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a few things from new york

2020-03-24T08:44:55+00:00

working on a new engine for this here blog, but in the meantime, here are some photos I took while I was in NYC last october; they’re just the top of the ‘to be posted pile’. I’m still thinking about some of the things I learned in that workshop.

walking home on san pablo

2020-01-27T05:23:10+00:00

I need to redesign this whole thing… blog needs a polish, for sure. I put together a newsletter, but tinyletter kind of sucks for sharing photos. There’s a limit on the width of 600 pixels, or roughly nothing. I tried to figure out ways around it, but in the end it really doesn’t work. Photos just don’t look as good small. More is more.

Took these on the way home from a friend’s birthday drinks. An eclectic group. I made the mistake of having the first couple rounds before having any food, but managed to recover thanks to several slices of pizza (and the kindness of relative strangers). San Pablo, of course. This is sort of the section that’s closest to my house, which I knew would be maybe an issue with the project. I’m close to here a lot, so the photos will reflect that. On balance, it’s not too bad. I just need to get out and shoot more.

(I started this 2 days ago, and just now hitting the publish button, which is a shell script, but nevermind that. These things take time).

the inherent problems of sunsets

2019-12-04T07:47:00+00:00

Yes, a post full of sunsets. This was also mid-september, around when my parents were here. The second one is a stitched pano, from two images. At least I’m not committing the sin of HDR.

There are some problems with sunsets. First of all, they’re cliché. Like, forever and ever. Second, they’re the sort of thing anyone can look at and take a picture of that works. You look at a thousand of them, and there’s this dull sameness that’s like looking at glitter. Pretty, but not, you know, rising to the task of making art most of the time. (note here that I’m talking about my personal definition of art and artmaking, you do you boo).

BUT. There’s definitely a part of me that thinks all of that is bullshit, and shoots sunsets anyway (sometimes just on my phone, trying to pretend I’m not serious about it). Cliche? That’s just something a jaded person says because they can’t admit something can be nice without being impossibly niche and unheard-of.

AND. “A picture anyone could take.” But no, not anyone did; I was there. I chose this exposure, this framing. I chose a place to stand and took the picture just when the sun hit the top of the clouds. Every picture, moment to moment, place to place, is unique. Sometimes all I want to say with a photo is: “This is where I was, and this is what I saw.” It’s not enough to be taken seriously in some circles, but I’m fine with that. Not every picture is the cover of NatGeo or the New York Times; none of these, I suspect, will ever hang on a gallery wall.

Anyway, it’s a complex subject and I’ve just barely scratched the surface. There are probably much more interesting photos to be made (my favorite of these is definitely the first one, which is not really a sunset picture). Maybe I should learn the lesson of the photography workshop I just went to and limit myself to one picture? I do need to be doing tighter edits in general. No more 30 picture posts.

muir woods and beach

2019-11-23T23:27:21+00:00

This was… sometime towards the end of September? I was freshly out of the boot, but still not walking a ton. My parents came to town and wanted to see Muir woods, or maybe I suggested going? Doesn’t matter. Nature hike, relatively flat and nice. Short, too. Less than a mile. We got done there and had a little steam left, so we went over to Muir Beach, too. It was overcast by the time we got there, but still really pretty/nice. The ocean, with no memory.

Too many computers, and too many things happening to keep track of the photos, really. I need to spend some energy towards getting my photos from the last several months together. It’s like, the moment I got my cast off and was allowed to walk again, things started taking off, and I didn’t have any kind of routine in place to keep things organized, so they’re spread out over my desktop, laptop, and iPad, and also some still on each camera (all three have seen some use). So yeah, trying to catch up and make sense of everything. Pushing out photos as I do.

weekend in paso

2019-10-31T07:43:25+00:00

This might’ve been the weekend after the trip to Yosemite? We’ve been running all over the last couple months, but I think it’s going to settle down til Christmas, at least.

I still need to get out and shoot some. Driving down the street yesterday I say, it’s all right here, I think it’ll just fall into place now that I have a clearer idea of what the hell I’m after. Probably 6 months of chasing the light, if I’m lucky. Now that I’ve said that I’ve cursed myself to another decade of working on it. Ah well. More as it gets done.

(oh, and a PS: Image #4 was straight out of camera, the colors really were that bonkers.)

odd salon EPIPHANY

2019-10-29T07:30:39+00:00

I think I was still in the boot for this? I don’t actually remember, but I was not on crutches, I’m sure. Anyway, not a ton of pictures, since I was still struggling. But a few. Have to start somewhere.

EDIT: added the last image, which I missed. Can’t forget Pancho Villa!

the road to recovery

2019-10-28T07:10:25+00:00

So yeah, had a bit of an interval there where I wasn’t taking a lot of photos. Not the whole four months of injury/surgery/recovery, but for sure the two after surgery, and not a lot of the larger project (which I talked about a little in my last newsletter) at all, since it requires quite a bit of walking around. There are people that would have pushed through the injury to get to a place where they were still making work, but I’m not one of them. I’m really fortunate that I had the support of my dear wife through all of this, or I doubt I’d be anything but a shambles, still.

As it is, I’m recovered enough that the work is now, again, ongoing. I need to figure out the routine from here; what I’m shooting, and what I need to do. I had a really productive conversation with Sara Terry, the photographer leading the workshop I was at in NYC, about it, and at least now I have something like a thesis; something more than “it’s interesting” to go on. I mean, the people that fed me the story, more or less, said that to me, and I felt it was the sort of subject that’s good for sniffing around, photographically. Eventually you have to figure out what exactly makes it interesting, sharpen your tools, and work until you have the story. I think I’m there, or I’m at least one step further down the funnel.

Oh, and: The last three photos are with my new favorite lens, the Voightlander 35mm 1.4. It’s really pretty great. Zone focusing is good, wide open with the RF is good. It just feels less constrained than the 50. I’ve been a 50 ride-or-die person for two decades. This is pretty big, but I feel like it’s a focal length I can really do some work with. Expect to see it more in the posts to come.

toured the mormon temple

2019-10-05T07:53:30+00:00

This was shortly after my initial ankle injury but before I was really taking it seriously; it was sprained at this point, but not really painful to walk on, so walk I did. It was later that week that everything came undone and I went to the doc for the initial consult.

The temple gorgeous and somehow ominous at the same time. Could just be me, but I was not feeling a great deal of loving vibes coming off of the place. The interior, which I wasn’t allowed to take photographs of, was fairly maze-like; it reminded me of a casino interior. Expensive and bad for the head. Also, at any given time, I couldn’t have told you which way was out without locating the ‘Exit’ signs. All in all, I was glad to get out of there.

Maybe the bad vibes was coming from the part of my brain that kept insisting that all of the things the tour guide told us were filtered through what they were allowed to say by the church, and the constant energy required to remind myself that it’s quite possible none of what was being said is true. Not the surface level stuff. I’m quite sure we were shown the room where they ‘baptize’ the dead so they can also ‘go to heaven’ (Someone should have a word with them about the golden statues in that room, holding up the altar. The god of Abraham was never partial to those). No, the mental energy was spent recognizing that the Mormons do the actions, but their reasons and expected result are so much smoke.

There was a lot of stuff like that, too much to really catalogue. And it’s late. Three posts in one day, that probably means I’ll take a month off.

three randos

2019-10-05T07:45:52+00:00

Another three photos. I just spent the better part of half an hour trying to salvage a pano of a beautiful Jaguar I saw in Berkeley, an XK 140 of unknown but probably 1950s vintage. After spending all that time on it (playing with software is wonderfully soothing if not productive), I took a mental step back, looked at it, realized it wasn’t really saying anything worthwhile, just a shiny thing parked on the curb, and so I axed it. You’re welcome.

may dinner club finally

2019-10-04T21:01:41+00:00

Some photos from last May that I didn’t want to disappear down the memory hole.

yosemite photo dump

2019-09-13T07:52:06+00:00

Like I said on Twitter, I’ve declared backlog bankruptcy. These are from last weekend, in and around and on the way to Yosemite National Park.

I’ll probably just post photosets that I like from what I’ve got? like, the edits from what was in the camera got me about 90 photos, but that’s not a ton of actual posts. I also saved the older edits, so I can dip into those if I want.

Looking at the photos i’ve taken recently: I’ve got my work cut out for me, getting ready for New York. Out of practice. Too much time spent convalescing. It’ll come back.

tokyo subway journey

2019-08-20T14:13:27+00:00

File this entry in the same place as the last one; utterly mundane wonders, or maybe astounding normalcy. I’m sure in the right circles, the Tokyo subway/train system is justly famous and known. The experience of it, even when a bit exhausted and yeah, a little tipsy, is quite impressive. I think for some reason we changed trains twice on this trip? seems like it should have been a straight shot, but it’s possible we wandered a bit underground and gotten on the wrong place. Or perhaps I’m looking at the sequence wrong.

The ankle is healing. It’s in a cast now. Hopefully my inability to sleep last night is just needing to be used to the cast, and not, like, an indicator of the discomfort I’ll be in the next two weeks. We’ll see.

shibuya crossing on a monday evening

2019-08-17T19:31:49+00:00

Just moving between places in Tokyo. There’s so much happening there at any given instant. This was just another Monday evening, you know? but I guess someone else’s quotidian bullshit can be amazing and wild if you go halfway around the world. This crowd was a nice change from the Halloween night crowd, which was called a riot by the local police. (I for one don’t think it can be a riot without any broken windows, at least; this was just TOO MANY PEOPLE in one place)

Schedule is already filling up for the fall. Booking things two months out already. Two more weeks until I start physical therapy. I keep having dreams where I’m walking, and after a moment I look down and realize I’m still in the splint, or I shouldn’t really be putting weight on the busted ankle, but it seems fine in the dream. I hope reality is half as easy.

drinks up high

2019-08-15T22:08:18+00:00

So, I found the rest of the Tokyo pictures. Turns out a bunch of stuff that I’d already blogged was still in LR mobile, and for some reason I thought it was sorted wrong. So, yesterday’s post was actually from the end of the backlog, not that it matters here and now, 6 months after the fact.

These are, as far as I can remember, from getting drinks one night in the accidentally fancy hotel. Booking online sometimes works out in your favor, is all I’m saying. I think we were paying something like $125 a night? Nice room, came with a local cell phone even.

back in Oakland after the trip

2019-08-14T21:17:18+00:00

So these were from sometime after the trip. No idea why I was walking in this particular spot, or what I was doing that day. it’s a little weird.

I’m missing some photos, actually; the last post was on the last day, but there were some more from that evening that I meant to post. We walked, we saw the Samurai museum, we walked some more. They’re probably in a folder on my desktop machine. This is another experiment in mobile blogging, now from the iPad pro; the images were put together in LR mobile, and uploaded (somewhat painfully) over sftp. Hopefully this works.

Oh, also! I’ve started an email newsletter, at tinyletter.com/photomattmills. I’m going to be putting more longform writing there, telling stories, recent photo one-offs, that sort of thing.

walking in tokyo again

2019-07-27T10:34:09+00:00

Home stretch now… the blogging for the trip, which I’d wanted to do while in situ, has ended up taking the better part of 10 months. Life does not stop happening when you’re not on the road, unfortunately; there’s been a real lull the last 7 weeks or so around here. I injured my ankle may 31st, sort of several things compounding until I ended up at the orthopedist, diagnosed with an entirely torn tendon, and some kind of cartilage issue. Surgery is next week. My creative output hasn’t been nothing in that time; I’ve taken a lot of pictures, still, finished one bag three weeks late, did a pop-up photo booth in the style of Richard Avedon, designed another bag, and thought a lot about what I’m going to do when I have full use of my right leg again.

All things going well, I should be back at it 100% eight weeks from Friday. I should probably plan to hit a lot of the backlog while I have downtime; I have a new iPad to help me during my convalescence, and a selection of keyboards I could use to write with even. Maybe I will, but it’s almost 4 am on saturday morning. No promises.

meiji shrine

2019-06-13T06:27:51+00:00

I’ve been staring at this edit for hours, and really it’s time to just push it out and move on.

This is the Meiji Shrine, which is sort of a complex of imperial gardens and buildings. Much rich history. I was just sort of wandering through on my way to Shinjuku. Somewhat rainy, although the sun peeked out for a minute by the time I was reaching the southern end; I stopped at a little shop and had a coffee. Then I went on my way.

wandering last day in Tokyo

2019-06-03T05:38:22+00:00

I do a lot of wandering when left to my own devices; I like the random chance of choosing a path at semi-random, as I did this day. Walked from one district in Tokyo to another, through the old Imperial gardens (I think; The big park between Shinjuku and Shibuya). This was the first part of that walk; the gardens get their own post.

I have to admire people like Craig Mod (second link is to his walking newsletter) who not only walk much farther than I do, but who can distill a day into a single image. I’m not sure I could, even if you held a gun to my head. Or maybe I could, and I’m being lazy? This is the internet tho, world of infinite bandwidth, and people like more pictures. There’s something very haute and designer-y about only putting out what you want to, and not what people ask for. It’s saying, ‘I know better than the people that want a lot of photos,’ and the damming thing is it might be right.

Speaking of walking: I’ve had a string of bad luck with my right ankle, stemming from an injury all the way back in 2003, when I was a college freshman. I got what I thought was a bad sprain, was off it for 6 weeks or so, and then thought nothing of it again. Then, a couple weeks ago, while walking around at the bouldering gym, I rolled it a little and it hurt a bit and swelled up a little, so I iced it and babied it for maybe a week, and it seemed to be better.

Then the Mormons went and had their open house; probably more walking than I’ve done at a stretch in quite a while. The next day, I had to drive back from the south bay for [unrelated]. Driving is a load-bearing exercise, and it kinda made it worse, such that when I got back I went immediately to the first clinic I found with an X-ray, to see what kind of damage I’d done. They were largely useless, didn’t even send me home with a splint.

So I went to Webster Ortho Urgent Care. They were great; really from beginning to end great care. Shot some more X-rays, assessed the joint by hand, and then went over the films with me about what they were seeing. Apparently, the old injury probably wasn’t just a sprain; from 16 years later, it’s difficult to tell, of course, but the way my bones had grown indicated something might be wrong. So later this week I’m getting an MRI and a consult with a surgeon, and maybe my ankle will be stabilized after all this.

Right now, I’m confined to a walking boot, as tolerated, which isn’t a ton. Mostly sat around all weekend. It’s possible the 10000mph summer has gone down a couple orders of magnitude, which kinda sucks. When your body says slow down this clearly though, it’s really imperative to listen.

cuponoodles museum -- ferris wheel -- some nice buildings

2019-05-28T07:15:02+00:00

Something like day 9 of 10 here; our last full day in Tokyo was the day after this. We went to the cup-o-noodles museum, which was kind of equal parts fascinating and weirdly hero-worshiping of the founder/inventor of instant ramen, Momofuku Ando. One thing I didn’t get a picture of because I was starving, was the sort of food court area that had different noodle dishes from all over the world you could sample; I had like 3 different kinds of noodles, all delicious.

The ferris wheel: so right next to the museum in Yokohama was this little amusement park with a great big ferris wheel. Somehow we realized that tickets were cheap (300 yen sticks out in my mind but I could be misremembering) and hopped on. Went up and over the place, got some nice views, and some OK portraits of my traveling companions. I’m holding back the portrait of Sophia, because I know she’d hate it.

Which really just leaves the last photo, of the Atari-logo-shaped building. For some reason, I just really liked the shape of this building. Nice proportions. It’s a stitched panorama, about 95 megapixels. I have a couple from the same spot with the 15mm, but it was a bit too wide, and so I’d have had to crop. This works really nicely.

in search of food and other things

2019-05-23T07:22:17+00:00

So, after we exited the TeamLab building, we were pretty hungry and the building next to it was kind of a mall, so we wandered in in search of food. The mall was a little weird, oddly empty, but I have no idea what qualifies as normal there. The whole thing was like they’d seen the inside of an Olive Garden once, described it to their designer, and said “Go nuts on it.” Faux aging paint jobs, fake marble, tile floors, the whole deal, but executed with this precision and workmanship that made it kind of alien?

One thing I like about visiting foreign lands is looking for the standards. Not just the shape of their outlets but the distance between them, are they grounded or GFCI by default. What materials do they use as standard? What are the bathroom fixtures made of? Doors? Locks? Lighting is interesting because it’s always different, affected by the local fire codes. Local brands of everything made to different specifications, not only the difference between inch and metric, but what do they consider a sufficient width, of say, scotch tape? Endlessly fascinating minutiae. Japan was great for that because even now a great deal of what they use is made there.

Anyway, after the weird mall, we walked down to this area with a lovely view, and took pictures. The Gundam was on the way to the pier near the statue of liberty; that photo is a composite of 6 or 8 images. I didn’t have the wide angle on when the people were there, so I got it in sections and stitched it together in Lightroom. Not sure what the golden cigar is about. Then we found a bunch of street food that would have at least been tastier than the mall food, but alas we had already eaten. I think I got a Pocari because I couldn’t get enough of that stuff.

Then we went to Akihabara in search of electronics components, but it seemed like all the shops were just selling used cameras and computers. Interesting, and not bad prices, but not at all what I was hoping for. Apparently you can hire a guide to get you in the good shops, but unless you know exactly what you’re looking for, it’s hard. We were all exhausted at this point, and just went back to our respective hotels to pass out.

teamlab borderless

2019-05-22T07:16:38+00:00

Projections and lights and mirrors. Interactive, sometimes. I can’t say it was a place made for instagram, in the vein of the Museum of Ice Cream, since it was kind of difficult to photograph in all that dark, projector filled space. Still, neat. I can tell that the place was designed so that you really had to see what the creators wanted you to see.

Anyway. Working on trying to find financing to buy another Leica. Shooting with it doesn’t endear me to it, but working on these files sure does. I don’t know how, exactly, to make this work, because consumer financing at the point of sale has ridiculous interest rates; highway robbery by another name. If I had a business entity, it’s possible I could lease it, and that’s a bit more reasonable. Might look into that a bit more.

tokyo at night

2019-05-20T08:44:49+00:00

So, after the robots, we came out and it was nighttime, and I don’t really remember what happened. I think we probably walked somewhere and got some food and went back to the hotel. The pictures seem to indicate we walked through Shinjuku some more, getting closer and closer to the hotel.

I feel like right now there are a bunch of things I’m supposed to be working on, and if I can pull off half of them, I’ll be doing pretty good. The short list in no particular order:

building a headlamp (mostly done; board bringup and programming left)
building a bike frame (maybe 1/3rd of the way done)
live art installation at Priceless festival (woot! this should be simple and fun)
Parents’ visit (Hi Mom!)
making bags (this should be higher in the list)
brewing beer (which is really hosting dinner for people while someone else brews beer)
zine shelf (for a friend)
all the other photography I’ll probably do.

Oh, also hold down my day job because only one of the things on this list pays in money. I’m not mad about it, per se, just that I’ve set myself some lofty goals for shit to get done this summer. At least now I’ve put the short form of the list somewhere more concrete than twitter.

too many robots (robot restaurant)

2019-05-17T05:02:24+00:00

Maybe this isn’t too many robots. I was thinking I needed to cut this down some, but decided to throw out a twitter poll and see if I needed to. The people have spoken, so here are 34 pictures of the act inside the Robot Restaurant.

The place is not really a restaurant. There is technically food, and while I’m sure, in that Japanese way, just like food from 7-11, it’s perfectly fine, it’s not a place you go for food. There are good drinks, strong. How can I describe it? It’s sort of like what happened to opera when they mixed in rock to make rock opera, but done to Kabuki theater and then with a shit ton of LEDs and shiny costumes and sort of real robots? Wild stories of nature versus technology, silly dancing, and a fire breathing dragon, briefly. Everything is dialed to 11, and then multiplied. I could hardly keep up, and I was sitting the whole time.

And then there was a brief calm period, with rave dancers and lasers. Then, to giant silver robots came out and danced. Then, just because obviously that wasn’t enough, there was a fish show. No, not Phish. Fish. Well, an aquatic themed dance number, complete with more giant platforms with drums and dancers. Really, a hell of a show.

getting around Tokyo

2019-05-15T07:50:34+00:00

This was that same day, just making our way from one place to another. The byways of Tokyo were something else. The city seemed to have a good handle on ways for people to get around, as if it weren’t designed just for cars, but rather, for people on bikes or on foot as well. That said, there was always traffic, of all types. Always people moving around.

Our fellow tourists stuck out like sore thumbs, all luggage and maps and confused looks. The locals were more varied, if I can make generalizations about 10 million people. It’s like any big city; there are people there from all walks of life; if there aren’t, then it will rapidly become not-a-city anymore. Think of a city of 10 million people without plumbers or janitors or street-sweepers. This is the problem that San Francisco faces; no more variation of people, no more heart. I’m not saying SF should copy Tokyo’s density and sprawl, but they could certainly take some notes on the efficiency of transit. (OK, a little density couldn’t hurt us either).

Playing around with some Lightroom presets designed to mimic film stocks again; just a bit of fun. Looks nice on the screen.

citizens square and Metropolitan Building

2019-05-13T08:22:09+00:00

The first photo is actually of the view from our hotel window; really harsh light after sleeping in. This was definitely the day the doldrums set in for me; we just kind of wandered a bit, didn’t do a lot– wait, no. That was the first couple hours. Then we went to the robot restaurant, which is another post entirely, and for which I may have to once again pull out the slideshow functionality I was using earlier. This part of the day was very harsh light that I somehow forced to cooperate in a few places.

I said it on twitter, and I’ll say it again here: Sometimes winning is just deciding to keep going. Not to have an income doing something you love, or to be recognized and justly famous (or even known by the people in your sub-sub-sub specialty). “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” Just keep going. Do the things you need to do. Do what you have to to live, but hold on to that other stuff too. If you have to start and stop a project 10 times, if it takes you 5 years instead of 5 days, hold fast, keep at it.

In other (related) news, I’m thinking about starting up PROJECT SAN PABLO again. Photography is my thing, but the project really animates it. I don’t know. Nothing else is really suggesting itself. I need to make a routine out of going and shooting. Find people, and then find people that might be able to help me find other people. Maybe I’ll try the library.

halloween night in Tokyo

2019-05-10T23:55:27+00:00

So this is a little bit later that night, going to the big square in Shibuya. We didn’t really get to see it that night; the whole place was cordoned and under police control after riots earlier in the evening. The funny thing was: there could have been a riot across the street and I don’t thing we’d have been able to tell the difference. Just a bazillion bodies jammed in next to each other.

welcome (back) to tokyo

2019-05-09T06:28:07+00:00

I feel like there may have been a nap or something when we got into town, after checking in to our accidentally swanky hotel (when you book on the internet, it’s hard to tell sometimes). In any case, by the time we left it was dark outside.

I really like the building in the second picture, dead center. I looked up what it was at the time, but I’d rather go with my first impression, that it’s a spaceship stranded on earth pretending to be a skyscraper (and the egg next to it the crew’s efforts to build an escape).

We went to a place called, I shit you not, “Piss Alley,” where we had pretty OK yakitori and interesting sightseeing. I say we went there, but really we wandered and got lost on our way, went to a place that said it was Piss Alley but wasn’t, and then found our friends, Christa and Nicholas, and got some dinner. I had forgotten, but it was also Halloween. So this was just the start of the night.

fuji and back to Tokyo

2019-04-30T15:52:41+00:00

I was going to rant about a thing, but decided on balance that I should just chill. These are photos from getting back to Tokyo and making our way to the overly fancy hotel. We weren’t the only tourists out in Shinjuku.

kyoto in the morning

2019-04-26T08:23:56+00:00

I’m not naturally a morning person, but something about crossing the dateline made me much more of one, at least for the first week. Even after being out relatively late the night before, we were up super early and got ourselves together to go back to Tokyo. A little walk, some cutesy bikes, and a coffee shop that catered to tourist enough that they served a really good scrambled egg. Don’t ask me to remember the name, although I could probably find it on google maps.

I’ve encountered two opposing ideas recently; that of choosing a project that’s doable, on the one hand, but on the other, giving yourself permission to stretch out. The former was on Patreon, David Alan Harvey’s page; he was talking about his work that was keeping him close to home. The other was in Craig Mod’s newsletter Ridgeline #16, the bit about Robert Caro. He worked for 5 years, thinking that was a lot, and then met fellow writers that had been working, seriously, for much longer, which made him realize it was totally fine to be where he was doing what he was doing. The lack of outward progress wasn’t an indicator of failure. Some things are not incrementally successful.

Which tells me that maybe I’m wrong about PROJECT SAN PABLO. It’s not a code name, I just like it in all caps. There’s something to be said for chipping away at something for many years. It’s not done. It won’t be done for a while. It’s yet to be seen if it’s ‘doable’ but it’s something that I can do other things and still have as a going concern, a subprocess, maybe.

Also I bought a new lens. We’ll see how I feel about it. Review images coming sometime in 2022 at this rate.

kyoto at night (pt 2)

2019-04-23T07:05:04+00:00

So, jumping forward a few weeks, to just after the last japan post. There was a bunch of stuff that happened that mid-day, including wandering around a mall looking for food, and I’m pretty sure there was a nap, and then we went for a second night walk. We may have found some whiskey. I know we did, later in Tokyo, but that’s getting out of order, something we obviously don’t do here.

The second and third images are black and white because color balance is hard, especially from lightbulb brands one is not used to, in mixed conditions. Lots of fluorescents mixed indiscriminately with CFL and LED lights. Oh well.

sophias birthday karaoke @ the mint

2019-04-20T03:36:06+00:00

Posting when I’m moderately more coherent than I usually am… what can I say, the thoughts that come out at 1am are a little disjointed. It’s a blog. There’s no peer review, no editor. There’s rarely a proofreader. Anybody can hang a little piece of content on the internet to call their own; that some of it is rough and a lot of it is crap goes with the territory. BUT, the extraordinary freedom that comes with that is really great; you get people being their truest, most honest. The ideas don’t always join up but the photos, being mainly about a feeling, usually still work.

My recollection of this evening is a little blurry, too. It was Sophie’s actual birthday, and we invited a ton of people, made the different friend groups all come together a bit. The Oklahomies, the Cali friends, the work friends; if you didn’t get an invite, it’s solely my fault and the capacity of the room.

The Mint was a lot of fun. Rum and cokes all night, and then I find myself outside having a smoke (don’t worry mom, I don’t inhale) and looking up and taking drunken pictures of the palm trees. And then back inside. Yes, I sang something. No, I was busy, so I didn’t get any photos of that.

Enough rambling. Time to go party.

street with the 15mm

2019-04-18T08:06:48+00:00

Working on it. There’s these, then a night of karaoke, and then a bunch of pictures from Kyoto. I haven’t been taking many pictures the last couple weeks. To tell the truth, I feel like I haven’t been leaving the house a ton. I was sick there for a week and then this week I’ve kinda kept the schedule clear, just to get some rest (he says, typing a blog post at 1am after working on projects since 10pm).

Anyway. Here are some photos.

shortly before japan

2019-04-09T08:29:30+00:00

This would have been something like 3 or 4 days before we left for Japan? So that makes me almost six months behind the moment on posting. Ah well. I really like the first image, all those different faces kind of lined up. The second one has two of the performers we were there to see, I think they were friends of friends of Christa’s? The projector had like a bazillion dead pixels; the lines in the smoke-filled bar were kind of better than the projection.

I decided with these to just let them be sort of whatever contrast they were, and not mess with them too much. The one of the two people doesn’t have sufficient depth, but I like their expressions well enough. I also don’t understand why there were spotlights in the bathroom, but there were. I don’t think either one of us was really feeling the vibe at this club, so we ducked out pretty quick.

Oh yeah: I’m selling my Leica. I started having those thoughts, all the stuff I was talking about in the previous post, and I was just going to put it on the shelf for a while, but then our taxes came in and we owe enough that coming up with the money other ways was going to be difficult. So, it’s on ebay, along with the summicron. Oh well.

I’m a little bummed about it, but really the kind of images it’s good at making aren’t really what I want to be doing. I mean, look at this post: Side-on photos of people in the train, one slightly blurry portrait, and a couple static scenes. I want to be making good portraits. That’s not to say the Leica isn’t a good portrait camera, but it doesn’t work that way for me.

shadows in the city

2019-03-25T07:11:39+00:00

I think I may have a weird mental block around the Leica. I did a little shooting this weekend with the Fuji again, and it was a lot easier to work with. I think actually the thing that made it easier is autofocus. Call me lazy, but I think it’s actually faster than I can focus. When I was younger, I could almost always beat the AF, but maybe I’ve lost a step, or the talent has atrophied. Either way, here I am. People move around a lot, and also they are often closer than 2.5 feet from the camera, and I noticed that too. I took three lenses and only used one, the 35mm ‘Fujicron,’ which is a 50mm full frame equivalent (roughly ~52.5mmE, but who’s counting?). It’s an excellent lens.

I’ve been watching this youtuber Thomas Heaton and in particular this video (although I’ve been watching since he was reviewing a camera I was curious about) where he talks at length about going down a wrong path with his channel and his photography, obsessing over gear and chasing likes and not really just focusing on making good images. It’s a good lesson, and something I myself am continually re-learning. I think some people can obsess about this stuff, but it’s not something that’s healthy for me.

So here we are. These, incidentally, were taken with the Leica, not that it matters.

I need to shoot more portraits

2019-03-18T07:15:27+00:00

I need to shoot more portraits. I know I’ve said that before, but dang. All this street stuff and the not-street kinda landscape-y stuff has dulled my portrait sense. For a while there, it was like a superpower. Gotten soft, I suppose.

Anyway, I put these together for a blog post the other night and then the internet went out and since it was 1:30 already I just went and passed out. Here they are.

palace hotel strike

2019-03-14T07:56:00+00:00

This was also last fall, and while I generally avoid posting pictures of people’s faces protesting, I don’t think there’s a good reason to do that here. It’s in one of the most heavily photographed areas of San Francisco, and there were tons of other people around shooting video and stills and posting them to whatever social network. It’s been months, and the strike is won. That out of the way…

So in the last post I was like “yadda yadda no major site updates here’s some photos” but I realized I didn’t say way that was, or what might be preventing me from actually doing those updates. And instead of just going to edit that post, I figured I could just throw up another post instead.

So, the reason the whole blog redesign/replatform isn’t happening yet is that I’m working on several other projects and I also am back to work, which means during the day, I’m workin’ for the man. The first project, and definitely the one I’m most excited about, is the tiny laptop. I’m making a laptop in a roughly 4.5”x9” footprint, to serve as a travel machine. I’ve got some of the parts inbound and some more of them already here. Also, there’s the solar light project that I’m working on for a friend. Not sure how much of that is under wraps, but it’s a thing, and I have a raft of browser tabs open and I’m working on parts in Kicad.

Finally, there’s the bag venture, which is still a thing. I’m looking at Dyneema fabrics for the next one, which will be a similar style to the last one, but I’m also waiting for the fabric to be in stock. I’ve got a whole bolt of Codura in black, I’ll probably do something with that also.

Fun times. Things are happening here at Mills Studios. Not a lot of them photographic, although all that work is also ongoing; I may have my first lead on a portrait subject for PROJECT SAN PABLO. I need to come up with another photo project to work on in the interim, since that’s kind of stalled out. Something will come to me, it always does.

marking time

2019-03-14T07:30:18+00:00

Just wanted to get some photos up here. I still have big plans for this space, fancy front-end things that will make it a better experience for all involved, but for now, I really want to just post some photos and get on with it. These are from last October, when it was warm and sunny and I had to trek to the city every day.

the bear at the ferry building

2019-02-21T08:19:59+00:00

If it’s not one thing, it’s 12, huh? Been a bit of a rough start to the year, but here I am, finally getting into a rhythm, maybe. Been thinking about this blog a lot, what it could be, what I use it for, all that.

Over on his blog, Ventakesh Rao has been taking on the topic at some length. That is, what are blogs now that the game of blogging has been thoroughly explored? His idea of ‘elderblog’ is interesting, but I’m not sure what to make of it. I’m a practical person; I don’t know if meta-games are really what is in it for me.

Warren Ellis is blogging again, too. In his newsletter, he talked about how on twitter, there was no room to be wrong, to experiment; as a not very public figure, I can say for sure I’m wrong on twitter all the time, but I see what he means about the playfulness of it being gone. There’s a freedom that I need in the practice of writing things down and sharing them that all the socials don’t have. I turned off auto-tweeting of posts for a while, and I’m unsure if I turned it back on or not. I’m not going to go look, either.

But/and, I do have some ideas for what to do with this to keep it fresh beyond more content (so much content waiting in my queue, I haven’t even finished the Japan photos yet). I liked the slideshow idea that I did, it just needs some more work; also, I need to really invest some time in making the pictures scale with whatever screen is looking at them. They’re currently sized to be a little big on my smallest screen, the 12” macbook, but that makes them tiny and anemic on big screens. We have the technology. We can rebuild them. Or, at least, make the photos look good for everyone.

What I would really like is something that was as easy to post from as instagram, but I could either post short things from my phone or longer things from the computer when I wanted. The little photo essays I’ve been doing on insta have been doing well; it’s just that it’s still somebody else’s playground. What it needs to be is a self-hosted instance of something compatible with masto, so people can federate your stuff into their timeline easily, maybe? So when you come to my page, you get the blog format, but you sub to the feed and you get your preferred client interpretation? that might work… like a one-click install and you’re up on heroku or something.

Dunno. Just some ideas.

(I accidentally used one of the pictures meant for this; just imagine it here instead of there)

editing

2019-01-25T09:06:06+00:00

I’ve decided part of working through this backlog, since it’s gotten so big, will be cutting images a lot more than I have been. That’s not to say that things aren’t still going to be super random here for a bit, but there will be less of it.

I’ve figured out a direction for PROJECT SAN PABLO. The thing that’s missing is the thing that animates any long term reportage: people. I mean, there are lots of traces and things, but the people that make San Pablo actually interesting are who I need to get after. I was thinking something like a survey of all the independent businesses on the street, from the piano dealer to the Dead Fish. That could be really interesting, and it would give it a focus that it didn’t have before. Even inside that, I may have to be somewhat selective; it’s 22 miles of road, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but it is.

I should probably start with a list of businesses, huh? Or maybe I drive up and down and write down names of places. There’s no database where I can type in street and ‘not a chain’ and get a decent answer, is there? Hmm.

I’m also thinking about picking up another electronics project, maybe a laptop or another watch. I feel like I might be able to scratch the laptop-specific itch by just buying a GPD pocket or iPad pro. Not sure. Watches are hard, though too; a lot more constraint on power and space. So I dunno. So far I’ve downloaded datasheets for a system on module for the laptop, decided that 8gb of ram might just be enough, and drawn a little diagram in my notebook. The idea being something that is really portable, but with a good mechanical keyboard, in the vein of the Tandy 100, or more recently the MNT Reform. They’re using the i.MX6 processor, the same one in the Novena. It’s well supported on mainline kernels, but I want something newer and faster, so I’m looking at the i.MX8.

Anyway, enough babbling. More tomorrow, if time permits.

I have a job and other news

2019-01-18T09:13:37+00:00

I got a job! As of the 28th, I’ll be back at Weedmaps, doing backend Elixir again. I’m really stoked to be working there again, and also working from home (not commuting!) again. The BART really is a drag.

Another item: I’ve finished the bag I’ve been working on for friend Grant, and that’ll go to him. I think I need a different fabric for the liner, the sailcloth I’m using is a little too stiff. I think I want to do one in Dyneema, although it’s eye-wateringly expensive.

The bag is a sort of collage of features I’ve liked from many bags, along with a few things of my own invention. I have a lot of bags, and they’re all good for one reason or another, but they all also fall short for reasons, too. I’ve done some modifications to some of them, and use those bags the most; the only unmodified bag I use regularly is the Think Tank Retrospective 7, which is great, but not perfect.

The outer pockets are similar to a couple different designs; they were originally patterned after the ones on ReLoad bags, but now they’ve morphed into something way closer to what’s on my Domke J-803. Inside, there are organizer pockets for pens, flashlights, a multi-tool slot, and camera batteries, or similar sized items, and also room for smaller items frequently used (I keep my spare phone battery and sunglasses in these, for example).

Inside the bag, there’s about 1000 cubic inches, or about 17 liters of space. There’s a strip of velcro positioned to take Domke inserts for camera stuff, or anything else backed with velcro hooks. There’s also a built-in laptop sleeve which I think still needs refinement. It’s possible I’ll do my own without any padding, and use an external sleeve. It’s more about having a place to keep the machine than needing extra padding there all the time, as I don’t always carry my laptop.

Finally, on the back, there’s a big flat document pocket, for things like airline tickets and magazines and whatnot. I only seem to use that pocket in airports.

The closure of the bag is lifted from the EDC series of bags by Adam Savage, although now that I know about it I’m seeing it all over, including in bags I already own (a craftsman toolbag from college-era; many backpacks seem to have them too). It’s a sort of doctor’s bag opening, where the edges of the bag are held in place by two pieces of steel wire. The top opens very wide, and gives easy access to the interior. The zipper I’m using is a waterproof YKK #10 in black.

Handles and straps are all tubular webbing, 1” for the top handles, and 2” for the shoulder. I find with a wide enough strap that doesn’t bunch up, I don’t ever need a shoulder pad. The shoulder strap also uses a cam-buckle for adjustment, like all the good messenger bags (except chrome, who have their seatbelt thing). This quick adjustment means it can go from being a casual over the shoulder bag to a secure cross body bag super easily. If you bike a lot, it’s really nice.

And that’s it. That’s most of the bag. I could talk a lot more about it, but I’m already over my limit for how late I’m up and how many words are here. Going to push the publish button and go to sleep.

crowds in the city

2019-01-10T08:16:36+00:00

Every day, just a lot of people. I don’t know, it didn’t seem this bad today, but it’s possible the cold weather is keeping people indoors. This week is filled up with things, and so is the weekend. Can’t stop won’t stop forgot how to stop

environmental-ish portraits

2019-01-08T10:15:49+00:00

I think this might’ve been the night of Allie’s birthday, but according to this edit (and my somewhat blurry memory) I failed to get a decent picture of the birthday girl. I did take all these pictures that I like and am tempted to crop. But, when I do that, they don’t seem to work as well any more. The environment around them adds character. Actually the one of Sophie I’m not tempted to crop, but the other two, I am. But I tried that, and they don’t work.

Today, I got to shoot photos with a bunch of cool folks; the Bay Area Film Photography Meetup. Worth checking out if you’re in the Bay area and are willing to shoot film for a little while. I still enjoy it, anyway.

street stuff from months ago

2019-01-07T08:48:30+00:00

You can probably guess how tempted I was to remove that big gulp from the first image; pretty sorely, actually, until I realized it actually added a little verisimilitude and character. These photos are again just the first few off the queue that I didn’t hate and delete immediately with some minimal developing sprinkled over them.

Figured out the last outstanding issue with the bags today; the pocket flaps are now ready for prime time. I also found out, if I plan to sell these, I need to get a license from the state to make them and it’s $750 per year. Had a lovely conversation with a friend who started and then shuttered a boutique lingerie line a while back, and she gave me the name of her pattern person and cutter and everything, even though I’m a long way off from doing anything but making bags one at a time. It did occur to us that doing bags, especially just one, the way I’m thinking about starting, means I don’t have to keep different sizes or do a bunch of different patterns for different ones. So that’s nice.

Also: finally got a video card in my hackintosh, and I really wish I’d done it first instead of trying to mess with the onboard graphics. It runs a lot better. My build is now essentially this one from Stork but I have 2x16Gb ram modules, with an eye to adding two more whenever the price dips or I get a little extra cash.

Anyway, that’s the news from here.

soma and around

2019-01-04T09:07:58+00:00

The middle picture is actually Oakland, which doesn’t super matter. Just thought you’d like to know.

Also: really good piece of fiction I just found out about even though it came out t̶w̶o̶ three years ago (via Wendy Liu’s blog): Uncanny Valley. Also this burst of posing is partially inspired by Liu, although I’m not going to get 365 posts in this year, I’m going to try for 260; that’s one every working day, more or less. I know I generate enough photos and have enough backlog that it’s possible.

a big ship

2019-01-04T09:02:21+00:00

Super literal, I know, but now they’re off the queue and on the blog.

looking around with the 15mm

2019-01-02T10:45:12+00:00

Yeah, I know, I haven’t posted in two months. Some things happened, and I was a bit distracted from blogging for a while. Things just keep on happening, as they say, but it’s no longer a satisfactory excuse for neglecting the blog. The backlog continues to grow, since no matter what I do, I’m still always shooting. So, here’s the top of the backlog, as it is.

I have some more from Japan in the pipeline, but I’m going to save those for a bit; I’d like to make some improvements to my slideshow before I do any more posts with more than 10 images. I’m also thinking of changing the format of these a bit, so every post is a slideshow (this is mostly about improving page load time so you don’t have to wait forever or only have 4 posts on a page).

May also get some repeats from my Insta; as I’ve said over there repeatedly, they make you do weird crops, and strongly favor verticals. The upside to this is that it’s gotten me looking for and shooting verticals; the downside is I still hate cropping after the fact. Many strong images it doesn’t hurt too much, but it doesn’t feel right.

Now I have to go pass out.

Fushimi Inari Shrine

2018-11-07T19:25:41+00:00

This post was kind of hard to write, because I edited and edited, but had a lot of trouble cutting it down to the required number of images. If I put more than about 10 in a given post, the page takes forever to load. So instead, I did something I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while. I made an embedded slideshow. It’s meant to have some animations, and captions, and I need to write the script that will atuo-generate one of these, and maybe I’ll get around to adding those eventually, but I don’t want to let perfect be the enemy of done here. It’s just a blog after all. Hand-rolled artisanal slideshow.

So. If you recall the previous post, we crashed out early and woke up early due to jet lag, and so did our friends we were travelling with, and they suggested we try to get to this shrine for the morning golden hour. Half an hour cab ride plus 5am sunrise meant we sort of just had to drop everything and go, so we did.

We got there early enough that there wasn’t really that many people there. None of the vendors were open. We got coffees from a vending machine on the way. If you haven’t had the experience, it’s a little like one of those starbucks double shot cans, but available black and hot. So, thusly energized, we started up the hill.

When we started, I didn’t really grasp the extent of this place. I was thinking of the golden temple we’d seen the day before, which was spectacular, but small, and figured this would be something on the same scale. But no, this is a whole complex of shrines and sub-shrines, sprawled out on the side of a mountain. The hike to the top is about 2 hours of stairs, what with the constant stopping to take photos.

But/and, there are gates the whole way. Some ancient stone ones, but too many orange wooden ones to count. They’re on different scales, at different spacings, and in various states of repair the whole way. At one point, we came across a spot with just a hole in the ground where a gate was going to be planted later that day. The mental state that all the repetition and variation and physical exertion produces is very strange. Or maybe it was from hiking on an empty stomach. Disorientation, along with a sense of wonder.

So: definitely go. Definitely do it at dawn, before all the other assholes wake up (remember you’re an asshole too, in this scenario). Maybe bring snacks and water, although as you leave the temple mid morning, there are street food vendors that will sell you food that has no business being that good.

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golden temple

2018-10-31T08:10:18+00:00

End of day 2. I thought, for some reason, going to this temple, that the ‘golden’ part was a figure of speech. I was wrong. The crowds were pretty prodigious, but the whole thing is sort of a visual non-sequitur.

NB: the one picture of it across the lake is nice, but it would be nicer if I’d had a long lens, or been able to move better, but the crowds made that difficult. I almost posted a picture of it obscured by other people out of spite, but eventually decided that this isn’t a blog for spite (most of the time).

We walked around the temple, taking our time along the path, and then ended up taking a taxi back to our place and crashing early. Which meant we woke up very early the next morning…

nishiki market and the bengal cat cafe

2018-10-31T04:31:48+00:00

After all that walking, we decided we needed a nice, refreshing stroll. We met up with our friends that we’re traveling with and walked around the Nishiki market, which is a big sort of open-air mall, but not just your typical stores like a Zara or the local Sacs equivalent, but fish also stalls and sushi on conveyor places and vintage stores and hand-made stamps (you bet we bought a couple stamps). Just all of commerce, packed in to one huge pedestrian area, multiple covered open air walkways.

Then there was the cat cafe, which was really interesting. You could tell the cats didn’t care about the people at all; I thought this was because they’re more wild or something, but reading about them on Wiki tells me they actually need a lot of stimulation, so maybe being around a bunch of new people all the time was good for them? IDK. I do know these seemed well-cared for (I am not a biologist or vet, so take that as you will).

Next up: a perfectly uncomplicated temple visit.

kyoto in the morning

2018-10-31T03:58:32+00:00

First morning, Kyoto. We woke up early, rolled over, and went back to sleep. So far this trip, jet lag hasn’t been too bad, but we’ve been in a state of continual tiredness that is probably at least partially because of the interruption to our poor circadian rhythms. Anyway…

We were staying on the quieter side of the river, still fairly close to the central shopping district, and founds a lot of stuff nearby that seemed interesting. There was a nice little coffee shop that only served coffee of very high quality and really just a delight. We went to a smaller temple in the vicinity, just kind of wandered around the grounds. It was the sort of place that had been there continuously for 800 years or so, modulo a couple fires and rebuildings.

kyoto 1st evening

2018-10-30T08:59:41+00:00

the first day in kyoto was really a half day; we arrived about 3 in the afternoon, and took a taxi from the station to our hotel. did a decent bit of walking, found a little beer bar and had some snacks. lots more walking, to a Ramen place where we ordered from a machine and ate like kings.

Then, we walked around the central shopping district, and I decided wherever the “The Body Shop” was, I needed to not be, so we made a couple sharp turns and ended up in a little bar off the river where they made fun absinthe drinks and there was a couch on the ceiling because when they went to move it out they discovered the door had been redone and was too small to fit the couch out any more.

That’s pretty much it for Day 2. Day 3 is also in the can, and day 4 isn’t even imported yet, but I’ve got another long train ride today, back to Tokyo.

tokyo breakfast walk

2018-10-30T07:38:39+00:00

This was the moring of our transit day to tokyo; all those blog posts were in my future, but you don’t get very far without coffee when jet-lagged, so we went to a nearby cafe that Sophia had bird-dogged and I had just a really lovely pastry and americano. It was situated on a small river, which you can see in the second and third photos.

Oh, and: the little marker (second to last photo): No idea what these are, but I see them around buildings. Best guess: some kind of property line or survey marker.

train; tokyo station; later that night

2018-10-28T04:44:30+00:00

I didn’t get any pictures right after getting off the plane; if you’ve ever gotten off a big international flight, it was exactly like that. If you’ve never had the experience, imagine a bunch of boring hallways, where you go and hand over some forms to bored officials, and they look at you sternly and then stamp your passport. The only real difference this time was the lettering on the signs was half in a new language (most signs are in English and Japanese).

We met Nicholas after we got out of customs and picked up our hotspot gadget (which is why I have internet here hurtling through the countryside on this train). Then we made our way to the train station, picked up our rail passes, and waited. We had some beers while waiting on the train to toast our arrival. The party was together.

I tried to get photos out of the train window, but nothing worked. I think it was probably a combination of being up far too long on too little sleep, and the fact that the trains here are really fast. I ended up with a couple I don’t hate, anyway.

Then we had to walk from the station to our hotel. It took us a good 15 minutes just to find our way out of the station, and then we wandered back in to a different part, got lost again, then finally mad our way out to the surface and to the road we needed. During all of that, I was juggling luggage and camera, and managed to lose the new viewfinder for my 15mm. of course I didn’t bring the old one as a backup, so I’ll have to pick up another one of those when I’m back in the states.

So, after getting to the hotel, showering, and getting some yakitori for dinner, I went looking for the thing, retracing my steps, but didn’t find it. Oh, and the last photo: that’s the view out our first night’s hotel window. Now the train, and Kyoto is up next. Woot!

lax; clouds over the pacific; landfall

2018-10-28T03:47:12+00:00

I don’t know why people complain about LAX; we may have been in a newer terminal, but it seemed pretty nice relative to some airports I’ve been in (looking at you, Guadalajara). Even versus SFO the only thing I can complain about is the wait time in the food court was pretty long.

so, because of reasons that I can’t begin to understand, we had to go to our gate in LA to get our tickets for the LAX->NRT leg. Once we got there, the printer for one of the gate agents broke, and they were dealing with that. Even with that considerable pressure, they were doing a great job, and got us all set in plenty of time. I must say the Singapore Airlines flight we were on was fantastic. We had an exit row, but also the cabin crew were friendly and helpful in a way that seems pretty rare these days.

The trip so far has been a lot of time in transit. We’re currently on a train to Kyoto, traveling at speeds in excess of R17 (and if you get that reference, I’ll bet you know where your towel is, too). Next post, as soon as I get the photos edited, is a bunch of walking around Tokyo.

obsessed

2018-10-15T07:56:57+00:00

I started this post two days ago, and then forgot about it. Been working on a million things at once trying to get ready for Japan in 10! Days! Everything I’m working on now is bonus material, not required for the main quest.

Anyway, if it seems like street shooting is taking the place of the other stuff I do, it’s only because I’m obsessed with the Leica and I’m shooting everything every day. Just a ton of work, some of which is even good enough to show people. This is also trip preparation: practicing for taking pictures in Tokyo.

10! Days!

gorgeous sky

2018-10-14T08:16:37+00:00

The first photo was taken 9 minutes before the second two. I think I like the third one best. There’s something nice about the context provided by all those wires. Anyway. This post is just some pretty pictures. Hope your weekend is going well. I ran errands all day, put together a casserole to bake for brunch, and have been working on my welding technique this evening. Took a bunch of photos out of the edit that I don’t like now. I suppose that’s the danger of waiting a month. There’s a likelihood I just won’t care about a certain photo or even set of them when the time comes to post.

Anyway, there’s today in the bag.

moar 15mm

2018-10-13T10:04:36+00:00

I realize two of these are basically the same picture (the middle two), and I really should just pick one, but it’s 3am and I’m trying to get to bed. The last one demanded, loudly, that it be left in color. Still playing with the film presets, which I always swore were silly, but they’re really not bad when you’re trying to crank something out. It’s hard for it to not still look like one of my pictures anyway.

serra at SFMOMA

2018-10-13T09:30:20+00:00

I’ve been sick all week, making what was supposed to be a very productive time into me, sitting on the couch watching marvel movies and the expanse. Rather annoying, but it’s really important to listen to when the body says stop. I’ve been to the hospital more than once because I ignored what my body was telling me. Anyway, this is just a particularly bad head cold, with associated exhaustion and some joint pain and headaches. I’m feeling a little better now, although the pain in my knees is a thing this evening.

The Serra sculpture at SFMOMA, officially Sequence, really loves the 15mm. It’s large and close, so it works. The super-sharpness of the lens isn’t really an asset; here I’m using a preset meant to make the files look like type 55 film, but also tweaked a bit from there (I can’t help myself). For me it’s all about the interplay of light and shapes in that space. It’s hard for me to imagine the machine that bends a 20-foot wide piece of 4” plate like this. Just a massive impossibly violent machine, but very calming on the viewer.

So, this was now more than a month ago, and I can’t seem to catch up. I should post double or something until I get there. Or try not to get sick any more. That might work too.

Here’s today, anyway.

transbay terminal and environs

2018-10-09T07:26:03+00:00

Monday, I get to work and there’s a package waiting for me on my desk. I’d actually tried to come pick it up on sunday, to have for the party, but there was some kind of power outage in the building, which meant that my key card couldn’t open the doors. In any case, I survived a day without my lens and made it to work the next day. The power was back on. The package contained a brand new 15mm Voightlander, which if you follow me on social media, you’ll have seen some photos from it already.

What can I say? This is a lens that demands a lot out of the photographer. You get a lot in the frame; more than you expect, even using the external finder. Which means managing composition and arranging the frame is quite difficult. Also, it has a tendency to become a little gimmicky. I found myself reaching for it and… but I’m getting ahead of myself. That was later, in other pictures. For now, let’s say I save it for special occaisions and leave it at that.

The majority of these photos were taken at the new Transbay center, where more recently there has been some hubbub about cracks in the steel. I’m not an expert, so I’m not going to try to guess what’s going on with that. I have a guess, and I swear I’ll tell you if I was right as soon as they say.

grants birthday bbq

2018-10-09T06:59:40+00:00

So, we came back from that camping trip on that saturday in order to be in our own beds and closer to this on sunday. As the title says, it was friend Grant’s birthday, and he had a lot of delicious smoked meat and really good barbecue sauce for us. It’s a rare thing out here in california. I know, it’s a particularly stereotypical thing, for someone from somewhere other to come and say the food is no good, but there really aren’t any restaurants that do barbecue sauce right. Grant ordered all of his from Oklahoma.

Anyway, it was a nice afternoon and evening, and I really was having a nice time relaxing, so not to many photos. The one of the stars, there at the end, was taken looking up from their patio, with the 50mm wide open.

I’m now a month behind again. Anyway, here’s today.

camping birthday weekend

2018-10-03T08:38:08+00:00

I had some things I was thinking about last night when I created this post, but since I didn’t write them down in blog-post form, they’re gone forever. This was the weekend after my birthday (which was on a thursday). We took Friday to drive up to a spot about half an hour outside tahoe, a little private campground that we tried to go to at the beginning of the season, and failed because it wasn’t yet open.

This time it was open, and we set up and had a nice overnight and day sitting on the river. The water there is already really cold (like, got cold being in it for more than a little bit), but I waded around a bunch and took pictures of the pretty light filtering through the trees, and of some cool rocks I saw, and the gold sand in the bottom of the river. I assume it’s not real gold, or a bazillion people would mob the place.

The tree pictures strike me as something that would be a huge effort to get a good print out of, but might actually be worth it. Maybe this weekend? Probably not, free time has been cancelled for the foreseeable future.

Anyway, this is today. (or maybe yesterday at this point).

various streets various cities

2018-09-28T07:51:08+00:00

One thing about this feeling like a slump is that it might just be the way I’m feeling. I realized after writing that the other day that I hadn’t even cleared off the camera in a couple weeks, and maybe I just needed to trust the process a little more. These are maybe not my best work but I am getting better at getting close to people, and at just having the camera ready to shoot. Sometimes I still catch it asleep, which is a little frustrating.

I wanted to post every day, but I’ve been building a new keyboard instead. The Infinity Ergodox I use at work is about to have a USB port failure, so I need to repair it, but first I have to rush through this build for the semi-wireless one (there’s a wire connecting the halves but optional for connecting to the machine). It’s mostly wired, and the case bits are coming along nicely.

Anyway, here’s today.

odd salon explore

2018-09-24T06:12:32+00:00

Three weeks ago, I had the pleasure and privilege of speaking at Odd Salon for the second time. The theme for the night was Explore, and there was an emphasis on non-white-western-male explorers, and different kinds of explorers. My talk was on the surface a classic sea-fairing tale, “40,000 miles and a century early: The treasure Voyages of Zheng He.” There’s a video online here which I refuse to watch on the grounds that I went through it once already. Someone tell me if it’s okay to look. The main thrust of the argument wasn’t just that he was a great admiral that went all that way, but that he also exercised this continual escalation, from one thing to the next in his life, to see how much he could do.

You’ll notice I’m slipping towards three weeks of backlog (almost back up to the traditional month) and that means I’m almost back to the place where I feel guilty enough about the size of the backlog that it puts me off blogging because who wants to confront all of those pictures? And all the writing and such that also needs to happen with them? But I’m also in a bit of a slump shooting the last week, not terribly well rested and been missing my walks. So, I don’t have much beyond a new gimmick to report (put on a super wide rectilinear lens on, and point it straight up). So, all that to say I’m going to keep on putting up images, trying for a post a day.

