Things Have Looked Like This For Awhile

Recent photos.
Snap shots really. I realized that recently.
A few weeks ago I started working with my favorite professor again, long distance.
It felt a little uncomfortable and strange developing a concept and going through the motions of working on images, seeing how they feel.

I realized that No Not Though is mostly snap shot type photography.
Which is fine.
But it's good to struggle for the work to satisfy me.

I edited some of these in the messed-with-so-that-it-looks-like-faded-slides way.
Because I hadn't done that before and some of the photos looked old to me.
So there.

9-09-2011 Gold Country Fair

These are all from various events and times at the GOLD COUNTRY FAIR in Auburn. I was their official photographer! Badge and errythang. Though a tall, hairy man with camera equipment strapped to him doesn't exactly blend in at the fair. Quite challenging to get the candid stuff that I'm always after.

Pretty fun though. Got me out of the house a lot. I also took a bunch of audio samples there that I am going to combine with the photographs to make an audio slideshow. Kinda a hybrid between video and still imagery. I think it helps your mind imagine the scene, to fill it out better. I'll finish that sometime this week.

Some Time Ago: The Beastmaster Fears No Balloon

These photos are from a birthday party. A birthday party for THE BEASTMASTER.

I drank cheap beer form a RED PLASTIC CUP because alcohol is NOT ALLOWED at that park. It was STYLIN.

Then I JAMMED my thumb playing TWO HAND TOUCH FOOTBALL. Which is why I haven't taken ANY photos since then.

7-28-2011 Zero History

Howdy!

I have been keeping myself from shooting digital recently. This is do to the fact that I shot 9 gigabytes of photos in a single day. My computer hated it. My workflow hated it. I was beginning to hate myself. So I took a step back, loaded some slide film into my Canon E-Lan, and took a full three weeks to finish off it's 36 exposures. Really took my time with the roll and with each exposure, examining the elements of the frame. And I am excited to get it processed. Apparently I'll have to send it all the damn way to San Francisco as absolutely nobody nearby does E6 chemicals anymore.

SO. These photos are from a small teen theater group called Breakfast Club Productions (if my memory serves). My parents non-profit The Sugar Plump Faries gave them a grant so they could do their production of Eurydice. The second I heard that they were going to perform it in an auto garage I wanted to take photos of 'em. The play was really impressive and great. GREAT. I still have to get these photos to them, but I'm sick to my ass of creating and maintaining an online presence...

SPEAKING (HYPOCRITICALLY) OF WHICH. Recently I got invited to get in on Google+. And it's fun as hell. It's built from the ground up to function however you want to use it. That may sound like a foolishly oblique and damnably vague thing to say, but it really is an impressive networking setup. Look me up if you're on there.

6-12-2011 Drinking Like A Fish and Eating Like A Bird

Is a fine way to have a good time in the Bay Area.

Brendan graduated UCSC. I didn't make it to the graduation because I believe he finished school, don't need or want to spend a few hours listening to faux inspirational speeches by whoever they suckered into speeching it up. My absence at the graduation ritual was made up for by the fact that I showed up with a case of decent beer that afternoon. We later burnt that van during our extreme revelries.

Next day was Kirsten's birthday celebration. Back to Palo Alto. Great music, excellent food and even better people.

6-8-2011 Some Buildings Look Like Tents If It's Early Enough

Getting up early is weird. IT'S WEIRD. All the shadows are pointed the wrong way and I'm all "NO! Shadows what the hell are you doing?! SOMEBODY IS TRICKING YOU!" But they just keep on doing their wrongfaced business.

I took these photographs this morning. Last night on the way to work I noticed that the Newcastle Portugese Hall was all tented up for fumigation. I thought it would probably look nice with a glowing morning light behind it. The image I had in my mind also happened to be about 50 feet above Taylor Road. What I ended up taking was from the top of a 4 foot ladder in the bike lane on the side of the road. SOMEDAY I will be crazy famous and people will beg me to shut down their roads with cranes so I can take a photograph I want.

The rest of these are from the chunk of Newcastle that butts up against the railroad track. That conductor was positive he was going to kill me. I got out of his way and waved. I'm certain he appreciated both gestures.

I'll probably start doing this more often. It felt good.

6-6-2011 Bugs 'n Flowers 'n Stuff

I took all these out in my yard. Went out with my 300mm and monopod, looking for some birds. But there were no birds. There was one jay harassing the little yellow birds nesting in our fig tree but that was it. Sometimes our house at the top of the ridge is bird central, not today. So I pointed my lens down instead of up.

I'm thinking about giving these photographs actual titles, something I rarely do with any amount of seriousness. I once took a photo of a cup in front of a door and called it "Lethe Door For Liquor." For no reason. More recently I've been leaving photos untitled or giving them document style titles like "Newcastle Elementary Playground on 7-8-2010." But for these buggy plant photos I am thinking about stuff like "This Is A Photo About How Moths Are Mysterious," or "Sometimes Plants Look Like Cities and Insects Look Like People."
I think that would be fun.