I had some thoughts about this slump I’m having today, too. This is a thing that always happens with a new camera: get the thing, be very excited about it, and go out and make a bunch of good pictures with it over the first couple weeks. I even had a honeymoon period like that with the GoPro (an otherwise not very good camera for the sorts of photos I take), where I really just played with the thing and had fun. Then, about a month in, a slump hits. I can’t maintain that energy forever, and I find myself falling into old patterns of working, which means I don’t get as much energy from shooting, and feel kinda meh about the whole thing.

So, the insight I had today was that I need to figure out how to break those patterns of working, see things from new perspectives, etc. I might break out The Photographer’s Playbook and have some fun. I also need to start getting up early to shoot more San Pablo. Right now it’s not in a place where it’s a book, except maybe one of those boring art books that go with exhibitions and don’t sell out their first printings. It might be good as individual large prints, and I need to buy some paper to start playing with that too… so! There’s work to be done.

street photos on a tuesday

2018-09-20T06:18:00+00:00

Nothing profound to say this time, except that I’m running on 4 hours of sleep and I’m going to bed right now. Good night.

brunch and the lockpicking gospel

2018-09-18T05:45:38+00:00

So this was definitely also Labor day, I think; or maybe the day before. It was just before my odd salon talk. MaryAlice hit us up and asked if we wanted to brunch, and I happened to be awake and said yes, and got Sophie up, and away we went to Oakland Grill.

After that we went to Merchants, as you do, because it’s the third day of a three day weekend, and what else is there? Certainly nothing responsible is happening.

So, what about that gospel the title promised? Well, I was at the gym, and my buddy was looking at one of the smaller locks on someone’s locker, and speculated that you would need an especially small tension wrench to open it, and I responded “Yeah, and a small half diamond rake and it’ll come right open, the way God intended.” We laughed, and then I started thinking, in that weird post-gym slighly hypoxic high on endorphins way, and thought, you know, you could make half a case for that. John chapter 8, You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (don’t ask me why I remembered what book that was in). God wants all their children to be free. So all the locks must be opened. Makes about as much sense as prosperity gospel or the quiver-full people.

Anyway, here’s today.

new baby fiadh flynn-curran

2018-09-14T07:26:33+00:00

Last weekend? Last week sometime? no, I remember, it was labor day, and we went to the only open sushi joint in greater oakland to pick up a meal and take it to the folks with the weeks-old baby. They’re still in the thick of it, with the baby not sleeping through the night, or really for more than a couple hours at a stretch. Sounds miserable if you ask me.

Anyway, it was good to see them and catch up, at least for a couple hours. It’s the silly season, one of those times when everything happens all at once and all I can do is try to show up and do my thing as well as I can.

I’m way behind on posting photos; this is from almost two weeks ago and I have a pretty big backlog. The Leica (which might need a name, come to think of it) has really got me producing a lot of photos. I’m not sure why, except it feels like I’ve got some skin in the game again, out there in the world with this camera. Like it’s a big hunk of responsibility, and I need to be using it to make it worthwhile? I dunno. It helps that it’s so freakin’ awesome to work with, and the files that come out of it are so good. It’s the same size / number of pixels as my other cameras, but it just feels more refined.

andrew wk show at the fillmore

2018-09-07T14:49:12+00:00

This was, as I said on the socials, an amazing show. For real one of the best live shows I’ve ever been to. The amazing part: I had a photo pass, so I was in the photo pit right by the stage for the first three songs; that’s why a lot of these are really close. The magic of the bird site, I suppose; I tweeted at him asking for a pass, and he (or more likely his social media person) replied within a few minutes in the partier direction.

One nice surprise is that his whole band is just as energetic as he was, and also all of them got some nice moments to shine too. Really nice touches.

We got home and I passed out, but I woke up at 4:30 and couldn’t sleep, so I got up to edit. My ears are still ringing, but I’m happy. A good way to spend a birthday.

volunteering at the food bank

2018-09-06T06:55:35+00:00

This was a week ago, and some of you may have seen a couple of these on instagram, but here they are again, in the proper format and color-corrected to my liking (mostly). So, the company I work at does volunteering as part of an effort to give back to the community; we’re part of the Pledge 1% member companies; and we’re trying to do that with time.

In two hours, we moved about 12.5 tons of carrots out of those big bins (called macrobins) and into boxes for distribution to individual centers that provide food to those in need. We also moved about 3 tons of pears from macrobins to boxes, for the same reason. The food distribution is run like a farmers’ market, so people can pick and choose what they want to eat. They do it that way so people can have at least some agency in their choices. It’s amazing what giving people a little agency can do for how they feel.

The warehouse we were in serves about 40 (38 is the number I remember, but could be more or less) of smaller nutrition-based aid services in the San Francisco and Marin county areas. They move 48 million pounds of food, about 24,000 tons. Volunteers like us contribute 150,000 hours of labor per year, or the equivalent of 70 full time workers; the money they would spend on those workers goes to buying more food. This place is more like a regional warehouse for a grocery store chain than anything else. According to the warehouse manager (our supervisor, anyway), we helped feed 30,000 families.

Now, you might be thinking, ‘That’s a lot of people that need food!’ and you’re not wrong. 1 in 4 people in the Bay Area need some kind of assistance; which is wild and crazy and I can’t believe nobody is shouting it from the rooftops. How are we not moved by that? Twenty five fucking percent. For my friends not in the bay area, you’re probably not getting off any easier. Oklahoma, where I grew up, is about 18%, or one in five. Look up your local food bank, they’ll surely have stats for your area, and send ‘em some love in the form of hard currency or time. I give a few dollars here and there to charity, but going and doing work for a while feels a lot better. Also, start hassling your congresscritter about universal basic income (and if you’ve got someone on the phone, tell ‘em you’d also like to see single payer healthcare).

rad last june

2018-09-04T06:02:38+00:00

So, this was probably the June edition of Radical Art Directors, which is really a meetup of a bunch of artists more than art directors; there are about half working artists and half people like me that do a day job to support all of this. It’s a good event, pretty much always, and good to get together with artistic peers and talk about stuff. Sometimes there’s structured discussion around the topics, and sometimes it’s just pretty free-form. These are rad people.

This (and one more wedding post) is the last of the film work. I’ve got half a dozen rolls that I need to process, but I’ve almost completely stopped using the film camera now that I have the Leica. End of an era. might pull it out of the cabinet if the mood strikes me, or if for some reason I need something small and light again. we’ll see.

wedding reception

2018-09-02T07:29:44+00:00

The reception, I mean, what can I say, it was a wedding. Lots of fun. lots of drinking, everyone seems really happy. The legally required scenes all happened: the best man toast, the maid of honor toast, the cutting of the cake, the dances. I covered it all as well as I could.

yesterday and today

2018-08-31T06:00:10+00:00

So it’s been… three whole days? and here I am with my second blog post with photos I’ve shot in the last 48 hours. That should tell you all you need to know about how I feel about the new rig, but here, an analogy, because why the hell not:

Have you ever ridden a bike? And you’ve been going for a while, but you’re not tired yet, and for a moment the wind gusts at your back or the terrain levels out, and you and the bike just meld together and it doesn’t really feel like there’s any separation between what you want to do and where the bike goes? Just a sort of joy in the moment? It’s like that.

So even though these aren’t perfect, my hit rate is way up and the way I feel about shooting with the Leica: yeah, it’s like that. Click click click. Some of these have been on instagram, but cropped, which is against my religion, so here they are as they’re meant to be seen. I know this is a lot of street shots, but that’s where I’m at right now. Should have some good times with people I know better and can maybe make some real portraits over the weekend. Now, to work on my odd salon talk.

boston and points north

2018-08-30T08:11:52+00:00

I always was a sucker for the moon, even super tiny in the frame.

getting ready and doing the deed

2018-08-29T06:56:26+00:00

This was actually quite a lot of fun. I think two more posts of this stuff and then we’re all done: reception and afterparty. I shot a lot of pictures. People like pictures, so I’m gonna put ‘em all up.

m10p - second first impressions

2018-08-28T07:05:35+00:00

I’ve had the camera now for just over 12 hours, and I have to say I’m liking it a lot so far. This is important, because as you may remember, I wasn’t a huge fan of it the last time; I had a rental last Xmas and ended up sending it back early because I just didn’t click with it. But, then 6 months of shooting with the CLE happened, and also I looked back at that week of shooting, and really decided I liked what shooting a rangefinder did for my photography. So, I consulted the photo gods and took out a chunk of my 401k and did the deed.

I have a couple lenses also coming soon, that should make the shooting experience even better: a 50mm f/1.4 Leica Summilux and a 15mm Voightlander Heliar. These were all shot with my only M lens that’s worth having a cover filter on, the 40mm f/1.4 Voightlander. (I have another, the 50mm f/1.2 Canon, but it has a chip out of one of the rear elements, which causes bad veiling flare; it’s basically a sentimental thing I can’t get rid of).

So: All those caveats taken as given: I love it. The shutter sound is better than you’ve heard. Recordings online don’t do it justice. In fact, the moment I heard it I knew this was the camera I needed to have. I’m still getting a feel for the machine and getting all the menu stuff dialed in. Auto ISO is hit or miss; there may be a setting for minumum shutter speed I’m missing, but really I don’t mind setting that manually; I’ve never really trusted the auto on any camera (edit: found the setting, still don’t know how much I’ll use it).

Sundry: The focusing, viewfinder, and everything else are exactly what you’d expect for just shy of $8k: the best possible. The rapid-fire mode is amusing but I don’t see myself using it too often. The touch screen is OK but not great. It’s not an iPhone, but the double tap to zoom is handy, as is the keyboard, even if it is a little fiddly.

I really wish there was a way to copy photos over wifi that didn’t involve the phone; like I was complaining on masto, it would be nice if the card would be available as a shared NFS drive or something like that. It’s a tiny bit of extra software work. I might make a client myself if I can snoop on the traffic between the app and the camera; or even a FUSE driver. I’ll post more later, maybe in a week, after all the wedding photos are posted.

Memorial for Nia Wilson. Sophie took this one. She thought it wasn’t good, probably because it looked hella underexposed in the camera, but it came back just fine in lightroom. I look pissed but that’s really just my face, I promise.

black and white in the city

2018-08-28T06:44:45+00:00

Just pushing these off the top of the queue… I’ve got a ton more wedding things, but I figured I’d break things up. These are from before the wedding, shooting with the little film camera. I’m also going to put together a little post of photos from the new whip here soon. Like right now.

lobster bake in maine

2018-08-21T05:16:42+00:00

For a rehearsal dinner, we had a really nice cookout, Maine style. The lobsters we were eating, young lobsters, according to our hosts, were $5/lb. I know, here, I have a picture of someone pouring boiling water into a sink, but the locals called it a ‘bake’. Don’t ask me, I’m not from there. We ate with bibs and then there were wet naps and then, for desert, there were big dangerous sparklers. You know, not the kind you used to get as a small child, but the kind you were jealous of the teenagers having? Ah, memories.

I’m getting things a little out of order, but I feel like posting these first. I’ve also got some photos from our time in Boston the day before, but really it seemed like a good idea to put these up now. I don’t know, I’ve been welding and this was the first set I saw.

The welding continues apace. I may have this complicated-ass weld in by the end of the evening, or I may grind half of it out tomorrow and give it another go. Once the root pass is in, it’s a lot easier to make it go, that’s for sure.

happy hour one friday

2018-08-20T00:21:34+00:00

I’m now roughly a month behind again; I’m not sure what night this was, but I think it was the week before Fletcher’s wedding. There’s a good reason for that: I’ve been between computers for the better part of two weeks, and my folks were in town, and before that I was actually in Boston for the wedding. And I’ve been sick since wednesday with some kind of sinus infection. So yeah.

So, now that things are settling down, I’ve of course got half a dozen projects going on. I’m still building a bike frame; I need to work on that some soon, before I lose momentum. It’s a replica of the bike I was riding when I was hit in 2009, but with track dropouts (still italian steel). I’m also working, as ever, on the San Pablo project. I’m wondering how many photos I need; I have maybe 80 in the edit now, and I need to winnow that down to the ones that are right for where the project is. The wedding edit is also large and needs to be pruned down; I’m at 78 which is far too many.

So yeah. Stuff is happening. More photos soon.

sfmoma in the afternoon light

2018-08-14T06:46:34+00:00

Three verticals in one post? What is the world coming too?

Tonight’s post is sponsored by Charlie Loyd actually sending out a newsletter and reminding me that I had a blog that I was neglecting. There have been many things afoot; a lot of busy evenings and late nights, my folks were just in town for 10 days, the new job is going like crazy, etc etc. But that’s no excuse.

This was sometime after the new job started, if memory serves, but before the wedding (which, still editing those, and it is super hard to cut pictures, but here we are, limited by the format; I haven’t ruled out doing 4-5 posts).

About once a week, I manage to take a long coffee break and go over to SFMOMA. Having a membership means I can get a ticket on my phone and walk right in for free, any time they’re open. It’s a quiet respite from the madness outside, and also from the work. I like the work I’m doing, but going to the museum puts me in a completely different headspace for the duration of the break. It’s a complete luxury and I can’t believe the place isn’t mobbed with tech workers all the time.

Now, we could get into the case (fairly strong) that museums are institutions of the hetero-capitalist patriarchy, but that’s another post. For now, I’m just happy there’s a quiet, beautiful place this close to work.

This is a ‘ringer’; that is, it’s not from the musuem at all, but from the 8th floor of the building where I work.

odd salon eccentric

2018-08-06T06:42:26+00:00

Odd Salon eccentric: what can I say? I didn’t get photos of half the show, somehow; I feel like I was there but for some reason, I only got half the speakers on film. Maybe I changed rolls halfway and there’s a black and white roll waiting to be developed.

There’s another Odd Salon on Tuesday; if getting pelted by flowers or random interesting bits of history seem interesting, you should come by.

priceless 2018

2018-08-01T07:47:33+00:00

So, imagine this: you and 1000 almost-complete-strangers, plus the friends that you trust to look after your cat and a few people you’ve seen at parties, descend on a town in the lower parts of the eastern sierra with PA gear and floaties… that’s priceless. Not to say it was un-organized; the people running the show were quite efficient, actually. It’s a lot of people crammed into a camp made for maybe 2/3rds that number.

Everyone is really friendly and there’s good music and the primary activity of the whole trip is being lazy and listening to music. During the day, you can take your floatie to the river, jump in, and float next to the only daytime stage. Get out to re-apply sunscreen, get another beer, and get back in. Repeat until you get hungry, then go to either the mess tent (actually a rather good caterer) or to the town’s only restaurant, which is fine, just diner food. Then, the excitement of the evening begins. You can: dance your face off, then go lay on some cushions in a relaxtion tent, then go to the acoustic stage and sway a little. A lot of walking back and forth, but no worse than any other festival I’ve been to.

So: I went this year, with Sophia, and took just a few photos. I only had like 5 rolls of film; I think I shot 2. I got these back and then went to boston, but decided not to take my laptop, because distractions. So here they are now, as I’m getting back into the groove of things.

wandering between jobs

2018-07-27T06:41:01+00:00

So I didn’t actually end up with a ton of free time between jobs; there was a lot of stuff I needed to get done in that week and a half. But I did have one day where all I did was just walk around and take photos. This was the first part of that day. I’m not sure why the month-old roll took so long to get processed, but it did.

The second and third church photos are actually mosaics of two pictures. Color film is still very hard to get the color right.

I have some idea of what I need to do to complete the San Pablo project; what it’s about, at least to me. I did a big edit of the photos and I got a feel for what was working. I’m not sure if I want to proceed with the project on film or keep it in digital. There’s something to be said for consistency, and that’s one thing this project never has. It is mostly shot on a digital of some description. Maybe I’ll continue in that vein.

I know this is a little disconnected and rambly. I’m all over the place right now, keeping all the plates spinning. Winter is the time to recharge; right now, we go full steam. Onward!

streets again

2018-07-17T06:59:57+00:00

Again, taking the same photo over and over. again, looking at the street. feels like I’m getting really in tune with the film camera after these last couple weeks. its wants and needs and places it likes to go. The night shots in particular were a bit of a surprise. I took them at whatever slow shutter speed I figured I needed, and expected them to be blurry. but here we are, and they’re pretty OK.

Not a lot to say tonight, been working out and cleaning all evening. Excuses, I know. Getting ready to go to Boston and points north; there’s a wedding. Also getting my shop area ready for when my parents are here; I’m hoping I can spend some time getting more practical instruction from my dad, which means the workshop has to be in a usable state.

One small technical note: the picture with red’s java house in the background. it looks like I have sprocket hole agitation marks, but none of the other pictures seem to exhibit them. I’m too tired to take them out, anyway. I’ll be more careful next time, developing.

grilled cheese made on a grill

2018-07-16T06:39:27+00:00

I’m not going to lie, this is a lot of pictures. I could do a tighter edit, but I really like all of these, and there was almost no work on my part. I shot them, I ran the film here, and then I took them and had them scanned at Photoworks SF, and that’s pretty much it. I didn’t even do the fancy deluxe scans, I did the 5x7 scans. They’re perfect for throwing the pictures up here on the interwebs. No, they’re not paying me.

Anyway, real grilled cheeses, really grilled. This was the same day as this post except I’m way slower to get black and white done (I was waiting for a month to get some specific chemistry in, anyway). I can do runs of 1, 2, 4 or 8 rolls at a time, but I don’t like doing the 1 or 2 reel cans really. It’s way more fun when there are more pictures.

repetition (again)

2018-07-14T06:39:41+00:00

Just a little post, with a few things to say. I’ve been walking the same streets a lot lately (which may have been evident by the two posts about the mission, or all the odd salon posts, etc). And there’s a vein in photographic thought that echoes the popular sentiment: that if you’re not doing something new, you’re not doing something worthwhile. St Winogrand said something along the lines of “I never want to take the same picture twice.”

So what does going against that guidance get you? Well, the first picture here is one I’ve attempted dozens of times. Not every morning at the train, but many of them. A lot with just my phone camera. They never are quite what I had in mind, but each iteration is closer; there’ll be a cluster of some that kinda work, and then a long fallow period where nothing sticks, and then one like this comes along and just knocks me back. it’s close enough here that I imagine I might be able to pull a print from it that is what I actually want.

Fences, alleys: you’ve seen those, too. I’m super curious what the hell Boner Dog was. Now it’s an empty lot, of course, but it looks like there wasn’t ever even a slab in that lot. So what was there?

Odd Salon: never predictable, always interesting. The for-real devil came up on stage and drank whiskey at us. Maybe there’s a sameness to the practice that makes me call it the same things, and it feels like I’m shooting the same things, but only in the moment. I always say you can’t tell anything about how good the pictures are in the moment; I think that may apply to this idea of ‘sameness’ that I have in my head, too.

The pictures aren’t the same, they can’t be; Everything moves, everything changes. The light is never the same. I always thought re-photography seemed like a gimmick, a little hollow. But the idea of looking for ‘equivalents’, that is, things that are emotionally the same, or at least feel the same, that’s something really interesting.

journey to the mission

2018-07-09T06:23:17+00:00

This was getting to one of the many things that happen around 16th and mission; I have no idea what I was doing there, and I’m too tired to go look it up. I just finished sorting through the roughly 12000 photos I took in 2017, looking for more San Pablo work. I found quite a bit, and realized in the sorting that 2017 was a hell of a year. A whole crapton of things happened.

Anyway, as I said, I’m pretty tired, but here’s some photos for today. hopefully I’ll get some more up tomorrow or later in the week.

odd moments

2018-06-28T06:36:45+00:00

I’m grouping these together because I feel like it, and because I can. They’re from two recent Odd Salon events. There’s a kind of coverage that one of the regulars (maybe a fellow?), Alexander, does very well: the long lens, close portraits of all the speakers (if I knew what his web site was, I’d link it here). I tried my hand doing that, and found that I was much more interested in watching the talks. So now, when I have my camera, I might shoot a couple pictures of whoever is speaking, but I’m also just as interested in all the things that happen around the event.

There’s a set of sort of symbols I associate with Odd Salon. The Curator’s chair. The Podium. The light in the wings, and the odd sunbursts. They’re a thing. Anyway, here’s today.

(There’s also the angle of the people that are actually working the event, the food vendor and the bartenders; that’s a different essay.)

RAD volume 6

2018-06-26T06:08:47+00:00

This was the second one of these I went to, and the first one I’ve taken any pictures at (that I recall; the last one was last november). It was just this incredible, engaged group that was gathered to talk about art that was happening in the media right then; Childish Gambino’s This is America had just dropped, as had Dirty Computer and one other thing I can’t remember; I think most people talked about the first two. Good discussion, but you really had to be there.

There’s always a theme, and the theme is different every time; the upcoming salon is on wellness. I might talk about book making, and how putting them together is a sort of therapy for me; a way to tie things up at the end of a project.

Speaking of projects: it feels like PROJECT SAN PABLO is coming to a close. I need to get some things scanned, and work on some editing, and then I’ll probably do a zine with the results.

dropping in to the mission

2018-06-25T06:53:45+00:00

This was one of those days on my way to somewhere, when I found myself with some time to kill in the mission. Time to kill, and distance to cover, I suppose. It’s nice to get there during the golden hour, just to see what’s happening. The next post will be about something, I promise. But for now, we’re just in this liminal space.

sunday with friends

2018-06-21T06:44:34+00:00

This was maybe a month ago? again, I could look at my calendar and try to figure it out, but meh. This is a real different post than the last one, but I think it’s just as valuable. It’s important to remember what we have, and what we’re fighting for. Truth and beauty in the people around us. Anyway.

Annie was in town, and the ladies did a bunch of stuff (trip to Sonoma, wine tasting, some kind of pedicures? maybe?), but sunday the whole group of us hung out. Brunch at portal, bottomless mimosas, followed by a brief nap and refresher, trip to the corner store for supplies, and then over to Roger and Olivia’s for multiple kinds of grilled cheeses, literally grilled on a charcoal grill. They were amazing and I was far too busy eating them to take pictures of them.

Today was my first day my new job, working for Chime (the banking startup). It seems like it’s gonna be really nice working there. I think I’m gonna enjoy doing the work they have for me. And that’s all the work talk you get.

Anyway, here’s today.

today's anti-fash action

2018-06-19T22:38:36+00:00

Just got back from this, posting from the phone. Me and about 1000 other people showed up and blocked the road in front of the ICE offices in San Francisco. It may even still be going; the cops were just directing traffic around the crowd; they didn’t seem keen on trying to break it up.

I’ve tried (mostly) to keep faces out of these; because we’re about six months shy of a full blown police state, and there’s no telling how photos of people at protests might be used against the protestors. About half the people there were also broadcasting, though, meaning that me keeping faces out altogether is pretty pointless. The local news media showing up seemed almost redundant. That said, I’m glad they were there.

I couldn’t tell you how many people were there. More than 500 and less than 5000 is my best guess. I wish it was more; I wish the whole damn city were in the streets, yelling “No Justice, No Peace!” and “Immigrants are welcome here!”. This was good though.

robin's housewarming

2018-06-19T07:37:29+00:00

I’m late posting, again. Something about last week was just keeping me down, and also I didn’t want to spend much time at the computer… I was short of things to post, or so I thought, and so I spent a lot of time running around doing stuff, or at least trying to do stuff, and one thing led to another and then I was out of town on the weekend, and here 7 days have passed since I’ve posted (there’s something about promising indefinitely to post every day that dooms me).

This was sometime last month, I think? Robin is this amazing creative genius and his partner Kathryn is important to the olive oil world in ways I don’t entirely understand. Warm, fun, good people, and they just bought a house practically across the street from Sophie and me. “just” is relative, in this case; I think they actually moved in in december, but with all the difficulties of moving and settling in it took quite a while for them to have the capacity to host, I think.

The collection of guests was interesting and eclectic. Food people, journalists, doctors (PhD and MD if memory serves) small children, and more than one errant photographer. There was a spread that was as good as any I’ve seen at a backyard barbecue. The kids (and more than some of the adults) were super into picking avocados off the tree in the yard.

One last thing: you may have noticed that these don’t have black borders but still look like color film photos… that’s because I had them scanned at the lab, and the lab can’t get the extra little bit of margin to get the borders with the full roll scanner. I’m fine with it, actually, because if I decided to make prints I’ll have to scan anyway, and I can include the border then. And it’s hours and hours of work that I don’t have to do.

Robin and an a child with the avocado picker clouds that threatened but ultimately did not dampen Sophie. This picture works both in black and white and color, but I was shooting color film.

niles on film

2018-06-11T08:35:16+00:00

these are from the same day as my last post from niles, just a roll that took me a long time to get processed. I think i was only shooting color in the 6x9 at the time, and it was certainly before i put together the film darkroom here.

as it happens, I was in niles today, again, coming back from camping. We camped west of san jose, up in the hills at some county park that chris and angela found. The campground is what’s known as a ‘walk in’, as in you have to haul all your eqipment some distance from the parking lot. It was quite the hill, too. We were camping with the aforementioned brumfelds, and some friends of theirs, I believe journey and Marco? good people, and relaxation was had all around. I figured out how to use a stainless steel water bottle as a waveguide to boost my cell signal, and read a bit more of Death Comes for the Archbishop which is a really lovely book set at a pace altogether orthogonal from what I normally read.

Anyway, one of our camping traditions is to stop for pizza at broncho billie’s in niles, when it’s anywhere near the route home. It’s really amazing pizza, a combination of doughy on the inside and crisp on the outside, with generous toppings and sauce. It is, without question, one of my favorite pizzas, but probably also because of the ritual that surrounds it. Coming back from camping, having done the work of breaking camp on coffee and protein bars, we’re always hungry when we get to the place. I always get the Bull Durham, which is every meat topping they have. So good.

I’m off this week, in preparation for the new job starting a week from wednesday. I plan to build the bike frame, or at least make some progress on it; I need to make at least one fixture to make it come together properly. Also, I have a whole ton of scanning to get through.

Here’s today, anyway.

a few more black and white photos

2018-06-08T07:20:10+00:00

This is the last of the black and white work that I have scanned at the moment; I have a bunch more in various stages of getting into the computer. Three rolls unprocessed, three that need to be scanned, and one half roll in the camera that I’m exctied about.

Anyway, these are sort of random. Yesterday, I was going to talk about the mood in the city, but it doesn’t quite feel right with these photos. maybe later, after the new film is scanned.

Fletcher in his natural habitat, playing a tabletop game. Gym? I’ll show you a gym. Saibh, with her hat. I’m not sure it wasn’t a doll’s hat before this photo. SF. No idea what I was doing there. Maybe this was from the passenger’s seat in the car?

sf not street photos (totally street photos)

2018-06-07T06:56:32+00:00

This is where i find myself; on the street, in SF, taking pictures of things, not people. it’s not really street photography so much as a sort of urban landscape. There’s this idea of the street photograph as a well-dressed pretty lady in a perfect shaft of sunlight; this is not that. Neither is it getting right in the face of the subject. I’m terribly shy out in the real world, even among people I know sometimes.

But there is still a lot going on, even within those bounds, with the attempt to have respect for the people and things you photograph. Not to say that other people’s approaches don’t do that, I’m only going by feeling here. It’s hard to get involved with people enough to know them well enough to make good pictures of them. You can meet someone and take their picture, have a conversation, and sometimes you get lucky and it’s a real moment, and other times you’re left with a bunch of wrong impressions. The clarity and quality of the images has no bearing on the truth that theymight portray. of course, truth is old fashioned. now it’s all about narrative. what’s the story?

san pablo and nearby

2018-06-06T08:00:05+00:00

The san pablo project is weird in that it has physical boundaries; all the pictures taken on the street or sidewalk or in businesses that are on it. These rules are somewhat arbitrary, but they keep me from tossing in every good picture that somehow tenuously relates to the road or the history. If I gave myself a 50-yard margin around the road, the last picture would count, too, but that feels like cheating. I still like it, and it was scanned and probably shot within a couple days of these other ones.

That’s another thing about shooting film. Unless the photos were all shot on the same day, and I have something to remind me of when they happened, there’s no way to know when a given photo was taken. So we’re not super chronological here, is what I’m trying to tell you.

dinner club april-ish

2018-06-05T06:00:04+00:00

I think this was April? Might have been early May. Wasn’t June, that just started. Hella grainy; this is P3200 exposed at 3200, and then scanned with a little too much sharpening in the scanner software. I can’t really be bothered to re-scan (if you knew what a headache scanning is, you’d agree).

I’ve built up a pretty good backlog again, mostly of film work, but some with the fuji too, so I’m going to try posting at least once a day until the backlog is back down to manageable size. Don’t know if I’ll have a ton to say, but we’ll see.

Here’s today.

semi-architectural

2018-05-30T20:13:40+00:00

Been doing this work for a while, and the other day Mike called it out on twitter as ‘architectural stuff,’ and I suppose it is, in that it’s pictures with a lot of buildings. It doesn’t really bear a lot of resemblance to real architectural photography, though. It’s more urban lanscape-y and an attempt to see where we are right now.

I keep asking myself that question at odd moments, almost like a koan: “Where am I?” Usually trying to figure out where I am in whatever thing I’m doing at that particular moment, but also this implied “Where am I going?” that’s really more interesting.

M10 revisited

2018-05-29T06:24:11+00:00

I’ve been sort of debating the whole film thing, and really the things that appeal to me about it are not really the film aspect as much as the form factor of shooting with a rangefinder. I don’t like scanning or developing film, but I do like shooting with the CLE, and to an extent, I like the tonality I get out of the film cameras, too, although that’s a toss up; as I’ve said, it’s something I can do with the digital files if I want, but it’s also pushing against the strengths of the material.

So, I don’t have the camera here, but what I do have is a pile of files. So I went back through them and found a few more that I liked. I’m in a place now where I’m thinking what I thought were problems with the camera may have just been me not being used to its quirks. So I might just plunk down the 7k and get one sometime in the next decade or so. Starting saving…. now.

In the meantime, I’m going to develop the film that I have and go back to shooting mostly with the fuji.

sfmoma and moscone west on the big film

2018-05-25T06:55:14+00:00

Working on these was a struggle. Lightroom kept crashing while I was spotting dust, and there was a lot of dust. I think it was the confluence of several factors: I had a bazillion desktop apps open, and like the title says, these are scanned from huge negatives, at a really high DPI. They’re 400MB tiffs. So, I closed a bunch of the apps I had open and then it started working better.

I’ve been hanging around SFMOMA quite a lot these days, just because I can. They have good wifi and good coffee, and I have a membership; I think it’s 125 or 150 a year, and I get in for free as many times as I want. Really an excellent deal. As much anxiety as showing my own work in galleries gives me, I do love just hanging out in them.

I’m not sure how much longer this film project is going to last. I’m already tired of spotting out dust from things. It’s hard to get the same tonality from digital. Most of these pictures would actually be HDR shots; if you shot at low ISO and underexposed a stop or so, it’d work. Maybe.

I took another look at the Leica work from when I rented that one in December, and I might have to get one. There were some nice things there that I overlooked, and I may have been too hasty in dismissing it. There’ll be a whole post about that soon, because I also really like shooting with the CLE. I’m just not sure it’ll make it to permanent use, because film is kind of a pain in the ass.

street photos again.

2018-05-22T05:02:02+00:00

I dunno. Haven’t blogged in almost a week, but the backlog is still low. Shooting film is super slow, what can I say? I’ve got some rolls to develop sitting here right now; and a bunch of stuff scanned that I need to get spotted.

Also, this isn’t my only project… I’m once again wearing many hats. Well, at least one, with a Cubs’ logo on it.

a day of playing 'what's next?'

2018-05-15T07:05:32+00:00

This was one of those days where the fun just doesn’t want to stop. Everybody just kept deciding to keep going, order another round, get another bite to eat, move on together to the next location. There may have been a split to nap in the mid-afternoon, but we all rallied at Temescal Brewing after. There may have been some cycling after beers, who can say. By the end, by the last picture, it was dark and time to go home and chill. Luckily, it’s downhill from there to the house.

inbetween things

2018-05-14T08:43:11+00:00

Did a bunch of film scans this evening, and I have to say I’m not super happy with what I’m getting from the 35mm work. I’m going to go through the motions of developing what I’ve already shot and looking at it honestly, but I’m not super positive about it. A lot of the things I like from the work coming out of the 6x9 camera just aren’t there in the smaller format. Maybe the 40mm 1.4 will be the silver bullet to make it all magical again, but I’m not holding my breath.

In the meantime, here are three images off the queue. I don’t think they’re related at all, or even shot within a month of each other.

game night at fletch's

2018-05-10T05:52:42+00:00

These were from the first batch I did here at home, and they have a ton of dust and water spots (partially because my basement is dusty, and partially because I don’t have anything to clean them with prior to scanning). A little cleanup and they’re presentable. The last image in particular, was pretty hard to work on; I thought for a minute there might be starts in the background, but no, it was just dust that happened to look like a familiar constellation.

Need to scan more… I’ve got four pages of 35mm work ready to be scanned. Maybe tomorrow night? Friday night? One of them is the first roll through the new camera, shooting with the 50mm Canon lens I’ve had for better than a decade (and is itself a decade older than me, at least). Looking forward to seeing how those look.

This particular night we were mostly playing games, but I had the film camera and found a few moments, between things and on a pizza pickup run, to get a few photos in. That seems to be the way I work now; photos when I’m not doing anything else that requires my attention. It’s the background process that’s always running. Still, always looking.

Still trying to do a post a day; at the end of the month, we’ll see how I did without a backlog. Here’s today.

you can’t see it, but fletch is showing off a twiddler, an absurd input device that I’m super tempted to get. Beers that don’t like being poured. The fog all rolled in.

damaris' birthday in film

2018-05-07T19:11:09+00:00

So these are the film photos from the same time we were there as this post, but this time with the texas leica (as opposed to the almost leica I just got in the mail, which, more on that later). There’s definitely something to the film work that I didn’t even realize I was missing in the digital versions.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to be said for a fast camera with the option to be color or black and white at will. but there’s also something to be said for the tonality I’m getting from these negatives, which is nothing like what I get from any of my digital cameras, even after pretty extensive processing.

So yeah, I bought another film camera, to complement the ones I already have. Shot my first roll of film this afternoon with a super old lens that may or may not be worth anything. I have another lens bought, that hasn’t shipped, that should be a little better suited to this camera (I bought the camera and lens the same day last week; the camera arrived from japan faster than the lens from new jersey). It’s everything my other film cameras aren’t; small and light and really fun to shoot with. The first roll is drying now, I’ll probably scan some tomorrow.

odd salon abandoned (close portraits from far away)

2018-05-07T06:45:40+00:00

So this was only two weeks ago, pretty far down from my typical 2-6 months to get something posted (if you haven’t seen some pictures you were expecting from me from before, say, a month ago, they’re not happening here; reach out and I might be able to do something). I don’t know why, but I found these really hard to edit. The color in the location is hard, and I threw my hands up on that and went black and white. But I’m also emotionally invested in this event, I suppose, and I want to do a good job.

To that end, I took my hardest-to-use lens, and pitted it against really difficult conditions. It’s a 500mm mirror lens, f/6.3. I was shooting hand held, and it’s a manual focus lens. The focal plane (that is, how much depth of acceptable focus you get) is about 4”, and there’s about a 1/4” difference on the focus ring between 30 and 50 feet. So, about 12 thou, or 1/80th of an inch. I did ok; remember, you’re seeing the good stuff, not the outtakes (there were many). Even so, using that lens forced me to use a very high ISO, which, if I’d been using a lower one, the color may have been more manageable… anyway.

The salon was about abandoned things, from children, given up to an orphanage, to a whole island, in NYC, abandoned to nature. Stops include Paris and Angkor, with way stations at Sati (not a place, but an abandoned funeral practice), and Kepler’s best idea that turned out to not be true. At least two of these pictures I only barely got, because I was too busy paying attention to the talk being given at the time.

If you’re interested in Odd Salon, the Something Weird facebook group has more info on salons, past and future, as well as links to many of the talks that have been recorded.

Names and talk titles taken from the FB page, typos are my own.

Harvey the Wolpertinger in his natural habitat. Annetta, the fearless leader of odd salon. Christina Liu, talking about Ta Keo, Angkor’s Forsaken Temple Reigh Robitaille, the Foundling Tokens talk Sahil Bansal, talking about Kepler (Kepler’s so dreamy, I’ll admit, this is one of the talks I was too busy listening to for good coverage) Stuart Gripman, who curated the evening’s talks. This guy, as far as I can tell, was just on stage to show off his cool Fez. Matthew Nelson talking about The Paris Catacombs Wider shot, in one of maybe three photos I took with the short (40mm) lens I brought. Dhiraj Korwani, talking about Sati, the practice of widow burning, how it came to be, and how it ended. This is, I think, the very end of Danielle Baskin’s North Brother Island talk.

olive oil dinner with @boldfoodco and @fatgoldoliveoil

2018-05-04T06:39:49+00:00

So, a couple of weeks ago I got the chance to attend a dinner by chef Muffie Fulton, in collaboration with Kathryn Tomajan of Fat Gold. This is not a review; both of the geniuses behind Fat Gold are friends, and besides, I’m not qualified to judge food like this. It was an evening of molecular gastronomy, in which all the things I thought I knew were turned upside down and all the food was surprising and kind of amazing. Liquid Nitrogen! Blow torches! Sous Vide!

I wasn’t super happy with the photos from this evening, to be honest. I wish I had another dozen, and good pictures of every course; I just wasn’t “on” that night. Oh well, at least there are some pictures.

Kathryn explains Fat Gold, and Sophia instagrams. Diners, after the first few courses, got up and moved around, watching the prep for desert. Making the chocolate bits that went into the desert. You mix chocolate, coconut oil, and liquid nitrogen, and stir. to collect, you pour everything through a strainer. All that’s left is the bits of chocolate. Very flashy, and the liquid nitrogen is gone before it gets to the floor. Some of our dining companions. Ice cream making. The liquid nitrogen isn’t just flash in this case; it freezes the cream almost instantly, not allowing the water time to form large crystals. This makes the result as creamy as it can possibly be. Then, in order to separate it from the mixing bowl, heat is applied.

sonoma clouds and sundry

2018-05-03T06:43:12+00:00

this was a trip that we took up to Sonoma to pick up a club shipment and attend a tasting event where they had all these little bite sized pairings to go with the wine. Lovely food and drink. Pangloss was the name of the place. All the people there are as nice as you might expect from a place who’s owner has enough of a sense of humor and love of Voltaire to name a joint Pangloss.

the clouds that day were bonkers. Just puffy, light things that hung in the air and provided shadows over the landscape for added drama. Not only is Sonoma a nice place to get to, but it’s an enjoyable drive up. The drive back is usually at the same time as 10000000000 other idiots that have also been tasting and drinking all day, so it’s something of a wash. As we left, the colouds sort of built up off to the east and started to close in; we made it home just before the rain started. The last photo, of right before we turned onto San Pablo, was bright, direct sun on the foreground, and ominous, dark clouds just behind. Luckily, it was just rain.

I say “just rain,” but ask me about the rain in brasil sometime. Yowsers.

sophie, tolerating my bullshit again. the wine may have helped.

bookends

2018-05-02T06:21:20+00:00

This would have been a post of a bunch of photos from the second to last time I went to Odd Salon, but I decided I didn’t like any of them, so here are the first and last pictures I did that night. I think they’re OK.

The whole experiment of posting every day seems to have gone well, and I’m going to try to keep it up. there’s something really nice about just putting the work out there in the world, even if I have no idea who’s looking at it (I took off google analytics a day or so after re-enabling it, because who wants to give them more info). Anyway. I think it’s helping.

Here’s today.

30 posts!

2018-05-01T06:33:13+00:00

I made it! this post, half an hour before midnight on the last day of the month, makes 30 posts, or an average of one a day for the month of April. Woot! Here’s a rainbow to celebrate (this was actually the next photo on the queue, by a quirk of serendipity). The clouds were actually just the view in the opposite direction, a couple minutes later. Done!

more denver

2018-05-01T06:29:15+00:00

I think I may have posted one or more of these to insta, but here they are in my space, processed (a little) on my machine. I was in denver for Elixirdaze, a conference about elixir in a place where there’s legal weed. Get it? Daze? Anyway, I got out a little while I was there, saw some things, ran an elixirbridge, etc. Sophie came, and I didn’t get a single good photo of her. Ah well.

approaching denver

2018-05-01T05:52:34+00:00

Love this approach. Sometimes I’m lucky and the wind and the clouds are right and it’s just really beautiful.

niles again

2018-05-01T05:32:03+00:00

Last day of april, down to the last hour and half. I didn’t make a post a day, but I made one almost every weekday, and that’s something.

These photos are from May, when we went down to Niles to hang out with John and Grant and Damaris. There are a couple film scans from that same day I’m still working on, to be posted later (and I need to get the color film developed, still).

So here’s today.

been scanning film

2018-04-27T08:59:04+00:00

like the title says, I’ve been scanning a bunch of film tonight. Shot some today too, hopefully a few of those are good. this whole blogging every day has me short on things to post. I’ve got a couple big events lined up, odd salon with the 500mm and a fancy olive oil themed dinner, and a few little things, but the big pile of unpublished mess is no more. There’s probably stuff in the archive that I could go fish for, like I did the post about trees. The trip out to see the trees was really memorable, but there’s not a ton from last fall I want to go digging for or that I’m excited about. The past is passed. Onward!

a bunch of (pretty) trees

2018-04-26T06:38:33+00:00

Also pictures of some things that aren’t trees. This was last fall, right after my birthday, when my folks came to town. For some reason, I never blogged these photos. We drove out to Sequoia National Park one of the days, and got to see the biggest (by volume and weight) tree in the world.

This catches me up for today, and I don’t have anything deep to say.

expose for the highlights

2018-04-25T21:42:06+00:00

The adage for shooting slide film was always “expose for the highlights, develop for the shadows,” because slides had the same problem digital sensors had, even with many stops less dynamic range. The highlights, once gone, are super gone. Gone forever. The shadows, you could burn in while printing and get extra out of them.

I did that here in the first photo (although my edges aren’t perfect, this is a blog post not the MOMA). I exposed probably a stop and a half under what the meter was reading, and got the detail in the clouds. The rest, for the most part, was gotten in post, two separtate masks to get the trees and river right. The trees that stick into the sky are the hardest to get right, and even though I’ve tried, they’re still not quite there. There’s probably some photoshop trickery to make it work that I don’t care enough about to learn.

Sophie, sans makeup, being very tolerant of my bullshit.

kawan's birthday 2018

2018-04-24T08:11:42+00:00

End of February. Winter doldrums were getting kicked out for some spring energy. I ate before I went, something I don’t even remember, and then there was a lot of food and booze when I got there, always a good sign. It was a most excellent party, with dancing and champagne and every single person there was really rad. Which makes sense, since Kawan is one of the raddest dudes I know.

Lighting conditions were mixed, again, but most of these were salvageable. The middle black and white I could have balanced but I liked it better black and white. The last one there was no way I was getting that right.

I fell in love with the little hallway. Kawan’s apartment/studio is one of those Escher spaces, that don’t make sense unless you draw a floor plan out. We have a lot of those here in SF. But the hallway, with the mirror, was like a perfect photo warp zone. I could shoot there all day Practically did, the party went on for quite a while.

dinner club at allies (with special guest mabel)

2018-04-23T01:34:00+00:00

I think this was february? (checks date in photo metadata, without which I would only know it was “sometime in the past”) yep for sure february. the 19th. There was lasagna and a dog and stories. I may be being slightly silly.

These are black and white because they don’t work in color. mixed LED and CFL bulbs is my suspicion. I don’t go in for the whole color masking acts of god thing that some people do. As the saying goes, Ain’t nobody got time for that.

to the top of mt diablo

2018-04-22T02:47:20+00:00

phone blogging, sorry if these are a little weird. we woke up hungover this morning, but sophie went out for coffee and said ‘we should go for a drive.’ i instantly texted back ‘mt. diablo’. it’s been on my todo list since roughly 2015 (whenever Charlie mentioned it in his newsletter back when there were like three people doing tinyletter).

so we had some at-home breakfast burritos, watched the rest of the movie we paused, and then headed out. it’s about an hour drive, lots of twisties, lots of bikes on the road to the summit. i’m tempted to bike it myself. only a 10% grade ;)

so here’s today.

night in the city and the cat

2018-04-20T06:26:01+00:00

The cat comes first, of course.

That single light in the middle is an extension cord, that seems to be powered. This lot has been vacant since at least 2010. what the hell was it powering?

damaris' birthday 2018

2018-04-19T08:29:49+00:00

This was something like two months ago? Shortly after I got back from Irvine, anyway. It was Damaris’ birthday, and there were a bunch of folks over at their house to celebrate. Really fun time.

Missed a couple days’ blogging there. It’s interesting how easy it is to fall out of the habit of doing this thing. Something I have to push myself to do. I know, I’m being lazy with these, but the lighting was super mixed and tricky, so here they are in black and white.

another post with a sunset

2018-04-17T07:06:27+00:00

The process for these posts is mostly what’s next in the queue, but sometimes, there’s not enough to hang together as a story. I used to care about that, but I don’t think I do any more. These aren’t picture stories; they’re just blog posts.

On one level, that seems diminutive and silly. But on another it’s relatively freeing; I can do whatever I want with this. If I wanted to talk about my new watch plans, there’s nothing stopping me. I don’t know why I ever separated that stuff, except that I assumed different groups of people would be interested in different aspects of what I was into, and domain names seemed easier than post categories. Oh well. Maybe I’ll fold what’s over on midnight.computer into this blog. just merge ‘em all together.

These photos are in reverse order, because they seem to flow better day into night. Also, they don’t bear any real relation to each other (the last three are on San Pablo, but that’s it). Just sort of shooting where I was when I was there.

one shot: laguna beach at night

2018-04-16T18:41:45+00:00

middle of the trip, maybe thursday, we tried to get away from Irvine for a minute, ended up going to Laguna Beach, this sleepy little beach town maybe 20 traffic-free minutes from where we were staying. A moment to take a breath in a week otherwise jam-packed with work.

beach hike to tide pools

2018-04-16T07:00:43+00:00

So this was actually the day before the last post, but last friday I just wanted to look at something pretty for the weekend. Anyway, this was a long time coming; to see the tide pools you have to go at low tide, and we had to shoot for a weekend day. So, after I missed the last time, we decided to shoot for a weekend, and this was the next available one. Low tide at something like 2:30 in the afternoon. I’m sure I could look it up, but it doesn’t super matter.

Walking a mile on sand is not the same as walking a mile on a dirt track or asphalt. If you’ve never hiked on a beach, maybe remember that when you’re planning.

I’m behind on my “two posts a day” pledge; I’m a lot closer to one, as it happens. I might not get to the end of the photos by the end of the month. Then, there’s also what I’m shooting now; I saw some nan goldin at SFMOMA and it reminded me of what I used to do with my pictures, even when I shot film. Anyway, I’ll try for two tomorrow; I’m out of effort for today.

flying through a sunrise

2018-04-13T06:21:27+00:00

This was the start of the last Super Sprint, which is what my company calls bringing our mostly-remote team into the office every quarter or so to work in a focused environment, with all the engineers and stakeholders in a room. It’s pretty intense.

But, in planning for this, I decided I didn’t want to spend any more time in hotels and eating at crappy chains in Irvine (where the company is located for some reason). So, instead of flying in on sunday and sleeping there, I flew in on monday morning ass-early. My friend Mike says, whenever the subject comes up, “They have a 6AM?” as in, that time exists? I’m here to tell you it does, and it’s just as bad as you think. I had to be at the airport at 6 for a 7am flight; I think I got up at 4. So, by the time I’m on the plane, I’m all hyped up on caffiene and can’t even nap properly.

It’s a morning flight, and I’d chosen my seat so that I could look out to the east, flying south. I always try to do that; imagine what side of the plane will have a better view and sit on that side. Sometimes I don’t get the seats I want, but sometimes that works out in my favor anyway. This time I guessed right, facing away from the rising sun was just the ticket. I couldn’t believe the color that came through in the photos. It was just as unbelieveable in person, the whole world bathed in pink light. You wouldn’t believe so much of any color could exist, but there we were, right in the middle of it.

I say we, but I might have been the only person looking; the flight, being ass-early on a monday, was pretty empty. I know at one point I looked up and I was the only person with an open window. I’ve heard there’s a direct flight, 16 hours, from Charles de Gaulle to SFO, that is this, the whole way (assuming you catch it at the right time of year, I suppose). I’d love to do that some day.

the crane thing

2018-04-12T06:55:48+00:00

So for a while there I thought I was doing a project on construction in the city. In the end, I decided it was boring and abandoned it, simply because I wasn’t getting close enough to the subject. You can only shoot one or two kinds of pictures from the outside of a construction site. I did a passable job getting photos of the early parts of the construction of the transbay terminal, since that was right on the walk from where casual carpool drops to the office I worked in at the time.

No, though, the real problem with the photo essay on cranes is it does nothing to talk about what the cranes mean, in terms of the growth and change of a city; the gentrification of large swaths of the people that have lived there; or the political forces that allow such things to happen. It’s hard to make pictures that are about YIMBY and NIMBY. My take: doubling the density, going from 3 to 6 stories for most residential properties, would be amazing, but only if the city started doing mixed-use zoning again, allowing for ground level retail and restaurants; how are you going to live without a car if you can’t walk a block to the bodega to get a sixer of beer and then a slice from the place next door? I am not an urban planner, but I do miss NYC sometimes.

poetry then wolfhound then a little walk

2018-04-11T06:22:53+00:00

Didn’t have much time at the reading; we got there a little late. I was inexplicably tired, and was thinking about bailing, but came at the last second anyway. I think Sophie might have encouraged me to come. This was Christine’s thing, I think; at least, she was MC’ing. It was really quite fun, and I ended up liking more of the poets than I thought.

I seem nice, but I’m a hater when it comes to art. Come correct or don’t bother me.

kareem's onesie party

2018-04-11T05:56:45+00:00

My friend Kareem throws these every other year or so, always a good crowd of people there. This was mid-January, so it was still a bit chilly outside. Appropriate weather for onesies.

wildcare bird sanctuary

2018-04-10T05:29:46+00:00

This was a super brief visit to WildCare, where things were pretty chill at the end of a Saturday. Looking at the Pelican, and having spent no small amount of my younger years staring at dinosaur skeletons, drawings, simulations, and the movie Jurrassic Park, I don’t know how anyone can not see that these are 100% dinosaurs. They don’t move like reptiles. They’re not even shaped like reptiles.

The photos of the bird were taken through the cages; none of them save the last one was in the open. The trick to getting photos that aren’t completely blocked up with fence is to get as close as you can to the wires, open your lens all the way up, and find a hole. Pay attention to the viewfinder, and move around until the picture looks the most clear. It should go without saying, but here I am saying it anyway: don’t do this in the case that it might put you in danger. As Clayton Cubitt said on twitter:

Famed war photography Robert Capa once said "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough" but he also died at 40 when he stepped on a land mine, so "closeness" is not always what it’s cracked up to be.

https://t.co/4LZtkL0nTo pic.twitter.com/INWxIDrk2d— Clayton Cubitt (@claytoncubitt) April 3, 2018

I’ve gotta say, though: Capa was making important pictures; he knew that; he also knew the stakes. Vitam impendere vero.

Peregrine Falcon; if and when I ever get a bird tattooed on me, it’ll be on of these. The aforementioned pelican before feeding. Pelican, getting fed. Owl doesn’t give a shit. This guy was a former resident, nests in the nearby woods now. Always comes back at feeding time, even though they haven’t given him food in a long time.

out of the city

2018-04-08T23:13:45+00:00

Pictures while a passenger in the car. This night there was a lot of traffic for some reason. Took us almost an hour just to get out of town, in one of those weird later-at-night traffic jams that happen sometimes for seemingly no reason on a thursday.

I’ve definitely taken this first picture before; the astute among my readers may note that the car is pointed in the opposite direction, and, in fact, we weren’t leaving the city then, so this post title is a lie. “into and out of the city” just didn’t sound as good.

project san pablo at night

2018-04-08T03:15:10+00:00

We’re finally caught up to the current year; this set of photos was taken January 9th, just after new years’. Mike wanted to get dinner, I wanted to go climbing, we split the difference and went for a walk up SAN PABLO (getting dinner along the way).

Still a work in progress. …

berkeley rose garden / stair walk

2018-04-07T09:29:50+00:00

This was, I think, the day before Thanksgiving? Sophie’s mom and also Serena were in town, and we had an afternoon to kill. She’s been around here enough that all the regular tourist stuff was played out, so we did something more local-ish. The stair walks are from a book, Secret Stairs: East Bay. I believe it’s a series, even. Anyway, there are detailed instructions for how to find the trail for what amounts to an urban hike. This one starts and ends at the Berkeley Rose Garden.

As you might imagine, there are a lot of stairs, but it’s a reasonable balance of up and down, such that I didn’t feel too strained (he says, 6 months later). There were a couple really amazing, sweeping panoramic views of the bay. I’ve only put one here, just because when you’ve seen one spectacular sunset photo from roughly the same square mile of the hills, you’ve seen them all. The experience of coming around a corner and looking to your side to see it, that never gets old.

edit: added another sentence so the last graph doesn’t trail off

PROJECT SAN PABLO update (and a photo of Sophie)

2018-04-07T08:24:04+00:00

Still working on this, despite the radio silence and despite the lack of coherent narrative. There’s something about it that won’t let me go. I just keep shooting, hoping to find something. A lot of times, I’ll work this way for months and months (I think this project is nearing the year mark).

It just occured to me, looking at these photos, that I could do a series just on the liquor stores on this street, and have something interesting. Hmm.

I know, the Albany Cinema isn’t on San Pablo, but the picture was taken from SP, so I’m calling it canon. For now.

photos from the ride for sanity last week

2018-04-05T07:25:07+00:00

Sometimes I do this; just take a day off, call in sick, and do whatever. Last thursday I woke up to my alarm and the knowledge that there was no way I was going to be a functional code monkey that day, so I called (actually slacked) in sick, and put in my time, and went back to sleep for four more hours.

When I woke up, I had this desire to go for a long bike ride. I have this road bike, the one that I bought with the proceeds from the sale of my motorcycle, and I decided it was time to dust it off for the spring and go around a bit. So I did.

BART to the city, and then down embarcadero to roughly fisherman’s warf, and then across the north end of SF all the way to Fort Point. From there, up into the Presidio. My legs were very tired, but I kept going, all the way to Golden Gate Park. The spot I came into the park meant that it was basically the last hill I had to climb, and I rode downhill all the way from JFK and crossover to 2nd and Townsend. About 17 miles all told.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: riding a bike makes everything better.

a walk home in november and a bee

2018-04-05T06:48:00+00:00

the bee is from October; the photos from the walk home were from something in the mission, no idea what. Looks like I was getting there right at moonrise and then left after dark. Not sure what I was doing there to be honest.

I’ve been working on some tables since roughly january. Originally, I was going to buy myself a mini mill like this one and put it on top. I talked to my dad, who knows a thing or two about metal work, and he said I should just make a simple table out of 1/4” plate (~6mm) for the top, and 2x2 box tube.

I knew a long time ago that the first thing I needed for my little home machine shop was a welder. It’s an essential tool; if the mill is creation by subtraction, the welder is creation by addition. They are both required for the kind of shop I’m putting together. Somewhere, I have a draft post listing all the stuff I’d need, and the order and why; but the most pressing reason is with a welder, I can put together durable shop furniture.

So, for xmas, I bought myself the welder, and I called up the local metal supply yard. Albany Steel, real nice guys, they even flame cut my plate with their shear down (it’s been down since november). But, I found out, plate steel is expensive; a single sheet, 4’x8’, is $250. So, I decided that instead of just building one table and having a giant piece of steel that I had no use for hanging around, I’d just build another table, to replace my desk. (Why build one when two is twice the fun?)

I’m talking about this a lot because I really like both of these objects I’ve produced. The smaller table is one of my favorite things I’ve ever built, and the bigger one, although not completed, is just really rad too. They’d both hold up roughly an armored car. They also weigh a fuckton; the smaller one is 200lbs, and the larger one is ~350.

Anyway, after these are done, I have to catch up on a bunch of non-heavy-construction projects (anyone that does real construction laughs; but for me, this is giant). I’m working on some parts of a technical book with some friends, and hopefully it’ll be out by this xmas. And then there’s another watch project I’m working on, a hopefully python-based smartwatch, sort of in the mold of those big Garmin watches, but with some interesting UI stuff I’ve got going, plus I’m doing all the work for that out in public too.

Can’t stop won’t stop forgot how to stop.

marigny social club crawfish boil

2018-04-04T05:12:43+00:00

Still in March of last year now. We’ll take a jump forward soon, I swear. Anyway, these are from my friend Caleb’s semi-annual crawfish boil, that goes under his Marigny Social Club banner. Fucker can cook, is what I’m sayin. I only made it for the very last pot (and took the last beer too) because I’m an idiot and decided to take public transit to get there, got lost in the park and took almost an hour to get from the muni station to the actual location of the boil. Everything was delicious, and I seem to remember getting a ride back to the east bay. good times.

the lunch walks of yesteryear

2018-04-04T05:00:48+00:00

I used to walk somewhere for lunch almost every day. When I worked in the city, I never had my shit together well enough to take a lunch and save $15/day, so I’d get out of the office to go get a slice of pizza or burrito or something, and get a little fresh air along the way. I suppose part of the reason I didn’t mind it is my job was hella boring most of the time and any excuse to get away was a good one. I paid money to get out of the office, and lunch was incidental.

My favorite place to go on these walks was Tony’s, all the way over in North Beach. Always a long lunch going to tony’s, even though it’s just a slice place, order at the counter, listen for your number type deal. Probably a 20 minute line, and the place was always lousy with tourists. But on a good day, you could sit outside with light like you wouldn’t believe, the SF specific brand of sunshine and cloud. It’s no wonder everybody wants to live here. The light alone is worth the price of admission.

some sort of celebration last march

2018-04-04T00:05:03+00:00

I started out this month saying I wanted to do two posts a day, and here it is the third, and I’m only posting my second post for the month. Gotta up my game if I’m gonna get anywhere near my goal.

These photos are from some celebration or other, from what appears to be Drake’s, in downtown Oakland. Can’t remember the reason, could’ve just been someone was in town. Anyway, here are the photos, I’m gonna go grab the next batch and post some more. Onward!

old sf street photos

2018-04-02T06:54:42+00:00

So offloading the photos from the sony from the show the other night (which I took since the venue had a no-pro-cameras policy), I discovered there were a bunch of photos from 2015 still on the card. Got a few posts of that lined up.

skating polly / go team

2018-03-29T07:00:30+00:00

went to this show tuesday night, and oh my god skating polly has gotten a lot better since the last time I saw them, way back in 2012. I remember then thinking “These kids really rock, not just for 12 year olds or whatever,” and now they’ve grown and refined their sound a crapton. Wild and energetic and angry and everything I want in a punk band. I should note that this could have been a lot more photos; it was espcially hard to edit these for some reason.

Go Team was new to me, but just a lot of fun, in a nice unironic way. Good stage presence from all the members, a lot going on. Audience participation (I got to yell my star sign into a mic, and it was being filmed and when I realized that moment will probably be on the internet forever I almost spontaneously combusted on the spot).

These are black and white because color in clubs is bullshit. Most of these just don’t work as color; the meter on the little camera I had couldn’t keep up or something. Black and white is better anyway.

kawan's open studio

2018-02-22T00:16:32+00:00

This was some weeks ago now, even though I worked up the photos that evening. It’s a lovely place to spend an afternoon. Kawan is the artist who did all the work in the pictures. He’s also the subject of the last picture, and just really kind and generous. His studio is his house, and he just opened it up and shared all his rad art books and art with whoever happened to drop by and see him that afternoon. Check out his Nieman Lab predidiction for media in 2018… more zines! I’m 100% behind this.

a very long night

2018-02-06T07:06:03+00:00

Yes, all of this really happened. It was a magic night, where we were determined to rage even if nobody around was really into the party. Hit like 4 bars, including the Hilo, which was lame and slow on a thursday, and then went back to KJ’s for the afterparty, where KJ painted flowers and gave me good advice. I think we were up till like 5? I don’t know how that happened. But it did.

bunker club

2018-01-12T08:19:30+00:00

This was my first night hanging out back in OKC over the holidays; it would have been Boxing day. Bunker Club is a new place since the last time I was there, a real nice atom-punk bar; 50s retro theme. Call it nostalgia for the 80s nostalgia for the 50s, viewed through a drunken fun house mirror.

Anyway, that night I went and got a burrito at Big Truck, and then headed over to the bar. I sat down at the one empty spot to wait for everyone, set my camera and beer down, and the girl sitting next to me says ‘Nice camera, too bad it’s not a Canon’. We got to talking for a minute, turns out she’s also an artist.

Of course, the main event, the whole reason I was out at a bar instead of sleeping after spending the better part of the day in the welding booth getting a lesson from my dad, was to see KJ and Grant and Damaris. Grant and Damaris live out here, but we still only seem to see each other once every other month, if we’re lucky. Hard to coordinate time when we’re all available and such. So, I saw and talked to them, and drank quite a lot. They’re practically giving away beer in Oklahoma, you know.

So, I ended up back at KJ’s house, where there was a 12-ft long water spirit from Spirited Away hanging in the living room. I think it was about that point that I passed out on the couch.

rando game

2018-01-09T07:28:41+00:00

You know that game where you look around you and guess who is the spy? If you can’t guess who it is, it’s you. There’s a party version of the game, but it’s called ‘Rando’. A party is defined by the quality of its randos (to steal a great line from busblog). You know, the guy that has that awesome story from that time about the thing, or brings the host’s favorite type of liquor or is just witty as shit. Well, I was at this party and looked around, and sure enough, I was one of the randos. This is a good enough crowd where there were several and all hella interesting.

The crowd was some people I know from odd salon (Hi Barbara and Justin!), and a bunch of new folks. I got there, took a bunch of pictures, but I was drinking straight gin at first, so the latter ones aren’t so great. I ended up hanging out and talking with people till there were maybe half a dozen hangers-on, and took a drunken cab ride home. A wonderfully pleasant evening.

the two xmas parties

2018-01-04T06:29:25+00:00

So, I was messing around with my old XPro, and discovered that I’d shot the 2016 Apcera party on it and then forgot about it. I downloaded the pictures, and then saw that I had 2017’s party to post too, and well here we are. These were both open bar affairs, so please excuse the blurryness in some of these, the whiskey was very good both years.

The venues were different but the story was mostly the same, except: the first year, I was in the city, so went to the hotel room to hang out while everyone was getting ready, and shot photos out the window. Year two, I was mad late because of traffic getting into the city (since I work from home now).

Coming soon: a few photos from Oklahoma.

surprising my folks for xmas

2017-12-26T06:59:37+00:00

So today, instead of going to hang out with some lovely people in oakland, I got on a succession of planes and didn’t tweet about it or facebook or instagram. I was flying over some of my favorite parts of the country, southern Utah and the Colorado Rockies (not to be confused with the baseball team). Unfortunately, the flight gods were not kind, and there was a kid sitting next to me that was afraid of flying, so I only got to open the window in brief moments when he was absorbed in his movie.

I didi like some of the photos (below), but I couldn’t post them in the moment to Insta, where my mom would see I was flying and figure the whole thing out. So here they are on the blog instead, while I can’t sleep because timezones.

The second leg, the travel gods smiled and there was an empty middle seat in my row, on an otherwise full flight. I was surprised at how tired I was; I fell asleep while we were taxiing and woke up when we were descending into OKC. Claimed my checked bag, and then got into a Lyft from the airport and arrived here, and talked for a couple hours with my folks.

Some day, I may be able to sleep.

second batch of leica photos

2017-12-23T17:54:11+00:00

Another 2 days, and 20 more photos. I gotta say, I love the lens on this camera. Summicron wide open is just a really nice look. The fine detail you get out of this system is just unbelievable. That said, highlights are still garbage and the meter is so bad; not just a little bad but super inconsistent. My guess is that they’ve biased it to underexpose to compensate for the highlight issue. My conclusion so far is that there’s nothing I can’t do with my Fuji by using it in aperture priority and shooting with lower ISOs.

The house across the way from ours. Different house, same fence. Sophia takes an important call. Kage? This little toy just cracks me up. Not Santa. Me, by Sophia. Real Champagne. Classy joint. Much less classy. They made me take my hat off after 10pm; something about gang fights. Sophie, towards the end of the night.

first pictures from the rented leica

2017-12-21T07:09:08+00:00

So the first 24 with this camera have been a little rough. You might say it’s a little peculiar. I’m not used to an exposure meter that’s center-weighted (and don’t tell me to use the live view). It takes kind of a long time to wake from sleep. The truth is, though, for all it’s problems, I really like it.

This morning, for no reason I could discern, I woke up at around 6:30, and I could tell that there was light behind the curtains, so I figured right then and there was as good a time as any to take the new rig out for a test ride. (The first photo is from last night, but I liked it enough to leave it in the edit). I pulled on yesterday’s clothes and my boots and went for a walk.

I didn’t walk too far before hopping on the 72M bus, which took me north to Albany. I’ve been meaning to go shoot up there for the San Pablo Project. I got to shoot for about an hour. The light was super contrasty, and the camera had a tendency to underexpose that I’m not mad about, really. At the lower end of the ISO spectrum it’s got tons of information before it’s really clipped. Probably an extra stop over the in camera warnings. On the other hand, highlights clip like it’s 2006. I’ll have to do some actual tests if I get a chance, see where this thing actually clips at each end, and calibrate my shooting accordingly.

I look at these photos and I can tell right away they’re mine. But there are a couple (the green one with the reflections esp.) that I simply wouldn’t have gotten with a different camera. This thing encourages shooting wide open, something I really miss, and also the focusing mechanism is set up so that it can’t get confused by the near objects in front of you. If you can see it, you can focus on it.

Of course, I’ve had an hour with it so far. And then tonight at the gym I did something to my knee, on the MCL side, that made me get one of my crutches out for support. So, I might not get to do as much walking and shooting as I’d like. I’ll still be shooting, though. I’m here till the light goes out.

(update after day 2: yup, didn’t get out to shoot at all).

dinner club picnic

2017-12-12T06:59:35+00:00

So, yesterday, when I finished scanning these and started looking at them, I got so excited about them I started texting them to everybody in them. Sort of forgot about the whole Instagram thing and just sent them out. Sorry, Edgar and Annie, for blowing up your phones. Then I remembered, and dutifully posted the top one.

I’m not sure why I’m so jazzed about these; it may be shooting with a real rangefinder is working for me, or it may be that shooting film agrees with me for some reason, but I suspect it’s neither of those, and mostly that I’m shooting candid portraits again. With the landscapes, with the street pictures, there’s no urgency; they’re pure exercises in form (the objectification and the problems therein are not lost on me; I have read books and written essays on the subject, but I digress). I suppose I shot those kinds of pictures because they were available to me, but I’m not sure it was actually a good direction. Portraits of people, that’s the ticket.

So, I’m gonna try to do that more. I spent a long time (the first 10 or so years I was taking pictures) hating on landscapes because I thought they were too easy, that exercises of form were beneath me. I don’t really think that any more; not because they’re harder than I thought, but because I’ve taken enough of them now and found it a good learning experience. A meditation, if you will. But portraiture feels really good, and so I’m gonna do some more. (of course the next set I have in the queue is all landscapes from Point Reyes, but there’s at least a good shot of my dad in it).

These photos are of the dinner club where we went to lake merrit and had I don’t even remember what, because I didn’t have any other camera, and I didn’t want to take a picture of my food with the film camera.

photos from the texas leica

2017-12-09T08:52:56+00:00

These are all from last summer, June and July, when my mom was here, and not. I’d just gotten the Fuji, and was super excited to shoot with it. I put 10 or 12 rolls of film through it, and had them souped at a local lab, SF Photoworks. Then, because their scanning prices are just silly, I bought a scanner and started scanning them all in myself. I may have said this before, but I really like the images I get out of this camera. I really don’t like the process of scanning images. The epson software sucks and is slow; the film holders are fiddly and kinda shitty.

I’m not sure I’ll keep going in this vein. It’s possible. The newer cameras are a lot easier, which isn’t always a good thing. I see my primary job is to tell stories with the camera; take pictures that at least tell a little part of a story. Sometimes it’s just setting the mood; sometimes it’s something really explicit. Sometimes, it’s telling a joke. The determining factor in this work (among others) is paying attention to what’s happening. Sometimes, if the pictures are easy, I forget and just shoot a bunch without thinking, without knowing what I’m getting.

I feel kind of off when I’m doing this, and the main way to break out of it is to change what I’m doing. Change lenses, exposure modes, put my hat on backwards. Tricks and superstition, maybe, but also things that work to get my head back in the viewfinder. Anyway, the limitations of the camera, the fact that it only has 10 exposures on a roll, is fully manual, and large, and slow, actually help push the mental state. It’s like stretching before a run.

fat gold harvest

2017-11-26T10:22:13+00:00

Two of my friends, Kathryn and Robin, just started an olive oil business this year, Fat Gold (peep that domain, yowsers). The farm is about 45 minutes east of town, in Sunol. It’s an area of rich rolling alluvium, with lots of small farms and other interesting things that there aren’t room for here in the city. Kathryn is a veteran of the olive oil industry as an award-winning miller. Robin is the author of 2.5 books (counting Scheme as a novella) and is his best self when slightly annoyed on an overloaded tractor.

So they’ve spent the last year working in the grove doing farm things and posting them on their instagram. The instagram feed is mostly Robin, so you get this great enthusiastic novice’s view of the whole enterprise, which has been good for me, a person that didn’t know anything about olives. It’s been interesting to follow along and see the process evolve as they get their footing.

Last weekend was the last harvest day, where a bunch of friends of Fat Gold gathered at the grove to harvest some olives and eat good food. While the amateurs worked at one end of the grove, professionals tackled the majority of the work at lightning speed. The amateurs’ process is simple: individual pickers have a belly bucket, and you kind of take a whole branch in one hand, and strip the olives off with the other, dumping them in the bucket. The professional method is basically to cover the ground under a tree in a mesh and shake off all the olives with sticks. It’s faster, but requires coordination and a lot more effort.

I helped with the harvest for about an hour, camera over my shoulder, but I sensed I wasn’t getting enough pictures, so I dropped off the bucket back by the barn and switched to just taking pictures, which was really enjoyable, the sort of work I’m made for. Which is to say, the participant observer; do some work, take some pictures, do some more work. I helped a bit with the gleaning, and certainly lifted my share of crates durning the weighing and transfer to the giant macrobins.

So this was last weekend, which is record time for me to get a blog post together these days. I can remember waking up with a hangover in someone else’s house and putting together a post, but that was almost a decade ago. As I was there to also photograph for my friends, I hustled and put together a loose edit for them. There is part of me that thinks of this as a client project, and not just personal documentary effort. It doesn’t make much difference in the way I work, but does affect the post-shooting timeline.

mom was here

2017-10-22T20:39:39+00:00

apparently I forgot to post these? Anyway, my mom came to town to hang out for her birthday, which is also the week of the fourth of july. Good times.

More SFMOMA.

photos out a plane window of smoke

2017-10-14T07:33:58+00:00

I photographed the milky way from an airplane, bitches. This probably beats the time I took photos under startlight. These were all on the way back from Santa Ana, where I was working for a week to meet all the new comrades and get a feel for how they do things at Weedmaps.

The first photo is with the ISO at 12k, and I just shot a bunch until I got one that was relatively steady. I could see the milky way, faintly, and I thought I had a chance if I could get a long enough exposure. Might’ve been better if I’d had IS, but you’ve gotta dance with the gal you brought with you (wish someone had told me that before prom) (s/gal/guy/gnc as appropriate, natch).

The second two photos are smoke from the fires that have been raging basically since I left town. Like, whoa. The second picture is the big dipper, except I have no idea what the bright object in the lower left part of the constelation is. It’s the same object you see in the last photo, at the top of the image. Has to be a star, or a geostationary satellite reflecting the sun. Or maybe a start went supernova? At the time, I though it was so bright and big it must be venus. Anyway, it’s a mystery.

The light in that second picture, incidentally, is mostly coming from the city below the smoke, not the stars above. And yes, I know technically the clouds of gas out there that make the milky way milky aren’t “smoke” but they do scatter light in a similar way, don’t they?

pride parade 2017

2017-10-11T19:28:46+00:00

A lot of pictures in this one, and I’m not sorry. Pride is such a visually overwhelming spectacle.

We got up a little late, I don’t remember why, but we were starving, so we went to Rudy’s first thing, got a great breakfast, and then hopped on the BART. Got off at Civic Center, and watched the parade from there for a couple hours. At least it seemed like a couple hours. Timestamps say an hour and a half. A lot of huge showings from tech companies, and a lot of really wonderful community groups too.

I’ve just changed jobs (now, October 2017), and I’m two and a half days in, and I couldn’t be happier that I did. I started my new job monday, and yesterday, on the way home, I actually felt like taking pictures. I was tired after 6 hours of pairing, but I wasn’t drained in the same way I was coming home from my former employer. That’s fucking fantastic. As someone who draws a great deal of self worth from creative projects, I can’t overstate how great that is.

And! look at me, blogging again! who knows, it might become a habit.

in the redwoods

2017-09-11T01:59:08+00:00

This was the day we went to San Anselmo and took a little walk through the redwoods. Those black borders? Do not adjust your screen, there is nothing wrong; these are film pictures, shot on the massive 6x9 camera I picked up a while back.

We drove down in the morning and met up with Grant and Damaris at their house, then followed them to the little wilderness area. We hiked a little flat loop and looked at all the things; found some owl pellets and saw at least one nest.

They’re a touch dark because it’s hard, with film, to balance the range of highlights to shadows (the scenes have a range from deep shade to full sun). I think I should have erred a little more on the side of overexposure, in the case of the neg film; the slide film I don’t think there’s much I could have done to keep it in the range. Overexposed a stop and then pulled it maybe.

Up next: Pride! woot!

KJ and Maxine at SFMOMA

2017-09-03T00:13:50+00:00

A lot of pictures in this one. The title is a lie, or at least the first two pictures are from the night they got here, not the next day. This was a really nice visit; we went to the museum on Friday, then up to the woods on saturday (where I shot film and have to find those photos for the next post) and then we did pride on sunday. A well-rounded weekend.

I love showing people SFMOMA; even with its flaws, it’s a delightful place. There are the places that are easy to get to, and then there are the places the regulars know, even in a place like an art musuem. although there are probably people that study the floor plan that know it better, I don’t know any of them. Of course, the shows that are up change with some regularity, too; it’s always fun to walk around a familiar corner and see something new and unexpected.

Anyway, enjoy the photos.

walk down embarcadero

2017-09-02T22:11:11+00:00

I don’t remember why we were going down this way, exactly, but this was one evening some time ago.

on showing up

2017-08-18T19:15:16+00:00

Note: the following does not apply to those who can’t go to protests for whatever reason; disability, PTSD, the need to avoid the authorities. I’m talking to my able-bodied fellow white folks.

So, you’ve just seen the Tina Fey #sheetcaking thing, or you’ve heard how violent Antifa is, and you’ve decided to just stay away from the protests when the racists fascist thugs come to your town. Congratulations, you’re letting the Nazis win.

If, however, you don’t want that to be you, and if you think that killing people because of their race, sexuality, gender identity, or anything else is unacceptable, welcome to the ranks of the Anti-Fascists! We’re really a fun bunch, once you get to know us.

The truth is all you have to do is show up. This is not a complicated fight involving many ins and outs and long work ahead of time. Do not allow them the space. Do not allow them to make you afraid to go to the park on a saturday. There is hard work ahead of us; there is much healing and compassion that will be needed, but this is the first step. Show the nazis they’re not welcome in our town, our state, our country. Show them that calling for violence is violence, and we will not allow it.

If you don’t stand up now, when all you have to do is show up, then what will you do when it gets worse? Because if you don’t now, when they are small, if you let them rob you of your agency now, then they will take that and get bigger and stronger and harder to stop. It’s the difference between putting out a cigarette and putting out a forest fire.

If the contingent of people opposing them is small, then there will be violence. The fash prey on the weak, after all. If our numbers only equal theirs, then we will attacked, just like Sacramento and Charlottesville and Portland and everywhere else. If we have double their size, then we have begun to show them they are not welcome here. If we have 10 times more people, then they will run away, afraid of what they have awakened.

So: do not allow them to occupy that space in your fear centers. Do not think that ignoring violence will make it go away. There are more people in any medium-sized city right now that can show up to oppose them than there are avowed fascists in the whole USA. They can come by the hundreds, maybe, and we can take the bus and show up by the thousands. Show up with me.

The photos this time are a selection from the Women’s march last January, and the SFO protests against the muslim ban. This is what happens when enough people show up.

dinner club last may

2017-08-11T06:08:11+00:00

So, this was, what, 3 moths ago? I’m getting more behind instead of less, and that’s nobody’s fault but my own. I don’t have any deadlines, and I don’t have any reasons to rush. I used to try to get the photos out the morning after the party, but now? There’s no rush.

There is a small rush, though, in that the next dinner club being held in this same spot, Roger and Olivia’s back yard, is on saturday. In 36 hours, we’ll be doing something similar (different menu, different beer, probably different randos).

Anyway, speaking of deadlines and reasons to get photos out sooner, I’ve decided to try to do some freelance work again; I’m available outside normal working hours for all your photographic needs, once again. I’ve learned a few things since the last time I tried this, number one being don’t quit your day job. Number two being you have to do a lot of work to promote yourself; all the most successful people are promoting themselves effectively. I don’t want to annoy the shit out of my meager set of twitter and facebook friends, so I’ll be trying to think of creative ways to get my work in front of editors and art directors.

ALSO: I started a Patreon! If you’re into that sort of thing, toss me a dollar or more. The first ten backers at any level get a print of their choice (anything here on the blog, basically). I’m not quitting my job, but the goal is to support myself with photography, eventually.

walking in the city

2017-08-06T09:04:41+00:00

I don’t really do this kind of work as much anymore, I need to get back to it. It’s really rewarding for not a lot of effort; just keeping my camera on me, for the most part. There was an incident which scared me off of it for a while, but that shouldn’t stop me, it’s not my first confrontation. Anyway, next time, some nice candid portraits from a dinner club.

picnic by lake merritt

2017-06-22T08:24:30+00:00

So this must have been three months or so ago, one of the first real warm weekends. I’d just had my eyes lasered, had to wear sunglasses the whole time. The pictures, perhaps in sympathy to my postoperative photophobia, were a little over exposed. Nothing I couldn’t handle in post.

three pictures in the city

2017-06-11T19:08:47+00:00

Photos, not really about anything. These were walking to lunch, someday months ago now.

cmay in the bay

2017-05-22T07:09:43+00:00

So, about three months ago, Christa was in town, and I took a bunch of pictures, in and around getting sick at the worst possible moment (having a houseguest). We did a day of touristy things; for some reason it was stupidly hard to get into the city but once we’d managed that it was a lot of fun. Then I got some sort of cold that I foolishly tried to power through and failed, so sat at home for a day.

I did get better in time to visit the de Young with her and our mutual friend Allyson. Then we went to the mission for drinks and then late burritos. I mobile-posted those photos, which means that they’re out of order (or the whole blog has gone nonlinear, possibly). I don’t remember the name of the beardy-glasses dude, just that he had a backpack full of art magazines and a sketchbook which he actually used.

magmaconf 2017

2017-05-19T00:43:30+00:00

So this was, what, a month and a half ago? Long enough, anyway, that I feel bad for taking this long to get to the pictures. They’ve been in my loose edit folder since the plane ride home, and have just sat there this whole time.

Magmaconf is this wild conference that happens sort of semi-regularly in the town of Manzanillo, on the western coast of Mexico, in the state of Colima. It’s a language and even tech-agnostic conference; the two times I’ve been, and spoken, were both about my hardware adventures, and not about software. Somehow, the group that gets together there is always really remarkable. Not just people that are brilliant at what they do, and I mean the audience as well as the speakers, but really friendly.

The conference organizers do as much as they can to foster that environment, with really amazing events and surprises; The mariachi band on the last day, after the last talk, was a complete surprise. I think the luchadores were planned, but the spontaneous mock weddings were a surprise. I’m pretty sure this was the last incarnation of Magma, and I’m glad I was there.

So, in roughly chronological order, here are the photos.

this was the AirBnB I stayed at the first couple days. I sat and worked on my talk for 12 hours on the balcony of the room. And I still wasn’t done! I finished it the morning of, sitting in the audience, being rude. The venue, on the left, was a local University. Beautiful area, all volcanic soil and dense forest. To open the proceedings, there were native dancers, local to the area. The idea being that so many times, you go to foreign locales and all you see is the conference venue and don’t get any of the culture; this was the first of several moments where the culture was put front and center. Beach Games. This was after everyone had met and eaten and drank together; a capital-e Experience. It’s hard to tell because this is a still, but that guy actually held the hoop there for several seconds. Just walking through the market. One of the famous things in Manzanillo: this giant fish sculpture. Which is funny, because it’s not a fishing hub, but Mexico’s largest container port. Sign says stop, but I wasn’t driving. Shot from a moving car. The aforementioned mock wedding, this was one of several. The audience had fun picking odd couples out (the ‘couples’, by the look of it, were also having fun) Pinata Action. Along with the Mariachi band, there was a group of dancers. Really entertaining to watch; all of the dances told stories. The male half of the dance troupe. It was quite elaborate, with costume changes between dances and props and intricate choreography. Obie playing DJ before the band went on. The first set of luchadores. There were three different bouts, with a fourth between amateurs from the audience. Watching the fight. The point in the fight where the rudo (heel) has the técnico beat, just before the dramatic turn in which the técnico wins. The amateurs have a go. Everyone, thankfully, was fine in the aftermath. Later, in the club. This was the night I didn’t sleep, made my plane, and it didn’t matter anyway, due to a scheduling issue on the part of the airline.

the things I wish I carried

2017-04-27T21:08:54+00:00

There comes a time in every trip when you have to empty out your luggage and sort the absolute necessities from the garbage you’ve re-packed in three different motels and not used once. I just did it for my suitcase, and it’s got me thinking about packing, and lists; what I forgot, and what I could have left behind.

First is the list of stuff I wish I’d remembered. I forgot my travel towel (don’t know where it is, in fact) and it’s super useful, even if the hotel/hostel/cabin/tent (etc) has a towel for every person. I especially miss mine when doing sink laundry. I also forgot to re-stock some of the consumables in my Dopp kit, notably the cotton pads I use for my face (I’m 32 years old and still have acne like a teenager; after a couple golden years in my 20s of low maintenance skin, it’s a wash and moisturize twice a day or I break out). That’s about it for things I miss. Total cost of about 6 oz. I also sort of wish I’d brought a water filter, but I haven’t been uncomfortable without it; the steripen has worked the one time I needed it, but the water still tasted pretty bad.

I also wish, just a bit, that I’d brought the larger camera bag. It fits my iPad and keyboard, and also a water bottle and a bunch of other stuff. The little bag isn’t the worst thing to happen, but I wish I had both options. That would also have bumped me up to my larger carry on, which would have meant I need packing cubes… etc. Oh: I also wished, several times, for a 10L dry bag to stash my camera gear in. And a non-GoPro waterproof camera. Again, I would have needed the larger backpack; I’m in a 30L daypack from Topo similar to this one; the big one is max-carryon sized, about 45L, from MEI.

Things I could have left at home: Binoculars, brought on the off chance that there would be clear skies and less light pollution. Neither of these things are true. Jeans: This was a guess on my part that I would be comfortable in them. The heat down here is way too much for pants. The tropics are an exception to my no shorts rule. Also: the 50mm lens; I haven’t bothered to carry it at all.

A few items I’ve picked up here that I’ll be bringing on my next trip to the tropics: A rash guard, made of wicking fabric, long sleeved. Gives about 30 SPF, very cooling when it’s wet, perfect for going in the water. Medication: I ran out of my prescriptions for blood pressure, and had to get them refilled here. The local pharmacy had two of the four, enough to prevent me from having an embolism or stroke or whatever.

beach walk Roatan

2017-04-24T17:10:23+00:00

Two days ago now, I decided to go for a long walk down the beach. Adam, my friend that grew up here, said that the beach was contiguous, that you could walk the whole way to West Bay (not to be confused with west end, where we’re staying).

So, having decided against scuba instruction, I figured the walk would be a good afternoon’s entertainment. I could get a feel for the island and see what there was to see. I also managed to get mild heat exhaustion and a slight sunburn. Lesson learned (for probably the fifth time): when you go for a walk in the tropics, wear sunscreen and take a bottle of water.

From where we’re staying, it’s about a 10 minute walk to the end of half moon bay (no relation to the one in cali). There’s a point where the paved road stops, and the beach is the only way forward. I walked about 2/3rds of the way to the far tip of the island, and turned back because I didn’t have any water and I was tired. After all, this is a vacation, not a death march.

A note about the photos: I’m getting a little more used to the phone-only workflow. It’s still clunky, just because switching between apps is not as fast as it is on the desktop, and because I use 4 different apps to get them ready to upload (currently: camera+, ps mobile, photos, and flickr). Hopefully I’ve sorted the ordering; editing this way, over ssh, I have to publish the post before I can see.

sunset at sundowners

2017-04-19T18:28:24+00:00

I’m not sure what order these will show up in. after a couple of days’ recovery from the trip, i finally got off my ass to take some photos. we were at this bar, sundowner’s, which is known for its sunsets. and about half an hour before the main event, i parked myself in a lounger right on the water, and shot these with the 14mm on the Fuji.

some of them are of course after the sunset, but they were all taken within 20 feet of the lounger. if all my shooting went this easily, well, i could use this blog as a tax write off.the island here is treating us exceptionally well.

Power is out this morning, over a big chunk of the island, so i’m writing this on my phone from a cafe. keepin’ it real, as papa tony(AKA the blogfather) would say. i’m back to the relaxing.

edit to add: the power is back on at the casa, and I thought I’d fix the ordering of these with the not-laptop I brought with me. Ipad plus adapter plus atreus keyboard, with custom channel for holding the device. works decently well, the only improvement would be a bluetooth version.

in the street with the x-pro 2

2017-04-05T22:31:28+00:00

on that last post, sophie chastised me for saying I wasn’t going to write a camera review, and then doing it anyway. What I meant was it wasn’t meant to be a thorough exercise in putting the camera through it’s paces, but more my first impressions. Now that I’ve had the thing a few weeks, I have more impressions.

Especially with the 14mm, it’s a machine made for the street. Discreet, close, quiet. Zone focusing is a cinch, and changing from manual to auto as needed is as simple as pushing the focus ring. I think all of these were hip shot, that is, not looking through the viewfinder, and manual focus.

That said, I do have a few gripes: the auto-switch between the eye-level viewfinder and the LCD is still too slow for quick shooting. The buttons on the back, including the little joystick everyone else was so happy about, are really easy to knock and move settings around. More than once I’ve found the camera in some weird drive or focus mode, with the focus point off to one corner.

When you shoot a lot with this camera, it gets warm in your hand. I ran down a battery shooting a group of dancers and mariachi band, and it was weird that it got that warm. I mean, pushing around those pixels can’t be easy, but still. I’m not sure that’s normal.

Next post: nothing about cameras. Probably a nice picnic.

photo walk with the new X-Pro2

2017-03-07T16:11:23+00:00

So, last Saturday, on a whim, I went to the camera store. Not just any camera store, but easily the best one I’ve been to here in the bay area: Looking Glass Photo, over just off San Pablo. The Fuji reps were there, hanging out with a pile of cameras and lenses for people to play with. They even had the GFX, the new medium format (some part of me dies, calling something less than 6x4.5 medium format, but I digress). So, I got to play with the X-Pro, which was another frontrunner for my next camera, and decided that waiting 6 months and paying triple the price really wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be. So I bought it.

I’m still getting used to the camera, and this isn’t really a review, jut my initial impressions. The important stuff: AF is a bazillion times faster than the old model, but still not quite as fast as my nikon D750. Whatever, it doesn’t need to be; it’s sufficient. There’s very little shutter lag; I don’t have any kind of test rig but haven’t had any problems. The files are great, probably two stops better than the old xpro; the highlights drop off a little faster than my nikon, at least subjectively.

The viewfinder is just wide enough to show the edges of the 14mm framelines, although with my glasses on I can’t see the edges. Luckily, the live view is a little narrower and there’s enough eye-relief that it works. Lag is down to almost imperceptible levels; the old camera would make me motion sick if I used it in live view in a car, but this one is fine. Also, the picture-in-frame focus aid is really quite good.

The bad: the wifi doesn’t support downloading of raw files; you have to convert them in camera and then it’ll read them. I seem to keep knocking off settings by accidentally pressing buttons, although the basics seem to stay in place. I’m also not used to it at all, so it’s very possible this is my fault.

Sunday, instead of my usual sit-around-the-house-and-watch-cartoons, I went out for a photo walk, and the weather cooperated and gave me lots of nice clouds and clear air. It was rainy in Oakland, so I headed for the mission, where the sun was shining and it was also raining– SF, where the microclimates have microclimates. I decided to fight my natural urge to walk downhill and headed up 21st street, towards Twin Peaks (the park, not the bar). About a mile and a half uphill from there, I called a lyft to get me the rest of the way up; I didn’t want to get there and be completely blown out.

I did a first pass edit in the camera, but I ended up going back to the raw files for this post; the final images aren’t that different, but I feel better about them.

a walk with two johns

2017-03-03T02:10:08+00:00

yesterday (yes, a post about something that happened less than two months ago), I met up with Hornbeck and jrecursive to shoot some photos and hang out, talk shop. I shot a combination of from the hip and looking through he viewfinder, but most of these were shot at eye level.

Something I’ve heard said a bunch, including on this walk, that isn’t true: color photography lacks emotion. Fuck that. My esteemed colleagues were more or less in agreement, and I was in a too-agreeable mood to summon the proper righteous indignation, but: fuck that. If your photography lacks emotion, you’re not close enough. Get close. Have some Goddamn Feelings about what you’re doing. That will inevitably come through in the work. If you don’t care about what you’re doing, or about the subject at hand, then stop. You need to be entangled with what you’re shooting, you need to be emotionally involved, have some skin in the game. Some things are easy to care about: the sick, the grieving, and the au courant. (A lot of my pictures are really just me shouting “THIS REALLY HAPPENED!!!”). But for, say, the socioeconomic changes in a city, that’s harder to get into, to find the meat of, to see clearly.

I suppose, too, that color is just more laborious. Interpretive work in black and white is so pat these days that you can mostly do it with camera settings. Decide on a look, shoot JPEGs, and be done. Interpretive color depends a great deal on serendipity and correctness after the fact. It’s legitimately more work, and I find myself, when I want to be lazy, just converting to black and white (we are now solidly in territory where I am only speaking for myself, and it is decidedly not lazy for other photographers to make their own choice; some people work very hard at black and white, including my shooting companions).

So, what is true of color: you have to put in the work. There’s no hiding behind artifice.

Anyway, it was really good to get out with a couple of like minded people, shoot some photos, and shoot the shit for a while. Anybody in town wants to do a similar photo walk, hit me up on the usual channels. And thanks to John and John for the company.

I didn’t know this, but appearently the strip clubs in north beach are mad sketchy.It makes me happy that at least some part of SF isn’t yet gentrified.

de young

2017-02-20T02:38:21+00:00

mobile posting again. i might fill this in with descriptions later –matt

LATER: so, coming back the next day to fill in some details… my friend Christa is in town, just to see the sights and hang out with people (if you follow me on the social, you know this). I got sick friday night with some quick-acting flu-like sickness, but was feeling better by saturday evening, and wanted to get some time before the end of her trip.

The art inside the de Young is kind of boring. There are a few galleries worth seeking out, containing both interesting contemporary work and historical works from the 20th century, but the collections from before 1900 focus on things that just don’t do it for me. I should say that my visit was brief and I didn’t have time for the pre-colombian wing. Even with that, the whole collection suffered from this sort of colonial gaze (which I’m sure is a thing, now that I type it out loud). the work I liked the most was the least gaze-y.

No, the best thing about the de Young was the space itself. The sculpture garden is world-class, and the view from the top of the tower is also very impressive. And from the outside, it’s worth seeing in person as well. There’s a reason I take pictures of it almost every time I bike by it.

protest at SFO

2017-01-30T01:53:27+00:00

Usually I don’t do this, but posting from my phone. Peaceful so far, and we arrived to find they were letting those currently held go. Lots of chanting, lots of good signs. Cops, as always. anyway, I figured I should share these ASAP and worry about a long post later. Stay safe out there.

evening and the way home

2017-01-02T05:11:31+00:00

So, last but not least, we went to the beach and hung out in the warm sun with some cheese and crackers and beverages. There, I hiked about 20 minutes to get to the last of the tufa pictures. I know, I should have waited 6 hours, gotten them in golden hour light, but who has time for that?

At that point, I was pretty tired, so we went back to the hotel room for a nap. We may or may not have gotten stuck watching reality TV shows instead of resting. Then, we drove to some hot springs, and I ran around like an idiot getting all the photos with the nice golden light. Neither one of us had remembered to pack a swimsuit, so we were just looking. It looked pretty nice.

We were sort of shuttling back and forth on the same 20 miles of 385 the whole trip. On our way to dinner, I saw the moon over the silhouetted mountains, and got a couple frames off before the scene changed completely. Looking closely at the full-res file, I can tell that I focused on the edge of the hills and not on the moon, but I think it works anyway.

That night, we had one of the weirder dinner experiences of our lives. We went to a restaurant that came recommended, and seemed pretty nice from their menu online. We got there, got seated, and just after our drinks came out, the head (and only) chef quit, and walked out. It took the rest of the staff about half an hour to convince him to come back and finish service for the people that were already seated. The food was actually still pretty good, if memory serves.

The last picture is a ringer; I took it in Yosemite, on the way back. We were going to stop for gummy bears, as the best ones in the world are in Yosemite, but we missed the turn. We did get a nice photo op, though.

around the lake day 1

2017-01-02T03:51:34+00:00

This was the first full day, from the morning. We stopped at the big overlook again, and took more photos from there. Again, I’m a little sad to not have the film from that session, since I seem to remember shooting a lot on it. From there, we went to a spot where you could hike out to the shore, and then along it as well. That proved fairly difficult.

The shore of the lake is a very gradual affair, very flat in places, and with little natural vegetation, so it’s mostly one big mudhole. If you’re careful, you can go pretty far, between hillocks and rocks. I hiked that way for about an hour, making it all the way out to where I took the last two pictures without leaving a footprint. Then, on the way back, just as I was thinking I was back to solid ground, I managed to step into about 6 inches of mud, only one foot, and make a mess of my jeans. The sulphur smell was enough that I left my shoes and jeans outside the hotel room that night.

bridgeport in the morning

2016-12-31T23:58:03+00:00

These are the rest of the pictures from that early morning in Bridgeport; I should have probably spent the first half hour driving out to the lake, but I figured I might as well spend some time in the town, and it ended up being worthwhile. There were no people when I first out at first light, but by the time the sun actually came over the mountains, there were a fair number, and a bakery right on main street had opened, and sold me a ham and cheese pastry.

One last view of the mountains and cows. There’s a feeling of spaciousness in the west, room to spread out. That includes just leaving stuff outside, in the alley. When there’s no limit to the space you have, organization looks different. Sunrise next to the bakery, where I sat and drank my coffee. This bird was awfully friendly; from his roundness, I think he was probably feeding off tourists’ leavings. He didn’t get any of mine, at least. Didn’t notice this place open while we were in town; I don’t think they cater to the 6:30am crowd. The general store where we got champagne and beer and snacks. Full disclosure: this picture has been cropped and perspective-adjusted.

mono lake part one

2016-12-31T07:56:29+00:00

We came into Bridgeport through the pass north of 120, I disremember which road it was. Stopped at an overlook, maybe half way down, that had a good view of the valley we’d been coming down, out of the sierras. Switchbacks the whole way, and I was driving, so didn’t take too many photos (since I’ve nearly killed myself doing that, I only take the risk when I’m alone).

Got into Bridgeport, checked in to the motel there, and then went to see what we could see of the lake. It wasn’t quite golden hour, but the closeness of the mountains meant that the whole lake was in shadow a couple hours before the official sunset. I took a couple pictures with the film camera from a nice overlook, which are still undeveloped, four months later. We proceeded to the visitors’ center for the national monument, which was closed, so I ran around taking photos anyway. Then we lost the light so we went on to dinner and then back to the motel.

The next morning, I woke up early and went for a walk. There’s not much left of Bridgeport. A couple bars, a couple hotels, and cattle ranches all around. And great big beautiful mountains.

There’s a saying, ‘The perfect is the enemy of the done,’ that I’ve been contemplating lately. I have a hard time letting go of stuff that isn’t perfect. Not only that. It’s very hard for me to start something that I can’t see the through line to completion. A friend on facebook brought it up in the context of cleaning, but it applies to blogging all the pictures, too. These are four months old, for crying out loud. They’re pretty good. I think the third image is going to look great printed very large (40x60, for those that care). Anyway, this is me, not trying to get it perfect, but just getting the thing done.

olivia and roger's pizza oven

2016-11-28T07:55:36+00:00

This was just a delightful way to spend an August afternoon. Roger and Olivia had me, Sophia, and some friends of theirs from out of town over just after their tomato harvest for pizzas. Everything except the cheese was fresh made that day, all top notch. Naturally, I ate way too much and got sleepy. Nothing else to be done.

Yeah, I know it’s November, and I’m now something like three months behind. My setup has been fighting me on getting stuff done around here. I’ve been working on several non-photo projects, but really I’m kinda tired of all of that. I’ll probably build another watch, though.

good morning

2016-11-14T18:04:53+00:00

Blogger’s note: I wrote this yesterday morning, and then got distracted looking for a link, and then work really got going. So, A double good morning to you.

My internet (and occasional real-world) friend Robin Sloan has this thing he calls the ‘good morning’ tweet, specifically a picture of breakfast or coffee or whatever. I’m never content with just one photo, of course, so here’s a good-morning photo essay. I was lucky that it was foggy this morning.

I’ve been thinking about the events of last week (indeed, continuing events) and what the hell to do. There’s a fight ahead, to be sure. This is a good start: rules for survival. There were some other guides, things to read, like Solnit’s Hope in the dark. I can’t seem to find the link that led me to that book, but it’s out there. Also: Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt is worth a re-read at this point. Or a first read, if you’re new.

3 unrelated photos

2016-11-03T18:57:13+00:00

A short post without much to say for itself, while I’m waiting for my laundry to dry here in the city. This, to balance out the super long post I made two days ago. I shut off my facebook last night. We’ll see if I turn it back on or not, but this is an indefinite hiatus, brought on by their attempt to push me into Messenger and off the web.

There’s something to be said for hosting my own thoughts; nobody can push me around. Well, anonymous hackers could take down this little server pretty easily, but it’s more about controlling my own words and pictures. There’s no EULA to post these pictures and words to my own server, running free software. No rights grab by the hosting company, and nobody to say that I have to install some shitty chat app except me. The only way to save the open web is to stop playing in other people’s gardens, no matter how nice they are.

Violets, on my walk to work. This was before the move, I’m pretty sure. Ship headed out to sea, from the Bay Bridge. One of those days where you know fall is coming. The pyramid at the Contemporary Jewish Museum.

colorado for cynthia's 70th

2016-11-01T11:02:18+00:00

So, these are a couple months old at this point. It was Cynthia’s 70th birthday. We celebrated over a long weekend in Estes Park, Colorado, staying in a house up on the hill. It was really a beautiful place and my inherited family is really good company. Since this is a photo heavy post, I’m gonna let the captions tell the story

The view from the house we were staying in. Not too shabby. This is the view from our private balcony. The deck, replete with celebrating relatives. From top right: Marilyn, Stan, Sarah, Lisa, Richard, and facing away from camera: Sally, Sophia, and Diana. Marilyn and Richard. That’s not cool-aid in those cups. 70 years strong. And then, later in the night, a herd of elk wandered by. Day 2: Walking to lunch in town. I really didn’t get tired of this view at all. I think this was also day 2. We drove up into the park (Rocky Mountain National Park), and went on a little hike. When the hike starts at 12000 feet, it’s no small feat to get to the top. Getting Down is the easy part, they said. Then we went for another hike, this on blessedly flat and only at about 8000 feet. With a bonus: gorgeous mountain lake. Perfect for photo ops. Our last day we went to New Belgium before heading to the airport, and they had what may be the best custom bicycle ever. Semi-gratuitous plane window picture And a bridge, out over the delta.

four off the top of the queue

2016-11-01T10:13:24+00:00

It’s been a busy month or two. There have now been 3(?) dinner clubs. I’ve taken trips to Colorado, Mono Lake, and now I’m in NYC. I’ve written a big part of a two-day curriculum in Elixir, and I’m teaching it in two weeks. I started building a laptop when mine was down for two weeks. I did another version of the watch, this time with expansion headers instead of any of the other things I’ve been worried about including.

All that to say, I’ve been doing a ton more than I used to, mostly thanks to my use of calendaring, but also due to an unhealthy lack of sleep that I need to work on for the next little bit, if I’m to survive the winter. I may not be on the social media as much. I posted some things yesterday, but largely ignored email and notifications, and it was not a bad way to get through the day. Since facebook is pushing people to messenger to get their messages, I may deactivate mine again soon. Winter hibernation, at least.

The pictures: these are random as hell, but, one of the best things to happen to me recently was reconnecting with a friend from college, Christine (2nd image). We had lunch at Drake’s, downtown Oakland, where they have a pretty good nitro cold brew. I can also confidently report that she is a pretty rad person.

Up next: a bunch of pictures of my in-laws, and also beautiful Colorado.

first dinner club

2016-09-20T04:32:48+00:00

This is a thing we’re doing monthly, just to get together with friends. The menu this time was marinated grilled chicken tacos, and probably something else that I don’t remember because tacos. It was a lovely evening filled with friends.

the next 8 pictures off the queue

2016-09-15T20:17:46+00:00

So, this may be the last of the random posts. I started using my calendar , so I’ve been doing a lot more sort of structured activities; show up, do something, take some pictures, and go home. Usually with drinking. It would be thoroughly impossible to get done all the stuff I’ve done in the past month without it. A toolbox for my time, wherein I get organized and can do more. And ignore it when I need to.

The photos: starting with a lunch walk int and out of North Beach (where we sometimes go for pizza). Hipshot and then not. That last one, the “I want to believe in myself” patch, I want that patch. Then, a woman walking away from the montgomery bart, walking in front of the waste ground that used to be a parking lot. It may be again, some day. Then there are the photos of Adam’s birthday, him and Annie and then Adam and a friend in the second frame. And then a wall of flowers that I found somewhere. Some day, I’ll figure out how to make captions work here, and all of these little descriptions will just go next to the photos. until that day.

street photos, street fair

2016-09-08T16:02:26+00:00

Playing catch up as usual. This is just the next 8 photos off the stack; the ones from the street are from some indeterminate afternoon a month and a half ago, and then there are the photos from the Alameda Art walk. Of course I had to take a photo of the “No Photos” lady. Sometimes I can’t help myself.

Times Square and going home

2016-09-04T05:00:05+00:00

So, the last thing that happened that day, after the museums, after a nice dinner of Thai food, I walked back to my hotel through Times Square. I was tired enough at this point that half of the things that were happening didn’t even register. I shot just sort of habitually, automatically, but I’m glad I did.

Then, I plodded back to the hotel, slept, and spent two days at a hacker conference that didn’t have much to offer me. There was a nice 2-hour interlude at the Met Breuer, to see the Diane Arbus exhibit, which was super interesting. There was a clear delineation between the early and the late work. Like, you could see pieces, themes, motifs that would coalesce in the later work, but it wasn’t there. Then, suddenly, something clicked, and the pictures went from really good to better than anyone else ever. (My pet theory is she got a medium format camera and a light meter, but I have no evidence apart from the aspect ratios and grain structure of the different periods).

After the conference, I took the ferry to Brooklyn to grab brunch with a friend, and then went to the airport to catch my flight. The flight was over clouds until roughly Utah, which was too hazy to really see anything. Then, just as we were circling, there was a break in the clouds, and I could see the whole bay below me, welcoming me home.

Highline and into the night (nyc in many posts 3)

2016-08-31T18:20:06+00:00

Still the same day, still walking. I sort of wandered by the Stonewall, which, if you don’t know, go educate yourself. I’d already had my ration of beer, so I didn’t stop in, but it’s a capsule of what a lot of NYC was like: little pockets of history and deep meaning, layered with new growth.

Then I hit the whitney, which had a good exhibit of photos from a photographer who’s name I’m forgetting. I was pretty tired by this point in the day, but I soldiered on, to the Highline, which was pretty rad. Weird sculptures, buildings, a lemonade stand, somewhere in the middle. I was seriously flagging by the time I got down; luckily there was a coffee shop there, and cold brew saved me. I got in a Lyft and headed to the Design Museum to meet up with my friend Christa, her BF Gabe, and Sandra, who turned out to know a ton of inside info on the artist in the main exhibit from her day job. It was really nice to meet and see them.

I think I have ~2 more of these posts, and then it’s on to newer photos. I’m back to being at least a month behind on photos, but I haven’t been shooting a ton, so maybe I’ll catch up? We’ll see.

nyc in many posts 2

2016-08-15T04:33:11+00:00

This was another walk, the one that separated ICP from the Whitney, which I got to with about an hour and a half before they closed. I didn’t take many pictures inside, pictures of museums all look the same to me. The street, though, the street is always moving, always changing. In New York, there wasn’t just a feeling of newness, but this feeling of many layers of history built up over time. That feeling of deeper history was one of the things I really liked. Another thing I liked: not everybody works in tech. Like, apart from the conference I was at, I didn’t meet a single engineer the whole time. Legit.

Yeah these are just street photos. Yeah a lot of them are shot from the hip. I’ve decided I’m OK with that. There’s just no time to stop and ask on the street. Sometimes I’m also shooting as I bring the camera up to my eye. Sometimes, it’s things that would be gone in the time it takes to bring the camera to your eye. There’s this great video, where Jay Maisel espouses the opposite approach, which I’ve been trying lately with some success. That is: walk slower. No, Stop. Wait. Something will happen. Take the picture that happens in front of the camera, not the one you’re looking for. We’ll see where it takes us.

nyc in many posts

2016-08-08T20:23:12+00:00

You know how Ulysses, the doorstop/book by Joyce, not the poem, you know how it encompasses a single day, but several years worth of adventure were packed into it? I feel like that was my first day in New York City. So much happened, so many pictures.

I got to Manhattan a bit after midnight, a direct flight from SFO. Sidenote: jetblue has the best legroom. Got out of my terminal to see the old TWA terminal under construction/restoration. A little googling revealed it’s been under construction a while, and now the plan is to make it a hotel. At least it’s still there.

So, I get to my hotel, starving, and go down to the street to find some pizza. By some silly stroke of luck, there was a decent slice just around the corner from my hotel. I had quite a bit of pizza while I was there, but not every meal, Mom. This pizza though. All the good things people say about pizza in NYC: all true. I’ve seen the light, or, rather, the crust, the cheese, and to a lesser extent, the sauce and toppings. Pizza consumed, I passed the fuck out. It had already been a long day.

The next day, with nothing to do and free to roam, I decided the first place I should head was the International Center of Photography. Since I had the whole day, and google maps said it was a 45 minute walk, I figured why not walk and shoot. These photos are about half from the night before and half from the walk to ICP.

camping film pics

2016-07-12T03:14:05+00:00

These are the other photos from camping; at the last moment, packing, I decided to take my small boulder of a film camera, the Mamiya RB67. It’s older than I am and weighs 20 lbs with the mirror prism. It’s just on the edge of too heavy to handhold. It’s also all those trite things people say about shooting with larger cameras: slow, contemplative. I found myself seeing pictures, and then grabbing the camera and shooting them.

I originally got this camera because I thought it would be a good platform to build a small scanning back. Then I thought I might as well shoot some film with it, to make sure it worked. As it turns out, you cock the shutter and wind the film with different levers, a thing that I still sometimes forget (which works out for me sometimes, see frame 1). I didn’t even realize I missed the moment of looking at the exposed film, the magic of seeing all those pictures that I took, the ones that worked and the ones that didn’t.

strandbeest at the exploratorium with @donttrythis

2016-07-11T15:58:18+00:00

Strandbeest - n. Walking sculpture of the type invented by Theo Jansen.

I’ve been fascinated by these since I saw the first video of them, way back in 2007 or 2008. I think it was a Kottke link. But, only at a distance, in the way that you laugh at people that take the cinnamon challenge, not like it’s something you would ever see or do firsthand. Well, I finally got to see them firsthand, and I didn’t have to go to the beach.

The show was at the Exploratorium, which is the platonic ideal of a hands-on science museum. They create direct experiences that lead to an intuitive understanding of science. Do the experiment, know how it works. The strandbeest exhibit was no exception, with several hands-on beests to walk back and fourth, and models of the leg to play with and see how it works (stiff sections made of triangles, and moving sections made of odd quadrilaterals).

I went twice, once to see Savage’s work-in-progress beest, and at night, for the unveiling and adults-only evening. There were several other people showing off similar devices; a couple motorized horse-like builds, and a giant Burning Man build out of plate steel. I even got to ride the strandbeest bike, which was jerky and steered like a cow and I desperately want to buy a welder and build one now. It was delightful and weird those are maybe my two favorite qualities.

The highlight of the evening was the unveiling of Savage’s machine. “Like everything I do, it didn’t work until the last minute,” he said. Or something like that; I’m sure the whole thing will be up on tested.com eventually. First, he rode it on the milk crate seat, then, realizing it would hold his weight, he jumped on top and pedaled it from there. There was a nice Q&A period, and then everyone dispersed into the night.

Sidenote: every time I think the color balance is too hard, I should just put it away and look again after getting some sleep. It’s almost always exaustion, and not the color, that’s the problem.

an evening at black butte lake

2016-07-07T04:45:56+00:00

The campsite at Orland Buttes, on Black Butte Lake, is really something special. Bathrooms with showers, running water, flushing toilets, all the modern amenities you may not get at some lesser campsites. The lake itself is about 20 feet below where it historically was, from my super unscientific ‘look at the shoreline for a while’ method. The water is relatively clean, even on a holiday weekend, and all of the other people there were fairly chill.

Most of the weekend, I shot with the Mamiya RB67, a mammoth film camera that’s older than I am. I seem to have gotten the hang of shooting with it. We’ll see when I pick up the exposed film on Friday. But the last evening, after we’d gone back to camp and had a colossal dinner, we ran back over to the beach (really just a lot of clay, no sand) to watch the sunset. That’s when I took most of these photos, excepting the first and last. It was the first time in quite a long time that I’ve felt that good taking pictures.

The image of the buttes was from the road on the way to the beach at sunset, and the stars were a couple hours after, propping my camera up on the ground with my binoculars. The skies at night were just incredible. I woke up at 4am on the first night, and after my trip to the bushes was done, I’m pretty sure I could see Andromeda without binoculars. Might be worth a winter trip, when the haze will be lower and not as hot during the day.

a traffic jam caused by google

2016-07-06T02:05:44+00:00

So, on the way to camping, Sophie and I came upon a large traffic snare. Instead of just sitting there in the jam, google maps directed us to take some side roads, a thing that it’s done in the past when I’ve hit this sort of traffic. The detours are usually interesting, at least, a break from the monotony of the interstate.

Anyway, we get off of I-5 and onto some side road, then the access road, then another side road, then through a neighborhood, in a shortcut that no sane person would ever attempt. After all that, we hit a two lane county road that was to take us back to the highway, where I tweeted: “In a traffic jam on a secondary road caused by Google maps. AMA” A bunch of other people, it seemed, had gmaps on in the car to get them north. At this one crossroads, we all hit the same stop sign. Even with that, we all saved 20 minutes over the traffic jam.

Which didn’t really mean anything, by the time we got to our campsite. We still had hours of daylight left. Easiest time setting up I’ve had in a while, since most of the time we leave after work, get stuck in traffic, and get to where we’re going sometime between 10pm and midnight. We even had time to cook a nice dinner.

annie and adam's new digs

2016-07-05T20:53:57+00:00

This was a sort of unintentional party. We were supposed to be getting ready to go camping, but decided to go out for dinner with a bunch of folks, including Annie and Adam who’ve just moved into a new place. Then we decided another round sounded good. Then another, and then we decided we should all go back to the new place and check it out, with a stop at 7/11 for beer and supplies (I had a random gummy bear craving, so sue me).

The place is awesome. Nice big kitchen, long living room with north facing windows (north light windows are my fav), and even an office. Sweet little place.

yesterday's photos

2016-06-09T23:17:54+00:00

So yesterday I finally figured out what the motor drive was for: it’s for getting more pictures, faster than your finger can go. I know some of these are similar, and that I should probably cut a few, but that takes time that I don’t have. I know I should point the camera a bit lower, looking at all of these. Anyway, I just wanted to get up a post, so people know that I’m not dead and the blog is still active. Still shooting.

I may try to do this every day, just pull the card from the camera and upload anything good. The through line, the narrative of these photos is pretty raw, and won’t make a ton of sense. I feel like if a larger theme emerges it’s going to happen after the blogging, when I’m printing in six months, or looking back on this in five years. (Also god I’ve had this blog in some form for going on 8 years? I blame @busblog).

driving through the sierras

2016-03-10T17:44:10+00:00

Road trippin’. Hard to get started, although my habit of going out the night before may be to blame. Roughly ten hours on the road, eight in a hotel bed, and I’m still tired. At least tonight we’re sleeping somewhere without a checkout time.

Working, over on the other blog, on documenting some of the stuff I’ve been doing in my spare time. Maybe worth checking out, if you’re into that kind of thing.

3rd st closure

2016-03-03T17:08:11+00:00

Last night, I was walking down third to get to Garaje. Normally I wouldn’t go that far for dinner, but I had time to kill. I got to mission and third to find third completely blocked, including the sidewalk. The police seemed to have their hands full dealing with irate conference goers and drunk people (but I repeat myself), so I didn’t ask them what was going on. I went around, New Montgomery to Howard. I walked down a mostly empty third street sidewalk, and found that the cops were turning people back at Folsom too. The whole street empty, traffic backed up on third from being redirected.

I like this format; shoot a little essay between places, see something interesting, post it mostly from my phone. I’m not going after great truth or justice like I thought journalism should be when I was in school. I’m just looking at here and now, and seeing what I see.

behind the new sfmoma

2016-03-02T02:15:12+00:00

somewhere between tresspass and wandering, just waiting for my ride. i’m super excited for this thing to finally open, may 4th (so the security gaurd told me). i’ve had a membership the whole time we’ve lived here, even while it was closed for this expansion. people who think the new building isn’t gorgeous: you haven’t looked at it.

a small shift in perspective

2016-02-22T06:43:01+00:00

This is a set of photos that I shot the other day, after having lunch with sophia. The first photo is just something I shot on the way, and quite liked. The second two I shot after, walking on that broad area above the falls at Buena Vista gardens. I thought to myself, “What a nice change in perspective,” and followed that with trying to think of how to change perspectives when I was walking down the street? I remembered the flippy screen on my camera did live view and I could use it as a waist level finder. It worked surprisingly well. Not exactly like having a waist level groundglass, more like a sport finder, where you know mostly where the camera is pointed, and what’s in the frame.

The first thing that it did was it allowed me to get closer to people. I don’t know why, but I’m pretty bashful when taking random people’s pictures. I super don’t want to get in someone’s face with the camera. When I know people, it’s somewhat different, but on the street, it’s a problem. If you know anything about photography, you know that the first thing is to get closer to your subjects, to fill the frame. Not to say that there is nothing but subject in the frame, but that the entire frame is used for the subject. I don’t know that I’ve been perfectly effective at that here, but it’s a start. I may try a wider lens with this technique.

Nothing to do with the rest, I just liked this one.

monterrey bay aquarium

2016-01-31T01:26:43+00:00

These photos are from today! I’m trying this new thing where I blog from my phone. So if this looks weird, that’s why. We’re in a bar having a beer and resting our feet. Enjoy the photos!

goruck gr1 is a bad bag

2016-01-20T06:53:28+00:00

My EDC, for illustration, and because I can. Is it so much to ask of a bag to hold this stuff?

So, a couple weeks ago, a friend was looking for backpack recommendations. I told him about a company I’d heard good things about, GoRuck. One of my former bosses had one, and it looked really substantial. That led me to their web site, and I noticed they were having a sale on the GR1 in red, which is a pretty good looking bag. They talk the talk, too. The founder/CEO is ex-special forces, talking about toughness and blah blah blah. I ignored the blah blah blah, since the guy who recommended them was on the level, and picked one up.

It came, ant he first thing I noticed about it was that the zipper wasn’t as smooth as it was supposed to be. They brag about the laptop zipper being open/closed 100 times to look for snags, but I guess the main compartment didn’t get that treatment even once. The second thing that stood out about this bag: it has a lot of seams. The seams are the most common failure point, so the more there are, the more likely there will be a failure. Thirdly: the straps that came on it were too short for me. I’m 6’2” and broad shouldered, so this may not be entirely their fault, but do they never wear winter coats?

I was willing to forgive all that and give it a try, anyway. The straps aren’t molded, so they kind of feel like they’re falling off all the time, and there’s no chest strap, either. That may improve with break-in, but it’s not leather, so there’s not a ton of change you can expect to see. I took my seam ripper to the flag velcro, because I don’t like brands, and that branding is particularly strong in the wrong way.

So, I wore it for about two weeks, including weekends. I wanted to see if it could really be an every day bag. It was too big, really, for the weekend, but fine on the bart and walk to work. When there was a laptop in the compartment, it rode well, as did my camera in the bottom, and the load of groceries I stuck in it. I cut 6” off the straps and sewed on another foot of webbing I had lying around, and that was pretty well solved.

A word about good bag design: Good bags usually have two layers, for many reasons. The outer can be tough, and the inside softer, and the added layers mean that any small hole or tear in one doesn’t mean you’ll automatically lose things. Also, the inner liner is usually where good bags do some water proofing. The Rickshaw I’m switching back to is a prime example. It’s a nylon herringbone with scotchlite stripes out, and ripstop sailcloth in.

The GR1 does not have a liner, so there’s only a single layer of cloth between your stuff and the elements. And while two layers of cordura is usually enough to keep out the rain, one is not. Today, it was raining steadily during my commute. Not, I should say, a torrential downpour, but wet enough that my pants were soaked but the time I reached BART. Not a hard slog through jungles or fording a river or crawling through mud like they hint you can do with their bag. Just a walk to the train, 20 minutes in steady rain. I got to work, and the things inside the bag were wet. When I got home, the things were wetter, probably from a puddle somewhere.

So, that tears it. I got mad, wrote this review, and now I’m not mad. Hopefully someone will read this and avoid wasting the money. In summary: construction is good but overly complex, and likely to fail. Bag lacks basic ergonomic features that would make it much more wearable; design is too boxy, ill fitting. Not water resistant. Most of the stuff they brag about is marketing bullshit.

In case you were worried about my stuff that got a bit wet: most of it is fairly water resistant, and there were some clothes in the bag that absorbed most of the moisture.

chinatown + northbeach walk

2016-01-15T21:47:49+00:00

I work about ten minutes’ walk from columbus av., which forms a border between the two neighborhoods. Lunchtime, friday, I decided to go on a bit of a walk, take some pictures. It’s a rich vein, one of those places you could make a decent essay just walking around, taking in surface impressions for a couple weeks. There’s a whole project to be done just on the tourists, but I’m not sure I have the fortitude to be around them for that long. On the other hand, they’re fair game.

It’s taken me a while to realize how close I am to the heart of the city here. It’s not a specific location, but an idea. The great confusion that happens on the borders of the different districts (at least where that border isn’t a freeway dead zone). The long evolution of local places and spaces. There’s a subject for you.

kareem's onesie party

2016-01-04T07:03:51+00:00

What can I say? I’m really tardy getting these photos up, but it was such a good time I have to share. They know how to throw a good party.

mountains and plains, coming into denver

2016-01-02T21:56:51+00:00

I flew home to see my folks just after christmas. There was a cheap flight I found at the last minute, probably a glitch, but it went through, so I went. They were happy to see me and I wished I’d had more time to spend with them, but there’s never enough time.

On the way out, since I’d gotten up at 2:30am to get to the airport, I fell asleep in my seat, and woke up about 45 minutes before landing. I looked out the window, and before my eyes adjusted, I thought I was looking at some great desert, an infinity of dunes stretched out before me. The light was orange with the dawn, and everything was covered in snow. As the sleep fog in my head cleared, I realized what I was looking at, and began to photograph. The mountains are breathtaking this time of year, especially from altitude.

The plains, to the east, are harsher, even as they are flat and regular. There’s nothing to hold on to out there; just a few farm buildings and Jefferson grid roads. Cold white and not much else. I was glad that both airplanes boarded from a jetway, and not a walk across the tarmac.

monkey forest and points north

2015-12-21T08:42:18+00:00

So this was our last day doing stuff in Ubud. The Ubud Monkey forest is half cultural preserve and half wildlife preserve, although its success at either seems dubious. It is good at extracting money from tourists, though. I sound really cynical, but in reality, it was a pretty good experience, wandering through a forest with ancient temples; the swarms of monkeys were funny, and left us alone entirely. There were warnings not to take food in, so we were careful not to.

Luckily, just outside the northern entrance, there were many shops where refreshments were available. I say ‘northern,’ but it could just as easily be the western or southern edge of the preserve. One of the problems of traveling to far flung corners of the world is that your sense of direction goes all wonky, and you have to rely on maps and signs a lot more.

Trying something a little new here, we’ll see if it works. There should be a twitter card and custom facebook image when these post. We’ll see! Isn’t technology fun?

in defense of prime lenses

2015-12-15T07:19:46+00:00

note: this started out as a lens review, and there was a paragraph in the middle that wanted to be a whole essay on why fixed focal length lenses are better, artistically, than zooms. So I let it be that, and cut out the review parts. Sharpness is a bourgeois concept, and we will not speak of it further.

I alluded to this in my last post, but I’m trying to be less fussy about composition. I’m not doing a typography or a field guide, and my subjects are always moving. I must get closer, make suggestions, and don’t show the whole thing. It calls for simplification in technique, and an increase in creativity. I’ve always seen the two somewhat in opposition, since my mind has limited, feeble resources. Zoom lenses works against this of-the-moment aesthetic.

A photograph will never be perfect on purpose. Maybe some photographs, of static subjects, shot with deliberation and care, will be great. Ansel certainly thought so. Weston too. But: their subjects are not my subjects, and out in the world where things are not fixed, you have to be ready to push the button when the moment is right. It’s a matter of a tenth of a second, much of the time. It reminds me of a description of swordfighting; if you try to think, it’s too late; it’s all feeling and intuition. One less thing to fiddle with is one more chance for serendipity to enter the field.

The physical restriction of a fixed focal length lens actually grants a degree of creative freedom. If you can select a range of options, you’ll do the easiest thing. Pick the cleanest, simplest composition. Try to place the borders of the frame clear of the edges, include the whole subject, and follow all those other neat little rules they tell you in silly books that pretend art has rules. When there’s a restriction of form, confined to one focal length, you have to arrange what’s in the frame by moving and waiting for the moment. You’re forced to see for yourself, and look outside the lines.

There’s also the reduced cognitive load for not having to pick a focal length; you put the camera to your eye, frame, and shoot. Cognitive load is the mental strain of whatever you’re thinking about, and you only have so much of it in a day, and only so much bandwidth at any given time. So, to juggle shutter speed, aperture, focus, ISO, focal length, composition, and timing, all at once, is really quite difficult. Much of that you can get away with setting once in a while, but it has to be part of your thinking somewhere, or the photos don’t work. So: if you can remove one of those questions, suddenly you have increased capacity for the others.

Zooms are not without use, to be sure. A ton of working photographers do a ton of good work with zooms, and I’ve shot many pictures I really like with them as well. But there’s another way. If you’re not doing the work you think you should be doing, try one out.

a breakthrough in the construction work

2015-12-15T06:54:38+00:00

So, onto the breakthrough, the big idea, what have you: I realized I’ve been showing too much with the construction pictures. I had this impulse to get it all in, to show the whole, giant job site, as if that was the way to convey the scale of it. Unfortunately, none of those pictures really worked. There was something missing, and the compositions were never good enough. Then, last week, I was looking at Peter Turnley’s book on paris, French Kiss, and realized that the compositions shouldn’t be perfect, and that you can’t show everything. You have to cut some of it out.

So, today, on the way home, I walked to the bus (moderately foolish, what with my leg still recovering, but I managed). I went past the construction that I like the best, and a subject that had been confounding me for weeks, before my accident. Suddenly, I was able to see it, and made some good pictures.

I’ve long believed that in film, it’s better to suggest than to show; the viewer’s imagination is better at pushing its own buttons, the ones for fear and awe and the sublime. I haven’t, up till now, figured out that that idea applies equally to my own work. I feel dumb for not realizing it sooner, but also relieved: there is still time to make some pictures.

Also: I’ve been shooting with the new lens and I have to say I really like it. Good depth of field in daylight, and just beautifully sharp. I didn’t know what I was missing.

ubud continued

2015-12-10T06:11:47+00:00

So, second day in Ubud, we did considerably more walking. Markets, some temples, lots of tourists. The first three pictures are what most of the town was like. Stores selling things to tourists. There were some shops on the outside of town that sold statuary and furniture, but I’m not convinced those weren’t also for export. We walked, we drank beer, we walked some more. Didn’t buy anything but food and potables (potent and otherwise).

Despite all that, there were glimpses of real beauty; the way the statues were all dressed, the little offerings left out everywhere, the old buildings poking through and around the new. The fifty foot high god with bow and arrow at the big crossroads in town was lit at night, a beacon. I’m not sure I’d seen a lotus in bloom before. On balance, a good day. Also, I believe this was also the day I discovered Pocari Sweat, which is a Gatorade analogue. It only comes in one flavor, but it’s not bad. Especially when you’ve been walking for a bazillion hours.

(Sorry to folks on slow connections, but I really didn’t want to edit these down any further.)

the ongoing construction project (and a sunset)

2015-12-07T08:01:29+00:00

I think I’ve mentioned it here before a couple times. I’m doing a series of pictures of the construction site around the new transbay terminal. I also thought I should break up the monotony of beautiful island photos. The mood and the scene really has something working there, but I think it’ll fall flat unless I get more photos of the people doing the work. The real meat of photographic legwork is getting access and gaining trust. That and schlepping gear. I’ve got a lot of that still to do.

bali part 3

2015-12-05T08:10:00+00:00

Like I said in the last post, our second destination in Bali was the town of Ubud. We picked an AirBnB based on reviews and price, and hoped for the best. The first picture is the access to the house; it was down a trail through the rice fields outside of town. I knew rice was a grass, but I’d never seen it up close. When it’s not ready for harvest, it looks like any other grass (botanists, please don’t correct me; I don’t care). So, a few hundred yards from the road, and a little hard to find. That said, once there out hosts were just great. We dropped our things and headed into town for lunch.

The town, at least at first glance, seemed entirely given over to the tourist trade. I’ve been places that were in the early stages of that transformation, with a few more art galleries and hotels than seems strictly necessisary. Ubud was several stages more advanced. The early starters in the area, yoga studios, hippie cafes, and the like, had become deeply entrenched institutions, and all of the shops except the grocery store were for tourists only. I mean, there were no signs that said so, but the prices and the people in them said so. The endless touts trying to sell a taxi ride also said so.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. That day, we just went and had lunch and walked around a little. Drank beers back at the room. Talked to the other guests, and tried to plan our next day. There were a bunch of temples, and some markets that sounded interesting. With that vague outline of a plan in place, we went to bed.

bali part 2, or last day of luxury

2015-11-30T20:55:02+00:00

So this was our last day in the nice spa that Sophie booked us; a really beautiful spot that I was just aching to get out of. It’s one thing to be pampered for a couple days, but completely another to tarry too long. Our last full day we got some very nice massages, ate fried food made to satisfy australians, and rested on the beach. Most of the jet lag had worn off, except that we were still waking up with the sunrise. Afternoon naps did help, though. We never did find out the story of that ship that was run aground, maybe half a mile out to sea, but I seem to see ships like that a lot; there was one in mexico, as well.

The next morning, we packed all our worldly goods into our tiny luggage and hired a driver to take us to Ubud, a small town in the interior of the island, known for its artists, at least according to our guidebook. When we got there, it was something of a different story, but that’s another post.

ratatat in SF

2015-11-30T06:52:24+00:00

So, in my last post I was complaining about having too much to do. I should have maybe been more careful what I wished for. I had a bit of an accident; I fractured my tibial plateau, for those at home that can’t read an MRI. I was practicing for my DMV exam on my motorcycle and bumped the throttle; next thing I knew I was in the bushes. I’d love to continue learning to ride when I’m healed, but really, I have too many other things going at once to give riding the attention it needs not to kill me.

Other things have happened to shorten the list of projects: I finished the writing machine, which I dubbed the Mosquito Cannon (as in ‘Don’t use a cannon to kill a mosquito’), as it is greatly over engineered for what it does. It’s kind of wonderful for just that reason, though. I assembled v4.5 of the watch, and it’s probably the last version I’ll do, unless something drastic happens. I’ve achieved my goals there; time to move on.

That leaves just a few things on my dance card. Photo work, including looking for a printer. The novel in progress, which I may start to serialize. Learning elixir for fun and profit. Getting my leg back up to full strength, as soon as the doc clears me to use it again. And last but not least, getting the new casa organized so we can have folks over. That’s probably a month’s work outside of work. Hopefully some time for blogging in there somewhere.

These photos are from some time before Bali; Fletcher asked me if I wanted to go to this show last minute, and I was free, so I went. That little sony kills it when you pay attention to exposure and keep it inside the dynamic range it gives you. It’s maybe as good as my D700 was in decent light, and no slouch in low light either. I also used it for the Florence and the Machine photos in an earlier post, but those were processed on my phone, so not really a great example, technically. Anyone who cares about highlight rendering should know that dcraw is poor for this camera, at least as of this writing. Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw seem a lot better.

apcera halloween

2015-11-01T07:07:34+00:00

Technically, this was Friday before halloween, but it was a good time to party. They had a costume contest, and good food, sweets. Then those of us that live in the east bay headed over to Cato’s for some beers and late dinner. 7-10 of us crowded around a table talking and drinking and eating tatchos (natchos, but tater tots instead of chips). Good times.

I still have photos from Bali that I need to post, and some other stuff cooking. There are SO MANY THINGS I’m working on right now it’s not even funny. There’s the writing machine, there’s v4.whatever of the watch, there’s the novel in progress, there’s the photos I’m always taking, there’s work, there’s the motorcycle and probably half a dozen things I’m forgetting because those are the five in the forefront of my mind.

Thinking about getting a photo printer, so I can make some prints again. I signed up for a photo workshop, and I need to have a small portfolio to take to that. I can’t exactly hand the guy my tablet and say “Here’s my blog.” I may farm out the printing for that to somewhere in NY. Some of the black and white work from recent months, maybe. Have to decide soon. Like tomorrow, probably. Tempting to just take a copy of Cycle, but that was 6 years ago now (I can’t believe the last time I did a photo book was 6 years ago). Maybe I’ll do another book in that really gritty cheap photocopied style again. That was fun.

florence and the machine

2015-10-23T06:41:10+00:00

Just went to this concert, and it was a lot of fun. I tried to post these from the phone, but ran into some odd ssh issues that I still can’t figure out. Could be the beer. Anyway, photos:

cruise to st francis

2015-10-19T06:38:46+00:00

So, earlier today, I was at something of a loose end as to what to do with myself, and I found out our friends Peggy and cris were going to go on a little cruise. At first it was going to be to Tiburon, but when we got to the boat, it seemed a bit choppy for that crossing, so we went to the St. Francis Yacht club instead. It’s a nice place.

Of course, the bay was putting on a show for use as well. The clouds were great. The city was beautiful. The light was good going out and even better coming back. I’m really super glad I went. Thanks to Chris and Peggy for having me!

up kearny st

2015-10-10T00:53:12+00:00

I was going to talk about something smart here, but I used up all my smarts this week. I tackled a huge problem at work, and in doing so became the local expert on that thing. I built a keyboard and a Tv-b-Gone. I started thinking about laptop enclosures and hinges and how to fabricate them from what I have on hand, plus some hardware (springs and bolts!).

I like this part of the city, and that my office is now in the middle of it is a bonus. I can just take a walk on lunch and take it in. Maybe next post I’ll have something to say about all this street/urban landscape I’ve been shooting.

a very long day

2015-09-05T22:48:36+00:00

Thursday was a very long day. 24 hours on our personal clocks, plus we lost a day to the international date line. Plus sleep on planes, plus airplane food. Jet lag hasn’t been too bad. The beach is wonderful, and the ocean is warm.

street from last week

2015-09-01T19:25:32+00:00

I know, it’s tuesday already. I got these ready to post yesterday, but when I got home I had to start getting ready for Bali, which is in 2 days. 2! Days! Super stoked. I love getting on a plane and going somewhere I’ve never been. There’s always this really nice moment of getting completely lost. It’s the moment I’m most at home.

some scenic local pictures

2015-08-28T07:14:21+00:00

These were mostly last sunday, except the last one, which was saturday. A lovely evening hanging out on the roof deck with our neighbors from down the hall. The street picture, I just had to put up somewhere. The neighbors, though: one is a painter, and the other makes jewelry, of the fine art variety, in all different sorts of metals. Cool folks, both of them.

bleacher company picnic

2015-08-26T23:33:10+00:00

I know, I've been here a week and a half, and they're having the company picnic already? I'm pretty lucky like that. The week I joind GoPro, for example, they had their IPO and a giant party, as well. Anyway, these are my new coworkers.

weekend in tahoe

2015-08-25T02:23:59+00:00

The title says weekend, but really it was more like one long day. I stayed at work till a reasonable time and then got on the BART. I don't remember why, but I couldn't take off that afternoon (it may have been before I knew I was changing jobs, and had extra PTO). In any case, Sophie, her mother, and her mom's friend Sally went on ahead in their tiny Yaris, and I drove the Land Rover by myself, across the central valley and into the mountains. We spent that evening on the patio of our AirBnB, drinking wine and or beer. The next morning, we went to Ernie's Cafe, something of a local institution. Then we drove around the lake all day. That night, I cooked french fries, and Sophia cooked steaks. For desert, we had wine and conversation. There may have even been a nap in there. This last weekend, I rode a motorcycle for the fist time. It was a range day for the motorcycle safety class I'm taking. Man, that's a lot of fun. The class starts with the very basics; how to safely start the bike, walk the bike across the range under power in first, feathering the clutch, then short little jumps, then longer jumps, then around the oval; every exercise built on everything I'd learned so far, and by the end of the day I felt pretty good, doing the countersteering exercise. I need to work on looking through the corners, and braking with both brakes. And throttle control. Really, everything. There's definitely something to motorcycle riding though, beyond the risk involved. Something about the coordination of all the things you have to do-- concentrate on any one and before you know it you've messed up somehow. But you focus on none of them, and everything just flows. I'm sure after a bit more parctice, all of that will be second nature and not require Zen concentration. Like driving was at first, so many things to manage. Anything like that is bound to seem complex. Then your left foot learns where neutral is, and your right hand learns where the throttle really kicks in, and the left hand learns how to find the friction zone. Gearheads talk about becoming one with the machine... I thought it was bullshit, but it's definitely a thing I've felt on my bicycle, so it seems natural on a motorcycle too. Also, I keep thinking about riding into the mountains, into the night.

last from santa fe

2015-08-19T16:43:45+00:00

Sinced I got these off the camera yesterday, figured I could post them today. It was a good trip, filled with memories and delicious burritos from The Pantry. We were staying out towards Cerillos, on a friend of a friend's family vacation home. A really beautiful spot. The storms coming in over the valley at sunset were amazing. I was a little suprised at how big Cerillos has gotten. Boom town, maybe from the movie business that came through, maybe because of the light rail between SF and ABQ. I'm not sure, but it seemed like there were a few too many kitch stores for the long run. It'll be interesting to see what happens with that little place, next time I visit. Hopefully it won't take 7 years next time.

new job new commute

2015-08-18T17:10:54+00:00

So, in case you haven't heard, I started a new job this week, at "Bleacher Report":http://bleacherreport.com . New job, new commute. Shiny new Macbook Pro. Anyway, I wanted to put up some photos from this morning, and the one at the end from last night, walking to the apple store to get a padded sleeve for the new rig. The sony is mostly dead, I need to see about getting it repaired. That siad, it has emboldened me to get out shooting more with the Nikon. And to post more, because as Sophie keeps telling me, people like pictures.

tinsley island

2015-08-12T22:21:01+00:00

This was what, like 3, 4 weeks ago now? something like that. A really enjoyable couple days out on the California delta. I was just getting used to the sony at that point. Good camera, fast, does OK in low light. It's not terribly durable; my frame of reference is a professional DSLR like the D750 I have, though. I think it might just be in that category of camera that everyone else has, that needs to be in a padded case when it's not in use. I've dented a couple corners and filled it with sunscreen, destroying the flippy LCD. I've removed it, making the camera a little slimmer, but I wish it'd been a little more durable to begin with. It's an excellent carry-around camera, and amazing for street shooting. The experimental post I made the other day was all shot with it. It's small, silent, and produces really good results in decent light. So, even if this one bites it, I may buy another just like it. And a pouch to protect it.

haight and a sign in civic center

2015-08-07T03:57:13+00:00

Today was great; I got to meet a bunch of cool hardware folks (and "one novelist":http://robinsloan.com) at "@genmon's":http://interconnected.org/home/ hardware-ish coffee. Lots of good ideas flying around, and everybody seemed to like the "watch":http://ourglass.watch . Some other fellows had an interesting museum-y thing, and another guy had a bunch of little gadgets he'd made based on the electric imp. I'll update this with a link to Matt's post when he puts it up, with actual names. I was too busy sort of absorbing all the good ideas to really take it in. But: Look at that photo of Tom. Sunburnt as hell and not a single fuck given.

market street mini-essay

2015-08-06T01:50:53+00:00

Ah, market street north of third: the real heart of the city, beating with activity. I love this part of town the most; it's the most inhospitible to sanity but also the most alive place in the whole city. You get a sense of the scale of the place here, like no other. This is somewhat experimental, as I edited the photos on my phone. I may hate it and delete it later.

evenings and cats

2015-08-05T06:42:56+00:00

These are more or less random, just things that happened. No narrative, no metanarrative. They're all with the new camera, a Sony R100v4. It's really really good for a pocket camera. Like, way better than my first couple dslrs, in every way but maybe durability. It's already got quite a few dings. We'll see.

the week of magma conf

2015-08-02T06:20:47+00:00

I know I should break this into several posts or whatever, but I really don't have the time or patience. I also feel a little bad about these photos, in that I hung out with a ton more people than are pictured here, and none of them are in any of my pictures, because I was kinda busy getting to know them and talking about exciting stuff that wasn't photography. Also, it's hard to carry an SLR in swim shorts. I was going to name a bunch of names here, but I'd be sure to miss someone and I don't want to do that. So: If I talked to you, it's safe to assume that I valued that interaction. Everyone there was pretty rad, from the organizers to the other speakers to the attendees. Things that happened, in no particular order: I got lost (several times). I broke my watch, then broke the programmer, then gave my talk anyway. We walked to a black sand beach over the hill, and went in the water untill the jellyfish came. Swimming in safer waters. Swimming in a pool, most days; afternoon naps. Many, many good ideas were floated, and some of them maybe even ran with (Use rust! build hardware! Change the future, and do what you can to include everyone in it!) Midnight tacos were had. I spoke to a room of ~100 people about how to build their own smart watch. I sat all day at the airport, because I got the cheapest ticket and then couldn't change it. I was chased out of the Guadelajara airport by mosquitos, only to return hours later, and finally get home. That about covers it.

lakes in the eastern sierra

2015-07-06T05:36:15+00:00

There's an idea that's been rattling around all day today: The photograph as anecdote. That is to say, they're not really evidence, but just a thing someone saw one time. It dovetails nicely with things I think/believe about truth, objectivity and the possibility that they don't exist in photography. "A photograph is neither true, nor false, just as a sentence is neither red nor blue." A smartass will go print a red/blue text on a color printer, but you get the point: Photographs are not vehicles for truth. They are vehicles for telling stories. The story here: I got on a plane bound for Santa Fe from SFO. I tried to sleep for the first twenty minutes or so of the flight, then resigned myself to being awake, and started looking out the window. I've always been addicted to these views, snapping pictures whenever I can see anything at all. This time, it was a bit shocking. Tiny mountain lakes, no snow, and every reservoir has at least a bathtub ring, some that look so wide and have been there so long it's getting hard to distinguish them from the landscape. All visible from 27,000ft. We landed, and as you could maybe tell from the previous post, Santa Fe has been good. But these pictures need to get out there. maybe next I'll post my stuff from pride, something upbeat. We'll see.

santa fe again

2015-07-05T15:36:02+00:00

In Santa Fe again. A lot of memories here, and a lot of things that have changed since I was here last, some seven or eight years ago. It's still an amazing place. I keep getting these flashes of memory as we drive by places; the car dealership one of my friends got arrested in front of, supposedly because he was hitting all the cars as he walked by, going home from the bar. Burrito Spot and all those times after last call. Breakfast at the Pantry. Wandering past roads I used to live down. I dont know if this is supposed to make me feel old or what, but I do. Drink one for the things that are gone, and enjoy what's here, that's all I can do. Yes, these are photos from last night. No, this does not mean I'm abandoning five months of photos. I'm on the road, and the majority of those photos are at home. Felt like blogging these.

happy hour on into friday night

2015-07-02T07:43:39+00:00

I looked at the date on these, and realized I'm 5 months behind posting photos. It occurs to me at this point that maybe I need an easier way post them? Anyway, yeah. Some Friday night happy hour that stretched late, spanned a couple parties, bars, and an apartment. Mostly notable for the walking and the drinking.

epic retro time

2015-07-01T06:40:32+00:00

This wasn't the last LK2 retro, but it kind of feels like it was. It's certainly the most memorable. We walked all the way to the Biergarten in Hayes Valley, talked about wat was going on, drank beer and ate pretzels. Somewhere, someone has a timelapse taken from the fence of the whole thing. (This has been another Matt Mills zen story, with no real point.)

daily surroundings

2015-06-01T07:18:39+00:00

These are just more semi-random street pictures. The first two are probabably destined to be part of the ongoing "MacArthur" project, should it ever take more than a vague form. The rest are from the neighborhood around the office. I'm guilty of taking #4 something like 50% of the time I walk on that side of the road, although they're all somewhat different, due to foreground, lighting, composition, etc. I've been thinking a lot about motivation. How do I keep going? So far, it's been enough to keep pushing the button and putting the photos up here. There's some external validation, when I post photos of people and they like them, that helps a lot. But really, I don't know. It's an open question.

photos from the mission

2015-05-20T07:32:39+00:00

The Mission is still my favorite neighborhood in SF. Noe Valley is where the hipsters have gone, but the mission still has some grit and dirt. Some non-white non-tech people, people not like me. Bars you could get stabbed in, cash only. Several of the world's best burrito joints. Yeah, what's not to like?.

5 off the queue

2015-05-18T06:21:53+00:00

Yes, I'm alive. The blog is not yet dead, even though I see many other bloggers hanging up their keyboards. I could use a different, slicker, easier platform. I could just stick all my photos up on flicker. But then where would I ramble on aimlessly? Anyway, here are the first five photos out of my quick collection. They're not related, except they were shot in this order, within a couple days of each other.

on the shore of lake tahoe

2015-04-26T18:26:42+00:00

Which isn't where I remember it, the last time I was here. Seems it's gone about 30 yards further in. The weather while we were there was grey and cold and rainy, but not enough. It should have snowed the whole time. Stupid Climate Change.

a very long bus ride to Tahoe

2015-04-24T22:31:50+00:00

In february, Soph's company had their annual offsite in Tahoe. The whole company and their families go for a weekend of fun. There's skiing, snowboarding, spas, food, drinking, the whole bit. So, on friday, the weekend of, we all got on a big bus loaded down with a lot of booze and a lot of nerds, and off we went. If you've been on this kind of bus trip (and who hasn't?), you know they're always chronically late, beset by delays, and can be fairly miserable. This was at least well-organized, and well stocked with booze. We set off at the appointed time for what should have been a four hour drive. We immediately hit traffic on the Bay Bridge. Fairly smooth sailing from there to Sacramento or so, with just a case of motion sickness. Then, we started getting into the mountains and the traffic started getting worse. Since it was a bus full of nerds, we all had google maps out the whole way and knew the delay was coming. We drank whiskey and waited, and then, past one checkpoint, we tried to get some guys who were putting on chains for $20 to put them on the bus, and nobody would. So, some of the passengers ended up helping the driver get the chains on to get past the second checkpoint. This all added about 2 hours, plus the stop-and-go traffic the whole time. We were supposed to be there by dinner time; it ended up being around 9:30. We were on the bus to Tahoe for something like 7 hours. We ran out of whiskey, beer and toilet paper (not in that order). We ran out of snackfood. The bus didn't break down, though, and we made it over the pass. Finally. And the hotel was gorgeous.

all the time

2015-04-23T22:09:43+00:00

Every day. Take the camera out, take some pictures. Nobody pays me. There's no gallery. There's just a blog. A blog with typos. and poor grammar. Written whenever I'm exhausted, published when I'm tired of re-writing my thoughts. Some days I'm tired. Some days I only take one or two pictures. Others, I shoot hundreds. The odds of getting a good picture are only slightyly improved on the days with hundreds. It's more about putting in the work. If I take the time to look carefully, see what's in front of the camera, that matters more than the frames exposed. I look, I get closer to whatever it was I wanted to shoot. Put the files away on a hard drive for a month, two, to fogret the feeling of tripping the shutter. Editing is hard; editing with emotion is a lot harder. When I look, finally, I'm often surprised by how good the photos are; I'm one of those people who procrastinates because I think I'll be dissapointed. These photos are from days like that. Where I don't have project or a direction, but I'm moving in the direction if my intuition. Putting in the work. Skill not talent, someting you have to do to keep it up. Practice pushing the button, keep doing it until I can't any more.

Work in Progress: MacArthur BART

2015-04-13T06:23:59+00:00

There are many BART stations, but this is the one that I pass through the most. It's also fiarly interesting; a good mix of young professionals, locals, schoolkids going to the city, people catching the shuttle to Kaiser. I don't know what direction this is going in, and I'm totally not done. It's a Work in Progress. It's also the first idea that landed in my lap after I got the new camera. I may abandon it if time doesn't allow me to give it the depth that it needs. Right now I've got a place, but that's not enough for a subject. There's gotta be a person in the story, someone not me, because I'm not enough of a narcisist to talk about myself all the time (says the blogger). In other news, many many things are afoot. I have to say no to pretty much anything else that comes down the pipe for the next 4-6 months. I've a new version of the watch in the works, various trips, Maker Faire (where I'll be wandering around trying to keep my jaw off the floor), and of course, big things going on at the day job. Of course, now that I've said that, half of it may fall through. We'll see.

superb owl party

2015-04-10T07:48:14+00:00

Ah, the delberate typo pun. I don't remember what we did in 2014 for the Super Bowl, but this year we partied with some friends, Kareem and Lauren. Those are some legit wings in the first photo. Good times.

14 pictures of januamiee

2015-04-09T05:18:56+00:00

The title does not contain a typo; Our friend Amiee has her birthday in January, hates it, and has instead claimed the whole month. It's not a bad idea. I'd do it myself, except my birthday is rad, and it's impossible to make a passable portmanteau with "Matt" and "September." I tried to edit these down to bare essentials, but I got to this number, and my wife was like "Just publish them all," and I was like, OK, wife, you are right. People do like looking at pictures.

commute again and again

2015-04-08T07:32:17+00:00

Like I said, some pictures that weren't even possible before; the fourth one, especially. Incredible speed, and incredible sensitivity in this camera. I love it. The next edit, I promise, is all people. People are way more interesting than scenery. Also: I shot them in a dimly lit bar, which was doubly fun.

street with the new camera

2015-04-07T06:35:39+00:00

The first few weeks of the new camera where all about things that previously I couldn't shoot. Anything dark, anything moving, and pretty much anything at all once I got going. I shot 200 pictures of basically nothing the first day. I kept up that pace for at least a week. If I had somethign to shoot, it was even more. A lot of pictures. I'm beginning to come to grips with what that means. I'm going to have to blog a lot more. Maybe be a bit less cautious. Post with wild abandon. If you hate the picutes, there'll be another post along, shortly, to replace them at the top of the feed.

#rubykaraoke a while back

2015-04-07T05:54:10+00:00

There's a traditon among my people, that is to say rubyists, and further, those in the n+1 friends circle of people who've worked for Engine Yard. It is, in short, to get shitty and sing ridiculous karaoke. It's a good time. PJ is often an instigator; but this time we also had Zach and Sarah, and Seemant came out for what seemed like the first time in a while. Oh, and of course Yerhot. Yes, this also means I'm almost three months behind on pictures, in a time when I've been shooting more than ever. So, I'm going to try to blog a bit more now... we'll see how that goes.

a session with Baxter or a camera test

2015-03-05T07:58:07+00:00

Yeah, I know. A couple nice short posts, and then WHAM, a dozen pictures. These were taken with the rental camera, the tryout weekend. I got to Chris and Angela's house around 10am, we wer going to hang out, have a picnic and hike a bit. Sophie wasn't feeling well that morning, but I still wanted to go, and when I got there, they told me to please take as many pictures as I liked of Baxter, so I did. He's just turning one; at the time of the photos he would have been ten or eleven months at the time of the photos. We had a picnic at an old farmhouse, now run by the state park that owns this section of the coast. There were giant bushes with warrens under them, big old trees, a really good spot. Then, we walked along that coast for a bit. Our destination was a fern grotto on the beach. But first: beautiful windswept beaches where humans aren't allowed and birds rule. The birds would run forward as the waves receeded and pick at the sand, and then run back up the beach, away from the wave. Walking along cliff, all we could do was look down. When we got to the fern grotto, we rested and snacked while Baxter played with rocks, and then walked back, at which point I was fairly tired. I know this because the photos slow down somewhat. The camera test: As I've said already, I'm in love with this camera. The D750 is a really amazing tool. While walking back, I saw a bird flying the opposite direction, towards us. I was able to raise the camera, zoom, and get 3 in focus frames as it passed. It also meant I got the photo of the unicyclist on the cliff. That speed helped a lot when shooting the kid, too. Kids aren't bird-fast, but they do change constantly, and unlike adults, they're completely unpredictable. It was also nice to use focal lengths other than 50mm. I may have overused the wide angle end a bit, but it works for some of these.

back in the city

2015-03-05T07:34:19+00:00

Came back to work for a few days, not many people around. In case you're wondering, I'm doing a ton of posts to get them out of the way, to try to catch up to at least last month.

niles after xmas

2015-03-05T07:29:53+00:00

Just a couple photos, from going to Niles to meet up with Ben and Jenn. I think we also went wine tasting with them? There's no evidence, at least not good enough for this blog.

OK photos

2015-03-05T07:22:07+00:00

These are somewhat out of order, but I wanted the two verticals together. I was in Oklahoma for 13 days in December, then we came back here to have a chill xmas an new year. It was good to see everyone, including the folks I didn't get photos of. Sorry! I was really frustrated with the old camera at this point, and had just about given up. With this post, we're now approaching this year! SO. FAR. BEHIND.

acrobat on silks at the company party

2015-02-16T09:22:33+00:00

This was just days before we went to Oklahoma. My company's xmas party, which was pretty rad. There wasn't much going on, visually, apart from this. I mean, I have some portraits, but they're not great. Monochromatic stage lighting is hard as hell to work with. That difficulty is the reason that these are all in black and white. The dominant channel (whatever color the light is) will blow out, and the rest will be ok. You can save this with black and white conversion, with the added benefit that it more closely matches what I see when I'm shooting a scene like this. Something the event organizers did wonderfully with this event: they had at least one really visual element in the evening. It may be because we're a very media-centric company, or it may just be a stroke of luck that we didn't have some rock band instead. I was stoked, in any case, that someting cool was going down. Later in the evening, there was much drinking and dancing, even by me, but all those photos are blurry. These make a nice set, though.

ronan's birthday breakfast

2015-02-15T07:39:43+00:00

Early December, and I'm skipping a few pictures only to maybe come back to them later. This was when Mary was in town, too, although I didn't get a decent photo of her (a failure on my part). Anyway, this was the day I learned about Buckfast. This is a tonic wine for winos, I guess. In the words of Ronan, "If you drink the whole bottle, you're going to do some crime." I tried it, but didn't get enough to even cause jaywalking.

apcera xmas party 2014

2015-02-12T06:48:51+00:00

Cool folks, good times. This was another of those evenings that I don't super remember for some reason, probably related to the open bar. Anyway, photos.

the de Young is an amazing place

2015-02-10T07:49:27+00:00

Lots of photos in this one, because it's an awesome place, and the photos are nice. Also, I broke out photoshop on these, to get the skies in a couple of them burned in. It's been long enough since I used photoshop that all the tools are in slightly different places than I remember, but it's really snappy on this machine at least. I'm babbling. Seriously, if you can, get to the de Young and have a walk around the sculpture garden, at least. The Turrell skyskape has to be experienced, as does seeing the building up close. There are a bunch of amazing sculptures, as well as a nice cafe. There's also a Japanese tea garden which is quite nice. A fine place to spend an afternoon walking around.

thanksgiving in the sunset

2015-02-10T07:09:40+00:00

Yes, I know thanksgiving was almost three months ago. I'm rushing to catch up, and also I was more than a little sad that I didn't get more pictures. It was in some ways a repeat of the year before, but that just meant a good time with good people, overeating and running to the store to buy more beer several times. The last trip, I got to the store and they'd closed. On the walk there and back, though, there was this great fog over the neighborhood. I was glad for the walk.

take the long way home

2015-01-30T05:39:44+00:00

I don't always steal my post titles from Tom Waits songs, but when I do, it's because these pictures all came from taking the long way home. I've been experimenting with my commute, seeing what route is the most enjoyable. So far, MUNI to the transbay bus is the best, but the perambulations help. Actually, I think these are from just before thanksgiving, when Sophia's mom was in town. I was wandering a bit, but I was also trying to get to a restaurant in north beach. Some semi-touristy place, staffed by rude old men. Good food though.

macarthur bart

2015-01-27T04:16:53+00:00

Bunch of grey mornings, scattered through the last month or so. It occurs to me that you could do a really interesting piece centered around this BART station. And by you I mean me, but you could too. Nothing stopping either of us really, except everything else we've got to do with our lives. Going to work, building things, coming home, building other things, sleep, blogging, eating. But I'm there almost every day, for at least 5-10 minutes. The light changes enough day to day that it's never definitely any time; start shooting now, wrap up in 6 months, and you've got a little feature. That is, if you can sneak it in between pizzas and lines of code and sewing and soldering. And by you I mean me.

like crewdson but not as staged

2015-01-26T07:40:46+00:00

With these pictures, and a lot of the work I've been doing recently, the serious pictures, as opposed to the stuff that I see type work, I was looking for a certain kind of light, a mood, a suggestion of possibilities. It looks, to me, like some of the Crewdson I remember liking in the early oughts. Only, I'm not using the production budget of a middling music video, with a small army of crew to make it happen. I'm just taking advantage of the fact that both Oakland and SF have changed their lighting to LEDs, which are a nice white light, and exploring that space. It's dark and mostly empty, but that's bound to change.

got my words back

2015-01-12T04:25:41+00:00

I expected this weekend to be sort of hard and boring. I rented a camera, to see if I liked it. Instead, I fell in love with the camera, and found a part of myself that I dind't realize was missing. This is my review of the Nikon D750. It goes like this: I've spent over half my life at this point looking through a camera of one kind or another. The camera has always been my way of understanding the world. So, when I said on instagram that "It's like I'd lost half my vocabulary and now I've got it back," I meant exactly that. It's that feeling of walking into a room and turning a light on, or putting on glasses and suddenly remembering that trees have leaves again. Except, of course, all of the cognitive processes are thing that don't have words, so it's hard to even know that they're gone. Anyway, definitely getting one of these as soon as possible. I'm suddenly bullish on SLRs again. I shot all of these photos on the way home. Every time I see a picture, I can get it with this camera. The weak link in the equation is once again me. Am I too slow? Is the camera set weird? Otherwise, it's bang on. So, where before I would see a picture and not be able to get to the camera in time, with this, I can get the shot. Realizing this, I see a lot more. The world moves, and I move with it, dancing. The camera isn't perfect. The shutter button is a hair trigger, so a half press doesn't feel much different than a full press, but that is probably a matter of getting used to it. The focus modes aren't super clear, but again, that's probably a learning experience. There's noting else to complain about. ISOs up to 8000 are really quite good. The photos here have been pushed another three stops in post. I'd use 12800 without hesitation. The AF is AMAZING. That picture with the birds? I could barely see them, but it nailed it. That's all, except to say that I'm super stoked to buy one of these, so much so that I'm not going to bother renting the D810 to try. It's heavier and a touch slower. Not that I'd notice the difference in real shooting, but I've found the right machine. Why fuck around?

mels birthday

2015-01-05T05:57:18+00:00

I am again two months behind. Oh well. This was a fine evening in very dim lighting. As someone who sometimes shoots under just starlight, I shouldn't have been deterred, but I kept stumbling with the autofocus, and it's very frustrating. The first two photos were all I could manage. The third is from a walk the night before, to get to some restaurant (of which I can only remember the good company of our friend Otto and amazing fried chicken).

finally blogging again

2015-01-04T02:53:44+00:00

Haven't blogged in a while. I meant to over the holiday, and didn't get around to it. Resting, thinking really hard. Not a lot else going on. The watch project is going really well. I've nothing to show for it yet, but the next version is going to be really interesting. Totally new design. On the photo front, I've once again gogtten myself a backlog of several months. I've had a couple ideas for projects floating around, but I'm waiting to get a new camera. The fuji has been great for the last several years, but it's gotten a little slow. Either that or the kind of photos I'm taking need a bit more. I miss a good fast camera.

let the color be crazy

2014-12-08T08:00:26+00:00

For these photos, I did my best to white balance, but with all the mixed lighting, there's no way to get it perfect. I still like the result. This was just a walk to meet Sophia, one day after work. The city is just fascinating after dark.

Views from the 1, moving up the coast

2014-12-08T07:21:36+00:00

The California coast is one of the most amazing places. I'm glad I was there, for at least a bit. I said to someone on twitter today ("@monicabyrne13":https://twitter.com/monicabyrne13, "who's book":http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Road-Monica-Byrne-ebook/dp/B00GVZZL7A/ you should read, and who is awesome) that I'm almost always jealous of people that are somewhere else, as long as somewhere else isn't somewhere I've been long enough to be disenchanted by. It's really hard to hold still, with so much wonder in the world. Larry Ellison, of Oracle, has a house somewhere on this coast, probably one of the most expensive houses in the world. I'm not interested in a house on these hills, nor in amassing the fortune required to buy one. I'm happy to move through them, and see them, and move on. I've got a lot going on here in the next year or so, but after that, I may have to hit the road again. There is too much to see.

anniversary in the woods

2014-12-01T16:15:59+00:00

This was our second first anniversary, which also conicides with what it says on our marriage certificate. Sophia got us a cabin down in Big Sur, on the river there. Pretty nice place. We arrived late, in the rain, but the lady that checked us in acted like she'd be there all night, even though I'm fairly sure we were her last check-in. We drove up a fairly steep dirt road about a hundred yards, and unloaded a few things. As it turned out, we didn't need to bring most of the stuff; the cabin was pretty well-appointed. We were happy for the firewood, even though it wasn't actually seasoned. That first night, we plugged things in and read for a while; we were both exhausted from long weeks of work. In the morning, we laid in bed late, and then cooked breakfast over our camp-stove, complete with mimosas. The sun started to peek through the trees, and we walked down to the river. Then, we went and had a nice long nap. A day of nothing, out of reach of cell phones, email, and the internet. I love you guys, but it was nice to be disconnected for a bit, with just Sophie. We had some amazing steaks for dinner; somehow safeway had amazing meat for once. And fries, and then a fire to sit by. Then we went to bed. It was pretty much perfect.

halloween was a bit odd

2014-11-21T06:15:44+00:00

I mean, the other devs and their room mate were in adult onesies modeled after their spirit animals (self-chosen). I wore my blurry bear t-shirt, because I'd be to hot in a onesie. Then, on the way back from lunch, there was a photo studio, so I took a few shots. Then, on the street, a guy in a creepy mask, standing and staring. So, not much different than any other day. Just with costumes.

pictures from the bart

2014-11-17T01:53:26+00:00

The daily commute. I've been pushing myself lately to make more pictures wherever I can. While I was working heavily on the watch, it seems my creative juices were at a low ebb, or possibly they were all used up. I'm getting back at it, though. Making myself shoot any time I think of it. There's never not time to snap a few photos. If if seems like there isn't, my priorities are out of whack. I used to shoot until I was literally passed out, wake up, take a few frames, and pass out again. Shoot while injured, shoot while dying od dysentery, shoot while on a bus, crashing into a ditch, shoot while digging ourselves out of the ditch. I was going to blather on about james baldwin here (the diff is in git if you're really curious) but I decided instead to link to this really useful list of "the things you'll need to write a novel":http://tobylitt.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/9-things-you-need-to-write-a-novel/ which is remarkably similar to the list of the things you'll need to do anything creative. The means are different, but eveverything else, yeah. Time, time, time, check. Selfishness, Generosity, check. The means? I hope so. A discipline: Yep. A yearning? Definitely. Tone? Yes. Lots of tone. Photography would be lifeless without tone.

many karaoke shenanigans

2014-11-13T07:14:16+00:00

The dictionary tells us that shenanigans are when more than three people go to the Mint karaoke bar at any one time. The cold dictionary definition fails to capture the passion, the raw emotion of drinking 5 or 7 shots of fireball and singing "Baby Got Back" in front of your closest friends, and a bunch of people you hope to never see again. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader who is who. Except the car guy I met outside smoking who wouldn't stop talking about his cars. F that guy. For the record, I sang "Man in Black", and I only had the one shot of fireball. The rest of mine were regular whiskey. And a couple whiskey colas. You can thank the autofocus that any of these are remotely sharp. Yes, the same autofocus I malign constantly. I shot a shit ton, and got a couple good ones. It's not how I like to do it, but I needed to do something, anyway.

Sophie's spectacular birthday dinner

2014-11-12T09:33:06+00:00

Three weeks ago, it was Sophia's birthday, and we had the dinner on the night of at AsiaSF, a drag show (edit: not drag, trans*) venue in SOMA. It was a hell of a show, but my camera's autofocus wasn't quite up to the light in there. Got some nice photos of most of our party, excepting Jason. The second picture is Sophie taking her birthday shot from one of the performers. The last one is the only decent shot of the performance I got; there were 4 (5?) ladies, and they all did a couple numbers between courses. A super fun evening.

loose ends

2014-11-10T06:33:10+00:00

So, some pictures got stuck at the top of the queue, because i haven't been offloading the GoPro, or they didn't have a place in a bigger post. Anyway, here they are. Life is very good, and very strange. Many things could come along and knock it all down, all out of my control. All I can do is keep shooting. The first pictre was taken the night of my 30th birthday. I'm OLD now. Then, some photos from the first trip to Big Sur, which had me sick in the back of the car with some kind of shitty flu. I took a ton of cold medicine and powered thru (with naps, OLD MAN). The last two pictures were from my trip down to San Diego, for work stuff. The work filled the day so that I was near dead at the end, no energy to even look around the hotel room for crappy picturs I'd ignore later. Which is honestly about where I am now. Except I need to write up where I'm at with the watch over on "that blog":http://ourglass.watch . I've had some pretty good progress.

fleet week air show

2014-11-06T08:09:24+00:00

Days like this don't come along much. Clear blue skies, a friend with a nice boat, and an air show against one of the prettiest skylines in the world. I am a lucky bastard. I mean, fleet week happens often enough that I've at least neen in the city three times while it was going on, but this was the first time that I got to see the big show. They launched some new navy ship, the president was in town, and it was a beautiful day. The fog threatened and one act canceled, but it rolled right back out, and the jets came in and put on a pretty rad show. For a while, we thought the red-whatevers were actually the Blue angels, but then someone pointed out that the planes were the wrong color, and someone else looked at the schedule, and then things made a little more sense, or at least the wine kicked in. Good wine, too.

work happy hour

2014-10-27T04:21:19+00:00

I don't normally post about work, but when I do, it's because it involved some large quantity of alcohol, usually away from the office... see, for example, the support meetups of yesteryear, or the offsite in Tahoe, or stuff like that. This was a good one. Not too crazy, so I wasn't dying the next day, but enjoyable. Pool playing and drinking good whiskey and good people.

big sur

2014-10-22T05:55:39+00:00

A couple weeks ago, our friends Demetrius ands Christine took us down route one to see the sights. Have I said how awesome it is here? How rad it is to know good people? Yeah, I probably have. Anyway, the first part of the day was alittle gray, so B&W it is. There was a guy panhandling, playing guitar, with a rabbit on his head. If I recall correctly, he was playing a couple phrases from "Little Bunny Foo Foo" over and over again. The sun came out in the afternoon, and the blue of the sea was like some platonic ideal of blue. Not just perfect, but the idea from which all other blueness derives its meaning. What can you do, then, but have a couple really great meals? Pizza for a late lunch at big sur bakery (totally worth the drive), and then seafood in Monterey. I am really stupid lucky.

ian's housewarming

2014-10-10T08:10:25+00:00

This was about 3 weeks ago? Maybe 4? Anyway, Ian and Stephanie moved recently, close enough that we sometimes run into each other walkiing home from Bart. The housewarming was a lot of people I didn't know, so I did what I usually do: get drunk and take a bunch of pictures. It was a lot of fun. Note that I didn't do a ton of processing on these; just applied a contrast curve and convert to B/W.

this guy

2014-10-09T06:24:04+00:00

Man, this guy. Pennypacker. Yes, his real last name. This was on his last day at work, before leaving for some start up.

another commute

2014-10-09T05:45:24+00:00

It appears as though the cranes are spreading to the East Bay now. It's only a matter of time till we all have to decamp for portland; there'll only be room for cranes left. I do hope that by continuing this daily photography, a subject will emerge. There are a lot of things that I end up photographing over and over and over; the light changes, the fog rolls in, and I'm still shooting. That said, all this could be all terribly banal bullshit. When I'm at my most self doubting, that's all I can see. I'm not sure if the repitition or the persistence will work, either. We'll see, won't we? I don't have it in me to quit.

ferry day, some weeks ago

2014-10-08T03:09:17+00:00

Trying to get back to normal blogging. Been sick, off and on, for the last few weeks. I went to the hospital last night, they gave me fluids, said it was something viral, nothing they could really do, and sent me home. Anyway, I've got a ton of pictures that I need to get out there.

rumors of my death, greatly exaggerated

2014-09-25T04:23:06+00:00

I've spent the last couple days feeling like death. There's a flu-like something going around. Anyway, I'm alive, despite lack of posting here, lack of work, etc. etc. I've been looking at these too long, so I cut out the redundant ones, and I'm just putting them up onto the page. Death Valley was magnificent. For-real beautiful. I'll let the pictures tell the story.

manzanar, and before, and after

2014-09-18T06:42:29+00:00

So, day 2, I wake up after not the most restful night. I'd spent about 3 hours sleeping in the hammock, and when that got too cold, I moved to the tent, which was warmer, but really uncomfortable, as I hadn't brought a ground pad. I went into town, got some breakfast, and decided I just wanted to get moving. So, I started off down the road. I'd expected it to be a shitty 2 lane affair, but found an expansive four lane highway for a lot of the journey south. I put a lot of miles under me in the first few hours, and the country was no less amazing than what I'd seen the day before. I shot out the window, while driving. It's not nearly as dangerous as it sounds, when you're the only car on a four lane road. It's also not terribly productive, but I can't stop myself. Then, I came to "Manzanar":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manzanar. the middle three pictures are all from there. It's one of the things we as a country should be ashamed of. It's a pretty long list of things. Like a good tourist, I stopped, took my pictures, and moved on. It is worth remembering, though.

mono lake

2014-09-17T05:32:22+00:00

Looking back, I wish I'd spent more time at mono lake. I'd spent the whole firs tday stopping, though, and really wanted to move on. These photos are all from all the stopping. Still, really amazingly beautiful.

pass part 2

2014-09-16T06:18:17+00:00

Anybody get the pun in the title? Passe-Partout? no? just me? ah well, I'm allowed to be a little goofy after the day I've had. this is the second part of the pass, where it got really amazing. For some reason I can only see these pictures with a ton of contrast, in black and white. Sorry if they're a little over wrought. It was sublime. Wilderness and danger all around, but pulling me further on. Of course, on the road, there was only a little danger, inherent in driving a winding two lane road.

rim of the world

2014-09-15T06:04:21+00:00

So, over labor day weekend, I went on a nice little road trip out to death valley and back. To make things interesting, I decided to go out through Yosemite. There's a road to the north of the main valley, Route 120, which goes to Mono Lake. I'm breaking this up into smaller bits so I can process the photos slow enough to do a good job, and not take 6 months to come up with a one post edit. This isn't a magazine. I took these photos from an overlook called "The Rim of the World," where there was a very large fire last year. Hundreds of thousands of acres on fire. It was pretty unreal. There are hapier pictures coming, lakes and mountains and desert, but I had to start somewhere.

another day

2014-09-06T20:45:03+00:00

These are from what, a week ago? The day I visited twitter, and the day before I lit out for the hills. The view from their deck is pretty nice. I know thee aren't Death valley landscapes. Those are coming, soon enough.

not today

2014-09-06T18:53:35+00:00

Well, that little experiment lasted, didn't it? Anyway, driving through the desert with no internet put a dent in the posting, and work this week has neen pretty busy, so I haven't had an ounce of energy to spare. I turn 30 today. Four years ago, I was in "Egypt, at the Pyramids":http://matt.pictures/2010/09/06/the-great-pyramid-of-giza.html. I wasn't going to go to the pyramids; it cost $40 or something like that, and I was short on funds. Plus, I hate tourist traps. But, my parents sent me some money, and so I went. I was glad I did. Here is a photo of phoes that I took on my road trip to Death Valley. They didn't go with the landscapes that are coming later, bu I couldn't bring myself to cut them.

today 8 26

2014-08-27T06:51:01+00:00

I deleted over 1000 lines of code today. That was the easy part. I worked on the watch on lunch; board rev 2.2 is at the fabricator. I fixed some things at work, made some other things work better, then I came home. I shopped, I cooked, I cleaned (although not as much as my lovely wife). I used a trick I learned from a cartoon to make my sauce less salty. Archer, thanks. Now it's time to sleep.

vlad's app party

2014-08-26T08:17:58+00:00

This was what, sometime in April? Vlad is a friend from the internet, I think, and he's definitely 'from the internet'. His birthday party was app themed. My app was "in development" because I'm terrible at costumes. My wife, the genius, went as a polaroid app, and took pictures and printed them on demand. There was an instagram, a draw something, an ATM app, a recipe app... you get the picture.

today, 8/25/2014

2014-08-26T08:12:14+00:00

The weekend was cray. 12 hours of work on saturday on the watch board, and 8 hours of drinking on sunday. There was no time to blog. Still, if this is a four day a week enterprise, that's not too bad. I may also start posting some things from the backlog, beacuse my daily grind is a lot of the same old construction, busses, and sidewalks.

today again

2014-08-22T06:14:34+00:00

It seems like it's today every day. I tend to lose steam towards the end of the week, because work + watch dev + photography is a lot of stuff to do. I thought today was wednesday until late in the afternoon. I'm glad tomorrow is Friday.

yesterday and today

2014-08-21T06:24:25+00:00

So, I missed a day. I did a lot of programming in the last 48 hours, and I probably could have done a post last night, but I couldn't think of doing anything. I actually couldn't think at all. One of the reasons I got so backlogged was being to rigid about rules. So here's yesterday _and_ today.

today, 8/18

2014-08-19T05:58:12+00:00

Today was a lot of gray, outside. Inside, I did a lot of work, catching up for being distracted by the news last week. I have a feeling it's only going to get worse for a while (weeks? months?), before it gets better. On the plus side, I made a ton of headway in a complex domain. I ran into a friend walking home from the BART, and we caught up andd talked about things for a few blocks. A turned-off TV asked me "RU OK?" and I am. Then we got to see some other friends, just home from Ireland. They brought me whiskey, which I'm now saving for a special occaision.

today, today

2014-08-18T05:48:48+00:00

Before you get to the blog post, you are aware of "what's happening in Ferguson, MO":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown#Aftermath , right? Good. If not, go read some news. I should note that the wikipedia article is out of date, and leaves out a lot of details. Everything has gone to hell again tonight, by all accounts. I'm going to try someting, because the mountain of images I have to edit and post here isn't getting any smaller, and I'm not going to stop shooting, either. So, I'm going to try to post all of the images from today, today. Today was a barbeque and a walk to CVS. Met a bunch of cool folks at the barbeque. Soph made her mac and cheese, not pictured, but good all the same. It was, overall, a success. Then there was the epic journey for benadryl. Well, a 15 minute walk, at least. The LED streetligts are weird; looks like Gregory Crewdson designed them for one of his shoots. That's all I can do right now.

bike through the golden gate park

2014-08-04T06:24:41+00:00

Fog and gray and dark. I've been shooting more lately, socially, sort of the way I used to. I'm dicsovering my camera is absolute shit in those sitations I used to love; slow auto focus, slow to wake up, just slow. I was going to replace it soon, but it seems it'll be a few more months. At least my car is paid off, so I can save pretty quickly. For all the people that only follow this blog, and might have been wondering, I'm still here. Still kickin'. Trying to post more frequently. The backlog is still there, waiting. The projects are going, slowly. We'll see.

coffee

2014-07-25T05:30:51+00:00

Just a nice photo I took two months ago, getting coffee with the old team.

Coding induced temporary aphasia

2014-07-24T06:29:48+00:00

This was the night I was supposed to get on the bart, but was so distracted and out of it from work, I got on the bus and came home instead. Coding induced temporary aphasia. Sophia and some other folks were already at the bar, so I walked. Nice sunset light, why not?

the yips

2014-07-24T06:18:57+00:00

There's a component to my photography that's all about just trying to see what's in front of me, the beautiful, the strange, whatever. People us fishing or hunting analogies; but really it's a physical sport, looking for and catching these things. Can you see the line in time to get your camera to your eye? Is your muscle memory tuned to remember where the buttons are, the knobs turned right as you're getting ready to shoot? Lately, and I'm not sure why, but all the accrued skill that I have seems to have taken leave, and I haven't made any really signifigant photographs in months. It's possible that my concentration is just elsewhere, focused on the watch project, and my other skills are deteriorating. I don't think it works that way, but maybe it does. Spend to much time in an analytical mindset, and the 'relaxed concentration', the zen modes, seem to go away. Maybe I just need to get out and shoot some more. Ferry tomorrow, we'll see if that helps.

a lot of cranes

2014-07-18T04:52:47+00:00

My adopted home has, ove the past year, gotten a construction habit. Maybe I just didn't notice it when I was visiting. There are a shit ton of them.

brunch in style

2014-07-15T17:09:05+00:00

Man, Portal. This was many moons ago, and I don't remember the specifics. One of the problems of a two month delay between shooting pictures and getting them put up here is that the little details sort of slip away. Maybe I should take notes or something, keep a daybook. Anyway, what I do remember is that it was a good afternoon, sitting in the sun for hours after a great meal with good people all around.

more on scale

2014-07-15T05:49:11+00:00

I may or may not have talked about this before, but there's a whole lot of my photography that's a love affair with the city. It is a place full of wonders, and ad the same time a place that can crush you for a simple case of bad luck. It is a big place, and getting bigger by the minute. These photos are some of my exploration of that, I suppose. All but the last one, which was good in a completely different way. You may have noticed I've been neglecting this blog; it's beacuse I've been working on "another project":http://unnaturaldiphthongs.com/. While that isn't done, it is at least in a good state for now. I'm waiting on boards and parts and tools to make version two. I won't bore you with details, except to say you've probably never seen a toaster oven used "this way":http://hackaday.com/2012/03/08/toaster-oven-reflow-soldering-roundup/ before.

last photos from austin

2014-06-02T06:02:21+00:00

So, the watch project continues apace; I've thrown out the initial design, that was based on the "OSWatch":http://oswatch.org/index.php ; I may still use some of his code, but for now my efforts are in getting a prototype up and running. I blabbed about the project on twitter, and a friend suggested I look at the RFduino, an arduino-compatible module that has a built-in bluetooth module. It's a pretty sweet little chip, except for the small problem that the bootloader is closed-source. I've decided to let that be a problem for another day, and run with it. _note: this post has been sitting, unpublished, for a month and a half. oops._

the scale of the thing

2014-05-20T06:17:12+00:00

A friend of mine pointed out on twitter that an "arbitrary set," in mathematics, is possibly infinite. I kind of like the idea that the sea of hipsters in austin that night was infinite. I certainly couldn't see an edge. Anyway, before all that, there are some nice pictures of the folks I was with, Quin and Serena and Soph. You may have noticed a bit of a gap in the posting here. It's been for very nerdy reasons. I saw a link on the "Adafruit":http://adafruit.com blog about the "Open Source Watch":http://oswatch.org/index.php and knew right away that I wanted to build one. Not just build one, but go one better, make it more extensible, and clean up the rough edges. There's nothing more personal to me than the watch that I wear; I've been wearing one for the better part 25 years, after pestering my mom to buy me one sometime around age 4. It's not just a status symbol, a beautiful toy; a watch is a hand-hold on reality. It says "This is now," and "It's only been 5 minutes," and "I really did sleep 5 hours on that plane," and "T-minus 5..." Then there's the maker's credo, that you don't own something until you can hack on it. It's beyond the skills of a lot of people to do surface mount soldering or board layout or the half dozen other skills required to build a watch for the 21st century. None of it is terribly hard by itself, but it's all over, different bits of knowledge to cobble together from different parts of the web. Once it's done and you can program it over bluetooth or plug it into a USB, something wonderful happens. Everyone can hack it. I don't want a watch for the future, I want a watch for right now. Somthing that gives you a better grip on reality. It says: "You're here, right now, and this is wh ere you can go." _The author swears this was going to be a dry feature list and blow-by-blow of the design process, but it's late and he's feeling inspired -- Ed._

an arbitrary set of hipsters in austin

2014-05-08T19:24:24+00:00

So, Austin. Hipsters. It's a thing. Except for the first photo, I don't know who any of these people are. First one is Sophia getting her Scissortail tattoo. The rest, you know as much about them as I do. My memory of the evening is a little fuzzy, you might say. At least there are pictures.

clouds, for reasons

2014-05-07T06:59:42+00:00

I know I promised pictures of the wild hipster here next, but tonight ended up being a long fight with laundry and the kitchen sink. My arms are tired, and so are my hands. So here are some nice pictures of clouds, which I don't have to think about too hard.

another borrowed camera, another vacation

2014-05-06T05:37:07+00:00

I dealt O.K. with not having a camera most of the time. I kinda had to, as with the move and everthing, I simply couldn't afford a new one. I carried my nikon, made a few pictures here and there, and mostly just waited. Then, there was another trip. I knew I wouldn't be able to do a real trip with just my iphone, a film camera, and a few rolls of film, so I rented another camera, this time the Fuji XT-1. The first couple hours were a complete love-fest. It's a great little camera, and I do mean little. Smaller than my Xpro by a smidge. The EVF, the main thing I was worried about, wasn't laggy at all, it seemed, and fine enough to make compositions on. Signifigantly better than the EVF of the Xpro. Also, ergonomically, it's a slam dunk. I was able to get it up and running in about five minutes of fiddling: turn off auto review, turn off beeping, turn on RAW, forget and then remember to turn off the focus assist light. After a little while, I set up the custom screen setting. There are half a dozen or so things I like to know at a glance; the battery level, the exposure setting and ISO, focus distance, exposure comp, stuff like that. No histograms. No gridlines. Anyway, I shot with the camera over a long weekend. Not enough to really live with it, but long enough to get a feel for it, anyway. When it came down to it, there really wasn't enough difference for me to justify buying one over another Xpro. I liked it, but there wasn't a signifigant difference in the things that mattered to me. First is shutter lag; they're both excellent as long as you're prefocused. Focus itself is a bit faster on the newer body, of course, but not fast enough to make a difference outside a sports stadium (and incidentally, the only long lens I own is manual). In low light, the XT was a bit better, maybe a stop, but it's hard to say without doing a side by side test. The real killer is the viewfinder. Yes, the EVF is really good, better than any I've used so far. It still lags a little bit; optical viewfinders never do. Also, I really like the rangefinder style. You get a little more around the edges, yes, and there's a bit of parralax error, but that helps. Somehow it makes visualization more real. More about the vacation in the next post, were there will be actual photos of hipsters in austin.

just a small post

2014-05-02T07:16:40+00:00

My wife told me this morning that she'd finally understood my waking up process. She said it was like the whole world outside was on fire, and I was sitting there, just saying to myself, "Fuck it." This is it exactly. For the first half an hour I'm awake, if that half hour is before 10 in the morning, I wouldn't care if the whole world burned if I could get a few more hours (minutes?) of sleep. There's a little part of me, though, that is always thinging about looking for a fire extinguisher somewhere. Eventually that part wins out, and I go face the day as well as I can. Or sometimes it doesn't, I go back to sleep, and have a mental health day. I need those, I suppose, to assure myself that the world isn't actually burning.

amiee and sarahs sorta birthday

2014-04-30T05:12:15+00:00

Get back from Yosemite. Shower. Nap? maybe. Go to the party for Amiee and Sarah's approximate birthday party. Approximate, because it was somewhere between their two birthdays, if I recall correctly. I know this is a lot of photos, but I was having a hard time picking, and Sophia pointed to my copy of Salgado's _Genesis_, a 500 page tome of a book, and says, "Why choose? He didn't." She's right. So, here are nearly all the pictures that were fit to publish.

yosemite coda

2014-04-28T04:31:22+00:00

There's a moment in every trip where I know it's over, and the rest is just making my way home. I always wish the trip would last longer. No matter how long I've been on the road, it always seems that I'm just getting my footing, and then I have to leave.

Valentine's Dinner at the Ahwahnee

2014-04-24T05:28:13+00:00

What can I say about this meal? It was a year from the date I proposed to Sophia, and we both wanted to do something special. We couldn't have picked a better venue. The Ahwahnee is a magical place, where they roast ribeyes to perfection, and can tell you exactly the right wine to have with your meal. It may have been the several hours of hiking talking, but the food was nothing short of amazing. The space was huge and well laid out; a sort of classic hunting lodge turned fancypants restaurant. Of course, the best space and food on earth can be boring if you're there alone; I was buoyed further by the good company of my wife, of course, and also our travelling companions, Demetrius and Christine. They were the ones who guided us around all day, and who'd thought of the dinner in the first place. A really special evening with great folks. If that's not the highlight of the trip, I don't know what is.

scenes around the valley

2014-04-23T06:16:58+00:00

I know I've said scenery is boring, and maybe that's true, but these 5 work well together. Boring, white skies, as if I were using ortho film, but you can't change the weather. We drove and walked over some interesting ground durning the day that day.

in color, in daylight

2014-04-22T06:07:37+00:00

well, these aren't dramatic nature photos so much. really, these are as close as i get to regular tourist photos.

closeups of a river

2014-04-21T04:03:50+00:00

I did these mostly because it was a grey, cold day in the valley. You can't predict the weather. so, I did what I'd always been taught to do: when the pictures aren't working, get closer. Simplify. Figure out what attracted you to what you're pointing the camera at in the first place, and move in towards that. Sometimes it works. Sometimes that means you have to do a little bouldering. Sometimes that means you're digging through layers to find something to wipe the mist off of your lens. Whatever works.

night shooting at yosemite

2014-04-19T06:22:02+00:00

We got to the park, and we were all really super tired and cold. Since there were several photographers in the group, though, we had to go out and shoot, at least a little. The first two images I've already put out, shot hand-held at obscene ISO. the rest of these were shot on a tripod, at longer exposures (but still at ISO 6400 or so). I really wish it had been this clear in the daylight. Instead, it rained all day on us, and so most of my shots were equally gray. Lesson learned: keep shooting when the light is good. Sleep when you're dead.

not dead yet

2014-04-17T03:04:35+00:00

I swear I don't mean to be dribbling out these photos one at a time, but the last two days... well, I got the flu (thanks, flu shot, for nothing), and my RAID had to be rebuilt. Luckily for me, adding a disk back to the raid is all automagic, because I've been pretty worthless otherwise. In any case, I'm alive, and hopefully tomorrow I'll be back at it.

one photo got left out

2014-04-13T19:10:46+00:00

I decided that this one, that was from later in the evening, really belonged with the last group of photos... but since I don't like to go back and edit posts, and it's sunday, I'm just gonna be lazy and post one photo, and call it good.

half glimpses in the dark

2014-04-11T05:54:31+00:00

I think we took the long way to get there, through Merced. The long way is my favorite way. You see more. Honestly, after that burrito, I was pretty out of it, just shooting pictures out the window and trying to take it all in. On a camera nerd note, photos 3-5 were shot at ISO 25600, which is just silly fast. Would I use this for product shots? No. I do like the way it looks, even though there's no fine detail (focus was impossible, since those were shot from the car). I do think digital cameras have matured enough that I can afford to stay a year or 18 months behind the curve and reap substantial savings. The camera I just bought is the same one I bought new when it came out in 2012, but this time I paid about half price. It'll last me at least another year, at which point something that's new and hot now will be affordable, and all the problems that come with early adoption will be sorted.

yosemite chapter 1

2014-04-10T04:57:38+00:00

splitting this into several chapters because there are many photos with many different moods in them. Going out to Yosemite was the last trip out from the old house, although I didn't thing of it as such at the time. It was sort of a headlong rush home and then down to the south bay to meet out ride/companions for the trip, D and C. we made it on the road at about five, and hit traffic both going south and north. That, along with separate stops at starbucks, gander mountain, and a little mexican place just before the pass into the valley, for dinner. Come to think of it, it may have been bass pro shops where we stopped for socks, they're effectively the same, just REI with guns instead of bikes and boats in addition. I was on the lookout for a spare battery for the rented camera, a Nikon D610, but found none. It's a fast camera, that does all the things my D700 did, but for less money and maybe a bit better in low light. Half a stop better. But I digress. After the mexican food, there was a long, winding road into the valley. This is a place that is impressive even in half-glimpses in the dark. Those photos are in the next post, though.

and now for something completely different

2014-04-07T21:02:07+00:00

And by completely different, I mean black and white, night photos. Pretty much my _raison d'etre_ for a long time. Now, I'm looking more at the day time. I'm not sure if that's an accident of when I'm awake, or something I'm doing on a subconcious level. Probably a little bit of both.

I have a camera again!

2014-04-04T06:37:28+00:00

I'm happy to report that my new camera arrived today, so I can keep boring you indefinitely with more photos... of course, that's not the point. I'm not myself without it; not just without the camera, but without the act of taking pictures. I get depressed, moody. Easily tired. Someone asked me recently why I'm always taking photos, and I sort of drew a blank, like I always do. Then, they rescued me. "Do you do it just for the Art of it?" they said. Yes, that's exactly why I do it. That, and I can't not do it. I need to be taking pictures, in some fundamental way. Everything goes kind of flat and shitty when I'm not taking pictures regularly; it's as if the act of photographing turns the world up a notch. Making photographs, making art, brings me joy, but not the kind sunshine and puppies and laughter kind. It’s more like water. It’s just not possible to go on without it. One is ephemeral, experiential. The other is hard and certain, something you make with your own hands. It is a sword that will cut god, a path to buddha-nature. Enough already. Have some photos. Goodnight.

on the way to work

2014-04-03T05:25:35+00:00

I don't know if it's me, or what, but I always seem to find myself in these beautiful places. Everything sort of falls together, and then I take a picture. What is my subject? Is it the everyday? Is it me, being a crazy person? Is it the world, not making any sense? If there were a feeling I was trying to convey, maybe it would be that moment of realizing how lost you are, and looking around to get your bearings. It's probably none of that. I have been drinking. There was wine, and then there was whiskey... well, at least tomorrow is Thursday.

earthshine

2014-04-01T05:10:29+00:00

The phenomenon when the earth's light is reflected on the crescent or new moon. It's also pretty spectacular. This was the night of Chris's birthday party, down in Santa Cruz. When looking it up to make sure it was one word instead of two, I found "this cool article":http://http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/12apr_earthshine/ from nasa. Totally worth reading for the description of what earthshine would look like from the dark side of the moon.

can't even think of a title

2014-03-28T08:55:00+00:00

This post has been through a a bunch of iterations about something that has nothing to do with the photos, so I figured I'd just post the photos.

On 'On Being a Photographer'

2014-03-26T03:58:13+00:00

Reading _On Being a Photographer_ (_OBaP_, for short). It's a good, if probelmatic book. It's stronly opinionated about what is and isn't a good photograph, and how they are made. It's helped greatly by the fact that the two authors are generally dead on. There's a lot in there that is about half rhetorical trickery and half untrue. They completely miss the point of photography after, say, John Szarkowski's tenure at MOMA, and of a lot of the legitimate criticisms of photography. The book oozes the subtext of two old men yelling at kids "Get off my Lawn!" That said, the descriptions of working methods, how to do the work of being a photographer, are invaluable, and would have saved me about 5 years of learning if someone had put the book in my hand 10 (12?) years ago. It's way more practical than "_the mind's eye_":http://www.amazon.com/Henri-Cartier-Bresson-The-Minds-Eye/dp/0893818755, but not as good as "_beauty in photography_":http://www.amazon.com/Robert-Adams-Photography-Defense-Traditional/dp/0893813680. I'm only halfway through, but I think I'll finish it this time (last time I started it I couldn't get over the old man tone of the thing). Totally worthwhile. I've got about three weeks, wall clock time, until I can replace my camera. Call it a month, by the time it ships to me. This is the longest I've been without a camera since I started photographing seriously in 1998. Even when I got hit by the car, breaking my 5d, I had a loaner. It's really weird. It doesn't help that I was in the middle of discovering a new subject, the 'signs' project. One of the problems with _OBaP_: they think you can't go out without a subject in mind and find one. It's simply not true. It really seems absurd if you think about it, that you couldn't dicsover something visual by working visually. It just requires a lot of patience. Now I've finally found something new to shoot, and it's really exciting. I can't wait till I've got something to shoot it with again.

TURKUAZ at the boom boom room

2014-03-25T06:17:35+00:00

My friend MKB invited us out, got us on the list. His cousin is the guitarist/keyboard/melodica player (plus more besides). We sat around pre-show and talked about being from the midwest, they talked about family things, and we all got good and drunk. We went around the corner to eat when our need for metaphorical tacos became a need for actual sushi. When we got back, they were still getting ready to take the stage, and then I really got to taking pictures. These guys were really, really rad. A lot of fun in a packed house. I would have paid to get in, and I almost bought a t-shirt, but I think I was either out of cash or too drunk at the end of the night. I do remember stopping to get a gatorade before ubering home.

game night at the old casa

2014-03-24T03:00:53+00:00

Almost two weeks since I posted here. I've been busy. The new apartment is pretty livable at this point; the commute is settling into a routine, as is everything around the house. We have a microwave, finally, and groceries. We're still working on breaking the habit of eating out all the time, which is hard, with so many good options by our door... but that's totally a thing we can handle. Speaking of things that we're ready to do again, these pictures are of a game night we had sometime in january. "Game nights" are a sort of proxy for inviting interesing and cool people over to the house, having food and conversation. The games present a sort of framework for alleviating social awkwardness. It fills the awkward pauses, takes the pressure of having to actually talk to each other off, and so everyone actually talks. They pretty regulary become more like dinner parties where the dinner is delivery pizza. I'm thinking next time I might actually cook something. Spaghetti or lasagna and fresh bread, something nice. I'll have to consider how to accomodate vegetarians, though.

more signs work

2014-03-10T06:18:26+00:00

It occurs to me that I'm going to have to come up with a better name for this work. There's a feeling at the heart of it, about being lost, coming unmoored. It's a thread that's run through my work since I did "the world doesn't make any sense":http://bit.ly/1fiShkO work. That book was also where I learned the hard way to hate gutter bleeds. The PDF is ok if you view it with two pages together though. Back to what I was saying though: I look at those pictures today and I see how far I've come, and yet I'm still pretty much just groping around in the dark. Why are you reading confused and confusing shit on the internet? Go outside and take some pictures.

noon light deserves love too

2014-03-07T07:13:37+00:00

Everybody always goes on and on about golden hour light, where the sun gives everything a glow that is supposedly the best light. So much so that some photographers don't even take pictures except during the two hours around sunrise and sunset. Bullshit I say. Of course, I'm saying this with a camera that holds detail for something like 11 or 12 stops in a decent ISO. It's as good as negative film ever was, and that's saying something. It's exposed differently, but there's incredible tonal range available. One of the reasons earlier street photographers shot in black and white is that it offered the ability to handle these super contrasty situations. The signs project, which I don't think any of these go with (save the middle one), is sort of becoming about playing with ambiguity of evidence. So, a sharp clear photo that could be any number of events, interpreted any number of ways. I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea. Signs may tell you something, but how can you believe it? Why do you think the person who put it there isn't just as lost as you? How do you know someone in the equation (the signmaker, the photographer, the people in the photo) aren't actively working to deceive you? It's still at the stage that there are more questions than answers, which is really fun for me. The not-fun part is not having a camera, not knowing when I will again, etc. Oh well. At least it gives me time to work on the backlog.

simon inside merchant's

2014-03-07T06:38:22+00:00

For some reason, I don't have any of evryone else who was there that night in the edit. Probably because Merchnats is a dark hole of a bar, a place you're likely to find trouble if you go looking for it. Since I don't tend to do that, it was a pretty friendly neighborhood bar. Of course, now that I'm in a different neighborhood, I'll have to find my pints of friendliness elsewhere. It was the darkness, anyway, that caused the trouble; hard to focus, and hard to get non-blurry shots. Anyway, a real post with more than one photo coming soon.

two runners

2014-03-05T06:55:58+00:00

Can't stop won't stop forgot how to stop

from the streets, yo

2014-03-04T06:06:14+00:00

Despite the fact that I know that it's all been done, that they're all trite contrivances doomed to failure, I still find myself making photos out walking in the street. I suppose that's a sign I'm doing something right?

one spot of color

2014-03-02T18:00:42+00:00

I was _this_ close to putting this in black and white, but that red exit sign makes it.

floffee runs

2014-02-28T06:27:58+00:00

I don't know why the word 'floffee' came to describe the coffee runs we make in the afternoon, or why there's an l in there. Fletch, who coined the term, claims it means "fancy coffee," because we've been going to this tiny hole in the wall on maiden lane instead of the pete's down on mission. Anyway, there's a natural lull in the day, when the food from lunch is really solidly digesting, and 6pm (my office is 9-6, don't get me started) seems like forever from now, so we generally get up and stretch at least, and usually someone will suggest coffee, and the rest of us will say hells yeah. We come out of the mental fog for a couple minutes, and then back to work.

sophie being cute

2014-02-27T15:18:37+00:00

A sizable portion of this blogs readers come here just for cute photos of my wife. Who am I to argue?

not photos from the book

2014-02-27T07:04:05+00:00

The mathematician "Paul Erdős":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s had a saying: when he came across a particularly beautiful proof, he'd say "That's one from the book," meaning the book that God kept all the best proofs in. bq. Although an agnostic atheist, he spoke of "The Book", a visualization of a book in which God had written down the best and most elegant proofs for mathematical theorems. Lecturing in 1985 he said, "You don't have to believe in God, but you should believe in The Book." He was really a fascinating fellow; really, go read the "wikipedia page":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s about him. Fun fact: if Hank Aaron has an Erdos number of 1 because of a signed baseball, mine is four, because of a project I owned, and passed on to an academic. The book I'm talking about, though, is just the one I'm meant to be working on. In a world filled with wonders like Erdos numbers and cloudy skies and busy life all around, is it any wonder I get distracted?

gonna start on a new book

2014-02-26T06:20:03+00:00

I have a couple projects that at least have enough photos for book-ifying. I don't know which one, though. The street stuff is a little premature, I think; I don't know where it's going yet. The photos from the ferry might be a good group. There's also the signs project, which up until this moment only existed in my head... it's really loosely framed at this point, and none of the pictures have made it up here yet. It's also way too soon to put that one on paper. So, ferry photos it is. Of course, I have 10 other projects demanding my attention; there's the watch that I've been planning to build, there's the camera repair that I haven't finished, there's the postcard list, the wheels that I need to build for myself so sophie can have hers back, the bluetooth chording keyboard for my ipad, and the camera, which will happen about the time I retire at this rate. Anyway, don't look for this book thing to happen soon. I've no idea what form it'll be in, who'll print it, or any of that. Silly details.

new years 2014 (back on the air)

2014-02-25T06:51:11+00:00

this was a very nice evening with some new friends here in the bay. Really great folks. D&C are the same pair we went to Yosemite with a couple weekends ago. Really fun couple, I'm glad we met them. So. We're in the new house, and I've got my computer and network up. The RAID came up just fine, and everything else seems as well; wifi works, at least. There's a lot of unpacking, organizing, and laying out of furniture to be done, but home is where "127.0.0.1":http://127.0.0.1 is.

a history of stragglers

2014-02-22T06:50:36+00:00

So, we're in the middle of moving, and the only real computer I have access to is my server, the one that runs the web site you're reading. The server is cloudy, which means when I move house, I don't have to move it. By real computer, I mean something that can run, at a minimum, vim and git. Those are the minimum tools I need to do a blog post. My rasberry pi also qualifies, but it's in a box somewhere. Luckily, I had photos already out on the server, or theis would be a very boring post indeed. These are more from the period between Xmas and New Years. One from sonoma, and the others walking back from brunch at Portal. That's what I meant by stragglers; I keep seeming to have one photo that should have gone with the previous set turn up the next time I open lightroom. It's what I get for blogging tired. Not much to say right now. moving is hard, and it's going to take us all week, I'm afraid. Tomorrow is the furniture, but there are a million little things that are going to take us a while to get. The kitchen, the closets, the camping stuff, yada yada yada. Up and down stairs until I'm tired of it, and then a few more trips. This was my idea, really. Save a little money, get into a nicer area. I'll enjoy it once I get there, but now, I'm tired.

sonoma plus one

2014-02-19T07:03:57+00:00

The day after xmas, we realized we had nothing to do and all the time in the world to do it in, so we took a little day trip to Sonoma for some wine tasting and food. It's a nice drive out there, a couple hours, maybe, with traffic, and nice rolling hills to drive through. The first thing we did was get a bite at a little cafe, and then visited the tourist bureau. There was a nice lady there that told us about good places to eat, and gave us a map of wineries on the square, and some coupons for tastings. So, we wandered a bit. The first place we went to talked us into joining a wine club. The two bottles we were thinking about were effectively half price with the club. The tasting room had a bunch of kitschy household goods for sale, handmade by the looks, in addition to the wine. I think _gauche_ is the word, but I may be so backward that shit like that is in style in some circles. The wine was good, and I don't really regret the wine subscription. It does give us an excuse to go back every few months or so. The second place was more sophisticated, and seemed very proud of it's italian heritage. They also had a pretty good schpiel about how some of their wines came into being by happy accident. Who knows if it was true, but there was a nice couple also in from the city who shared their salami and crackers with us on the patio as we had a glass. Pretty rad. The last place the vintner himself was serving us, and the guy who made the pottery on display came by to say hello. His wines were probably the best we had that day, and I really look forward to going back there. "Bump":http://www.bumpwine.com/wines/ was the name. They do sell them online, although no clubs and no discounts. Then there was dinner, a nice pizza, which I had way too much of, and then we went home. The last photo is a straggler; the set I thought it was part of didn't work, and I ended up getting rid of most of them, but I really like that gold tooth.

ben and jenn came to town

2014-02-11T15:35:23+00:00

No, not that Ben and Jenn. Why would I care about them? No, these are two of our friends from oklahoma, out here to see family over the holidays. We met up, had brunch at Oakland Grill, and then took the ferry over to the city. December 26 and I hardly needed a jacket.

to work and back again

2014-02-10T15:24:51+00:00

My commute includes about 100 yards of walking down market street. It is, as my friend Mike says, 'Prime people watchin'. My tendency when taking pictures is to look for something about to happen, and try to get there in time. On this stretch of road, everything is always happening. Deals are made, breakfast is bought, people wander, lost, across the street at 9am on a Thursday. Tourists gater around their maps, and locals weave around them, as if they were statues. Bums beg for change, and they get some, sometimes. Messengers lock and unlock their bikes, delivery trucks stop with days or weeks of supplies for the buildings and restaurants. All in 100 yards!

not daylight yet

2014-02-09T21:28:07+00:00

It occured to me, looking at these photos, that it'll be light again soon when I get to the beach on these rides. We're currently as far from the solstice as we were in late october, which makes me kinda happy, although it's dark now, at 6pm. SOON. The last couple rides out there I haven't really taken any photos, because it's started to feel like I'm repeating myself. So the light coming back will be a welcome change. I _do_ think that there is a photo of a bunch of dudes around a bonfire somewhere in the queue.

after the office xmas party

2014-02-09T06:11:33+00:00

I took some photos at the party, but really, none of them were that great. After the party, we ended up meeting Fletch and his wife; they're really cool folks. I think this was zeitgeist? It's been too long ago now. It was one of those faux dive bars in the mission. NEWS FLASH: if there's not a reasonable chance of your getting stabbed inside, it's not an actual dive bar. That's why I like Merchants, over on this side of the bay. Anyway, I digress. fuck bad pictures of shit I don't care about. Here are some good pictures of things I care about:

left the camera in jpeg

2014-02-07T07:10:43+00:00

So this was what, just before xmas? Severin came to town, and so we had to meet up for drinks. There was some confusion, followed by some stumbling, but luckily sophie was there to keep shit together. These would have been in color, but I somehow got the camera in JPEG mode, which means these have a weird blurry look to them when zoomed all the way in, as if the details were painted. Oh well. Which reminds me, I still haven't done any work on a RAW converter to use with DarkTable. The list of projects keeps growing, and the time to work on them is somewhere between not much and nil. I need to prioritize, I suppose. Maybe after the move.

a lunch walk to the fidi

2014-02-06T06:25:40+00:00

Startup central may be SOMA, but the finantial District is seeing a huge boom of its own. There's a group of folks from work that almost always go for salads at an undisclosed location in that area (nobody wants to advertise). I'm not a salad eater by any stretch, but I do like the walk, and the light of all the giant glass building is nice. There's something to these photos, a complexity, that I really like. They have a lot going on. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about subject. Specifically, what my subject is. What do I want to be looking at. It seems a lot of the most interesting things are already covered, in depth, by geniuses, sometimes many times over, in the face of change. I'm not sure where I was going with this paragraph. You can stop reading now. _(ed. note: obviously the last picture wasn't taken at lunch; it just fit with the building thing I had going, and happened to be next, chronologically)_

coffee run

2014-02-05T15:15:28+00:00

Last December at work had a visit from a really great teacher, "Sandi Metz":http://www.sandimetz.com/. We spent the week mostly workshopping about object oriented design. I gotta say I learned a ton. It's like there's a whole different world of how to program that I was only dimly aware of. Patterns and antipatterns, refactoring to expose complexity (sorry Jacob, for thinking you were crazy when you showed me this before), and even one "miracle of programming":https://github.com/skmetz/socialchorus-dec-2013/tree/miracle. Do you ever look at a problem, and you have solutions for it, but none of them are very good, and you suspect that there's something even better just over the horizon? It's the same as that feeling when you can't quite remember the word you're thinking of. Now, imagine someone came along and showed you how to go over that horizon, and, really, it was just a little hill in your way in the first place. That's what Sandy did for us, in a nutshell. Some of the good advice, which I will attempt to summarize: 1) Do the simplest thing possible. 2) Take small steps. 3) Trust your feelings in areas you have experience; that's your preverbal brain telling you something's up. I really can't say enough nice things about the whole workshop, so here are a couple photos I took on a coffee run.

Ronan's bday

2014-02-04T14:35:23+00:00

I just realized I know two Ronans. One is in Oklahoma, and is distinguished from the one I know in California by being a) a toddler, and b) a girl. The one here is a 30 year old Irishman. Try not to get mixed up. We started at a tiny pizza place called Slicers. It was _packed_, just from our party. Place was tiny, and at the point we numbered about 15. Really, really good pizza though, and beers. Before too long, we moved down the road to this Tiki bar, where everything got both blurry and darker, if you catch my drift. No, It was literally dark in there, lit only by candles, and feeble, tiny bulbs on the wall. Last night, I nearly had a panic attack when my RAID stopped working. It was appearently one of those little blips that shuts the whole thing down entirely. A half an hour of troubleshooting and a reboot later and it was fine. For that half hour, I was thinking, fuck this, I'm going back to film. Film doesn't have these problems. But with film, I simply couldn't have shot in this light, at all. Reciprocity breakdown would have dragged these shots dow a couple stops below whatever ISO film I'd be using, and there'd be nothing in the shadows. 1/4 of a second at f/1.2, at least. So, I realized this, and then started looking at cameras again.

just walking home

2014-01-30T05:24:55+00:00

That's all I was doing. I had my camera out, and I was walking. There was a dude in the street, and it looke like he had been hit by a car, but he was talking. Ambulance was on its way. So I took two photos, and finished walking home.

a post about a bag

2014-01-29T06:24:45+00:00

Just so you know, I'm writing this wearing a clown nose, and I purposely didn't title this with the SEO grabbing headline "Topo Designs Mountain Bag review", but that's what it is. If that sounds terribly boring, please feel free to skip to the end, where there's a nice picture of Sophie, and also some leaves still on a tree in early December. Those of you that know me know that I am hard on my personal effects. I need durability in everything, and that goes double for what I put my things in. It's led to something of an obsession with the right bag. What goes in it is usually pretty mundane, but I care about the bag I carry. So, I've been known to put down some signifigant coin down on them, or to mark occasions with new bags. For xmas, Sophie's mom gave me a nice gift card, which I decided would be well spent on a bag I'd been lusting after for a while, the Topo Designs Mountain Bag. First the good: It certainly looks good, all strappy and with oversized, durable zippers. 1000d cordura and lined with some plasticy stuff that seems pretty warterproof, and all the inner seams are at least covered with bias tape of some sort. When I got it, I was pretty happy, as the capacity is just what I was after (officially 1200 cu. in, although probably only 1000 in the main compartment), it's ambidexterous, and has just the right ammout of organization for me. It comes in a good variety of colors, and is fairly good looking, at least to my eye. Unfortuantely, that's all the good. It's like no one field tested the bag at all. The top flap pocket is easy to lose stuff out of: if you put anything small and heavy in there, like a multi tool or a set of allens for your bike, and then flip the flap up, the stuff gets stuck in the little space above the zipper, and will fall out the next time you open it. Luckily, I was still in my living room when this happened to me. Then there's the shoulder strap. The little tabs at the end for tightening it aren't long enough, especially if you have gloves on. Then there's the way the strap hardware is attached, sewn to the bag with a single seam at each end, just a line of heavy stitching. This is not how to secure a strap and have it hold. There are two good ways to do it that I've seen: the approach favored by seatbelt makers and the makers of Rucksack, ReLoad, and a host of other bags: to "make a box":http://www.carryology.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/RELoad-Bags-2.jpg on top of the strap where it meets the pack, and then sew an X over the box, or the approach that Domke takes: "sew strap around the entire bag":http://www.wexphotographic.com/webcontent/product_images/large/66/1013942.jpg, so that the pack cloth isn't holding all the weight. Also, the bottom of the bag is a piece all by itself, just a rectangle on the bottom. It's two extra seams at the sides taking weight, and two more places for water to leak in, if you should happen to set the bag down somewhere damp. The right way to do this is of course to have one piece that makes a big u: starting from one side at the top, going continuously around to the other. Like "this one my friend Sarah makes":http://martineusa.com/products/oakland-messenger. All that to say that I'm still carrying the bag. Day to day it's not bad at all. I'm doing my best not to overload it, and to keep it out of the wet. I just don't expect it to last. (ed. note: Sophia says after heraing me bitch about this stuff for a couple minutes last night: 'Why don't you just design your own bags?', and you know, I just might.)

walkin around

2014-01-27T21:14:55+00:00

it's lunchtime at work, and i remembered to put together an edit this morning. the light in this city is just fantastic, all the time.

yup it's a boat

2014-01-24T04:58:28+00:00

We're watching _girls_ at my house, which means I'm sitting here fucking around on my iPad. Hello. Yes, these are pictures of boats. Well, at least they're either on or in a boat. The harbor was glass smooth that night, eerie and quiet. Inside, not so quiet. That boat is an amazing place.

friendsgiving in the sunset

2014-01-23T15:27:04+00:00

We stayed around here for the holidays, and had Thanksgiving dinner with some new friends in the city. Somehow, traffic wasn't awful that day. I have to wonder if most people weren't out in the burbs with family. Sophie made her mac n' cheese, and I drove. This may seem like an unfair division of labor, but you have to consider that I also grated her cheese (not a euphemism). The people we were there with, Liz and Otto, were really great hosts, and the company in general was amazing. I wasn't really on my people photo game, though (too much eating). We smoked, we drank, we talked of many things. (Sailing ships and sealing wax). Some day I'll kick this parenthesis habit. You'll see!

bookended by sophia

2014-01-21T05:44:07+00:00

I mean, this was a really nice night. Sophia's mom took us out to dinner. We had really nice sushi in downtown Oakland. our uber driver on the way was this old chinese lady, very nice, but strange. so i took pictures out the window. There are wonders everwhere. can I say how much I love this woman, my wife? no, no I cannot. for some reason, this stupid keyboard is hating on my setup again; all the capital letters aren't working. (update: seems like an iSSH bug).

solutions to bad blogging

2014-01-20T16:06:39+00:00

Man, I just don't know about that last post. I mean, a couple sentences, some photos, that's prety typical. It's sort of weak sauce commentary though, is't it? I mean, I'm all for punk rock disregaurding of the rules, but photos of ships and the bay bridges are not punk rock. They say the solution to bad speech is more speech (I'm already quoting Cory Doctorow, you know how this week is going to go). So, it follows the solution to bad blogging isn't to delete the post, but to do it again, better.

another day another ferry ride

2014-01-20T15:16:07+00:00

Yeah, I know, by my own cirteria, two of these three picutres are boring. Just goes to show that there aren't any hard and fast rules in photography.

scenery is boring

2014-01-17T06:16:39+00:00

Don't get me wrong, I love a good lanscape, but they're not alive, you know? OK, plants are alive. But add people, and it's actually looking back at you, or at least could be. My new years resolution: more pictures of people, less pictures of not people (arrived at some weeks late, but whatever). So yeah: believe it or not, these are some of the less twisty parts of the road from Stinson back to civilization. I'd need a wide angle lens and some serious time with the concept of curves to really get it in the frame, if you know what I mean. And that would be boring.

stinson beach

2014-01-16T15:46:15+00:00

So this was a nice day. Brunch and then a hella twisty drive through Marin to the beach. I didn't think it was that bad, but Soph and her mom got a little carsick, and wouldn't let me drive back. I suppose a year of hardly driving day-to-day has taken its toll on my skills. Our luck was up, and the sky was clear and blue (as opposed to the fog that could have come in). We basically laid there and listened to the surf for an hour, and then walked to the far end of the beach. We wished for a picnic basket, maybe some beers, but then we went home and had a really big dinner. But going home is the next post. I did something with the editing process. I decided to cut all the ones without people about halfway through. It seems sort of arbitrary, but it immediately focused the edit. I used to have a hard rule against photos without people in them. I thought that people were the most interesting thing, and that landscapes and scenic shots were just boring. Of course, I formed that opinion in Oklahoma, where there aren't really landscapes as such.

sophie and her mom

2014-01-16T15:39:00+00:00

Did I mention that Soph's mom came to visit over thanksgiving?

BART journey

2014-01-15T07:09:34+00:00

This was a trip to San Leandro to watch Saturday morning football with some friends. It's saturday _morning_ football when the games happen on EST and you're on PST. Not a bad excuse to go drink mimosas and eat breakfast casserole, though. Public transit makes it possible. I tend to think of the reach of the BART as the real bounds of the city; it's probably two hours between its two farthest points (Fremont and SFO, maybe?), but my average journey is something like half an hour. There's definitely something to be said for getting under the bay in less than 20 minutes (from stop to stop; my commute is essentially that plus walking 7 minutes to one stop and 3 minutes to another). I mean, by that metric, my 'hood is as close to SOMA as the Mission. Of course, commute time is only one metric.

couple randos for ya

2014-01-14T06:22:56+00:00

I'm still editing the next big batch of photos; these cover from just before thanksgiving through new years. A pretty big batch, not like the old days where I'd pull out the card every day and see what had happened right in front of me. I'm starting something tonight; for every blog post I also make a print. The third image is tonight's print. Of course, my printer is nearly out of ink, but I've found a cheaper alternative for that, so hopefully I'll be printing more soon.

sf streets in color

2014-01-10T04:47:29+00:00

In two weeks of being in oklahoma, I got three pictures. I shot all of these walking around before and after lunch, shortly after I got back. I am definitely in the right place.

planes are awesome (part 2)

2014-01-09T03:51:09+00:00

Until we get spaceflight or teleports or something, this is the best way to go someplace. Even a bad flight is good because you get to go somewhere different, see amazing things out the window.

planes are awesome (part 1)

2014-01-08T06:57:53+00:00

Dude, but seriously. I'm splitting this into two posts because I got a lot of awesome pictures of clouds and the ground. I've had a long love affiair with flying. It's always pretty amazing, even what most people would call boring flights. I'm not afraid that nothing is holding the plane up, I'm amazed by the evidence of my eyes, that nothing but air and speed are holding the plane up. Not to mention the part where you get in and are flung thousands of miles in a few hours. Shift key appears to be working now, which is a nice change.

last chance to party

2014-01-07T06:23:34+00:00

in oklahoma, that is. KJ called me on my last night in town, said there was a hell of a show happening at VZD's. Psychobilly, she said. How could I say no? So we went out to the bar, had a pretty rockin time, as you can see. Koffin Kats killed it. there was great energy all around; the croud was also punk as fuck. in case you're wondering, something is wrong with the shift key. ust imagine capitals in the right places.

two weeks of not much to photograph

2014-01-06T19:26:14+00:00

I didn't do much while I was back. I just settled into a rhythm of walks with my mom in the afternoons, working remotely with whoever I happened to be paired with that day, and sleeping in combined with a lot of late nights.

an OK night

2014-01-03T07:16:35+00:00

get it? OK? no? Well, anyway, this was actually a pretty fun night. there was food off a truck, and ice cream, and a record store that had materialized in the plaza district since my last visit. Oh yeah, and hanging out with one of my best firends in the world, KJ. There are a few people I miss since moving away, and she's pretty high up on the list.

vertigo, or shots from the plane

2014-01-02T06:31:48+00:00

Can I talk about how much I didn't want to leave my freshly official wife for two weeks? Because I really didn't. I had to though; my mom got a kidney transplant, and I was needed to help out around the house, and I also personally needed to go out there and see her getting better. Anyway, I crossed about 1/2 the country before dinner, and I was exhausted at the end of it. Any flight that's too early to catch BART to get to out of SFO is officially off the table. (I've officially doomed myself to 6AM flights forever with that statement, I know). The color of the ground on this flight though. I've never seen fall like that before.

mountains on the way home

2013-12-31T00:20:15+00:00

The way home was pretty awesome. Instead of going through Sacramento, we went through the Sierras. The day started out kind of gray, but then the clouds sort of broke open, with a high, thin haze and a bunch of small cumulus clouds closer to us. Really good light, as long as you can get your exposures right. I was shooting through all the windows, but I think the dirt and reflections work here. We stopped for pizza at Fallon's uncle's, which was amazing. After that I was pretty much out for the day. I think I may have also run out of camera batteries; I know I was tired and hung over. Everyone who came: Thanks so much. You guys helped make it special, and I know it wouldn't have been as fun without you. Now I'm going to stop, because I'm getting a sympathy hangover thinking about that day.

my second wedding, or, what happens when someone else uses the camera

2013-12-30T06:19:29+00:00

We got to Tahoe about 1:30, with little idea of what to do next; we hadn't booked anything in advance except the airbnb we stayed in. The rooms were nice, but they didn't come with a chapel or courhouse, so we went to the internet in search of one. I found a chapel just up the way that would be able to do it for us, for something like $300, which was about what I expected. The lady on the phone sounded like she was used to dealing with the likes of me. Unprepared, not knowing what was going on. Fortunately, Sophie was there. She'd also been internetting in search of a solution, and found that the Nevada side of the lake had a weekend county recorders office open, and we could go there to get a license for $50. So, we all got in our cars and drove across the border. We got lucky, in that there was a officiant there; she was doing a ceremony up the hill or something, but she would come back for us in half an hour and do our ceremony for $40. So she did, and we did, and that was that. Here is where the subtitle comes in; I was a bit busy at the time, and so others in the party took pictures with mine and sophie's cameras, to varying degrees of success. All of the photos of the ceremony were a bit blurry or cutting vital parts of our anatomies, so none of thse are here. The group shots after were great, as were a couple of the portraits of me and sophie. Then there's the cake cutting picture from that night, where Sophie looks ready to kill, which is really one of my favorte pictures of her. I think someone implied that she was unabel to cut cake alone. At some point, later in the night, we decided to go down to the shore and look at the stars, which was pretty nice. Cold as all hell, but nice.

on the way to tahoe

2013-12-29T23:06:44+00:00

So, me and Soph had to have two weddings... there was a snafu with the paperwork in oklahoma, all my fault. Anyway, it was a good excuse to go back to Tahoe. Everything about this weekend was pertty beautiful, so I'm cutting it into several posts. No deep thoughts today, because it's sunday funday.

fuck it, time for some color

2013-12-28T20:01:38+00:00

the number of times I've started a post title with 'fuck' is, in fact, pretty large. I blame it on society. B&W is awesome, and I think it was a much needed break from what I was doing, in order to get a better idea of where I'm going as an artist. Strip down, simplify, and don't fuck around with triviality for a while. But then today, I was editing these photos, and I clicked the one of the woman in the orange caot over to color for a second, just to see, and I realized that I was still seeing in color most of the time, and that may of these photos worked better in color. It would be a shame to hide something good for the sake of style. I can't ignore the evidence of my eyes. So here, some fucking color:

back on the ferry

2013-12-28T08:58:41+00:00

I may have talked about this, but with my new job, for some reason I find it harder to get up on time to take the ferry. So for a while there, I only had one form of commute, and it was boring, and my instageam likes fell way off. More recently, though, I've started ferry-ing again. It really is a lot nice way to start the day. much less crowded, never too hot, and as a result, a lot more civil. I brought this up to a fellow passenger, and they said, "Well, we're all in the same boat." I've been thinking lately about this idea that I got from N. Scott Momaday's _In the Bear's House_, where one of the characters says "All stories are true." It's a koan for me; there are a lot of way to approach the idea, and a lot of layers to it. Obviously not all stories are ture on their face, but they all tell us something. About the tellers, about ourselves, and hopefully, about the world. "Storyteller" isn't far removed from "teacher", after all. I wish I could remember a little more of the context around that statement from the book, but I loaned my copy of it out and never saw it again some years ago.

now with more santa cruz

2013-12-25T22:05:21+00:00

after the pier, we went for a little hike. nothing strenuous, more of a nice coda to the day. there was this beautiful little stream at the halfway point. and then i took an accidental selfie, which came out ok.

that time we went to santa cruz

2013-12-25T07:27:24+00:00

We went down to visit some friends on a saturday, and then we ended up staying on their fold out couch. It was nice: Sophie got to play with cats, and I got to not drive 2 hours back to the city. I the morning, we went for brunch and a walk out on the pier. The brunch place was this totally hippie place called jupiter, good food though. All done up for Halloween, which was in the middle of a week this year if memory serves. Anyway, Santa Cruz has a lot going for it. nice little amusement park, beautiful little downtown (getting a little commercial, but so is SF), and hiking right in town. That's the next post, though.

something about scale

2013-12-24T07:52:00+00:00

There's an essay that I've been working on and thinking about for the last several years. I think of it as my essay on scale, and the photos end up being drawn mostly from SF, but from other places as well. It's about that moment when you look up and see the world as it is, and for just a moment realize how big things really are. There may be a better set of words to describe what I'm talking about. An actual essay, in addition to a photo essay? Maybe, but I need to at least figure out what I'm talking about first. Maybe it's also about my personal discovery of just how big the world is, and how small I am in it. The truth is these are just glimpses of something much larger; to take in the whole thing would kill you, or at least drive you bonkers. Or maybe it's not something you can look at the whole and understand. More like you can see a corner of it and understand the whole better. Looking up at the stars is seeing forever, and it just looks flat. Looking at mountains many miles wide and tall is the same; it's scenery. Introduce some perspective somehow, and suddenly things pop into place.

jacob's birthday party

2013-12-21T17:45:23+00:00

Getting out there was an adventure. We waited to get on the Bay Bridge for 2 hours. I have no idea why, but for some reason, everyone was trying to get to SF. So, by the time we got to Pacifica, it was fairly late and most of the festivities had died down. I was just a dozen or so folks, sitting around a fire pit, playing banjo or bongos or bells, singing, drinking still more homebrew. There was also (unpictured) a dessert made of apples, with cinnamon, sugar, then grilled, which was amazeballs. A really nice night.

out of order

2013-12-20T15:36:36+00:00

I'm not sure if these photos are out of order or not, It may have been one of those weeks wehe I did two rides to the beach. I know there's a racoon in the fourth one. I really like the gas station, for the shape of the awning and the apartments in the background. I know there's cold brew, waiting for me to decant it. Edit to add: thing I forgot to talk about because no coffee when I wrote this. The feeling of bombing down market street at night, right into the heart of the city, weaving in and out of traffic. The best. (As I've said before, all the parts of that ride are the best).

creative blocks

2013-12-19T15:53:41+00:00

been a while since I rapped at ya. I had a creative block that needed to be removed; blasted through, if nothing else. In the end, I decided the photos I was worrying over wenen't even that great, so I just cut them and moved on. Somtimes, it's startling to realize that even though I've been doing photography seriously for 15 years, I still don't know what I'm doing.

two ladies and a sunset

2013-12-12T06:33:44+00:00

Long weekend. Walking around festivals is exhausting. This was hardly simply, or hardly strictly, or something like that. A music festival that was a little bluegrass and a lot of other things: Gogol Bordello was playing, which was my main attraction. I remember being so exhausted at the end of this day that instead of going out to dinner with some friends, we cancelled on the way to dinner and went home to crash. And the last photo is sort of a 'fuck you' to past me, that thought going all B&W would stop the sunsets.

a nice walk in the park

2013-12-10T15:33:44+00:00

This was one of those evenings where most of the group had a nice, calm walk in the park, and I was running around like a crazy person, trying to catch the light. It was singularly amazing.

New Portfolio

2013-12-09T15:35:14+00:00

A friend told me that I was in danger of all of my photos becoming just pictures of my commute. I mean, I'm basically there anyway. Documenting the life of a late 20's tech worker. I'm not sure that's all I want to be doing. So, notice those little red buttons up there in the top nav? There's a new one for my portfolio. Click it, and let me know what you think at my email (also linked above). If you're hiring a photographer in the bay area and like it, let me know. In case you're wondering, no, I'm not quitting my current job; I can do both, so I'm going to, and see where it takes me.

new work folks

2013-12-07T19:13:16+00:00

One of the great things about working at a new place is all the cool new people you meet. The team at SC is no exception. They're a diverse and extremely talented bunch, and I'm glad I get to work with them. Also, a photo of a building in SOMA and a nice street view, because I can.

some days

2013-12-06T15:44:39+00:00

Some days the light is just right, and you can do no wrong with the camera. This was one of those days. I feel like this should have been after sunset, but maybe I was off work early for some reason. Two months is a long time.

riding the wiggle

2013-12-05T15:32:47+00:00

The wiggle, fo those that aren't familiar, is the path of least resisitance from the east when crossing to the west in SF. It's still a bit of a climb, but every time you think "Holy crap, I have to go up that?!?," there's a right or a left turn, and it's not nearly as bad as you thought. One more note: it's really hard to take pictures while biking in traffic.

ferry in black and white

2013-12-04T15:33:19+00:00

There's something slightly twisted about posting a sunrise in black and white. "Here":http://cl.ly/image/1k3G3f1H3f3y is the color version. What do you think?

new way home

2013-12-03T06:17:34+00:00

New job means new commute means new things to see. This commute is a lot shorter, so there's only two blocks between work and the BART. I may pull a "Bruce Davidson":http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&ALID=2K7O3RJSJ42A&VBID=2K1HZSWEPT8V&PN=1 and shoot on the BART. Although, to be honest, my day to day isn't nearly that gritty. SF in the 2010s is nothing next to NY in the 80s if the photos are evidence of anything.

reception party afterparty

2013-12-01T19:22:41+00:00

This was all a big drunken blur. So, I'm going to use this space to thank a bunch of people that may or may not have been thanked yet. Thanks to Marylyn and Richard, who hosted the wedding at their house, and to Sophie's mom, who cooked and held things to the plan on the day of, including getting the reception set up. Thanks to our friend Jessica Lothrop for doing the catering at the reception. Thanks to everyone who brought cakes, drinks, and themselves to both events. I know some people travelled pretty far to get there, and I really appreciate it. Sophia, in classic style, has a list of all the people, and the thank-you cards are gradually going out. This thing wouldn't have been as much of a success without evry one who came along for the ride. So thanks.

Yes

2013-12-01T17:03:04+00:00

Also, AW YEAAAAAH.

I got married

2013-12-01T08:43:56+00:00

For most people this isn't news. If you're someone in the far future reading this, if it's somehow survived without any of the social media to give it context: I'm madly in love with this woman, and I'm really glad that she puts up with me. That day, I got up and drove to lawton with two of my best friends in the world, one who was officiating and one who was going to be "best man" even though she wasn't a man. Sophie's aunt and uncle provided a venue for us; they have a lovely house of their own design, and a beautiful garden out back. I said some really sappy, meaningful things that I'd struggled to write the night before, got a little choked up, and she made up her vows on the spot. Tim said some great stuff that I don't remember, and we were pronounced husband and wife. Then there was drinking and mingling, and cake cutting. The whole thing was perfect.

back to ok

2013-11-30T07:32:10+00:00

So, in September, I went back to OK for a week to get hitched. Can I say how weird it was to be back? Going home is weird, because it's not even home anymore. Home is a moving target of associations, friends, places I sleep, places I go out to, and all the things that are normal. The way I get up in the morning and take the train. The way my shower works. There are ten thousand little things which make up 'home'. Anyway, enough blather. PHOTOS:

first and last chance

2013-11-28T19:57:00+00:00

Just some random photos from a roll of film that got developed along with the wedding film. All my wedding photos were on film, because at the time I thought my fuji was broken. It made the week much simpler, photographically. As it turns out, a softrelease fixed the fuji, so I'm still shooting with it. I had forgotten how good film looked, with no fucking around with filters and contrast masking and shit. Blacks are _black_, whites are _white_. The tonality I have to work for in digital is just there already. I suppose my recent return to B&W was presaged by this work; it was definitely influenced by it. I have to thank "Hornbeck":http://johnhornbeck.com/, too, because seeing his work on instagram and FB his work was a kick in the ass, a reminder that black and white could be great, and color was just a pretension. I realized I needed to stop fucking around. I need to make pictures.

home of the a's

2013-11-28T19:44:44+00:00

This was the home opener. Somehow, I find myself at a baseball game about once every other year. I like the idea of baseball, and the games are fun to go to, but I can't get into watching them on TV. It's just a rare treat. I think this was like May-ish; the film stuff is all out of order, and this roll didn't get developed with the rest.

camp games

2013-11-27T06:22:40+00:00

I'm proud to announce that as of this post I'm _less than three months behind_. Seriously, this is a milestone for me, and I'm really thankful for all the people that helped me along my way. Seriously, three months sounds like a lot, but I'n basically leapfrogging september; All I have are a few film shots and the wedding. This was what the evenings looked like. Hanging out in the net shelter, to keep out the bugs. Playing games, eating, reading. Totally exactly what I needed.

relaxing on the river

2013-11-26T07:02:36+00:00

This is most of what we did the last weekend we went camping. It is at least as relaxing as it looks. Probably more so, because there were seveal hammocks for when floating became too strenuous. Beer, foods, the whole bit. Astute observers will notice that there are actually two swimming holes depicted here, because we went to two different ones, on different days. My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I think it was a three day weekend? A needed break, anyway.

Last Team Lunch With EY

2013-11-25T06:22:22+00:00

Man, 00 pizza. Also, emotions. I miss these guys. A good bunch, one of the best bosses ever, and a really great work environment. I'm constantly reminded of just how lucky I am.

bitter end trivia

2013-11-22T07:11:58+00:00

This was one of the nights where we met out at the Bitter End, a bar in the Richmond. Decent food, good beers, great decor. It's a perfect dive bar, and far enough afield that it's a pretty good crowd, not all hyper-startup-world. Not to get all down on startups, I mean, I work at one, but there's something about the scene that makes me think it's all going to come crashing down eventually. Maybe I'm wrong, and that's oldthink. I do like to get away from it sometimes, though.

Engagement Karaoke Party

2013-11-21T15:37:28+00:00

Because we didn't have any wedding celebration planned here in SF, and because we've accumulated some friends here, we decided we needed to do smoething with them to celebrate the then upcoming nuptials. Karaoke was the natural choice. The only other thing I need to say is that I missed a couple members of the party, because they were sitting next to me; Demetrius and Christine, sorry about that.

two more portaits

2013-11-19T21:50:41+00:00

Man, portraiture. The world at large may have infinite variety and beauty (see, e.g., all of the work of Adams, Weston, the other Adams, Paul Caponigro, etc, etc) but man, to me, people are so much more interesting and dynamic. There's so much depth to a portrait, so many things that people automatically read and project onto the work that doesn't happen with landscape pictures. It's more difficult, because in addition to managing the light, the exposure, the framing, composition, and timing, people move all the time. I have a feeling that some photographers gravitate toward static subjects because they can't deal with the difficulties. Having said that, I just spent two hours glued to the plane window, shooting pictures of the passing mountains and clouds. I do both, because I can't refrain from taking a picture when I see one.

last ride in the daylight

2013-11-19T01:31:49+00:00

As the winter makes the days shorter, my rides ended closer and closer to sunset, and then I'd arrive at the beach at sunset, and then finally, the last couple times, it's been dark when I got there. This was somewhere in the middle of all that, near dark with the fog rolled in. Just fantastic. Can you tell I'm looking forward to getting back?

Evil Party

2013-11-17T06:24:24+00:00

Whoever came up with this idea, it's amazing. For Gina's birthday, we all had to dress up as villans. I went as Dr. Evil, and Sophia did a mean poison ivy. I'm obligated by our marrige vows to post the picture of her in the mask, I think. Also, for anyone who was wondering how to look at a camera, Jamie is showing you how in that 2nd to last photo.

americas cup from the water

2013-11-16T22:49:07+00:00

There was a lot of stuff written about how kinda bullshit the whole thing was for the City of SF, but since other people have already articulated the problems with hosting a sport for billionaires, I won't rehash that here. It _was_ nice to get out on the water, even though I got a bit sea sick. It's funny, the ferry never does it to me, and the trips out on Seemant's boat didn't bother me either. Sometimes, though, I'll get on a boat and just be in a bad way untill the motion sickness medicine kicks in. Barring that, this was a good excursion. The yacht we were on was incredibly nice, the kind of place a schlub like myself could retire to. 50ft, 3 bedrooms, well outfitted, too. Plenty of food and drink, and a fine captain to steer us. I can see why people that have the money for a big boat have one; sure, they're showy, but they're also genuinely enjoyable. Not that I'd ever buy one myself; far too many places to go and things to do.

back in black and white

2013-11-16T22:07:10+00:00

I've decided I need to simplify a bit. I used to shoot in black in white all the time. There are myraid reasons: it's more graphic and striking, there's more process control, and it used to be cheaper. When that went away with digital, and I was able to shoot color at iso 3200, I went a little crazy with it. Now, there are plenty of reasons to shoot color. It's closer to reality (for a given value of reality). It can be more eye-catching. And there I'm out of reasons. I've been lusting after "this camera":http://www.amazon.com/Leica-10760-Monochrom-Compact-2-5-Inch/dp/B0082ES6HA for a while, but I realized, I have a perfectly good camera now, and the only thing that would get me is full frame. If I want to shoot black and white, I should just do it. So I am, starting now. This also solves the problem of a lot of the clichés I'm guilty of. Sunsets, especially. They're just not the same in black and white.

two portraits

2013-11-15T06:52:37+00:00

After the excitement of the last post, here's two portraits of some friends. Editing pictures at a distance is hard. I can't wait to be home.

the flynn-curran wedding

2013-11-13T07:14:35+00:00

This was a lot of fun. It was sort of a last minute deal, because I'd only known Ronan and Amiee for a few weeks. I'd met them before, in Ireland, but not spent any appreciable time with them before they came to the US. It's been great getting to know them, and I'm really happy I was there. This is the really severe edit; the broader edit can be found at "my gallery site":http://galleries.notuntitled.com/flynn-curran-wedding-flickr.

Zen Evenings

2013-11-08T01:43:15+00:00

The perfect evening is one that starts with "Let's meet up for lunch," and goes from there. This was one of those. It started meeting up for tacos, then it was movie night in Dolores, which quickly fizzled when we couldn't hear or see (protip: get there early if you want either of those things). So, we went to the house, and thence to several bars, just sort of moving along on impulse. The larger the group, the harder this is, but it's pretty good when it works.

random photos day

2013-11-07T05:50:15+00:00

Today has been a very long day; started at 3am in SF and now I'm in OKC for 13 days, to help my mom with recovery from kidney transplant surgery. Anyone who's waited multiple years on a transplant list knows what a relief this is (that goes for families as well). No more dialysis is a big improvement in quality of life, to be sure, but having that whole chapter closed and being able to start a new one is a great thing. Anyway, travel and sleep interruptions left me a bit drained, so I thought it'd be a good time to share the collection of random images that has accumulated at the top of the queue. These are photos that didn't fit with whatever post I was doing at the time, but couldn't bear to part with. Nothing tying them together other than my presence.

four portraits

2013-11-05T06:35:41+00:00

These people are all very different, but I saw the visual similarity when I was editing, and decided they could go together. that's all for tonight.

midsummer complains about fall

2013-11-04T07:47:06+00:00

I think this must've been the ass end of July. It was grey and cold for the duration. I don't know why, but sleep isn't coming tonight for some reason. It's not yet midnight, but it feels very late. Stupid Daylight Savings time. For those of use with sensitive circadian rhythms, it sucks.

a grey ride through golden gate park

2013-11-04T06:12:12+00:00

There's a certain hubris involved in putting these pictures up. I'm in effect saying that what I see has meaning and substance that's more than passing interest, and that my perspective by itself is important. Sure, we're all unique snowfalkes or whatever, but does the fact that I caught the mist just so in the first photo, or the gesture of the other riders in the other photos really matter? An "internet friend":http://busblog.tonypierce.com/ of mine said recently that if you're still blogging in 2013, you're not doing it for fame, or fortune, you're doing it for the love. That's definitely true of me. In the end, I don't care if it matters wether my perspective is important or not; I love these picutes, the people, the things that happen, and I want everyone to see that. No, it's not just that I love all this. I have a responsibility to show the world what I see. It's the social contract you make when you go out taking pictures, the thing that prevents it from being complete masturbatory voyeurism: you have to show everyone. Then it becomes a conversation, a discourse, not mere naval gazing. That's what I want.

being a bad friend

2013-11-02T05:18:15+00:00

I've been a bad friend. I haven't talked to a bunch of these folks in a while, not directly. I'm have to fix that after this weekend. I'm just so damn busy and run down. But there are Lunches (when all of these photos were taken) and there will be more of them. Sometimes it takes seeing things to remember how important some people are.

she says to me

2013-11-01T14:52:29+00:00

She says to me last night, "You know people like looking at pictures, right?" So here are a bunch from her work party, and the drive home. The view from the Oakland hills is really rad. I didn't get many good pictures of the guests, the house, the spread, or anything you'd expect. If you can believe it, that was only the second cutest dog there. What can I say, I was tired.

the smaller camping trip

2013-11-01T05:27:56+00:00

This was also incidentally the weekend when my trusty D700 bit the dust, or more precisely, took a bath. I was getting into my tube, and fell in with the camera. It was a brief dunk, but that was all it took. Almost four years of abuse, thousands of miles, and too may drops to count. The sands of Egypt, the streets of many cities, and finally what did it in was tubing in Sierras. I still have all the parts, and I'm eventually going to make it the world's most expensive photogram machine. It was seriously a great way to spend a weekend; The water in both spots we went to was just cold enough to keep you cool, but not enough to freeze you. There were trees for my hammock and plentiful beers. And then, on the ride home, we had amazing pizza.

on the way to camp, sometime in July

2013-10-31T05:16:02+00:00

These are from the trip out to camping the second to last time we went. The clouds in the background of the first timage are actually a thick fog that Soph piloted us through. I'm pretty sure I took over at the last exit, though; the last road is winding and rutted and pretty fun for me. Camping, in this mode, is mostly sitting in a float in a still part of a river and drinking beer. It's wonderful. Ther are other kinds of camping I'd like to explore, because you can go places and see things that are impossible to get to any other way (I'm looking at you, backcountry hiking).

streets again

2013-10-30T05:42:37+00:00

I did warn you. I was thinking about how if you really want to do something, do it every day, and how I should be writing more, even if it is just a few sentences. Remember when every other post was a whole essay? When I had strong opinions about selling out? Hey past me, income is nice, but don't trade it for adventures. Things to write about: my wonderful wife, who makes me want to hurry home... the hella fast bike I built... ("srsly":https://twitter.com/photomattmills/status/395365967791804416/photo/1) I dunno. Startup culture, and how fucked up it can be, but also how great it can be. Looking at old photos and finding gems. Looking at new photos, and the process of going from hating everything to loving a few of them enough to show the world (This delay has helped me a bit with that). Parentheticals, and how often is too often (right here). Yeah, time to sleep. See you all mañana.

some people would miss all this

2013-10-29T14:32:29+00:00

Not just see it and move on but never notice it in the first place. It seems like random mess, but you can stare at it and sort of see themes emerge, like a world-sized rorschach test. What you see in the world defines who you are.

a 90 minute tour

2013-10-29T06:11:48+00:00

Somewhere in there, (10 days after the fourth, according to the pictures' metadata), we took the _Jackpot_ out for a cruise around Treasure Island. For the first half, I rode out on the bow, and took photos, and then for the second, I went to the back, because I didn't want to fall in. I'm used to the ferry, which is a really big catamaran; two hulls means they're more stable, and a much bigger boat also means the same. This was... a bit different. Not bad, but bouncing up and down 3-4 feet over every wave and getting splashed with seawater a lot. My nikon got a workout that day, and so did my free arm, holding on to the railing.

streets of SF (one of many)

2013-10-28T07:00:14+00:00

Man, street photography, why can't I quit you? You're so problematic from so many perspectives, but it feels so good. Also, how SOMA is an Audi with that vanity plate?

trivia tuesdays

2013-10-27T23:28:31+00:00

For the first couple of months here in the bay, you could find us at bar trivia at least once a week. It's a good way to get out of the house an dnot feel like you're just wasting time. I may have mentioned it on the social medias. Anyway, it's nice to sometimes win some beer some times (2 or 3 times, but who's counting?), and have a good excuse to go drink it. Anyway, the bar we go to for trivia is just a stone's throw from the rockridge BART, which has a nice view of the bay, the bridge, and the city beyond. I seem to take a picture of it everytime I'm there, but they don't usually work. I do like this one, though.

team lunches

2013-10-26T22:08:23+00:00

These guys, seriously. I don't still wish I was at EY with the things I'm hearing (RIP EY Buffalo), but the team had talent and personality to spare.

4th on a boat

2013-10-25T05:19:21+00:00

This is how I spent my 4th of July; on Seemant's boat, drinking and waiting for fireworks that never came. Or, when they did, were far off in the distance (that shot was through my 500mm lens, and the only one that was remotely sharp). There was drinking, and there were photos, so I was pretty happy with how it all came out. This was the second time the _Jillpot_ sailed, incidentally. It's now known also as the "truth boat." Weather it's know for that beacuse you think you're going to sink and become deathbed honest or not is up for question; I have not sailed on it under either name.

posting will continue

2013-10-23T14:15:46+00:00

Until morale improves. Seriously, I just realized I'm almost 4 months behind posting photos, which is a stretch, even for me. We will get caught up by christmas, or therabouts.

The better bridge

2013-10-23T05:32:40+00:00

I mean, look at it.

pride 2013

2013-10-21T15:41:51+00:00

Pride in San Fransisco isn't a lot different than pride in OKC... wait, who am I kidding? It's the difference between a firecracker and a supernova. It's the difference between 5000 and 100000 people. There's a lot going on, plenty of crowds to get lost in, plenty to see and do. Just the people watching is pretty awesome. People of all stripes, out and proud. Whole parts of the city are closed off to traffic, and open to everything else. Which, incidentally, I didn't see much of. People make a big deal about a couple naked guys, walking around, but here, that's just another tuesday. Lots of street preformances, though, lots of yelling, food, drinking, dancing on lightposts, things you _really_ don't see every day. I was happy to see the support for Chelsea Manning. I hope she gets some much deserved freedom, sooner rather than later.

Power lines

2013-10-20T19:10:50+00:00

There's something very much of my generation of photographers about doing a composition study at a car accident scene. On the other hand, nobody was hurt, and it's really a pretty commonplace thing, so maybe it's appropriate to be a little blasé.

the first four off the top

2013-10-20T06:27:05+00:00

These are just the first four images off the top of the queue. Only a little editing. I remember *some* of the context, except for the first one. I have no clue why I was walking in Chinatown just past dusk.

back on the air

2013-10-19T22:29:15+00:00

This is "@photomattmills":http://twitter.com/photomattmills, back on the air. The extened hiatus owes to my lack of a personal computer these past two months. I changed jobs, and the new employer has clauses in the contract about who owns what I produce on company equipment... anyway, I needed my own rig. I've completely forgotten where I was in the flow of editing and producing blog posts, so excuse me if I repeat myself. The new gig is super sweet. I'm learning a crap ton, which is great, and my co-workers and bosses are all pretty chill. To hold you over while I'm getting my shit together, and so you'll know I'm actually alive, here's a shot from our last camping trip. It's the last star field I took, and the only one that's even remotely sharp (although at 100% there's still a little motion).

More from the ferry

2013-08-30T17:15:36+00:00

I may seriously do a _roman à clef_ style photo book from these and some other photos. Does anybody do that?

Barbeque on the Jackpot

2013-08-29T22:12:38+00:00

This was also the day that the _Jillpot_ launched for the first time. I burned meat on the back of the boat, there were many drinks, and someone (unpictured) decided to take a swim in the bay.

some photos while you wait

2013-08-28T19:09:04+00:00

I'm writing a longer piece about caring in photography that I hope I'll have done before the weekend, but while that's still in progress, here are some photos.

a weekend

2013-08-23T05:58:09+00:00

So, about a week after I got back, we got together on the boat for something. It may have been Fallon's birthday. Anyway, there was some drinking, followed by some sleeping, and then a ride to Sacremento to meet Fallon's dad, where, for some reason, there was a person in a Bear suit that didn't want to pose for a photo. The second to last photo is something I've been experimenting with, calling them 'awkward compositions'. The idea is to take the natural composition, what I would instinctively do, and throw everything just a little off. So, instead of perfect thirds, you get half sky, half ground, and a line (the gaurdrail) going trough in the center. It's an attempt to break out of my habits, more or less, and still make good photos. It's hard to break habits that you've had for more than a decade; I've been a photographer longer than I've been anything else. I want to stay fresh, give myself challenges. I've been thinking of assignments beyond little composition exercises (which, after all, are just foreplay, practice for the main event). I don't know where I'm going with this, but I'm going somewhere.

Howth

2013-08-17T06:36:52+00:00

Every hike should end at a bar.

I'm going to try not to bore you

2013-08-17T04:13:01+00:00

I don't want to bore you with tourist pictures, but I took a lot, and they made the edits, so this is one of two posts. I was ruthless editing these. Seriously. Anything redundant, or slightly boring got cut. I did about two days worth of actual tourism in my almost two weeks there; the rest of the time was spent working and laying around.

ping pong in the office

2013-08-13T06:43:32+00:00

So, all of the Engine Yard offices I've been in have ping pong tables. Secret to our success? Maybe. There is something about taking a break to do something physical while you're thingking really hard on a problem for a long time. Moving around makes you forget some of the rigidity you had built up around the problems, and you have headspace then for solutions. I don't really play ping pong, but I pace, I dance, whatever works. Sometimes I just need to stare out the window for a little while. Really, it's stillness of mind that you're after, the not-thinking. It's the creative headspace, the white canvas. The moment of quiet before ideas come rushing to fill it. Beginner's Mind: Stretching that moment out is Zen meditation (and one of the reasons I have a zen symbol tatooed on my arm). The longer you can stretch that moment out, the louder the ideas get. Sometimes, something really brilliant will come, other times, it's just a solution to a tricky process problem. I know I should just post single images to twitter, but that's so much harder to get to later, and this format makes the photos look better. Also, this is a good excuse to air my stupid ideas.

david's dinner

2013-08-13T06:17:58+00:00

Man, this guy can cook. App, Main, Dessert, all delicious.

can't think of a title

2013-08-10T19:40:25+00:00

Cool folks in the Dublin office though. This was day 2, I think. Maybe day 3?

Then I went to Ireland

2013-08-08T05:59:23+00:00

So, I did a first blush edit of the pictures I took in Ireland, and got it down under a hundred; don't worry, I won't bore you with all of them. I'd really like to get it all into 3 or so posts. The trip out was fairly uneventful. I couldn't sleep on the plane, so I shot pictures out of the window to amuse myself. The first one here was the best of the lot. I wonder what some of those lights are. Some of them tally as reflections off the window or lens flares. At least one doesn't. By the time I arrived, I'd only slept 2 hours in the previous 36, and I was a bit lagged. Even so, I was in a new place, and filing thoughts away for later. One thing I noticed was how there seemed to be some thought put into almost every structure. A bridge isn't just a bridge, but an opportuity to show off. Even the corner liquor store was less molded plactic and stamped metal than you'd see here. The plan of going to brunch on arrival turned into go to lunch, and then stagger across half the city after a SIM card with Long (one of my co-workers). The nearest phone store was 3 (named when 3g was a new thing). It was in a big open shopping area, a street lined with shops whose name I forget. The fake fakir, levitating, was there, with just about the worst sunburn I've ever seen.

camping and poor planning

2013-08-06T06:34:19+00:00

so, this was the trip before the trip. Before my work trip to ireland, we were supposed to go camping with some friends we met through turntable; everybody bailed, basically, but we decided it'd be nice to get away for the weekend and have some quality time away from the world before I was gone for two weeks. The drive in was somewhat perilous, but also gorgeous. It didn't help that I was trying and failing to beat sundown. Anyway, picture a dark dirt road with some washboard, some hairpin turns, a couple river fords (that's places where you go in the water, instead of a bridge), and some cliffs. The beauty of the valley we were making out way down was not lost on me. There's something really nice about moonlight. It looks like midday at first glance, but the shadows are super deep. Gone. There's also the the chance that the photo won't work at all; that my eyes are compensating for a contrast ratio that my camera can't match. So it feels extra good. Once we got there, the trouble really started. We'd only brought one flashlight and no firewood, so we had to forage for it. In looking around for wood, I found one of the posts marking the parking area with my shin, fracturing it (I think; I never got an x-ray, but I still have a bump 6 weeks later). I found wood, though, and made a fire. Then, of course, we had to pitch the tent, and we slept on rocky, slanted ground. Sort of par for the course by that point. Then the morning came, and things started looking up. My shin was bloody, but didn't hurt too much if I didn't touch it. We made steak and eggs, moved the tent to a more level spot, and decided to go for a hike. We hiked down to the river, about 2 miles, and dipped our feet in. Cool and nice, and then I hung my hammock and did some real relaxing. At around 6pm, we decided not to spend another night; we'd had our night out, our relaxing by the river, even a nice hike.

another skyline (from the ferry)

2013-08-06T06:18:44+00:00

Yeah, yeah. Two in a row, although different pictures. Next, a post about camping and poor planning.

the poem guy and the cat video festival

2013-08-05T16:34:27+00:00

Yes, there was an internet cat video festival in Oakland, and yes, we had to go. By far the coolest thing showing there was this guy, doing live poem compositions on the subject of your choice; Sophie says "Cats in space!" and the guy pounds on his typewriter for about five minutes, talking and bantering with us. Appearently he's normally in the tourist areas of SF, Fisherman's Wharf and such.

A skyline

2013-08-05T14:59:07+00:00

So, I was going to post a bunch of stuff this weekend, but in the process of setting up new internet, I inadvertently screwed up my firewall rules so that the only thing that wasn't working was NFS, and then I didn't have time to troubleshoot till now. hopefully this week goes better than all that.

in defense of tilted frames

2013-08-01T01:25:44+00:00

I've seen several criticisms in the art blogs of tilted frames lately; that they're gimmicky, that it's been done, yadda, yadda. The truth is that as long as photography retains its performative aspect, that is, you have to choose moments while you're actually in them, things will always be a little off kilter. (There's a lot more to be said about the curation of robotic photography, but it'll have to wait; I'm tired, and this post is about the world being a little sideways).

beach ride

2013-07-30T00:23:47+00:00

The importance of this ride and it's effect on my mental and physical well being cannot be understated. It's 8 miles out, a beer stop, and 8 miles back across the peninsula; about two hours total, depending on how long the beer stop is. Long enough that I get to push myself a little, but not so long that I'm a wreck the next day. I start in SOMA, head south through approxamately the design district, and from there zigzag my way to the wiggle to get over the middle of things. There's a wonderful bike path through panhandle park, where people are always out with their dogs, frisbees, and other paraphenalia. That path feeds right into Golden Gate park. GGP is wonderful, an amazing little pocket of nature in the middle of the city. There's a really fast stretch of downhill, and then the ocean; end of the line. The Pacific is wonderful. Every time I see it, it's different weather, different waves, but still, somehow constant. A goal to reach, an end. That is, until I decide to cross it in a sailboat. The ride back seems faster, because the only real climb is the scrabble up first set of hills going back into the park. I timed it, the other day, though, and the two slightly differing paths nearly identical in time and distance, probably due to traffic lights more than anything else. Someday, I'll do this ride at 4AM and really see how fast I can make it out and back again.

where I am

2013-07-30T00:08:45+00:00

for those not paying attention, that is, SF, CA, USA. also, I really like this photo, for no reason. Just sayin'.

on the other boat

2013-07-29T01:37:09+00:00

So, the book will be photos from the ferry, right? but of course, there's another boat in my life, which may or may not be in the final edit. I spend a reasonable ammount of time on the _Jackpot_, which is in fact my friend Seemant's home. It's an amazing setting for a lot of good stories (that may or may not see the light of day, depending on my mood/inebriation).

walk to work

2013-07-28T22:18:12+00:00

I wasn't kidding the other day on instagram; I really may do a book on/about my commute called 'from the boat'. But I don't know if I'd have pictures like this in it or not. Remains to be seen.

not quite photos of work

2013-07-28T18:52:34+00:00

So, not to say that the office is boring; it's infinitely better than sitting alone at home working remotely, but it is a little short on visually interesting human interaction. Also, I _work_ in the office, so I'm not nearly as prone to taking photos there. I'm much more likely to have my camera while we're going for a coffee in the afternoon, or walking to lunch or whatever. Also, as a rule, if more than three people are in a candid photo, at least one of them will be making a slightly awkward face. Oh well.

metric was nice

2013-07-28T18:33:55+00:00

The very next night, we went to see Metric in Oakland, and it was a lot of fun. She went off for a minute about how nobody has any privacy any more, because cell phones. Truth. Also, note to self: Always floor seats. Duh.

some street photos because sigur ros was boring

2013-07-28T17:47:08+00:00

I know, I know, it's been a long time since I've blogged. There are ~500 images in my backlog, though, and my computer situation has finally stabilised to the point that I can blog again. These are all from the night we went to see sigur ros, the band with the made up language. All I could think, the whole time, was, "God I wish this were Radiohead, they'd be so much better." On the plus side, we got to have some good sushi in the city, and Sophie enjoyed the show, so there's that. at some point in this series of posts, there may be a narrative breakdown, but there will always be some good photos. Don't worry, I'm just trying to get things online in a way that makes sense to me.

City Photos

2013-06-06T23:49:26+00:00

This place is pretty rad. Hills! Tall buildings! Other things! There, I've used up all my exclamation points for the month.

BBQ at Jacob's House

2013-06-04T19:23:32+00:00

Barbecues in Cali don't tend to revolve around the grill in the way that they do in the midwest. This one was really about playing music (if you could) and trying all of Jacob's beers. A very nice afternoon, in really good light. As the sun got lower, veiling flare became a real problem, but I don't have a lens hood. Oh well; I think I did OK, anyway. Thanks to Jacob and JBird for hosting.

hiking in the central peninsula

2013-06-02T14:47:48+00:00

I don't know why I never hiked in Oklahoma, but I've been doing a lot of it here. Maybe because the city is more dense here, or maybe it's the nicer weather. In any case, this was a nice little day trip we took down to the central peninsula. I took the film camera and the digi, and I think they both have their place. I need to get a wide angle for my x-pro, though.

3rd st, SF

2013-06-01T16:44:26+00:00

So my walk to work from the Bart is mostly down 3rd st, which is always interesting. Good light, good sidewalks, always changing. I'm not sure why I bother doing the whole street thing. There's a horde of amatures brute forcing the entire street photo-space (the set of possible photos you can take on the street). But the heart wants. _Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point_, yeah? (Pascal, natch).

Birthday Picnic by the Lake

2013-05-30T10:13:43+00:00

More film work, this time Kelsey's birthday picnic. Lake Merritt > Dolores Park. Also, paper lanterns are magical. They're sort of difficult to light, but once they go, they float off into the distance, and disappear. Editing these photos was really difficult. I got way more attached to these than I usually would; maybe because I had to look at them longer (getting the distortion corrections as close as possible, curve corrections, dust spotting, etc). Also, unrelated: I'm in Dublin! It's decent here. The smells and sights and sounds of another country.

A's home opener

2013-05-23T03:09:02+00:00

I've been shooting film lately, more since we arrived, and I'm getting some results I really dig. These photos are from the A's home opener; my boss, Jamie, invited us out to tailgate. There are a couple technical issues. They're a little distorted from the lens and because the film wasn't 100% flat. But I'm really happy with these.

The Move

2013-05-15T06:36:26+00:00

I got back from that trip, woke up the next morning, and picked up a U-Box, which is really a glorified wooden crate. Sophia and I spent the day jigsawing all of our personal possessions that wouldn't fit in the car into the box, and then taking it to the uhaul location. We spent the night at my folks' place, and then hit the road in the morning. Shoutout to "Katie":http://katality.com/ for being there at the buttcrack of dawn to see us off with cupcakes. Then it was, as my dad said, miles and miles of nothing but miles an miles. There was a "20 mile fog bank":http://photounrelated.com/2013/05/11/getting-to-sf.html in western Oklahoma that broke up before Texas, and then smooth sailing all the way across to Flagstaff that first day. It's a lot easier to travel when you have a good companion. The hotel I remembered as being "quaint and charming":http://notuntitled.com/2012/08/04/road-problems.html from my last encounter was sort of run down and the bed was awful, but it was a bed. Woke up in the morning, had a last dose of green chili and eggs before leaving the southwest, and on to Cali. All through the central valley, the almond trees were in bloom. Finally, we made it to our SF accomos, ordered pizza, and passed out.

Karaoke and coda (scenes from a good trip part 4)

2013-05-15T06:05:44+00:00

Put two of my support colleagues in a room together, away from their homes, and there will be drinking. Put three of them together and there will be at least one story to come out of it. Put them all together in one place and there will be karaoke. Add an open bar, and you'll get the supreme moment of the trip, wherein Tim Littlemore gave the most epic rendition of "Sweet Child of Mine" ever. The next day was rough. Hangovers all around. Sleep on the bus home.

Lake Tahoe (offsite/scenes from a good trip part 3)

2013-05-15T05:35:13+00:00

since a very large edit of these photos has already been on the "unofficial engineyard tumblr":http://engineyard.tumblr.com, I'm going to do a cliff notes version in an effort to get closer to the present. I'd really like to be posting yesterday's pictures, or at least last weeks, instead of two months ago (2.5 now; I'm behind on being behind). In short: it was good. I was leaving one team, support, who collectively are the most expert sysadmins and devops engineers I've ever known. Also not a few really excellent rubyists. Why would I leave that? A new adventure, of course. I mean, there are reason you tell people (promotion, pay, whatever), and then there's the real reason, and the real reason is I can't sit still for too long. New people, new environment, new problems.

Night 1: SF

2013-04-28T19:28:54+00:00

Met up with some dudes at the airport, went to a fancy french restaurant, and had what I've come to realize is a fairly normal BART experience, conplete with a balloon animal lady. Yeah.

scenes from a good trip

2013-04-27T17:46:19+00:00

The next morning, I got on a plane to SF, for a company offsite in Tahoe. I got to the hotel and crashed for a bit (as you do), and then went and found my compatriots. Wandered, took photos.

going away party

2013-04-26T06:41:40+00:00

This was the last hurrah before we left town. After this, I was in tahoe for a week, and then we came home and packed everthing. It was great to see everyone one last time; many people came out and I didn't get photos of them all. I was busy, I suppose. We had the main event at Picasso's, which there for a while was basically my kitchen. A perfect spot for 40 of our closest friends to say goodbye. And then we moved on to the Other Room, which didn't last long, and then ended up at the Mule. A good night to round things out, and then get up in the morning and get on a plane.

Sophia

2013-04-26T06:18:51+00:00

This is the woman I'm going to marry, one of my favorite photos of her. That's all.

a horse, a host, and a happy couple

2013-04-22T08:14:49+00:00

OXFORD COMMAS. Now you know my stance on that subject. This was a night of bike riding and cards (and various plush things; the horse, the kid robot doughnut, etc). Maeghan and her dude seemed really happy, which is always a good thing. Yeah. that's all, except to say that game of thrones was EPIC tonight. Edit to add: appearently we played yahtzee and I won? I don't properly remember. This is what happens when I take two months to post shit. Although I am getting closer to present tense.

train museum

2013-04-22T04:50:48+00:00

So, in Oklahoma there's a train museum; part of the centennial celebrations or something, but now it's the sort of place you "take your kids for their 2nd birthday":http://katality.com/augusts-2nd-birthday-a-vintage-train-party/. I was hungover as hell, so I sort of wandred off, as I do... Lots of interesting shapes and textures. Small museums have this quirkyness about them that's super endearing. There's at least one person that cares enough about trains to devote their life to preserving them. The museum itself is a work of art, an arrangement of forms and objects to convey a message. Really cool. Also Maeghan was there. Hi!

The first of several weddings

2013-04-19T07:26:25+00:00

Tim and Katie got hitched the day after I proposed to Sophie, and I was privileged to be their witness, along with Soph (natch). They're having a real ceremony eventually, plus there's my wedding, plus I know several other people getting hitched. It's the thing to do now.

random again

2013-04-17T07:01:57+00:00

A couple of random images, because I don't ever stop looking, not really.

in which things are complicated

2013-04-16T19:48:26+00:00

So, we left the venue only to find that two of the cars in our party were towed. On a sunday. From the lot of an office that was closed. Some people just hate fun. So that's why the first pic below is people standing around in a parking lot. Then there were drinks at Saint's, cards against humanity, and more drinks.

gospel brunch part one

2013-04-16T04:24:38+00:00

I can't talk about "that thing that happened today":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Boston_Marathon_bombings. I wasn't there, don't know anything other than what I've heard, and even though it's from real news sources, it's still not terribly reliable. I can give my condolences to the families, and tell you that my thoughts are with them, however little that means. What I would like to do, instead, is put a little good out into the world. So here: a very fun morning several months ago. This is the Gospel Brunch at the Boom, where two queens make fun of the audience and we all laugh at ourselves. Not pictured: me up on stage, "although that did happen":http://photounrelated.com/2013/03/17/the-boom.html (that's Sophia's blog, of course).

garris' norman birthday

2013-04-15T07:19:53+00:00

Small gathering, not too much drinking, just having a good time.

lunch with tim + katie

2013-04-15T05:15:48+00:00

The architecture in Downtown OKC is all facades. Beautiful fronts on buildings that are 70 years old. There's now way to know what to expect on the inside. It could be a rehab from the last decade, or it could be original and falling apart. It was nice to see Katie and Tim as well. We haven't hung our in FAR TOO LONG because of the time zones between us. Where's my teleport already? How about the personal jetpack, at least? no? Oh well.

hunter's housewarming

2013-04-15T03:54:32+00:00

Since I've sat here trying to write about this for half an hour, and gotten nowhere, here are the pictures. It really was a fun afternoon.

some sort of celebration

2013-04-06T21:05:55+00:00

The was some occasion for this particular night out, but dammed if I remember. This is what happens when you delay a month and change between drinking and blogging. The time difference really screws you. I do remember that the first photo was supposed to be of the cluster of girls in the background, and not the couple at the corner, but the camera does what it wants to. Also, the last picture is from another night, but I promised the dude I'd post it.

holiday hangover camping

2013-04-06T20:03:41+00:00

This was an after-holidays holiday party... one last hurrah with the gang. It was supposed to be camping, but we couldn't find accomos like we wanted. Nobody in Oklahoma rents cabins big enough for the likes of us. So, we went over to Heather and Jeff's house, and we slept in sleeping bags on the ground (or the couch, lounge chairs, or anything else horizontal). I made it about halfway through the showing of rocky horror before I passed out.

a couple others

2013-03-31T09:59:55+00:00

A few more from the road, just in between places. I drove a lot, before the move. Now I drive once every other week, and the car seems a luxury that I'm not at all sure I want to keep.

at the house

2013-03-31T09:27:00+00:00

This was several houses ago, and it seems like a couple lifetimes as well. A lot of things that were planned hadn't happened yet, and a lot of the plans hadn't even been fully formed. Sometimes you end up back at the house with a bottle of vodka and a bunch of 5 hour energy and you make the best of it. This was one of those nights. (Note: those shots were awful, don't bother).

dark at the blue note

2013-03-28T21:49:18+00:00

Either it was very dark, or I was personally very blurry. The 50 1.2 is so pretty out of focus, though, I don't mind. It's also chipped on the rear element from a field repair in Brazil (a leatherman is not a pin spanner, so be careful).

Counts as a White Xmas

2013-03-27T18:11:52+00:00

In Oklahoma, this counts. Later that day the snow actually covered the ground.

Party at Matt's House

2013-03-24T15:32:24+00:00

People+beer/liquor+music = Party. Pretty easy. This one wasn't too crazy; we didn't break any furniture or have cops show up.

Heather and Jeff's Xmas Party

2013-03-24T07:21:46+00:00

Really fun people, and really fun times. I'm now up to just after christmas in the editing, and making no more excuses for the lateness.

I'm just gonna put these here...

2013-03-22T06:09:58+00:00

and not talk about the fact that I did a post like the previous one (braggadocio) then abandoned my blawg for... a month. Nevermind the part where I MOVED ACROSS THE COUNTRY and HAD MANY ADVENTURES and what not, including a two week period where my hard drive was completely inaccessible. Oh well. This is where the catching up starts. I also, of course, haven't done anything on any weightier projects either. There's only been time for work and survival (eat, sleep, pack, unpack). Hopefully this weekend will be restful as well.

still carry the camera everywhere every day

2013-02-23T01:45:34+00:00

In case you were wondering, is all matt does any more work and party, the answer is, only when I'm not doing other rad shit. I still carry the camera everywhere, every day, so you can see some of the amazing shit that happens around me all the time.

aaron and gabes xmas party

2013-02-23T01:37:26+00:00

One more fun round of Secret Santa.

the children's c̶r̶u̶s̶a̶d̶e̶ brunch

2013-02-22T20:56:16+00:00

this was brunch sometime before xmas; had a bunch of rad people over. Holly made scones, and we made breakfast casserole, there was much champagne drinking by all. a good day.

mostly I do this for love

2013-02-22T19:12:13+00:00

This was some saturday night, when we'd either ridden bikes or some one else was driving, and I let myself get comepletely smashed. Not hard at the Hilo. I love these people, and I love good loud rock music. It feels excessively sentimental, but if I can't be that way on my second to last day in town, when can I?

if you ask me very nicely

2013-02-13T07:22:06+00:00

And if the stars are right, and if you offer me some money, I'll take pictures for you. The money has become less optional as my time gets more scarce. It has to be really good to entice me away from all the slacking off I do. Email me if you're interested, I'll send you a quote. This was a really crazy sort of shoot, no planning other than being in a decent location at the right time of day. If you've shot kids you know they can be somewhat flighty; after about 20 minutes of shooting, both my nerves and Katie's (the mother, in photo 3) were shot. Sometimes the best plan is no plan, and I did get some decent pictures.

Lindsay's Birthday

2013-02-12T07:47:43+00:00

These were all from Sophie's (and my) friend Lindsay's Birthday party. We all got really drunk; Sophie and I walked and took cabs, and I think mot everybody else did the same. Which was a good thing, because for the latter half of the evening, a majority of the party was blacked out. No, not me; I wasn't trying to kill any more brain cells than I already have. If I keep doing these posts in pairs, I might get caught up to the present _just_ before I have to go to Tahoe and get three weeks behind again (A week in Tahoe, a weekend to move, a couple weeks to find an apartment/adjust to life in SF). That's the way the pan flashes.

Just two photos

2013-02-12T07:22:41+00:00

Something about the moonlight through the trees in winter is especially magical. Or it could just be that I'm outside to see it. The phone booth is one of several on the OU campus; when I saw them I was really excited, and thought of doing a whole essay on them right then. But I had to get to the Dan Savage talk, which ended up being a packed house. Really great, really moving. Then we went and had pizza, and the phone booths seemed less photogenic on the way out.

cards against humanity

2013-02-10T18:48:41+00:00

This may have been the first time I playd cards against humanity. A really fun, really awful game.

just a couple photos

2013-02-10T17:23:05+00:00

From back in the city thanksgiving night. A long ass day, and there were no naps.

One Big Table

2013-02-10T00:42:29+00:00

So, we finished our 5k, went home, showered, and then got in the car to drive to Lawton, to Sophie's Aunt Marylyn's house. Beautiful little place, lots of good shapes and textures; you could tell it was a place that they'd designed and built themselves. The meal was at the family table, with an extension at one end. No kids table here. Good food, good people. And then we drove back to the city.

Turkey Tracks 5k

2013-02-05T07:22:15+00:00

I ran in another 5k on Thanksgiving. There were people in costumes and people in crazy hats and people who were a _lot_ more serious about running than I was. My final time was 37 minutes and change. Only had my phone for pictures.

Hunting

2013-01-28T14:01:32+00:00

In the woods, at least in these woods, the quiet was palpable, thick. I walked out for half an hour, into the thick quiet, and then sat, silent. Leaves falling to the ground were an event. Nothing was moving at first, but then I'd hear something rustling through the leaves. In those woods, in that quiet, there was no way to know if it was 200 yards away or over my left shoulder. I didn't see any deer. Back at camp, my dad was waiting, pistol in hand. It may seem odd to hunt with a revolver, but I've seen him consistently hit at 200 yards, which is about as far as I trust my own aim with a rifle. He'd set off in the opposite direction at the same time as me, and come back just a few minutes earlier. The rule of hunting is that the game will show up as soon as you're not prepared; so we sat and waited and talked the sun down, in low voices. Half an hour before sunset, at the end of legal shooting light, we unloaded and stowed the weapons, and cooked dinner. In the morning, we got back up, and headed back to the city.

Foodies

2013-01-28T07:30:51+00:00

Before you get the pitchforks, that's actually the name of the restaurant. A little Thai place on Hudson between 10th and 13th, in midtown. Really good food, decent beer prices. Small, diner atmosphere, a little eccentric, but overall enjoyable. Good company too, with Sophia and Anne and Isaac. Also, despite the two food/restaurant posts in a row, I swear this isn't becoming a food blog. Anyway, photos:

Dinner Club @1492

2013-01-26T21:00:49+00:00

A delicious meal with some good folks, once a month. Whoever picks the place for that month has to choose somewhere they've never been; I don't know who chose 1492, (Sophia says it was our friend Dean), but it was a great meal, and someplace I hadn't ever been either. I'm trying to think of places to go for next month. So far we've thought Iron Star would be good, or maybe the new green chili place in Yukon. Suggestions? @reply me on twitter, since I'm too lazy to put comments on this blawg.

Performance something something

2013-01-26T19:13:18+00:00

I wiped my computer thursday night and installed mountain lion. Man, there was something _wrong_ with my last install. Probably something I downloaded; for a while there, I was using a lot of semi-sketchy software. Who knows. There's not really a theme to these photos, other than the fact that they were next to each other chronologically, and vaguely performance related. More when there's more to tell.

Not going there

2013-01-24T06:36:55+00:00

But I'm sure you know what the working title of this post was.

Infrastructure

2013-01-22T07:21:43+00:00

This is one of the different veins I'm exploring: how we move around, how we get places, the shapes and structures and devices that enable it. This is one of those sets of work that needs to be made 60 inches wide, needs to be seen writ large. It may end up that way, or I may never get anything else done on it ever. I say 'exploring' but really, I'm just taking pictures of things without much conscious discretion, letting my subconscious guide the work. A photographic version of automatic drawing, if you will.

Denver, briefly (rubyconf)

2013-01-21T05:39:05+00:00

So, just after we got back to the US, I got on another plane to go to Denver for RubyConf. It was actually a really good conf, where I learned some interesting stuff (as opposed to many of the other confs I've been at, where I did the hallway track the whole time). Denver herself is a beautiful city, great sunrises, good walking, if a little cold after the Mediterranean.

structures

2013-01-21T03:59:28+00:00

I have more pictures than words, sorry if these get a bit terse. It's a bit harder to connect the dots when themes are spread out over the months; I'm thinking I might start working on another book soon, though. Working title: 'Matt Mills turns over a new leaf (photographically).'

birthday brunch

2013-01-21T03:48:32+00:00

Sophie's birthday brunch, a week after the fact. In which I didn't get a good picture of my girlfriend. And with these, I'm back to being two months behind. On the good news list, I've got my storage box up and running. So things should have some regularity here from now on (says the guy who's moving cross country in five weeks).

brett's halloween party

2013-01-04T04:19:16+00:00

After the photo booth and the rest of the party, Sophie and I cabbed it to a friend's house for another party, filled with people in costume (If you noticed katie was in a Data costume in the last post, that's why). This party was _nuts_. The devil himself was doing palm and tarot readings, there were 500 jello shots to start the evening, a couple of dudes dressed as a left and right boob, a fire pit, a haunted walk, an open bar, and a lot of other madness. In other words, one hell of a night.

photo booth

2013-01-03T06:15:42+00:00

So, the weekend after I got back into town, my friend "Tim":http://timpromptu.com was having his birthday party... I won't mention his ages, just that it was incremented to an even decade. I did a photo booth type thing, without the walls or curtain. The decoration is all Katie's doing... basically I either stood there and hit the button, or used the intervalometer, or sometimes had Sophie take pictures; it was very improvisational. On-camera flash was used; there's something a little crisp and glaring you need for a proper photo-booth shot. I'd have used a ring light if I had one. Very fun night, and doesn't my lady look punk rock?

A little town by the Sea

2012-12-29T08:58:35+00:00

This is the last of the Barcelona photos, finally... there was one more day in the city, but it was mostly filled with goodbyes and collecting all the souvenirs I'd bought, all the things scattered throughout the apartment, and getting to the airport. It was a really good trip. These are actually of a little seacoast town about 50km south of barcelona, called Sitges. Not a bad little place. Nice beaches (not the best in the world, but whatevs, I wasn't there to swim). good food, cheap accomos. Would Sitges again.

BCN tourists

2012-12-18T05:41:52+00:00

These are sort of more street photos, I'm realizing, but I was setting out to document something specific. Tourists are sort of weird. I mean, I totally was one, too. But You could tell tourists from natives at a glance. Not just the cameras or the different-than-local fashion, but the way they move and cluster. They pose for photos, they're always a little tired and seem a little put-upon. Everything about them says "I'm not at home here."

Barcelona Street Scenes 1

2012-12-12T04:49:56+00:00

I guess you could say this was me at my most self-indulgent. I feel like the people that most like street photography are its practitioners. There's no lasting connection with the individuals that are photographed. It's just moments, instant reactions, nothing more, but nothing less. Still, since I do this for myself, and I like them, I'll still make these photos when I can. There's an isolation that people feel in crowds like the sidewalk; in that isolation their faces are an unselfconscious, unaffected expression of what they're thinking. So there is something to these photos, if only to show (shout) the depths of one moment, in one time and in one place; so much going on at once.

Barcelona Street Scenes 2

2012-12-12T04:01:36+00:00

This is the second set, and I won't add to my other ramblings except to say man this was a really fun trip.

stuff that didn't fit in to neat boxes but I liked anyway

2012-12-11T06:14:29+00:00

There are a bunch of street photos still to edit, and a nice post about silly tourists, but these needed to go somewhere and the mental energy required to edit 25 photos down to 10 was not a thing I had, so here are these, which were much easier to bring to press. Have a nice day.

more buildings

2012-12-06T07:10:25+00:00

The title of this post is a lie; I just didn't know what to call it; they're not pictures of people, but I hate the word cityscapes. It is buildings, and a couple courtyards, and roses growing in an ancient Roman graveyard. A picture of a nice cloud thrown in, because I'm still me. Yeah, got another half dozen or so posts left in this vein, and then the vacation slideshow will be over, and the regular life slideshow will recommence.

Churches

2012-12-06T07:02:29+00:00

It would be possible to go to Barcelona and spend all of your time there just looking at all the different churches. There's probably a degree in medieval architecture to be had for a thesis on them. I took a few pictures.

A lot of walking punctuated by cafes and tapas

2012-12-05T06:08:29+00:00

That was a lot of our time in Barcelona, just walking around the quarter our apartment was in, and eating delicious food, and ocaisionally seeing interesting things. Lots of cool little shops. Like a good american, I indulged in a few things: a very nice knife, of spanish steel, a blank book and fountain pen, and a couple hats to last me through the winter. There are still about 160 photos in the BCN collection in my lightroom; I'm going to allow myself maybe 4 more posts, in quick succession, and then move on. So I need to edit that to ~30 photos. Oy vey.

The first of many posts about Barcelona

2012-11-26T05:39:30+00:00

So, as some of my friends know, I was in Barcelona for a couple weeks back in october, and up until that point I was doing a pretty good job of catching up with getting photos posted. Then of course everything went to hell, and so here we are almost december and I'm just now getting to this. Getting there involved a fairly late flight out of OKC, an even later flight out of Detroit, and an afternoon flight from Amsterdam. Airports are mostly boring, so no pictures of them this time, but one from the plane as we were looking out over the City and the ocean. I got to BCN, had a beer, and slept for 14 hours. The jaws of life couldn't pry me from that bed. That morning, we got up and went to the market Boqueria, had a fairly decent breakfast, and set off in search of a local SIM card for my unlocked cell phone. Managed that, and then visited a cathedral (pictured) which was nice. Sorry, I didn't take down place names or details; I'm not that kind of photographer (although if someone had been paying me to do travel photography of BCN, I probably would have kept better notes).

epic karaoke

2012-11-06T04:49:12+00:00

The highlight of the support meetup this time was easily the karaoke night; the last meetup it was appearently fairly epic, but I slept through it. I was glad that we set it up again; I even sang. A lot of pictures this time. photo of me coutesy the inimitable "@jessicaspacekat":http://twitter.com/jessicaspacekat, who I handed my camera just before taking the stage.

arrival/new faces/old friends

2012-11-05T06:04:10+00:00

I got to SF in the morning, like I always do, and ended up wandering around a bit looking for the wrong café; there are two places in SF called "Justine's," one in a hotel, and one at the top of a really big hill. This is SF, where the hills really are fairly huge and daunting. Getting to the wrong one involved, of course, walking up the hill (with luggage) to find that I was in the wrong place. That wasn't really a big deal though. I made it to the hotel late enough to check in, and did that; met with some of the co-workers for burgers, after which there was considerable drinking. This is just the best team. A bunch of brilliant, hard working dudes. Over the next couple days, I'm going to be doing some changes to the site; nothing huge, just some extra links to a portfolio bit that I'm working on, and an email link.

going west

2012-11-01T23:43:29+00:00

Going west involved an airplane. The sun was coming up as the plane was taking off, and since we were going west fairly quickly, golden hour lasted through most of the flight. I got these shooting out the window of the plane; really great light.

a few days at home

2012-11-01T23:35:26+00:00

Or a week... something like that. Things happened, laundry was done, and then I took off again. I got to say, "I'll see you in Barcelona." Then I went west for a bit.

camping (aka the start of the travel season)

2012-10-30T18:06:48+00:00

I went camping with a bunch of cool folks at the end of September. This was simple car camping, not anything involving crazy hikes with a giant backpack or mountains (as if oklahoma had any). It rained on us all weekend, more or less; there was time to get the tents set up, and a little time for breakfast on saturday, and the rest of the weekend was spent under a tarp or inside our tents. Protip: tents are not sound proof. When I say the travel season, I mean the time when I personally find myself going all over the place for a period of about 6 weeks, biannually. This time, it was Camping, San Fransisco, Barcelona, and in tomorrow, I fly to Denver. As Tim told me, 'The game been good to me'.

Mr. Penumbra's 24 hour book store

2012-10-21T12:35:18+00:00

My normal readers should note that what follows is incredibly nerdy; part book review and part cryptanalysis, and no pretty pictures. You have been warned. I read "Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Book Store":http://www.robinsloan.com/penumbra/ on the plane to SF, and it was a wonderful book. I devoured it, really; it's got great pacing and mystery and all the things I like in a book. The characters are engaging, and I found myself rooting for the protagonist and the quest. Except... One of the plot points of the book is a code that remains unbroken for ~500 years. It's called a substitution cypher in the book, and without revealing too many details, I just couldn't believe that any substitution cypher would remain unbroken for that long. It was a bit of a let down. So, I did what any programmer would do: I built the thing. My somewhat incomplete implementation of cypher is "here":https://github.com/mattmills/penumbra-code. Having built it, it's a bit more clever than I thought. Because there are only 26 letters (less in latin, but I don't have any latin text to work from), and because there are a lot of glyphs (I stopped myself at 88 latin symbols that might be in a typeset), you can actually make english look like noise with this code, more or less. Once you know what you're up against, though, it is breakable. I haven't coded it yet, but there's at least a brute force method, and maybe something more clever is possible. It sort of depends on how much noise there is in the signal; minimally, you need 80 glyphs to make a flat distribution over a large text, but with a larger character set you could have random noise inserted to confuse the signal. The more glyphs in the typeface, the more noisy you can make it. If you had, say, 200 glyphs, and only 80 of them meaningful, then that would confuse codebreakers pretty well. If anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Pull requests too. I have a transatlantic flight on Tuesday, when I plan on getting this made into a gem and maybe even hacking together a little sinatra-based web form that will do encoding and decoding.

game day norman

2012-10-18T06:58:53+00:00

Norman. Game day, for the one game that we've lost this year. But it was still a fun, fairly drunken time.

whole foods near closing time

2012-10-18T06:25:06+00:00

I forget what we were there for, but I was really just playing with my new camera while Sophie did the shopping. I know some people say "she does it better than me" as an excuse to make their signifigant other do the dishes or whatever, but Sophie is a fucking hawk in the grocery store. I amble around, trying samples and picking up random things that look good (and put them down in the wrong place). She has a list, and a path, and she has everything in a basket by the time I get to the meat counter for my chorizo. And then she ambles through the store with me, while I remember to get tortillas and forget the bread again.

Yes another sunset

2012-10-15T11:52:37+00:00

And a photo of Sophia by candlelight.

Ronan gets bigger

2012-10-15T10:43:02+00:00

So, some sunday in there, we went to visit KJ, and Ronan was being especially cute... in the way that only little babies can be. She's already crawling, for crying out loud, and trying to stand on her own. Seems like yesterday she was a newborn. I've extrapolated, and at this rate she'll be 12ft tall and running half the world by the age of 12.

Just another saturday

2012-10-14T10:04:47+00:00

You know, havin a garage sale, riding bikes, the usual.

in which sunday funday ruined our plans to watch all of trueblood in one go

2012-10-13T23:23:32+00:00

So we went over to Hunter's the sunday after we got back from Colorado, and we watched a chunk of trueblood, something like the first five of the last season. Then he got a text from a friend, inviting him out to the hilo. Then all this happend:

Two hours later, we went and watched a few more episodes, and then called it quits. Still haven't finished it.

alex and the road home

2012-10-13T18:09:11+00:00

So I mentioned in the previous post seeing my friend Alex, and I sorta can't believe I didn't take any pictures of him, but it was really amazing to see him. On the last night of our stay, we met in this Arthouse-cinema place; outside it was a cafe/bar, and inside they played art films. It was great to see him and catch up. He's in an Economics PhD program and kicking ass. Then there was the drive home. There were these amazing storms; one looke like the rain just stopped suddenly; we could see the clear air above the rain that was still falling. Then behind that storm, there was this weird dark mist (in the last photo). It was eaither really rapid evaporation in the heat that came behind the storm, or dust kicked up by the downdraft. But beautiful.

rocky mountain nat'l park

2012-10-12T05:30:57+00:00

Like I said, mountains. and then behind this set are more mountains. And then, that evening, my friend alex showed me photos of a lake at 10,000 feet or something rediculous, beautiful, blue, clear and amazing. I'm definitely going to have to go back there and do some exploring.

a quiet little college town

2012-10-12T05:20:51+00:00

So, I'm currently on a plane, 37000 feet over the Atlantic. There is no wifi on this plane, which saddens me, if only because I can't git push the cool things I've been doing with this Penumbra cypher. It's terribly nerdy, but it's keeping my mind occupied on these interminable flights. I'm some genuiuwill crack it in a minute as soon as someone bothers to notice it (As soon as I tweet to the author, probably). Anyway, Fort Collins was a really pleasant little town. I could actually see myself living there if/when I get sick of cities. There were pianos on the sidewalk,for anyone to play, and a bunch of breweries, and beautiful mountains, which I'll get to in the next post.

all the way to fort collins

2012-10-10T19:54:39+00:00

I've said it before, but it's worth repeating: hammock camping is awesome. Setup and breakdown are easy, and it's way easier on my back than sleeping on the ground. Also: starlight is awesome. We drove west from the state park in the morning. We were passing through this little town when we saw a little band of locals out in front of a what looked like a little house; they waved, we waved, and about two seconds later we were turning around to see what was going on. Turns out the house was a museum, and the locals gatherd were there for their weekly saturday morning get together. There were home made doughnuts and coffee, and everybody was sitting around telling stories. The museum had a ton of antiques, things found out in the desert, fossils, etc. The old couple running the place had just celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary. From there, we drove to Clayton, NM. had a delicious meal at the rabbit ear cafe (real green chili!) after going intentionally the wrong way for a minute. Then we high-tailed it to the interstate, and drove on the rest of the way. Another good day.

to the panhandle

2012-10-10T19:31:18+00:00

really, though, I can only do the quotidian for so long before I have to go do something fun and unexpected. We went to colorado by way of black mesa; it's about 6 hours more driving that way than the interstate, but it's at least interesting.

some random things

2012-10-10T18:33:15+00:00

theses are just from one of those fortnights where things just sort of move along. We went to the range and took the long way home, took a midnight bike ride, went to the lake and sat on the shore under the starlight. The there was Hunter's birthday, where the light was awful but the food was wonderful.

moving day

2012-10-09T16:47:16+00:00

helped my friend kj move into a new place. it rained, we waited, there were beers and burgers in there; not pictured is the doorknob I had to break off when someone locked their keys in the house. Good times.

starlight

2012-10-08T22:15:58+00:00

went south to shoot the leonids back in august... didnt' get many on film, unfortunately. Sort of the opposite of my luck at shooting lightning. The stars are always beautiful though.

ali harter at the blue note

2012-10-05T04:29:04+00:00

Probably one of the best shows I've seen all year. Unpretentions, unaffected, just a woman and a guitar. I was surprised when I found out she wasn't the headliner; the other bands were a couple of forgettable rock combinations. Anyway, yeah. Photos:

robbers' cave state park

2012-10-05T00:11:12+00:00

A nice day out with my parents and Sophie. Tune in later for ruminations on the difference between cameras as flashy toys and cameras as tools. There may be a bonus section on the camera as a weapon as well...

girl talk

2012-10-04T05:27:56+00:00

I didn't have nearly as good a time as Sophie at this show, which is to say, I had a good time, but she was having the _best_ time. It was the best part of all of the songs you love on fast forward for two hours. Lots of fun, but I still have some qualms with it- seems like he's sacrificing depth and meaning by skipping between all of those parts of songs that just get you that _frisson_ of goodness. It's more pop than pop; a hyperreal pop, if you will. An evening of uncanny moments. I said on twitter last week: "In a world of simulacra, the uncanny experience-- one that is just like the real thing-- is all we have." The implication being that 'just like the real thing' is insufficient. Girl talk turns that up to 11. It's a show filled with uncanny moments, the striking sense of familiarity with a track that turns out to be just a little off. He makes music by collaging other peoples' music: a simulacra of music. It's fast and complex and hard not to listen to, and hard to think when you listen to. What it is overwhelms what it means, if it means anything. It subverts the ability to grasp why it doesn't fulfill in the same way as many of the pop acts he borrows from. I'm maybe being too harsh here. It was a fun show. Just don't expec to be moved to the depths of you soul or anything, and you'll be fine.

operation dinner out

2012-10-04T05:23:40+00:00

Well, not so much operation as... someone's birthday at musashi's? surely we weren't randomly driving down western at sunset and decided to eat there, of all places. Anyway, a more serious post is up next.

birds and planes

2012-10-04T01:37:10+00:00

Things in the sky.

an evening in dallas

2012-10-03T19:58:34+00:00

So, after the run and a nice lunch, we drove down to Dallas to see some friends for some reason or another. Tim and Katie are always a fun time. Also photogenic as fuck:

color me rad 5k

2012-10-03T16:55:11+00:00

I ran/walked in this... as you can see from the photo, I found out just how out of shape I am. Of course it was hella hot and they didn't have much water for us, for some reason. Normally I'd say, "Walk two miles? No problemo," but this was actually hard. I mean, nothing a shower and a quesadilla couldn't fix, but yeah. Isn't Sophie lovely, even all covered in dye?

a couple pictures of bikes

2012-10-03T06:12:06+00:00

This post does what it says on the label, that's all. If you're wodering why I'm pushing out so many posts at once, I'm trying to clear most of the backlog before I go to spain. I've got a week and a half to get caught up to right now. Also, I have to be up in the morning, so this is all for tonight.

MC show

2012-10-03T05:51:52+00:00

I don't feel like writing/everything I write makes me feel self conscious. So here's some photos.

maeghan's bday

2012-10-02T23:03:20+00:00

So these are the only good pictures I got the night we all gathered at blue note for my friend maeghan's birthday... unfortunately, none of them are of her. Oh well, maybe next year.

lightning

2012-09-27T04:32:38+00:00

So yeah, just a quick post... been watching the lightning out on the porch with Sophia. Really spectacular storms. I have about a bazillion photos in the backlog to post as well, but this was really too good not to share.

Smash's B-day

2012-09-11T03:06:36+00:00

It's been a while coming, but here are the photos of Ash's birthday, which was the ~~excuse~~ reason I went out there anyway. That and I really wanted to get out of OKC for a bit. It was a fun night, that started with food trucks and ran on through several bars, and ended with me getting poisoned. Or something. I wasn't _that_ drunk, and I work up with the worst possible hangover. As in I was suffering all day, worse than any other hangover I've ever had. Got up at noon, and drove home. Had to dose myself with coffee and coconut water and a bagel to get moving. It was a pretty drive, as drives in the American west usually are. Not nearly as nice as getting home to my bed, though.

in which I get lost in downtown LA

2012-08-07T05:05:43+00:00

Thursday was a down day for the most part. I chilled, I read, I fixed a toilet, napped. A vaca from the vacation. but, because I can't seem to sit still, even for one day, I started surfing art gallery web sites, and I found out that one of the big ones, MOCA, was open till 8 and after 5 was free. Ash, my host, didn't want to go, so I hopped in my car and drove there myself, a feat that I would have been completely unable to do sans phone. Parked downtown several blocks away from the museum, and proceeded to get lost. I would have been fine if downtown LA had one street level, but of course it doesn't. Anyway, I had a nice time being lost. Like always. I took out my camera, and found some pictures. These are part of a larger body of work, or may be... I'm trying to from an idea around the scale of cities, the perspective that that scale involves. I'm being elliptical because I'm not sure what I'm talking about. The idea isn't complete, and it wouldn't be interesting if it was. MOCA was freaking amazing. I'm not going to post any of the photos I took inside, because this isn't an art history blog. I was stoked to see "John Baldessari":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU7V4GyEuXA, Robert Irwin, and a bunch of others. I was surprised at the power of the Rothko; given a whole day, I would have sat on the bench and stared for hours. There were some Arbus prints, around a corner, badly lit, and really truly unimpressive. Really let the air out of that legend for me. Anyway, after that there wasn't much to do but drive home.

4th

2012-08-05T18:16:18+00:00

So, I got there, and there was much rejoicing and not a little drinking. There was a bartender who gave me a shot that would have killed a lesser man. Me? I was _fine_. Totally all right, except for the stumbling. Then came the fourth, wherein all of our plans went awry. Plans are usually lists of things that don't happen, in my reckoning, but I've never had quite so many fall through so completely. We were going to go to a beach somewhere for fireworks, but then there was hella traffic, so that turned us back. Then there was maybe a car show, but that was $20 to get in, and the booze wasn't included. Finally, we said fuck it and went to a parking garage, where we actually got to see several shows, all round the valley we were in (I don't know if it was _the_ valley or not). There was beer and little caesars and another bar. A great deal of driving in the least traffic I saw while I was out there. Good times.

arrival

2012-08-05T18:10:40+00:00

finally getting where you're going is awesome, especially because that means whatever madness you came for can begin.

road problems

2012-08-04T23:28:38+00:00

Things were fine through the national park, and then I realized I'd left my phone on silent, and I had a bazillion messages. The power was out at my house, my roommate had no AC. So, with little to no signal, I pulled off the road to try to connect and check the bill, with no luck. I stopped in a little town, to try to find some wifi, and after a bit of wandering, I found a mcdonalds that I'd missed on the first pass. Sure enough, I was past due. So I paid the bill, and then spent the next couple hours worrying that the A/C was still off in the house (it wasn't). Anyway, that was a wasted couple hours all told, between the stopping twice and wardriving looking for wifi. It was totally worth it, though, when I saw that mountain off in the distance. Really amazing sunset for me, and a truly quaint motel in Williams AZ. Right out of the 50s, and although the town is one of those places that seems on the edge of collapse due to tourism. When a place has discount souvenir stores, it's in some kind of trouble. I think the steady stream of people coming through keeps it in the black, though.

petrified forest national park

2012-08-04T23:21:54+00:00

PFNP, for short, is just off of I-40, and I figured since I had some time to kill, I might as well drive the short loop and see the sights. It's a lovely stretch of desert, but like most of this trip, it was ungodly hot, so I didn't care to stick around too long. Very pretty, and worth the hour that I spent on it. Luckily, I got some other tourists to take my photo, even. Thanks random family from Florida! Hope the hydrating for altitude sickness worked out. That's a lens in my left hand, in case you're wondering.

day 2: more driving

2012-08-04T22:54:18+00:00

This was day 2 of driving. It really was a pretty spectacular day, shot through with beautiful vistas and interesting stops. I had a green chili breakfast burrito to start it off, and it was just smooth sailing from there until after Petrified forest NP. Since those photos are in the next post, I'll save that half of the day for later.

road to cali (leaving town)

2012-08-02T05:04:15+00:00

I went out to LA to see my friend Ashley, AKA Smash, AKA chef to the unnameable stars (not that I signed an NDA, but trust does still mean something). But before I got there, I had to roll across two deserts, two mountain ranges, and untold small towns that I passed without even realizing. I covered half of I-40, coming and going. I know that road fairly well from my college days, but there's a difference between a full on burn, at the edge of what's possible for a college student to run out in the time he's got to get to school, and a nice leisurely drive across half the country. On the way there, I split it across three days; six hours from home, I stopped in the New Mexico rest area and slept, after getting out and staring at the moon. There's a kind of tired that's familiar to anybody that's done any solo driving. You start to feel it at the edges of things hours before you pull over-- a little ache at the corner of your eyes, wandering attention between songs on the radio. When you need to push, you can push through that kind of tired. It's not safe, but it is at least interesting. I started to feel it before I got to Amarillo; I knew there were two rest areas before Albuquerque that would do, if I could make it, so I pushed through a little. Now, understand, this trip has nothing on some of the epically stupid things I've done; Once, I started to feel the same driving through Arkansas, and turned north to drive through Kentucky, for what I thought would be a shortcut through to Virginia; about 20 hours later, sans stop, I made it. It's easy to lose yourself; to get disconnected from the moment. All that you see is a million miles of flat ground, and the same white and yellow lines; it's easy to feel cut off from the rest of the universe. In that moment, the most important thing to do is concentrate. Lose focus, the mind wanders. Eyelids get heavy, and then it's up to luck- bumps in the road, rumble strips, a song change on the radio. Or you don't wake up. I have always been very lucky. Anyway, this time I decided to be at least a little rational, and stop and sleep not too far into the journey. I took pictures to try and get that feeling down, and there was a storm off to the northwest that helped-things wander, and then you get a jolt of the present that brings you back.

camping trip (nights)

2012-08-01T05:01:56+00:00

I think this was before the fourth, but don't quote me. There's been a lot of beer and quite a few miles since then. This was a good time, getting to know some new folks, and seeing some old friends as well. Hammock camping is awesome; I was set up and ready to go in like 15 minutes, and down and ready to leave in 5. Things to remember not in the photos: getting stuck going up the hill coming into camp, the place we stopped at was the _shortest_, everything tastes good cooked over a fire, and be sure to wear sunscreen. There is a second post, with the day photos, below.

camping trip (days)

2012-08-01T05:01:01+00:00

These are the day photos; let the recording angel note that this is the Illinois River, outside Talequah; That we spent 7 hours floating 6 miles; that by the end, I was burnt, exhausted, and took a two hour nap the moment we got back to camp. Recommended: take a waterproof parasol, a camera with a housing, and use a canoe. Canoes go faster.

traci's hilo birthday

2012-07-31T00:26:41+00:00

So, there was a lot of wildness this night, including a dude with leopard print tattoos over 90% of his body. Singing, dancing, and that was just in the living room. Than we went to the Hilo in cabs (for those of you in real cities, fuck you for having cabs that show up within 15 minutes when you call), proceecded to get hammered, then the dfry for fries at last call; we nearly lost Jay to some dude, and had to circle around twice to get him. Props to (in no particular order): The Morracan cabbie that dealt with our drunk asses, the bartenders at both bars, my downstairs neighbors for not calling the authorities, and finally, to Sarah, Reaghan, Sophia (who was somewhat new to this madness at the time), and of course, the birthday girl, Traci.

sarah francois comes to town

2012-07-29T18:50:21+00:00

My friends are sort of scattered, not just in the head, but geographically. All over the US and in several countries abroad as well. So I'm always stoked to see one of them come through my neck of the woods. Sarah is one of those friends with whom distance and time don't matter; A hug and a beer and then we're back on bikes, as if no time had passed since we'd last seen each other. Ben, her Londoner boyfriend, came along, and with Sophie rounding out a quartet, we had a grand time catching up.

semi-random

2012-07-29T18:35:36+00:00

Sophie, then Anne and Isaac, from the last game of the finals.

bluenote nights in a nutshell

2012-07-29T18:31:26+00:00

Walk to the bar, play pool, drink, stumble home.

shivery shakes and boom bang at blue note

2012-07-27T19:52:47+00:00

This show was really rad. The Shivery shakes were good enough that I went right up after the set and bought their EP and followed them "on twitter":https://twitter.com/shiveryshakes . And then the boom bang was in fine form, as usual. Good show, good times.

cool little show at IAO

2012-07-27T19:31:25+00:00

This was a cool little show at IAO- the first time I've seen fiber arts since being in Santa Fe, and a cool little folky combo playing live music to boot. It was a good time; thanks to "Kerry":https://twitter.com/jane4oh5 for getting me out there.

the fisheye is a gimmick

2012-07-26T23:12:32+00:00

I've been thinking about this a lot, and I'm pretty much over the fisheye. It really doesn't have that much utility for image making. It has one look, and it does that all the time. There's definitely a place for instagram-like pictures, but it's not coming out of the SLR. After these, there are a couple more in the queue, but I'm retiring the fish o-fish-ally.

shitty awesome and some crazy dudes

2012-07-26T15:30:23+00:00

This was a good show. Shitty/Awesome had some new stuff, and OBN IIIs was just out of their gourds. Good rock n' roll, real crazy. Like, jump off the stage, mosh with the crowd, break some pint glasses, and then go on with the show.

editing is hard

2012-07-26T05:30:32+00:00

So yeah, I did a lot of shooting an no editing, as I am wont to do, and it's taken a while for me to catch up even this much. At this momen, 100 photos are processing to jpeg, at which point they'll be postable again. I got through all the photos from camping, from one blue note show, from the week in cali, and the trips out and back. So those are all coming in the next couple days. Other good things that are happening. If you care about the day-to-day, you're probably already my freind on FB and twitter, so I won't bore you with repitition. Here's a nice picture of the moon to start.

the fish returns

2012-06-08T07:16:31+00:00

So, for some reason I finally got off my lazy ass and rebuilt my fisheye. It's something I've been meaning to do ever since it broke on the way home from mexico last August (I never did get around to posting those pics). Anyway, suffice to say that super glue is not a strutural seal for anything that may take any kind of blunt force, like dropping, or time spent in my luggage. This is version 3 of this lens. The first two were prototypes, this one is a lot more usable. I used my dremel and made a focusing helical, even, so now the lens doesn't fall off the end of the camera. Proof is in the pudding. I'm aware that the fish is sort of a gimmick lens, but it's fun to play with.

some random things

2012-06-08T07:09:05+00:00

File this under 'life doesn't really have a neat ordered narrative'. If it did, well, it wouldn't be nearly this interesting. pretty girls, food from trucks, bike rides followed by bars followed by blogging... Anyway, photos:

coming home from sf

2012-06-04T06:10:39+00:00

These are the last photos from my trip to SF. Went to a lovely barbecue with the devs, and then walked to the nearest BART station, which was a bit of a hike with my luggage, but the fact that I'd had plenty of beer with the food helped, and I made it just fine, with plenty of time to get to my gate. A good trip.

pretty things at bluenote

2012-06-02T01:33:00+00:00

Last night I went to the blue note, not expecting much after the thunder game. I got a nice surprise. The "Pretty Things Peep Show":http://www.prettythingsproductions.com was there, and I've gotta say they're one of the better acts I've seen. The MC, Donny Vomit, kept things lively. I wish I'd taken more photos. As it is, editing these was really difficult- I liked a lot of them. The bed of no nails was particularly funny/entertaining.

gimme shelter

2012-06-01T07:16:06+00:00

I don't even know if I should tell this story. I'm still, at heart, trying to shoot the perfect assignment for Life in 1952. It was a couple of days ago, no longer news, just a thing that happened. It's definitely one of my stories, one without a moral or a cause... a thing happened, and in the middle, there was a golden beautiful moment. Just for a moment, despite the world going to hell around us, there was a little perfection. So, I was at sauced when the storms came through on tuesday. At first, everybody was on the patio, but the sky opened up and drove is all inside; even the covered areas were getting wet. Then, a few minutes later, while I was standing in line for another beer, the owner came in and told us all we had to go to the basement, there was a tornado warning. Then the sirens went off, and we all had a harrowing moment running through the rain. In the basement, they gave us all beers and told us not to worry, even as water ran down the walls. But this is oklahoma, we're used to bad weather, so everyone took it in stride, and we even toasted the proprietor. Then, after maybe 20 minutes, we all left; the worst part of the storm had blown over. I'm drunk and things are weird right now. But what else is new? A state of profound weirdness has become normal.

fireman training

2012-05-23T17:18:36+00:00

Let's see... this was two weeks ago? I was out in SF again to get trained in what we call the 'fireman' role. Basically, a fire is a problem caused by the platform, requiring both access to the backend and knowledge of our code base to solve. So I got a week long crash course in all that. It's a big app that does a lot between a lot of services, so it was more figuring out how to find out what I'd need to know than rote memorization. Also, of course, there was the non-work times. A week in one of the most beautiful cities in the world? Yes. Any time. On my last two days, I flirted with the idea of staying for another week, but I knew that that would just turn into me extending the stay as long as possible (two weeks, then a month, then finding an apartment...). Not a problem for anyone out there, but a bitch for some people back here. Plus, I would have missed mothers' day brunch, and I couldn't have done that. photos somewhat tangential:

norman music fest

2012-05-21T02:12:20+00:00

What's this? Two posts in two days? It's as if I'm really blogging again. All I can say is, don't get used to it. I've got a bit of a backlog, but it won't last. I'm doing stuff again though, so that might bring up the post volume somewhat. These photos are from norman music fest. It was a good day; pretty much exactly what I needed at the time. Met up with Anne, hung out with some of her friends, ran into a bunch of mine, drank, got made fun of at the stand up set (all in good fun). For once, NMF wasn't an unqualified disaster. When I wasn't worried about rushing around to see any band in particular, and focused on the people I was hanging out with, it turned out to be a good time.

Railsconf 2012

2012-05-20T20:45:20+00:00

This was several weeks ago now, but I was in austin for a few days for Railsconf 2012. It was pretty fun, even though I didn't go to any talks really. My job, while I was there, was to answer questions people had about our product in our booth. Pretty cool to meet everyone, actually. Note that these photos are a bit out of sequence; my little camera had the wrong year. Next: NMF!

pleiades and venus up close

2012-04-08T21:50:20+00:00

Nothing tests your long exposure technique quite like shooting stars through a 500mm mirror lens. I should have been using a remote and mirror lock. 1 sec at 3200iso, f/6.3 (for the curious). Click the photo to see it larger.

pickup game

2012-04-08T20:50:20+00:00

So last sunday, there was brunch and basketball watching at BBell's house, and the dudes got inspired to go play a little pickup game in the alley, shirts vs. skins. I think skins won by 7 points. Then they realized due to the location of the basket relative to a certain ledge that they could all dunk. So that happened. Today I'm working, and then I'ma ride my bike later. Fun and adventure and really wild things. I see this post and the last post and I marveled at the fact that all those pictures happened in the same world. It's no surprise, reflecting on this, that people get lost going from one place to another.

SF Scenes (in the city)

2012-04-05T15:51:20+00:00

This was the first time I've been to San Francisco (since my first visit to the city back in high school) that I've felt like I got anything approaching an understanding with the city. The scale of it always threw me off in the past, for some reason. There was a mental parallax, if you will, between what I was expecting and what I was seeing. I think I've got a better alignment now.

The rest of the week (in people)

2012-04-05T15:39:20+00:00

Because I don't want to go on _ad nauseum_ about the meetup, I'm just gonna lump together things in two more posts. The people and the scenes- if I'd been doing this chronologically as I went, it wouldn't be so bad, but now after the end it's time to post and move on. So, they took us bowling wednesday, and it was pretty fun, despite the fact that I got the lowest score both times (bowling is not my sport). There was some fairly memorable sushi thursday, as well- 18 of us packed in to a restaurant smaller than my home office, with seating for 16.

Seemant's Boat (again)

2012-04-04T18:31:20+00:00

The only problem with parties on Seemant's boat is the lighting. After dark, it gets very dark, so we tend to move elsewhere and scare the local restaurant managers before stumbling into a cab that breaks down just on the SF side of the bridge.

The hangover that lasted a week

2012-04-04T01:30:20+00:00

So I know I said more photos coming soon in that last post... and then a lot of things happened all at once and next thing I know it's a week from the following tuesday and I have a lingering sinus infection (don't ask). So sue me. I didn't actually have a hangover all week, but it sort of feels like I did; it'll be a month before I'm recovered from the cycle of work-party-sleep-train-work. I don't know how the guys who went out more did it at all. These are from saturday, I think. Rickhouse and Irish Bank with co-workers; the brits (Tim and Adam) arrived and all we could do is high five them. And then we drank excessively. Actually, scratch that; I was somewhat drunk when I took the photo of the street drummer, and that was fairly early on. The there were punchbowls and beers and falafel. And then sleep and more work. The rest of the week was a lot the same, with different people. The rest of the photos are mostly done, I'll probably get around to posting them tomorrow. Three or four posts worth, at least.

figments from san fransisco

2012-03-24T21:22:20+00:00

I really like that word, 'figment'. I'm stealing its use to describe photographs, of course. There may or may not be photos of a very long night in SF coming soon, depending on the hangover.

about to start getting ready

2012-03-21T15:22:20+00:00

Another SF trip coming. I fly out Friday, work all weekend, and then half days all week, with the other half consumed by meetings and trainings. Worst part of the coming week: leaving my girlfriend here. Best part of this week: meeting all the great people on my team that I haven't met yet. I do love to travel, to hit the open road. The world is so big and so full of possibility, and going places, for whatever reason, reminds me of that. Even though sometimes I bitch about being cramped or bored or exhausted, it's still better than sitting at home.

have you seen this bike?

2012-03-18T18:22:20+00:00

Coolest bike I've seen out somewhere in a while. All campy record, looked all original. I was, in my jealousy, tempted to clip that lock. But there'd be no joy in that, so I took a picture. If you're the owner of this bike: we should ride some time, you're probably pretty cool.

Meet Ronan

2012-03-16T20:18:20+00:00

Ronan is KJ's new baby, about a week and a half old at this point. She's already picking up her head and rolling over, which means nothing to me, but apparently means she's very strong for a newborn. Congratulations to KJ and Thorne!

Today is Thursday

2012-03-15T14:40:20+00:00

And two days ago was my first thunder game. Have I mentioned, lately, how awesome my girlfriend is? Because she got us corporate box seats. Easily the swankiest way to see a basketball game-- that ish was catered from the start and at halftime there was a desert cart that came by. I didn't take the long lens, so no great pictures of anything, but it was a great game, right up till the last minute where we lost. Refs were blind, we shoulda gotten foul shots in those final seconds. Unrelated: I saw a pretty car that day, too.

quick thought...

2012-03-13T18:05:20+00:00

Just a quick thought while I'm working-- I'm sitting here and I realize that my phone has more ram and processing power than the web server that runs this site. How much longer before my phone could run my entire web presence without it being noticeable? and how long before the "mobile web" is the only web consumers like you and me use? There is a need for big iron (big server farms, lots of data processing capacity), but most of that stuff that I use could be distributed. I think it's not going to be long before I can buy an app that makes me the center of my social media (as opposed to some external company), and when I want to turn it off or hide those embarrassing photos I posted, I can. Freedom in the cloud, anyone?

This cloud thing is really getting out of hand

2012-03-13T14:05:20+00:00

Maybe not in a bad way? It seems like even when I'm taking pictures of people, I'm really looking at the far background. In other news, I may have another kidney infection. Since the last one landed me in a hospital in Egypt for three days, I'm being pretty cautious about this one, going to the doc this afternoon, pushing fluids (including that perennial favorite, cranberry juice).

We went to momentum...

2012-03-11T10:45:20+00:00

So, we went to momentum last night, and there were a couple interesting things... an odd performance piece where this girl was grating beets. WTF do you grate beets for in the real world anyway? And seriously, WTF was that supposed to mean? I'm all for performance art. But man, I don't know about that one. I could go down the list of weird shit I didn't get for a while, but shooting down art that falls flat in Oklahoma is far too easy (and the performance piece above was actually better than a lot of what was there). Overall, this year's Momentum just lacked a lot of the charm and whimsy that has marked it in the past. Like the guy from last year who was putting up signs on all the sold pieces that said something like "This is no longer Art," or the Womb Room from the year before (or was that 2009?). Even the really good pieces that were chosen seemed to be playing it safe on the part of the curators. I've been doing a lot of streets and clouds lately. Sometimes I'm just looking for that perfect moment when the light in the sky is balanced by the streetlights, and other times, I just want to take a picture of something to see how it looks. Photos (mostly) unrelated:

Just photos of the clouds

2012-03-08T23:23:20+00:00

It's too dark outside to do this with the phone, so I pulled out the big iron, and shot the moon. As it turned out though, the clouds were more interesting.

I had a nightmare last night

2012-02-25T10:23:20+00:00

The nightmare was my twitter got hacked. This is how good my life is right now, that's the worst my subconscious could come up with. Of course, I'm sure the world is going to come up with something much worse, now that I've said that. I haven't blogged for a while, but I'm not giving up. I thought about rebooting and redesigning and using another domain that already points here: photounrelated.com. That may still happen. Of course, since all my traffic comes from twitter and facebook anyway, it doesn't matter, so long as the old links and the new ones still work. Photo Unrelated:

interrupting the story for a moment

2011-12-07T14:00:00+00:00

So yeah, our coherent narrative has to be interrupted for this breaking story: I have a darkroom! I developed film! here, proofs:

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

Then I got on a plane

2011-11-12T21:30:20+00:00

So I woke up at the ungodly hour of 5am after all that madness and grabbed all my stuff and walked over to the gf's (who wasn't yet anything other than an interesting friend) house, and woke her up, and she drove me to the airport. I like morning flights, you never end up done with everything and having hours to kill before them. It's always wake up and go. Anyway, I get through security and put my shoes back on and have just enough time to get a burrito before I get on what might be only the second or third direct flight of my life; really quite nice to get on one plane and get off at your destination after a nice litle nap. Anyway, I disembarked, got on the bart and headed to my hotel; even napping on the plane I was still exhausted, so I took another nap. Then we went out to Seemant's house boat, docked in Oakland, and had steaks and chips and a ton of beer. People talked, I got reasonably inebriated, and then we all tried to take the ferry, but it was closed early for fleet week. So, we all got back on the BART and went back to our respective hotels. Then I did something that seemed like a good idea at the time: I opened the window. Long story short, I was sick for two days with what I thought was a bad head cold, but turned out to be bad allergies. A day of cold medicine and a day of sudafed and then finally claritin did me right and reduced my symptoms to a headache. Which is why, in case any of the people who were there are wondering, I looked and felt slightly off all week. Other than that, it was a week of meetings and eating spectacular food and a lot of walking. LOT of walking.

Picking up the Thread

2011-11-10T10:48:20+00:00

So I'm dogsitting, and generally bored while my lady is out of town (If you're reading this, I miss you), so I figure I should pick up the thread of "things that happend to Matt Mills" somewhere, and the best place is probably the punk show I wnet to the night before I flew to SF the last time. I was sitting around watching star wars with a friend, and I get a text message from Kerry that says, "Come to the Speakeasy, bring your camera. Copperheads and Boom Bang." And then another that says 'Really, I'll pay you.' I was bored with the whole star wars scene, having watched it approxamately 12 bazillion times as a kid, I still remember all the lines. (yes, I'm a nerd). So I ran home and grabbed my camera and went to the show, which hadn't even started yet. There were some beers. Remember, I'm supposed to get on a plane early in the morning and fly out to meet all my coworkers in San Fransisco; thinking of this and my empty suitcase, I took it easy on the beers. It was a punk show though, which you can't really attend without a little drinking. But you know that. So, beers are consumed, and then the copperheads come on and rip through their set like it was talking bad about their mothers. Really fun, fast set. I couldn't understand any of the words, of course, but that's not what matters, really. What matters is the noise and the speed and the croud being into it, all jammed up right next to the stage, and the lead singer thrashing around and falling to the floor because so much of his energy is going into the song he can't even stand because there's nothing left, and the drummer soaked with sweat and exhausted, and the guitar player jumping up and down and playing as fast as he can to keep up with it all. Either that or we were all a bunch of drunk roaring idiots. Then the Boom Bang came on and solidly kicked some more ass; if the Copperheads were a warm up act, the Boom Bang was a bonfire. I know I use a lot of superlatives, and some of you out there are probably wondering if I'm full of shit or what. I think I just happen to go see stuff at rad moments. I vaguely remember these guys from the last Norman Music Fest I was at, and I wasn't that impressed. the show at the speakeasy was altogether different. They were right on the bleeding edge of good rock and roll that night. And if you don't believe me, here are the photos:

After all that I went home and threw my shit in a bag (this was one of those times a packing list comes in handy) and slept a few hours and got on a plane...

the last two months, condensed

2011-11-10T01:00:00+00:00

So the last two or three months have been a bit of a blur. I turned 27, found a spectacular woman, got situated in my new job, took three trips of a week each (two to san fransisco and one to mexico), decided to start shooting film again, drank, ate, and told stories, and generally lived it up. There are some photos of all this. They are coming soon, I promise.

The wedding

2011-09-26T13:28:20+00:00

My friends Heather and Kyle got married, oh a month and a half ago now, and I was lucky enough to attend... really beautiful ceremony, in the alley where they had their first beers together. While some of my longtime friends know that I refuse, under any circumstances, to be a wedding photographer, I didn't take any money for this one, and I would have been there anyway, so in this case I made an exception and took some photos. Besides, they're really amazing people and I wanted to do something nice for them.

catching up

2011-09-24T04:28:20+00:00

Work has been especially worky and my personal life has ben a crazy roller coaster, and that means the blog has been a bit neglected, but I'm trying to catch up. A wedding (not my own), a vacation, two business trips (the first one to vancouver and the other to san fransisco), all that really wears on you. There's not a ton of energy left to blog. Add that to the fact that when I'm working, I'm actually working now, and it demands my full attention (really, it's more like a compulsion to fix things that I have a hard time putting down, but I digress). So I just haven't had the extra capacity, in time or mental bandwidth to get updates out to the world. First of all the new job is great. Engine Yard is easily the best company I've ever worked for, the work completely obsesses and consumes me, and the team I'm on has some of the brightest people I've ever worked with. Also they're "hiring":http://www.engineyard.com/company/careers. The only downside so far is I've been so focused on work, especially the last month, that I haven't had a whole lot of personal time. The reason I'm writing this is to try and make some time for myself. So that'll be the last you hear from me about work for a while. I went out with my dad one night a couple of weeks ago, drinking good scotch, and the subject of just how lucky I am came up. A lot of very improbable things have happened to me, and that I survived them all with no long term damage (modulo occasional back problems, scars, and a trail of broken hearts) is also pretty remarkable. I lost count at 19, numbering the times I could have legitimately died if things had been just a little different. If I'd spiked a little more fever, or if I'd been hit a little harder by that car, or pavement, or whatever. Or if the right person hadn't been there at the right moment to save me. So yeah, phenomenally lucky. So yeah. That's the state of things. Since I have photos queued up and ready to go, expect to see them here sometime in the next week. For now, just a sunset I shot from riding river the other day:

two good bands

2011-08-15T00:49:20+00:00

the title of this post could have easily been 'too good bands'. This was "Dr. Pants":http://www.doctorpants.com and "Student Film":http://www.myspace.com/studentfilm , which I saw last week at the blue note and the mustache bash, respectively. Fun acts. I wish I had more to say, but I'm getting ready to go to mexico (!!!!) and my head is full logistics and flight details and all the things I need to do... Yeah. Just a couple days to relax and not think about anything. I was thinking about not even taking a laptop. Now, if you're in either of those bands, pretend this whole paragraph was me saying nice things about you; I had at least that much to say all in my head earlier, but got distracted. Yeah.

in between things

2011-08-12T12:49:20+00:00

So these are just photos from in between things... I'm not a 100% event oriented photographer, I have the camera with me all the time. So sometimes there are random nice things that would otherwise slip through the cracks. These are that.

jewel of a city, hard to get home

2011-08-12T12:19:20+00:00

So, vancouver was really beautiful. Coming home was difficult- not because I was sad to leave vancouver, but because of storms over denver. I was so tired. And yeah, I know I'm behind again. my resolution to keep up with the present in my blog lasted all of two posts. I'll be catching up today though, so keep an eye out. (also, the last pic is above denver, just so we're clear)

vancouver (1st day)

2011-08-01T07:41:20+00:00

Today is my first day with "Engine Yard":http://engineyard.com. Last night, I got to go out with a couple of the managers and one of the other new hires, and I really like their style. Also, had some really awesome food and drink wandering around downtown Vancouver. Earlier, I wandered a bit- just down to the bay from my hotel, really. Saw the Olympic torch, heard about four languages (Welsh, something scandanavian, chinese, and japanese), and had pangs of longing for living in a real city. Also, they have hills here: real, steep, make you regret a fixed gear hills. I wish I had my bike. Tons of people here on bike, too. I love cities.

news of the weird

2011-07-22T18:05:20+00:00

Riding down the highway last night and saw this.

rock show

2011-07-19T13:58:20+00:00

So, the old format of waiting a month to post photos? I'm tired of it. doesn't work for me any more. I'm declaring blogging bankruptcy on the what I haven't blogged before last night's photos, and we're just going to rock out with stuff from the show last night. I saw like 5 acts take the stage, and 4 of them were fucking amazing. Skating Polly is punk as fuck. 11 and 16 and all the angst and rawness that they could possibly have. It'll be interesting to see what kind of band they grow into. Josh Sallee surprised me; I hadn't really heard of him, but by the end of his set I was a fan. Saturday Sirens killed it, as usual. Good solid rock n roll. And then there was the only disappointment of the evening, a band who's name I don't even remember (not pictured, either). They might be a good act on their own, but with all the amazing talent on display last night they just seemed lost. To finish it out, Jabee came on and showed us all why he's doing so well out there in the real world (places not oklahoma). Really a good show.

show out there some where (just show up)

2011-07-02T20:24:20+00:00

Really fun night, just by showing up. It'd be nice if I could remember the name of the band or the singer, but I do remember that it was their first night playing together live. It was a really fun show. I'll let the photos tell the rest.

two random

2011-07-01T10:11:20+00:00

Just two random photos from the queue. Woke up with a sober hangover this morning. It's like waking up after a night of heavy drinking, but without the fun of the night before. A full night's sleep, where you wake up still tired and wondering just what the hell happened to you. Luckily, this morning, somebody brought me coffee, and life was good again. Anyway, the photos: Traci and Sky after a ride (come to think of it, this was the last time we rode) and then, a sunset storm.

out in the woods

2011-06-28T13:11:20+00:00

So "@ryukochan":http://twitter.com/#!/ryukochan, (Anne to her friends) said, I'm bored with my avatar, and so I suggested a photoshoot... next thing you know we're planning a shoot out in the woods. The idea was for her to get lost in the woods and go from civilized and contained to completely unrestrained and feral. I have more photos, but I'm not publishing just everything yet, because I'm thinking I might submit it a few places. Fun shoot, anyway.

more unrelated photos

2011-06-24T13:11:20+00:00

Weaning myself off the fisheye with a standard wide zoom. Things are afoot. Time to get away from the computer.

weekend adventures

2011-06-24T08:32:20+00:00

Last blurry fisheye post, I swear. I do love those flags though. Er, well, the photos of them. As symbols, some days yes and some days no. Things like "this":http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ln9aa10UAg1qzqlvro1_500.png make me wonder. But anyway, it's friday, and it's already a good day. Saw the sunrise and took pictures of clouds. Not a bad way to start your day.

friends with fisheye

2011-06-23T12:28:20+00:00

I promise I am using my normal lens more now... but the fish is so fun.

fish mark 2

2011-06-22T13:19:20+00:00

So the longest day of the year is behind us, and lots of good things are going on behind the scenes. In front, though, there's this lens. This is version two of the thing, with the aperture control. I don't remember (and I'm too lazy) if I mentioned this here before, but I like the photos and don't mind another lens-specific post. I made it from some copper and stainless tubing and a projection lens from a TV, along with some parts from a broken 35mm that I had laying around. I need to get my bag back together and start carrying this thing again. Anyway, photos! These are from the last really bad stormy night; tornados in Blanchard and Edmond. Next: fish and friends!

work is fun

2011-06-20T06:13:20+00:00

sometimes, at least.

portraits from brunch

2011-06-20T06:12:20+00:00

yeah, yeah. Gratuitous picture of your friends Monday, something like that.

brunch ish

2011-06-17T07:23:20+00:00

so, this was a hell of an epic brunch. Back when the thunder was still playing, I think. I find myself in picasso's most sundays, because a) they're close, and b) they're awesome. It's the kind of place you can meet a girl for the first time to kick off something amazing (photos to come on that one), meet your friends hungover, or take your mom for mother's day. I've done all that in the past month there. It's always a good time. This one was especially good, what with the thunder win and the pretty girls and plentiful mimosas. The epitome of a Picasso's brunch.

lots to tell

2011-06-17T07:15:20+00:00

I just pushed the better part of a month's photos up to the server, and there's a whole metric fuckton (bigger than a standard fuckton, you know) of stories to tell. Some of which I can't tell, because a gentleman doesn't. You all know neighbor Traci? Love neighbor Traci (that's an order). She's one of the friends that I'm fantastically lucky to have around. This was at the other room about a month ago, some random saturday. So a bunch of us were drinking, and somebody pulls out these fake glasses. You can't tell because of the light, but they're those yellow-tinted lenses. And Traci is just goofing off, being her usual silly self. Always cracks me up.

mini shoot right before the real fashion show

2011-05-30T20:20:20+00:00

So right before we all left for the plaza district, another photographer that was there took some of the girls out to shoot, and I sort of butted in and shot a few things too. Couldn't help myself. Anyway, good photos. Now I have a chore to take care of. Don't tell anyone, but I'm making little 4x6 prints of the actual fashion show to give to the girls and or their stylists.

behind the scenes at a fashion show

2011-05-28T04:54:07+00:00

Velvet monkey puts on an annual fashion show at their Plaza district location, and a couple people I know were modeling and since I'm friends with a few of the stylists, I went and did some behind the scenes shooting at the downtown location while they were getting ready. Some good concepts, some good looks, pretty fun overall. I've got another post coming where we did a little guerilla shoot in the street, those'll be up sometime tomorrow.

after work...

2011-05-26T07:17:07+00:00

I saw this after work one day... dude just kept buzzing the soccer field and sign shops. Now I want one of these rigs.

outside, after hours

2011-05-26T07:17:07+00:00

sometimes, the night is just too good to give up at 2am, and there's no place to go, so you just chill outside the bar till things die down.

looking up

2011-05-25T21:28:07+00:00

literally.

lunch assembly line

2011-05-25T21:04:07+00:00

chick-fil-a is always mobbed with people and always fast. but that's not what this is about.

drummer pictures are hard

2011-05-25T21:00:07+00:00

and then my camera broke

2011-05-23T23:47:07+00:00

So yeah, day of, I get to the fest, anticipating one hell of a day, and instead I get an unmitigated disaster. My camera broke and a bunch of other things happened. And then I heard about some other shit, fights and bullshit. And a pretty girl that I'm into left town for L.A. (Sidenote: I really should cut back on the women, but what fun would that be?). On the plus side, I was sober when it was time to drive back to the city. So I came back and passed out. Then I woke up and fixed the camera.

while we're waiting

2011-05-21T00:34:07+00:00

well, given the strong possibility that the world might end today, I figured I should go ahead and get a coupe more photos up. by strong possibility, I mean that it's as likely now as it is at any other minute in history. anyway: more norman photos. Friday Night. The Mimsies and some other madness before.

with the roses

2011-05-20T00:34:07+00:00

I was walking home from somewhere west of my apartment, in the middle of the night, and I saw these and thought How Nice. And because it would be rude to pick someone else's roses, I took a picture, and moved on.

tattoo show

2011-05-20T00:23:07+00:00

randomly went to the tattoo convention, thinking I was there to see this band I keep missing (and who just changed lead singers for some reason, I dunno), and anyway, I had a pretty interesting conversation with their guitarist, I think, about the demographic represented there. Odd and interesting. Anyway, had one good photo:

NMF (yeah, I'm that far behind)

2011-05-19T09:45:07+00:00

My shoulder is killing me... no idea why, I'm hoping I just slept on it wrong. The photos: I was down in norman for NMF thursday, friday, and saturday; this was the first night, everybody trying on Kj's new glasses. Also Joey at the bottom rockin' out with one of the bands he plays in that isn't Shitty/Awesome.

guitar hero

2011-05-16T13:47:07+00:00

those controllers aren't hooked up to anything... they're so good at rockband they no longer need the xbox. er, something like that.

sunsets

2011-05-16T05:58:07+00:00

I know they're cliched and overdone, but I still like 'em. sunsets and clouds. I was a nat geo photog in another life, I swear. Garry Winogrand is still my spirit animal, though.

the moon

2011-05-16T04:53:07+00:00

Oy vey, what a couple of weeks. Shooting the moon. Shooting the Sun. Shooting whatever looks good. It's been nice. But I've realized over the past couple days that there are at least a few people that still want to see photos here. So, without further ado, I will be posting a bunch of shit from the last couple weeks, as usual, and as I can.

saturday sirens

2011-04-28T18:46:07+00:00

These are the last photos in the queue to be posted; luckily, today, I got contacts, and I can see again. By see, I mean see pictures, not just focus on stuff. I can already tell, it's better this way. Which I really knew all along. Anyway, photos... These are from a totally excellent show I went to at Belle Isle. The Saturday Sirens played a great set. thanks "@jane4oh5":http://twitter.com/#!/jane4oh5 for tweeting about it, because it was a rad time.

good day

2011-04-27T10:30:07+00:00

_Author's Note: If you don't care about my personal life and just come here for the pictures, well, ignore the text and look at the pretty photo at the bottom._ f yeah yesterday was a good day. better than "the song":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWfbGGZE07M. Guess you could say I started it off right. rolled over and kissed a pretty girl. really don't wanna screw this up, so I'm gonna have to remain coy. We're going slow(ish). Slower than usual. We're acting like little Fonzies, and being cool about it. Anyway, from there, I emailed my bosses and told them I was taking a mental health day. The first thing you should do on a mental health day is sleep in. If there is a curvy, witty, or cute reason to stay in bed than all the better. So we did that, and then she had to get on with her day, and so did I, so we did. I got back to the city, to my apartment, and ran into my neighbor Traci, who was on her way to get her bike fixed, and we decided to go for a ride after she got back. She comes back with an un-fixed bike. The sales guy talked down to her at the bicycle store, and so she walked out and told them her neighbor (me) would fix it. So, I had her bring the bike up and I wrenched on it for a bit and got it into running shape again. I made a part for it, even. So that was good. Then we went for our ride, just to downtown and back, and we both saw and remembered at the same time that the Arts Festival was happening downtown. So we went down there for a late lunch, and she bought mine to thank me for fixing her bike. Then we came home, only on the way I got a flat tire. Really though, that was the only bad thing to happen today, and a flat tire that means a nice twenty minute walk home when I've got time to kill isn't really bad. Then off to mom's house for her "dialysis":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialysis... in case you're wondering, she does it daily, at home, and I go out there to help her on nights that my dad can't be there. Usually once a week, on tuesday, although that my change to a floating day as the class my dad teaches is out for the summer. Anyway, I hang out there, do some laundry, and then go home. I've said for years that tuesdays were the worst days of the week. _Years_. Now I'm reconsidering. This one day brought up the average so much that tuesdays are now on par with thursdays. Would I have noticed all this goodness on a saturday? Probably. Will this saturday, involving the girl from the first paragraph and norman music fest, be better? Maybe. It's going to have to try hard.

waiting

2011-04-25T12:16:07+00:00

Right now, I'm at work, on lunch, just sort of waiting for it to be over. When I have lunch here in the office (microwaved something-or-other) it only takes ten minutes, as opposed to the hour or hour and a half going out somewhere usually takes. And it's cheaper, less than a buck for a sandwich and gatorade. And since there are only a couple decent restaurants in edmond anyway, I'm not missing much. The problem is, I've now got 50 minutes to kill. Luckily, I have a blog to write for... The photo is about waiting, too. Leia here was waiting for a phone call, to go and pick her boyfriend up. It's complicated if you go deeper than that as far as details, but I like the photo anyway.

b-ville madness

2011-04-24T20:56:57+00:00

Went to bartlesville again, two weeks ago? three? I'm thinking three. And when I go to bartlesville, there is some madness. In no particular order: A broken cell phone. Divorce. Drinking. driving. A puppy that I couldn't keep, for now. Inappropriate jokes at 9am that were funny for all by 9:05.

And then, a delicious, calm breakfast from Heather, and an nice tranquil couple hours sitting around shooting the shit. Then we drove home.

other people's children

2011-04-24T11:55:55+00:00

So a lot of my friends have kids. Sometimes, they're around, or sometimes I'm around, whatever. But those individual pictures don't really fit with photos from bars, photos from parties, of drinking, etc. If there's anyone out there who only knows me through this blog, they might think that that's all I do, but the truth is a little more complicated. Anyway, what was the point of all that?

Oh yeah, photos of my friends' kids. next post there's going to be a cute puppy too. See? I'm not one sided (at least I can lie to myself).

the other room

2011-04-22T05:38:41+00:00

well, this is a first. I'm up at 5 am, really awake at this hour for the first time in years. had a good day yesterday, and I'm planning on having another one today. I had a date, too, and I've got another one of those coming today, too. If you ever hear me complaining about my life, feel free to tell me to fuck off. (Now, that's different than bitching about oklahoma, which is as much a pastime here as bitching about the weather...)

walking into mcnellies

2011-04-21T02:16:35+00:00

I walked towards mcnellies, and I noticed the steam rising; and I thought, "If the shadows hold and I can get that steam, that'd be a good picture." So I tried a couple exposures, and it worked. i think this means I'm going to be all right, photographically.

2011-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

yeah, that’s about it for these. I like the last one; looks like he’s doing karate or something.

Momentum and stuff

2011-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

The dude in the hat! Amazing. I wrote about momentum for the naked earth blog but I have no idea when it will go live; sort of depends on the editor. The chair, I wanted to sit in it, I wanted to steal it and put it out by the curb; that chair did not belong in that show. Inconsistent curation. Also I’m supposed to write about graffiti for the NE journal. HA!

Anyway the last two images: Haley in her natural habitat hiding behind her phone, and Dillon, showing up briefly, only to disappear again. Also his natural habitat: late at night and sketchy as hell.

broken social scene

2011-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

went out to tulsa, got to see a really good show. Broken social sceneplayed. I’d heard BSS at parties, on the spy, etc, and a bunch of friends were going. So I went, not quite on a whim, but only with a couple days notice. Good show, good brunch the day after. I was sad that I didn’t even try to take my camera into the venue. A friend told me that they weren’t letting people with cameras in and so I didn’t try; turns out they didn’t care. And I could have been in the front row, too. Oh well.

Meanwhile, my photographic output has dropped from little to nothing. had a bad shoot with KJ and just haven’t shot a thing in the week and a half since. It’s nobody’s fault, really, that the shoot went badly. I should have seen that what were doing wouldn’t work, though. It’s like I need to completely start from scratch and learn to shoot pictures all over again, and forget all the things I’ve learned. Throw away 13 years of experience and start fresh. Or maybe it’s a change of scene that I need; I don’t know. I’ll figure something out.

ok nobody move this is a robbery

2011-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

er, something like that. a drive by blogging, maybe. Quick and painless as long as nobody tries to be a hero, OK?

Shoot from the other day went ok. Not brilliant or life changing but some decent photos. This is another thing I do: I hate everything I’ve shot until at least a week after I shot it. Sometimes more like a month. This is why I’m such a procrastinator. It takes me a month get it out of my system that I suck and just put the photos out there.

Anyway, I got a new domain, photounrelated.com, that points here for now but might point to a new blog, or I might rename this one and start using that domain, I’m not sure. I’m always writing about one thing and showing photos from another.

This night had a color phase and then a black and white phase. It went that way because, as I’ve said before, the Drunken Fry is badly lit. Or at least very dimly lit. Weird night, anyway.

finally doing a shoot...

2011-03-20T00:00:00+00:00

Going over to kj’s here in a minute to do a photo shoot, not either of the planned ones (that I’ll have to get off my ass and do here pretty quick, before summer tries to kill us all), but just a test shoot getting ready for a thing in early april. Anyway, photos unrelated:

just one photo

2011-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

for now. drinkin wine with my neighbor. laptop party. yep, we’re nerds. she’s cuter than your neighbor, though. (photo unrelated, from the blue note several weeks ago).

snow x2

2011-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

My photos from the first snow storm were a little too depressing… not in that they were bad, but you can tell looking at them that I feel like shit. Since I feel a lot better now (o hai spring), I’m leaving them out. But these, from the second storm, are better.

Meanwhile, everything is moving along. Haven’t gotten any closer on planning those shoots I wanted to do. I need to email a bunch of people, I suppose, and gather all the supplies I’ll need. Lights. A stuffed wolf or puma. A stone spearhead. A stick. Model. Location. Storyboards, maybe even.

espresso cupping @elementalcoffee

2011-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

just a couple photos… got a bunch more in the queue. It’s amazing how far behind you get when you start a month behind and then lose the use of your laptop for a week and a half. But enough excuses. I’m working on a bunch of things… couple photo shoots coming up hopefully, coding some interesting side projects. I have to wonder: is the extra mental energy spent on coding a drain on my photography? I think it is. If nothing else, there’s only so much time in a day. I don’t sleep much. Oh well. That’s what the coffee obsession is for.

Speaking of, this was a really enlightening day. It was down at Elemental’s new Alley Bar, which is, as I’ve written before, pretty amazing. I learned a lot about espresso blending and what exactly goes into it. A lot of coffee was drank. One blend had the distinct flavor of peanut shells, I’ll never forget it. But the real blend, what we came out with, was amazing. Lots of complexity and goodness. I wish more coffee shops in town used Elemental. Actually, scratch that: I wish less shops in town used Neighbors. I wish some of them would actually taste good coffee and think about what they’re serving. </rant> Anyway, this was a pleasure. They’re open limited hours in the mornings right now, but totally worth getting up a little early to get to.

rough week

2011-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

It’s been a long week and a half actually. Broken laptop and hospital time and exhaustion and stress. But on the other hand: drinking and good times and great friends and new beautiful women. really, I’ll take what I can get. and now I’m back on the air, everybody’s healthy (knock on wood) and my lappy is more or less restored. Done and done.

skate photos near my house

2011-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

Taking photos of skaters is weird. I was doing it today, again, and really, it’s a completely different thing from photographing other kinds of athletes or doing regular portraits. It requires you to be very close to the action- you’ve got to be careful not to make yourself an obstacle while being in the middle of things, basically. Anyway, yeah. I’ve been off the last month. not shooting as well as I usually do. I’ll get it sorted. I’m hoping it’s just the winter blues, which usually go away as things warm up.

I'm a little nervous...

2011-02-25T00:00:00+00:00

Not about these photos, which are decent. I’m going to a rally today, in solidarity with the people in wisconsin. It’s another one of those moments in history. Revolutions across the world. Protests here in the US. People who are nostalgic for the late 60’s, wake up and get your ases down to the capitol. It’s a good time to be alive. And it is Oklahoma. Not a lot likely to happen here. (I know I just jinxed myself. The knowing negates it). But still, anything can happen. Anyway, enjoy the photos and pay attention to twitter for updates on the ground.

(edit: decided I didn’t like that first photo. poof! like it was never there).

weird dreams. weirder reality.

2011-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

well, I opened this tab yesterday, and the dream I was going to write about has pretty much evaporated from my memory. Oh well. The first photo is from elemental, at there new shop, the first morning they were open… it was sort of beautiful how thin their operation was, and how well it worked. There was one woman with a square reader taking credit cards, and one barista making amazing espresso drinks. It’s gottena bit better now, even… I think they have heat in their building, and some more furniture. Really exciting to see a new business start up an do so well.

the rest of the photos are the usual fare, from a night out at blue note.

shoot pt 2

2011-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

So here’s the second batch… these are mostly meghan’s and some supporting cast shots… big B and his friend (chris? I don’t remember the name).

And I saved the most badass for last:

onto the shoot...

2011-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

This shit was a blast. seriously a lot of fun. As in, we’re going to have to do it again. Thanks to (in no particular order): Amber (hair and makeup), Brian (lights/grip), KJ, and Meghan (models). Anyway, yeah. Photos. I’m splitting this into two posts to ease the server load. Next one in a hot minute.

the new sauced

2011-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

the patio is still the best place in the city to get some air and a bite at the same time. it’s going to be a regular stop for me as soon as they get real beer.

city...

2011-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

Speaking of the city, I was riding around the other day, and had another one of those moments, where I saw something that caught me. I took this photo:

Something about the combination of being in a big space (the structures always have that effect on me; I realize how much sky there is up there) and all the activity of construction made the growth the city is experiencing real to me. Like before, it was politicians talking about it, people bitching about it never going to happen, and here we are. It could be nice. Let’s make it nice.

good advice:

2011-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

“Walk tall, kick ass, learn to speak arabic, love music, and never forget you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers, and warriors."

Hunter S Thompson, shamelessly stolen from Rules for My Unborn Son

and then I came back to okc

2011-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

and the madness continues… it’s not in the world, as I told my friends, but damn it’s a good time.

new years eve

2011-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

Yeah, this night was pretty freakin awesome. My first tattoo and a lot of fireworks and drinking champagne etc etc etc. Auspicious. Suspicious. Something like that.

cemetery in the neighborhood

2011-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

well, not my neighborhodd, but the one I was staying in… I conceived a big typology type project while I was there. All the cemeteries of New Orleans. Of course, I’d have to live there… if the city doesn’t sink before I get the chance to move there, that is. It’d be a couple years. When I’m looking to semi-retire or something. or when I get a wild hair and have to light out. Although, as my local friends advised me, it’d be easier if I picked a subset to look at. I could spend a long time looking at these angels, for example.

down to the fishin' camp

2011-01-31T00:00:00+00:00

So we drove down to Cocodrie, which is the middle of nowhere, reaching out towards the gulf of mexico. Even the middle of nowhere has trash pickup these days. That’s america for ya. The birds were nice, flying to roost somewhere at sunset, and the sunset was pretty awesome, too. Nice to get away from it all for a minute. Which was the point of the trip, come to think of it.

more new orleans...

2011-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

between things, so a quick blog post… charging my phone, actually. Toured the Abita brewery while I was in Louisiana… that’s the crowd in the first photo. That’s Lane(y?) and Jeana sorta dancing at rock n’ bowl in the second… and finishing off the night at some local bar in the third. I like that bars there don’t close except when the bartender feels like it. It lets the night flow much more naturally. Speaking of bars, my phone is charged enough to get me through the night and I’m off.

new orleans

2011-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

a couple posts from my little after christmas jaunt… there’ll be a couple posts like this. good times, relaxing and recharging. I’m gonna have to do another trip soon. Maybe St Louis again; I met a guy in egypt that works up there… and i do know a couple people there too. hrm. I do like to travel.

video shoot for brother gruesome

2011-01-26T00:00:00+00:00

So this was a long stop motion video that I think they were going to set to music and have a video; and at then end they knocked it all down. This rings all sorts of bells for me as a critic and artist; it’s collaborative, impermanent, made for reproduction… things I like, more or less. But standing there, looking at it, most of it sucked; right as it was about to go somewhere interesting one or more of the parties involved would fuck it up. Come to think of it though, that’ll probably look pretty good on video.

christmas night at the fry

2011-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

christmas night, doin’ it right. I may have been a little obnoxious in front of my friend’s wife (wife and friend in the first pic). It was the DNR talking, I swear. Anyway, yeah, onward and upward.

welp, so much for that lens...

2011-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

I just spent the last hour putting the finishing touches on a repair that I started way back when. Unfortunately, there’s nothing physically wrong with the lens; I had it in many pieces, far enough into the guts to find any physical defect, and there were none. So, I don’t know what’s wrong with the lens. It works fine in manual focus, and I’m tempted to sell it on ebay as such. then again, having a backup 50 is never a bad idea. Photo evidence (sorry for the crappy phone pic):

Up next: photos. seriously.

Norman 80's night

2011-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

week before christmas, I think this was… tuesday or wednesday. damn I’m tired. I’m gonna go nap now.

mcnellies party plus after

2011-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

This was a pretty good time, even though they cut the party off at 1am. Went to this sketchy party and arrived just as the cops were leaving, said f this and headed to a friend’s house to dance till we got tired of it. Good times.

max's birthday

2011-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Just a couple of the photos, too good not to share. Damn that was a long day… brunch, little kids, mcnellie’s xmas party, and then the after party. No wonder I’m exhausted all the time. Seriously I’ve gotta do something about that. Sleep more probably.

Ali's b-day brunch

2011-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

So yeah, this was also a couple weeks ago. I think it was the sunday after christmas. Pretty sure, in fact. Jen made pumpkin pancakes, which were awesome. Other things happened, pictured below. Bobby skating. Porch sitting. Big B lookin like the big G with the sunlight coming from behind him. Canon on his lap though, and we all know canons are the devil’s camera. (this is another case of me either being funny or unintelligible. I don’t care which).

conservatory show ish

2011-01-09T00:00:00+00:00

Went to this show on a monday, sometime before christmas. The poor first guy had almost nobody there… I think his mom was taking pictures at one point, while the rest of us were off in the bar area, waiting for Rico Muerte to play. He wasn’t bad, except all of his songs were about his girlfriend. Then RM came on, solid rock, then some dudes from savannah with way too much gear but decent sound and then I left before it was over because some of us have to work at 8:30 in the morning. I’m not happy about it, but that’s the way it is.

christmas lights

2011-01-09T00:00:00+00:00

so I know it’s no longer the holiday season and whatever, but it’s particularly gray and all doom and gloom today, so here: christmas lights to cheer you up.

a sunset again

2010-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

Last one this year, I promise.

a moment

2010-12-30T00:00:00+00:00

Sometimes there’s a moment when I see something and I realize the world is changing; we say things are different now but it doesn’t really affect the mood in my head, but then I see something like this guy hanging down from the broadway extension to do god knows what maintenance, and something clicks. Hundreds of feet in the air like some kind of hero, just doing his job. Not ‘everyday hero’ but ‘this wasn’t possible before’; something outside my personal mythos. And then for a while my thoughts are colored by the fact the the world is bigger and stranger than even I thought; and that’s saying something.

thanksgiving-ish

2010-12-27T00:00:00+00:00

For some reason, I’m still a month behind, although I am slowly but surely catching up. Sarah, a couple days after thanksgiving, invited me to her family’s late-giving, which they’d delayed so she could make it. It was nice, and then the next day we went to friendsgiving, which I didn’t really take pictures of because I was too busy stuffing my face.

My house is clean! (pictures unrelated)

2010-12-27T00:00:00+00:00

This is worth a blog post by itself… my house hasn’t been this clean since last spring at least… pretty sure I swept sometime last march… not really. But shit had gotten out of hand what with me having no time to clean and less energy than time. I scrubbed everywhere that needs to be scrubbed, swept what needed to be swept, and all my dishes are clean. funny story: my house stays cleaner when I’m broke. Although why I didn’t do this in the months between getting back from egypt and starting the new job I don’t know. anyway yeah, photos unrelated (from Athena and Aphrodite’s bday party):

Mimsies Reunion show at blue note

2010-12-25T00:00:00+00:00

This was the best live show I’ve ever seen. Freakin’ amazing. Electric and intense and raw and the lead singer, Casey, was the center of it all. If you weren’t there you should be pissed. You missed a hell of a show.

If I should fall asleep in your arms...

2010-12-24T00:00:00+00:00

Please wake me up in my dreams." Just rediscovering how awesome an album “Frank’s Wild Years” is. Seriously, you should give it a listen. Also “Romeo is Bleeding” off of Blue Valentine, very good. Merry Christmas, happy blah blah. Another post coming soon; this won’t satisfy my blogging addiction for today.

Holly's baby shower

2010-12-24T00:00:00+00:00

Well, one of them… there were several, actually, but this one is the only one I went to. And there are other good photos, mostly variations on these though. And Atlas (the baby, and isn’t that a awesome name?) was born the day before yesterday (or was it yesterday? I haven’t been able to keep track of the days in weeks). If the kid’s as rad as his parents, he’s set for a rad life.

everybody's havin babies...

2010-12-23T00:00:00+00:00

er, well, it seems that way. Katie wanted some pinup-like pictures, which I’m not posting, and some more normal ones, which are below. This was a fun shoot. As for the babies, four (five? six? depending on how close of a friend we’re talking about) friends of varying closeness have had kids in the last 6 months, and several more are expecting. None for me, thanks.

last time at the hell house. forever.

2010-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

I’m sure someone else will move in and civilize the place now and it won’t be the hell house any more. This was a good way to go out though, beating a couch into submission with an axe and then burning it in the back yard, and then the fire trucks show up… yeah. I’ll miss it a little. That night with the fire was a perfect end to it for me: the right mix of madness and fun and hilarity, and also danger of decapitation/third degree burns.

Eclipse (jumping at shadows)

2010-12-21T00:00:00+00:00

So I knew if I didn’t get this up now it’d be after new years before I got to it. I had to improvise a tripod out of duct tape and a light stand. If you click on it, you can see it even bigger. I might have to make some prints of this one… have to get an ink cartridge first though. hrm. I had lots of clever things to say that I though of while I was outside shooting this but now they’ve all left my head and I need rest. See you guys in the morning.

can't think of a title

2010-12-21T00:00:00+00:00

Sometimes I think I’m being funny when actually I’m being unintelligible. The title of the last post is an example of that. anyway, yeah, tired, but making it through. Time off soon, and a nice little trip… things are happening again. It’s after the solstice and I’m breaking out of my winter doldrums. I hope.

Rico Muerte at Conservatory

2010-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

it just occurred to me what an odd name that was for a rock and roll venue… rock has never really been about conserving anything… and I’m in love with ellipses. Anyway, before rico muerte, there was this “dad metal” band who’s name I can’t remember, but who was unintentionally hilarious, all but the dude in the moon boot, who earned mad cred just for showing un in that shit. And the graffiti out back really kinda blew my mind. Anyway, onward and upward…

pretty pictures

2010-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

yeah, I’m guilty of this shit too… pretty pictures… but with the fall around, and the last good light of the year, how can I help myself? or at least, it was the last good light of the year. also, if you’re reading this, you’re reading it on the new server. piece of cake to move.

posting on the new server

2010-12-19T00:00:00+00:00

so I can tell the difference between the new and the old. and to test out the twitter thingy I just did. this will disappear sometime tomorrow.

Pants off party that was a month ago

2010-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

And therefore the statute of limitations on embarrassment has expired… and anyway, since when do I care about being embarrassed? This was a good party. I met Christian there, and it’s been a month and a half of good times, with more in store.

light this candle

2010-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

let’s see… it’s been a few weeks since I’ve done this, had a new job to adjust to and some mad winter darkness blues to deal with… but here I am. Still looking for perfection. Still taking those photos. Still makin’ your women wish they were my woman. Don’t get jealous… it’s just the photos. don’t worry, there’s more where this came from.

and then the day after

2010-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

Not pictured is the brunch we had or the awesome wipeout KJ had. It’s amazing how much fin that little plastic trike was. A good day.

just found this...

2010-11-30T00:00:00+00:00

Just found this in my scratch buffer, and I don’t remember where I got it from:

And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods

A little googling gave back Lays of Ancient Rome, Horatius. It’s one of those battle poems that always leaves me teary. Which is to say one of two*. The other being Charge of the Light Brigade:

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d & thunder’d

The metal of the 19th century. Rock on.

*update: I remembered another one right after I hit publish, Henry V, act 4 scene 3. Of course.

real halloween

2010-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

you know, when I really start posting, I go through these photos a lot faster. two days later and we’re through the current batch and now I’ve gotta go edit again.

mid-week steez

2010-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

moving on, through the middle of that week, a lot of things happened. Then I took pictures of them.

workin on thanksgiving...

2010-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

Yeah, workin on thanksgiving morning… postin photos for your ass in my cold apartment… the window leaks around the window A/C… gotta fix that soon. These were the week before halloween, which means I more or less a month behind on posting shit… oh well. You can’t rush art. and By Art, I mean, I’m a slacker. Another post later today, so check back here instead of watching football after the feast.

things I'm thankful for

2010-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

While everyone else is nappin’ away the afternoon figured I do one of these.

friends
naps (when I get ’em)
my computer
cameras (in general and mine specifically)
beer
bikes
brunch
dinner
pizza
having a good job
friends (gotta say it twice)
cooking
music
dogs
cats
hot showers in the morning
my bed

etc. etc. I could keep doing this for a while. Anyway, happy turkey day, and for tomorrow, happy buy nothing day.

haloweeney

2010-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

Actually, these are still from the ghouls gone wild weekend, but all my friends love halloween so much they gotta do it twice/all week. And the bar-top pic: the whole night was pretty epic, but that was the high point for me.

hilo-ish

2010-11-24T00:00:00+00:00

photos from the hilo. this is why i’ll never be upper management, and also why I don’t care about ever being upper anything. the new job is nice though; I’m working with good people, and doing interesting things, or at least they’re interesting to me, which is what matters. And I think I’ve got scheduling posts sorted for this thing, so that’s good too, look for about one a day.

different bar, different night, different people.

2010-11-24T00:00:00+00:00

In the first picture, at least. in the other it’s at least a different set of people.

birthday party?

2010-11-12T00:00:00+00:00

SO, I’m pretty sure this was timmy’s birthday or something… there was a keg, I remember that, and the european exchange students (not pictured). Also, while cody didn’t land the pictured trick, he got it on the next try. I just like this photo better.

Yeah, so I once again have a huge backlog of photos ready to blog about. I’m wishing my blogging software had better scheduling capabilities. I might have to hack on that sometime soon. Or maybe see if there’s an extension already written. That’d be cool. Now I have to code all afternoon, finish up with the old job stuff before I have to start the new job stuff on monday. NEW JOB, Yay! Anyway, photos:

The way home

2010-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

So, yeah. Came home, and then the haloween madness started. Kj drove, which meant I got to sleep, wonderful road-weary sleep, and I woke up and there was a sunset and we were nearly there. I wonder if you know how fucking wonderful that is? A moment of calm and peace, after one set of mad adventures and before the next.

band shoot, second half (bartlesville part 4)

2010-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

The last one is my favorite; something about these guys just indicates a degree of whimsy. Thanks to the old man for the use of his antiques and mirror, thanks to Heather for inviting me and introducing all of us, and thanks to Kyle for the sweet suite (didn’t think I’d pass that pun up, did you?). There’s one more b-ville post coming, the road home, which is always sweet, and you shouldn’t miss, ‘cause it’s got more KJ in it. Probably tomorrow lunch or in the evening, depending on how the day goes.

insomnia post (Bville part 3)

2010-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

Here I am, trying to sleep, and I can’t. so I figure I’ll post something. These are from the shoot that sunday afternoon, with Kyle in Bartlesville. There were a lot of things that were wrong, unprepared-for, and generally hilarious about this shoot, but overall, I can’t complain, the images look pretty good. This is broken into two posts, just to ease the server load.

Frank and Lola's (bartlesville part 1)

2010-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

Went to Bartlesville a couple weeks ago, saw the sights, did some things, got into stuff. My friends Heather and Kyle invited me up to see a show, Truckstop Honeymoon, and to shoot Kyle’s two-man band, er… not sure what their name is, I’ll update this when I find out.

Anyway, these are from the frist part of the night I spent there, the time in the bar, the band (truckstop h), this rad little girl who couldn’t stop hula-hooping, and Kyle and Heather are the sickeningly sweet couple in the last shot. The sweetly engaged-later-that-night couple. I don’t know if they’re officially announced to the world, but hey, now they are. Of course, I can’t think of anyone who reads this who they wouldn’t want knowing. (As a blogger, I still haven’t gotten it through my head that people I don’t know actually read this shit).

back at the suite (bartlesville pt. 2)

2010-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

So, when I went up there, I thought I was going to be sleeping on a couch. This is fine, I’ve done it many times before, and don’t really mind. Kyle had other ideas. He got me a suite in the Price Tower, which if you don’t know, is the only skyscraper designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (well, the only one that got built, at least). I don’t know how, I only know that he paid very little for it through some connection he had. Nice if you can get it, that’s for sure.

Anyway: the photos. I forgot to mention in that first post that KJ came up with me, to keep me company on the drive and to see all her B-ville friends that she hadn’t seen in six months. Everybody came and partied in the suite for a minute, and then around four a.m. I kicked ’em out and went to sleep. Took some architecture shots in the morning, because it was a pretty cool room. Two story, 1.5 bath, kitchenette. Great angles and lines. Yeah, and then I got ambushed with a photoshoot. But first! Brunch!

Tim's b-day

2010-10-26T00:00:00+00:00

I know, this was weeks ago. Sue me.

William Eggleston and the 'nice camera' effect

2010-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

“Photography is not a ‘difficult’ medium. All photographs are, by definition, ‘easy’ to make—you just push a button. The value of the medium lies in the photographer’s calling a moment in time to our attention—a moment we might otherwise have missed—and saying ‘this is important.’ It takes something simple and fleeting and turns it into something emblematic.” – William Eggleston

I’m not that much of an Eggleston fan, but this is so true. The moment, the place, the perspective is the important part. I get a lot of people that say to me “nice camera” (which is true) but 99% of the goodness is from knowing what and when is important. I used to go to rather incredible (even to me, now) lengths to get the pictures I thought were important, and, by and large, I did. Then digital came along and made the technical part of it all much simpler. It looks great on the back of the camera. I guess people can’t see the years of sweat and blood and adventures and wild things that led to it. All the barely surviving (literally near death many times), the relentless pursuit of it, the late nights, the early mornings, and the hundreds of thousands of pictures I’ve taken that have honed my photographic skills to be what they are. “Nice camera.” Yeah.

There was a point to this, but I’ve forgotten. Have a nice day. There should be some photos soon.

Too good not to share

2010-10-21T00:00:00+00:00

Yeah, more from the same shoot. The first two we were going for some kind of oklahoma-y look, and the last was just to be creepy.

Real live photo shoot with @christaemay

2010-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

Christa needed photos for her real world audition or something, and I’d been looking to do some kind of shoot for a while, something that got me away from the usual available-darkeness-drunk-friends schtick. My brother (the real one in ABQ) had just sent me some new lights, stands and umbrellas-2 of each, in fact. So we got together and did this in about an hour in my living room.

Jim (@jimeldridge)

2010-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

The only guy I know besides myself who can wear a fedora well.

barbecue and bluenote

2010-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

And next, something completely different: I had a real shoot! Lights, a stylist, and a model! Oh my!

Fire. Party. And some weird toy.

2010-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

Well, I promised fun and adventure and pretty ladies, and the last two or three weeks have been full of that. Also full of chest cold sickness, but I’m 90-95% better now. I haven’t been this sick from a cold in years and years. The only thing keeping me together has been orange juice and cold pills. The cold pills don’t exactly seem to work, but they’re not hurting that I can tell. Anyway, this party was before I got sick.

couples

2010-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

Yeah, I’m a zombie today.

saga of the lens

2010-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

So, my 50mm (this one) broke the other night with little warning. middle of a shoot, and it stops focusing. My spare 50 was at home in pieces, and my other lenses were also at home. This is the reality of getting ambushed with shoots in the middle of a road trip. Welcome to my life.

Anyway, thinking that someone had spilled beer on my lens, I (somewhat desperately) ran it under the faucet in the bathroom, and that seemed to restore some limited movement to it, so I went with it. Of course, that wasn’t what the real problem was, and no water actually got in the lens because it’s weather sealed. More on that in a minute.

Fast forward to the blue note tuesday night, and the lens had given up completely, and another rinse did nothing. Now, I’d already sent this lens to nikon once for this same problem, I told them to clean it, and when it came back it seemed all right. But here it was again, and so I was having visions of buying a new lens that wouldn’t have this recurring problem. Probably this one. So, that decision made, I figured I had nothing to lose by taking the lens apart last night and seeing if I could at least figure out what was causing the problem.

This isn’t as odd as it sounds. I’m pretty adept at fixing things in a general way. Cars, bikes, appliances, laptops, whatever. They’re machines, not magic boxes. So I got out my trusty phillips head and started unscrewing (protip: modern lenses usually disassemble from the flange). What I discovered, once I was inside, was, well, odd.

The inside of the lens was more like a laptop than any of the other lenses I’ve worked on. That actually made it easier, thank god. Lenses are usually a bitch to work with, which is why I wait till I’ve got nothing left to lose to try anything. Anyway, one of the layers in my lens, the one marked in the photo above, was off, like it’d been knocked out of place. My suspicion is that it’s just held in place by spring tension, and a combination of bad knocks and bad luck threw it off. But, more to the point, it shouldn’t be loose like that. This is a top-line relatively new lens, supposedly professional grade. It certainly cost me enough.

Anyway, now it’s back together and mostly working… the autofocus isn’t, but I can at least manually focus, and that’s enough for now. Maybe when I get that replacement lens I’ll tear it down again and see if I can fix it completely.

COMING SOON… Photos! Pretty Girls! Fun, Adventure, Really Wild Things!

daytime fair photos

2010-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

ROLLING LUGGAGE IS NOT APPROPRIATE FOR CAMERAS. Unless, that is, they are pelican cases with wheels. Then I’ll assume you know what you’re doing. Two tripods, though, that’s just silly.

back on the air (for real this time)

2010-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

So, I’ve been having some issues with the site, mostly due to my own idiocy, but I think they’re resolved and anything that happens from now on will be filed under ‘new issues’. Note: When configuring nginx, just tell it to listen on port 80, leave off the ‘default’ that most configurations seem to have. If you need ssl too, that’s port 443. There.

Anyway, here are some pictures. I’ve been down with some kind of chest cold/flu, but I’m coming back slowly. Coughing and hacking all the way, and a sinus infection to boot, but I’m not all run down the way I was there for a while. I think I must’ve picked it up at the fair.

This is a weird admonishment. I don’t know why, exactly, but telling people to take comfort in rituals, when that’s most of what people do already, well, it freaked me out a little. It’s like saying ‘Be complacent, be normal’. Odd.

the fair at night

2010-10-03T00:00:00+00:00

The first pic isn’t from the fair, but it’s only fair to put it in, because she got me in. As in Mckenzie bought my ticket. The fair at night isn’t much different than the fair during the day, except that the crackhead-looking carnies are actually on crack, and not just fiending. There’s another post from my daytime runs at the fair coming up, too. As soon as I finish with those photos, that is…

portraits

2010-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

working through the backlog.

54 hours

2010-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

So, this took a very long time, to cover the distance between these two photos. Not a lot to say, really. Gonna have to go back to make up for the three weeks I missed.

station ident

2010-09-24T00:00:00+00:00

over on warren ellis’ blog, he does these, and well, I’m just doing this one so that those of you who follow me in cyberspace only (and who haven’t heard from me since I got back) that I’m alive and well. Egypt was cut short because of some illness requiring a brief hospitalization, after which I was right as rain, but which completely drained my funds, destroying the fine balance I had between making money and spending it. So I had to come back early. I also now owe my mother a fortune, even though she says I don’t. there will be state fair pictures soon, and plans are hatching for more adventures.

made it to the beach

2010-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

It’s wonderfully quiet here. I’ve only been here an hour and I’m already more relaxed. Got a meal, got my room, a shower, etc, etc. Internets is spotty and costly here. We’ll see if they change the password on me or what. Might just be incommunicado for a few days. Put the “get away” in get away from it all.

Meantime, bus rides are boring, except when there are pretty things to photograph out the windows. I can’t complain. The Sinai is pretty rad looking. Erm… yeah. not a lot to say. Photos! Yeah! Look:

Nile sunset

2010-09-08T00:00:00+00:00

So today I did a bad thing. I had dinner at Pizza Hut. But! I timed it so I would be right by the Nile, so I could see the sunset over the world’s longest river, and take some pictures. Here:

Definitely worth it.

Cairo: Life in the street

2010-09-08T00:00:00+00:00

yeah, I know, more street pictures. I could do this all month, if I weren’t sick of Cairo. Really, really tired. noise. Cars. Crossing the road. No food in the day, because of Ramadan. A week at the beach is just what the doctor ordered. Yeah:

Also, sunset pictures coming soon. Over the freakin’ nile.

cairo traffic

2010-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

seriously, the traffic here is something else. It’s a big part of what I’ll take away from here. I’ll have dreams of the sound of horns and weaving through crowds of pedestrians. Also, crossing the street here is a bitch and a half. The cars in that first picture? Stopped. Then they move a few feet, then they stop again.

If I were a fruit-lover I’d be set:

Hipshot foot-traffic.

Up next, though, we have the antithesis of this: at 7AM, the streets are empty and the light is wonderful. I’m getting ready to move on from Cairo though. I found out about a really nice beach in a place called Dahab, in the southern Sinai. Cheap Too. I think what I might do is go there for a week and then come back here for a couple days (however long it takes to get my flight arranged) and then head back to the OKC. That means I’ll be back around the 20th. That’s two weeks earlier than I thought I’d be coming home, but I think I’ll need that time to make money. Gotta eat, gotta pay rent, etc. Meantime: Gotta rock out. Laters.

Cairo in the morning

2010-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

Compared to andy other time of the day, the streets in Cairo are empty in the morning, about 6am. I say about because I’m not entirely sure of when this was. There’s been some confusion about daylight savings time. I’ve spent today in front of the computer, except for the half hour walk I took this morning, in the quiet. Programming and thinking and playing games. Man I need to get outta this room. Maybe go walk around. Down to the Museum, even though it’s closed.

The Great Pyramid of Giza

2010-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

yesterday, I went to the pyramids, fulfilling my tourist quota for this entire trip, and maybe even for my eventual recovery trip to St. Louis (Stuart: I would kill half a dozen men for a pizza-pie from blackthorn. Just name names. THERE IS NO REAL PIZZA HERE).

Ahem. Anyway, I went with the same kiwi I’d met yesterday, good guy. Walked around in the heat of the morning (not nearly as bad as you’d expect) and in total spent about $20 (100 Egyptian pounds). I’d been told previously that it was rather more expensive to get into the site, so I was pleasantly surprised. Of course, I could have paid more to go into one of the pyramids, and more to go into the temple next to sphinx, and more again for a guide, souvenirs, and refreshments, but as I had my water, knew enough about the pyramids already, and the only souvenir I wanted was a bit of sand, I was satisfied just to go and see and look.

About that: Don’t be an asshole. I say this because I was tempted to be like Anthony Bourdain and skip the pyramids altogether. That would have been a mistake. They are, in a word, magnificent. Skyscrapers are cool, and much taller, and arguably superior in a lot of other ways, but man, these things are impressive. I’ve tried to convey the scale in the pictures below, but it’s hard. Scale like that doesn’t fit easily into a frame (it’s interesting to note how well the city-scale of things here seems to fit in my viewfinder though).

A note about the location: The town ends abruptly at the pyramids, and on the other side, from the looks of it, there is only desert. Amazing how the city would have such sharp borders.

Anyway yeah. I’m going to shut up and show you the pictures. The photo of me is by Mr. Kim (not his last name, but whatever). Annoying tourists are annoying, with all the silly things they do.

museum day

2010-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

Went to the Cairo Museum yesterday. I met this New Zealand fellow, Kim, and he was going, and so I went. Photos were against the rules in the museum though, so unfortunately you’ll have to go yourself to see such wonders as the burial mask of king tut and 12.5 million tiny statues of every pharaoh ever. Today we’re going to the world’s oldest tourist trap, the pyramids. Should be a fun morning. Then I really need to get some programming done. Money is officially short.

Jackson Pollack once said: “All I ever wanted to do was paint sunlight on the side of a house,” or something to that effect. I know exactly what he meant.

the adventure of getting to the hostel

2010-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

So, after the last plane landed, I got myself through customs with no hitches. The visa was a piece of cake, just pay the man, get your sticker, and move on. I looked like what I am, a tourist/backpacker, and customs doesn’t give a fuck about guys like me. This is probably wise on their part.

So I’m sort of wandering around, and a taxi driver approaches me, wants £80 to drive me into the city. I’m like, no way, there’s a bus that’ll get me there for way less. He tries to tell me there is no bus from the airport, yada yada, but I get on a shuttle and get to the airport bus terminal just fine. At this point I’m feeling quite good about myself and take some notes to the effect of “You’re not an idiot.” And then I waited an hour for a bus that I never saw, and shared a cab into the city with some other backpackers. I tried to get the cabbie to take me to an ATM, as my funds were low, but he didn’t understand. This is a recurring theme: English is useless here. Or nearly. So he dropped us off at the Cairo Museum, which was closed (probably for ramadan), and the other backpackers covered me. We wandered a bit in search of an ATM, no luck, so said our goodbyes and split off our separate ways.

Thus began one of the great trudges of my life, in search of my hostel. I walked one way, and then another, and then a third. Then I ran into some British people with a guidebook, who told me how to get to Ramses Square, which is very close to where I’m staying, and so I set off walking. Unfortunately, what they said would be a 20 minute walk took the better part of 2 hours. There’s nothing quite like the self doubt you get when walking alone with a heavy pack in a foreign city, with no map and only a vague idea of where you’re going. So, I finally get to the square, and I can’t for the life of me find the street I’m supposed to go down to get to the hostel.

So I call my mom, shout some (this is the loudest city in the world), mom gets on google to try and help. I’m trying to figure out where I am, exactly, because I’m not sure after all the walking and the self doubt. So I walk down one road for a little while, find a hotel with a sign in english, and she does directions from there to my hostel, and kinda directs me. I’m on the phone with her, and she’s talking me through getting there, when this guy comes up to me and asks me in english, “Can I help you?”

So I show him the address of the hostel, and he knows the way, and we start walking. I never for a moment doubted this man; I could tell he wasn’t a con man or tout. Just a man, doing something good. Along the way, he shows me a blob on his hand that at one time was a cross. “I’m christian,” he tells me. “Coptic?” I ask. “Yes,” he said. And then I get up to the hostel, and there was showering and sleeping, and then wandering in search of food.

Up next: first impressions of Cairo.

first impressions are going to have to wait

2010-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

I don’t think I can make generalizations about what I see here. All I’ve got is my specific story, so I’ll stick to that.

I’ve kind been a shut in the last couple days; I’ve gone out for food once and once for a walk. I think it’s just exhaustion; most of the rest of my time has been spent on sleep. In the days leading up to transit I was averaging 4 hours of sleep a night, and I got something like 3 hours in 30 getting here. So I’ve been bone-weary and hurting. Feeling better now though, I got a real meal for the first time since Houston, and that helps.

You know, I said I wouldn’t make any generalizations, but here’s one: This city is gorgeous. Not in a pure clean way, but in a lovely organic way. And the sheer scale of it keeps taking me by surprise. There are lots of small spaces created by twisty alleys and the like, but then you take a turn onto a throughfare and there are panoramas like that first photo. There’s a lot of dirt on everything here; it never rains to wash buildings away, and nobody has though of pressure washing, thank god, so buildings here are covered in dust and dirt.

(Aside: The 5AM call to prayer just rang out.) Earlier today, I was upstairs getting some tea (which felt great on my sore throat) and over loudspeakers from a nearby masque, a dude was leading prayers. And in what sounded like the middle of a sentence, he would just break into song for a measure or two, and then go back to talking. Completely acapella and spontaneous. He wasn’t much of a singer, but there was something beautiful about it, anyway. I was told once, by one of my professors in college, that the words of the Koran were so beautiful that there were often on the spot converts on hearing them. Which leads me to believe that that’s what the singing was. I could be wrong, though.

Then I went for a walk, just to get around and see the neighborhood a little bit. The architecture here is an odd mishmash of time periods when the country was flush and rubble. Seriously, there’s a lot of rubble from buildings torn down or fallen down. And again, there’s the scale of the place; it’s something I wasn’t struck by in any of the other big cities I’ve been to, but here the whole city is telling you it’s a big place. Tons of history. Lots of people.

There are lots of little struggles that fill up the day of someone like me, traveling in a country where I don’t speak the language. Getting food, for example. I have to just kind of point and hope for the best. Tea is easy; coffee also, plenty of that here. My money is holding up pretty well, although that may change as I eat more meals in the coming days. I think tomorrow may be a coding day; that way I can not have to worry about money so much. Although today was a coding day of sorts; I managed to get OAuth working for twitter on my blog, so the updates go to twitter and facebook again. Go me.

This is the view from my room.

2010-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

airplanes

2010-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

ok, 15 minutes to dash off my thoughts so far:

Heathrow is a fucking orwellian labyrinth, complete with lots of fences and bored gaurds and weirdness so that it’s right in the uncanny valley. The kind of shit that freaks you out a little after 18-24 hours of no sleep and flying. Seriously, I was turned the fuck around just figuring out which terminal I was supposed to get to. You had to go down a long hallway, don stairs, around several bends, onto a bus, up two floors, down another hallway, descend one floor, go through security again, and then you’re there. But the departures board there doesn’t show a gate until right before time to board. So you have to wait in this packed shopping mall area (high end stuff, sure, but do I really need a Luis Vuitton or a Rolex while in the middle of an airport?).

About that: Flying kinda sucks. It should be the miracle of flight, wow, soaring, but instead we’re packed like sardines inside a stuffy, hot tin can. This might have something to do with the broken back last year making sitting for 8+ hours pretty uncomfortable (bordering on painful). I almost lost my watch and flashlight on the flight between Houston and london too. Actually, first I lost the cloth I put in my laptop to keep keyboard marks off the screen, and then I liost my watch reaching for it, and then I lost the flashlight looking for the watch. And a packet of cookies. I spent 2/3rds of the flight watchless and flashlightless, a little nervous that they were gone for good. And My knees were aching, I had a sinus headache from sonome’s perfume, and my back was acting up for the first time in months and months. In other words, a pretty typical trans-atlantic flight. edit to add: I’m drafting this again on my last flight, and this one I got a row all to myself. Instant Karma.

What else? I’m smelly, sweaty, and very tired. edit: now just smelly and tired. This flight is much cooler, and I got a reasonable nap in. Now all I have to do is clear customs, hop a city bus to the main train station, and walk five minutes. Then I can rest. After I post this though.

update to the edits: took me four hours to get to my hostel, walking a lot, being lost, etc, etc. That’ll get written up later though. sleep now.

addendum to the list

2010-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

So, after compiling the list the other day, I realized there were a few things I left off, and some details I left out. First of all, the towel. A Towel is very important. Normally, I would take a backpacker’s towel, which are made out of this microfiber super absorbent material, is smaller than a regular towel, and dries faster. For this trip, I’m using a shamwow, which is the same material as the more expensive backpacker’s towels, but cheaper and available everywhere.

The laptop: it kills me to say this, but packing light isn’t everything. I’m taking the big one.

Not pictured, but packed: A water filter, which was strongly recommended to me. We’ll see if I really need it.

And two more things, especially for travel anywhere with mosquitos: A sawyer extractor, and a bottle of 100% DEET. The extractor is for use on any kind of bug bite, sting, or even snake bite. The do wonders for itching bites, anyway. The DEET is to keep from getting bitten when I’m in an area with a lot of bugs. It works.

And this is what it all looks like:

Che's 40th Birthday

2010-08-31T00:00:00+00:00

So yeah, photos. It was a great party. I'm blogged out for today.

and then the blue note

2010-08-31T00:00:00+00:00

Since it’s 6am, and I’m awake, I might as well blog these pictures. I lied, there’s one more post of drunk people, at Che’s birthday party. But they’re very well done drunk people.

Grammatical aside: does it annoy the hell out of anyone else when someone refers a blog post as just a ‘blog’? Blog isn’t just a post, it’s the collective noun for all those posts. Get it right, people.

And because I’m really bad about leaving tabs open and not hitting publish, it’s no longer 6am. At least my left arm is working right again. It was all weak earlier because someone slept on it wrong. Not sayin’ who, that’d be ungentlemanly.

first, the Hilo

2010-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

Ah, what would life be without the Hilo, with its drag shows, strong drinks, and occasional free darts? More dignified? Less blurry? Who knows. I’ve definitely had some memorable nights there, and some nights I’d rather forget.

A bloggery aside: I’ve got this post, one more about the blue note, and then it’s all travel blogging for the next five weeks. Fun and adventure and really wild things. Also very few drunk people. Muslim country and all.

at the pool

2010-08-29T00:00:00+00:00

This was the same Sunday, that same afternoon. Nice light, a lot of good action with people jumping into the pool. Also, high fives are always appropriate, even in mid air over the pool.

sunday at KJ's

2010-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

rock show at the blue note. again.

2010-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

Yes, I live there. Don't hate.

just a few

2010-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

Something to start your day off right with. If you’re not supposed to have a beer at least you can have a photo. On the good news list: I found what might end up being my lightroom replacement in ubuntu. it’s called raw therapee. It’s pretty bare bones right now, but it does what I need for the road.

sunday funday

2010-08-26T00:00:00+00:00

This was a couple sundays ago. Man was I tired. Actually, these might have been on two different days, but at least they feel like the same day. The way the days have been run together the last couple of weeks, I’m not even sure which way is up sometimes. Maybe it’s just that I’m really tired right now, too.

I haven’t had the air conditioner on in my house since the weather first cooled off on tuesday. Why waste money? It’s so nice outside I’m just letting that good air in. The smell reminds me of the mountains, the air around santa fe. Strong memories, good times. Here and now, the only way to be.

Star Gazing

2010-08-26T00:00:00+00:00

You wouldn’t think there would be photos from an adventure out to lake Arcadia to see the Perseid meteor shower, but then you aren’t me. It all started at Heather’s going away party. There were a few drinks (though not a lot, not by a damn sight) and somebody mentioned it, and then the next thing you know five of us were cramming into Heather’s car (after dumping some of her jut-packed things into the back yard) and pushing off.

Moments after I took that, I had this impulse to stick my head out the window, to try to get a clearer picture of the road. Of course my hat was instantly blown off, so we had to go back and get it. Heather found it. Holly found a frisbee. Then we got back on the road, and got there without too many problems (although I was the only person who had a flashlight).

2010-08-22T00:00:00+00:00

I’m getting ready to go on a big ol’ trip to Egypt, as most of my friends know. And, well, I have a confession to make: I love lists. They’re the only kind of organization I really ever use or need. My lists, they take care of me. Shot lists and set lists and tasks that need to be done. There is one kind of list that is nearer and dearer to me than any other though: The Packing List.

The first time I encountered one was in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, where the author said that any travelogue should have such a list laying around, and went through his list of things to take on your next motorcycle trip through the Dakotas. Later, when I was in college, I ended up doing quite a lot of traveling, and did a little research before each trip (especially one magical year where I was more out of the country than in). There are several good sites out there, onebag.com and the Backpack Travel Guide being the ones that come to mind immediately. These three share in that they’re not just a list, but an annotated and in some cases footnoted list, filled with reasons and thoughts on why these things are important. This is my humble addition to that list of lists.

Clothes: This is pretty obvious, but it bears retelling: Two sets of clothing (plus on set of spare underwear) is plenty. You can mix and match and be appropriate for almost any occasion, and any more is really just added weight. This includes what I’m wearing when I leave.
2 pairs pants- Loose dickies, cotton, but not denim. The same things I wear at home, for the same reasons. They blend in easily, dry fast and are double tough.
2 T-Shirts – Black and gray, or black and blue.
3 boxers – I’m a boxers man, now you know.
3 pairs socks – Black, smartwool if you can afford it, but I stick to cotton cause I chew through socks too fast anyway.
3 A shirts (wife beaters, for those at home)- I always wear these. Dunno why, but even in the tropics I feel odd without an undershirt.
Sandals- As much for the shower/tub/pool as anything else.
Shoes- One pair of some kind of fairly resilient walking shoes. You abuse the hell out of your feet on the road, so these will be your best friend.
Rain Jacket- Something to block the wind and keep the wet off of you.
Cardigan/hoodie/sweater- An extra layer, to be added when you need it. Most places, it drops at least twenty degrees at night. Unless it was 90+, you’ll need it.

Equipment:
Laptop- This trip I’m kind of in a shambles about what laptop to take. All of the software I use is on OSX, but my macbook is a 17", not exactly minimalist. A netbook hackintosh would be ideal, but my netbook won’t do that unfortunately.
Chargers- For everything that takes batteries. The camera, the laptop, the ipod, yada, yada.
Camera- I never go anywhere without it, and this is no exception.
Lenses- I tend to go a little overboard with the lenses. I take four. A 500mm mirror lens, a 35mm wide angle, a 50mm that I shoot 95% of my work with, and a 105 that is really lovely for portraits.
Ipod- might not go this time, as my iphone took a swim last weekend, and I’m saving all my money for road expenses.
Headphones- Small ones, in-ear. They’re nice for trains and buses and such, but I don’t use them anywhere where isolation could be a problem.
Hard Drives, power – For photos. I generate a massive ammount of photos, and I put them on pocket hard drives, one in each bag.
Card Reader- For copying photos. Faster than plugging in the camera to the computer.
Blower- A gadget I use to keep my camera clean. Looks like a rocket ship.
Flashlight – Tiny LED or halogen, I have a couple.
Batteries – spares for what I carry, namely my camera and the flashlight.
Three way plug adapter (2) – An ingenious device that makes three outlets from one. Much smaller than a surge protector.
Phone – Something cheap. Leave the iPhone at home, it’ll just draw attention in a bad way.

Toiletries: I shouldn’t have to explain these.
Soap
Shampoo
Towel
Q tips
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Puff
Razor
Deodorant
Nail Clippers
Brush
Glasses
Saline
Contact Case
TP

Miscellaneous:

Business Cards: for that extra touch of legitimacy.
Cup, bowl, spoon, fork: It’s much cheaper and usually healthier to make your own meals when possible. I don’t bother with a full backpacker’s kitchen, as I tend to stick to cities, but these come in handy.
Sewing kit: Big needles, heavy thread. I end up loaning this out more than I need it myself, but it weighs nothing and takes up little space. Also, if you’re badly cut and far from a hospital, this can save your ass.
Clothesline, laundry powder: For when you have to wash your clothes in a sink or basin. This is a daily chore, takes about fifteen minutes.
First Aid: Band-aids. Sterile wipes. Aspirin and Immodium. Anything worse, get to a doctor.
Multi-tool: Swiss Army or Leatherman or the like.
Eyeglass screwdriver: Just in case. In the field repairs are tricky at best.
Pocket Dictionary for the Destination country

That’s about it. All of this goes into two bags: a camera bag and a carryon sized backpack. This kit can go anywhere in the world, with a few adjustments for climate in the clothes (more layers if you’re not going somewhere equatorial), for an indefinite period. Clothes do tend to wear out faster on this schedule; I spent six weeks in mexico with almost this exact setup, and had to trash my shirts and socks at the end of it. I took a much bigger rig to Brazil for my semester abroad and regretted the weight and needed almost none of the extra things.

some portraits from mid-july...

2010-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

I know I’m way behind, so sue me. I don’t know, I’ve been kinda depressed. Luckily, I seem to be doing better right now. It’s 4:15 in the morning and I feel fine.

OpenBeta BarCamp Dos

2010-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

Went to this three(four?) weeks ago, and it was actually a pretty good time. The talks were a little on the basic side, I think because a lot of the heavy hitters in the OKC tech scene were absent (I’m looking at you, Grant). I gave three talks, and in one, it turned out my audience knew more about the subject than I did, so I got to learn some things.

Roller Derby

2010-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

The same day as barcamp (man, I was tired when I started that day, and near dead by the end), I went to my first banked-track roller derby match, between the Red Dirt Rebellion, and some team from florida. RDR lost, but it was fun to watch and take photos of, anyway. The long lens shots were with my trusty 500mm mirror lens. Manually focused pictures of fast movement at slow shutter speeds. That’s why I make the big bucks (somebody hire me please?).

Kolby's going away

2010-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

warren ellis is batshit

2010-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

Warren Ellis is the craziest most obscene dude on the internet (at least, of the people that aren't dysfunctional lunatics):

... It should really be a sort of Paul Schraderesque “well, we did a pile of cocaine the size of Sally Field, and then it turned out it was actually just Sally Field covered in cocaine, so we all did her, even Robert Towne’s dog, and then we ramraided a store and stole twelve typewriters, and then Peter Boyle beat us all unconscious and shoved peyote down our throats, and when we came to he was gone and there was just the typewriters and a loaded gun, so we menaced all the typewriters with the gun until one of them shat out the script we wanted, and somehow three weeks had gone by, and John Milius came by with a surfboard and a harpoon gun and said ‘let’s find us an artist’ and…”

love and the internet

2010-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

Love, man, that’s a tough one. It doesn’t make any sense. My normal approach is useless here. Not that I’d try to do math on it, but it’s definitely one of those areas where the world doesn’t make any sense. Is is bad that all of my thoughts can be summed up in links? the best, though, is the blockquote from tony pierce:

but when it comes to love, real love, long lasting forever and ever love, the type of love that means everything, and fuels everything, and creates magic that last for generations – well that love is worth climbing every mountain and fording through every stream.

that love is worth putting your perspective partner through every test and exercise, and more importantly yourself through tough questions and tougher actions

which sometimes means you’ll be alone for a while.

miles davis was known for his amazing music

but i will submit that it was the silence in between the notes that made him legendary.

as depeche mode once suggested

enjoy the silence.

and pray for those who sleep on couches, those who propose on tv, and especially those who struggle with change.

Some notes: I’ve decided, with the help of my friend @thedauthi on twitter that there is an XKCD for anything nerd related. Also, that book was something I did my sophomore year in college, and you shouldn’t buy it. Buy this one instead. And always listen to the Blogfather about love.

house

2010-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

This is tangentially related to the post below, but not enough for it to go there. The one person who might get it doesn’t read this, as far as I know.

one more photo

2010-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

When I took this I was thinking Empire of Lights, but it's a little darker than that. This is the last photo I took before I had to send my camera off for cleaning. Anyway, yeah.

late evening photos

2010-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

the other roll

2010-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

Turns out there was another roll that I shot at my opening. Then I got it scanned, and now I'm posting the only picture I still like from that roll. So Ha.

pride part 1

2010-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

This is only the first half. Second half is up next.

nothing to do with last night

2010-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

Just some clouds and things.

more pride, more cowbell

2010-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

kj's house with the cool kids

2010-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

Just hangin' out on a hungover saturday.

This is the new blog.

2010-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

It's remarkably like the old blog, except that it's all on my own server, and much less prone to downtime than tumblr was. Also, I managed to import all the old posts from the "five years" blog I had on blogger. So that's good too, even though I don't have the history in place yet. It'll happen.

haley's move+clouds

2010-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

Yeah, I shot a lot of clouds while I was shooting film. Easy targets.

ghosts

2010-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

from snarkmarket:

Neil deGrasse Tyson likes to point out how it’s a mathematical certainty that the air we breathe and the water we drink passed through the lungs and kidneys (respectively) of every one who ever lived. Likewise, in these Civil War photos, both the destroyed Southern buildings (one of them a US army fort) and the Northern cannons that destroyed them result from the profits of American slavery. Amer icans like to think about victories in World War II with out thinking about the cities and people destroyed in Russia and dozens of other countries (including Japan, Italy, and Germany) that stand behind that war — in no small part because we don’t have to live with them, to walk down those streets, to feel those ghosts. But we’re haunted all the same.

I just had to repost that- I love the idea of the past as ghosts, haunting us, unescapable. Shades of Robert Pirsig- we're the sum of all the ghosts of the past. Not all of them are bad, luckily.

egypt in a month...

2010-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

and I'm not nearly ready... so much to do... at least the blog is up and running. I hope it's not blacklisted when I get there. hrm. need to work on setting up a proxy for myself. or at least TOR. Chelsea

Clouds:

more ringlight

2010-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Agents of the Fisc...

2010-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

"
The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.

Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.

Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.

Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.

Caesarâ€™s double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.

Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.

Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.

"
â€”

2010-06-26T00:00:00+00:00

light out for a day

2010-06-26T00:00:00+00:00

Took a little road trip to the Wichita Mountains, which are nowhere near Wichita, Kansas, incidentally. Berlin (second photo) came along and took pictures too. You can see her photos form that day on her flickr. I finally got to try a meers burger, which was good, but their onion rings weren’t that great. Irma’s is better. It was a nice chill day to get away from the city and see some sights.

A bunch of good things

2010-06-26T00:00:00+00:00

from a party. I mean, these are great things that happened. I just took the pictures.

with the ringlight

2010-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

I know I’m cheating and skipping ahead, but I really like this. now back to your regularly scheduled blog…

no, don't take my picture

2010-06-24T00:00:00+00:00

Only let me look really cute while I hide from the camera.

from @kriskanaly's art show

2010-06-24T00:00:00+00:00

Also, because the queue feature is eating posts right now, I”m gonna have to manually post things. Oh well.

single photos

2010-06-23T00:00:00+00:00

Jus to get them out there, I’m gonna post some singles. One at a time. I do this mostly to torture @maeghan. That and they don’t go together. This is KJ and Lindsey.

Paseo fest

2010-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

Not many pictures from this night made it through the edit filter. oh well. I have a tendency to try to make a narrative with photo series, but some nights just don’t fall into that pattern. Too much going on to get it all, or too much happening in bad light, etc. And sometimes my narrative making brain cells aren’t firing either. Of course, the gist of what happened is what you see in these photos, even if there isn’t a series of them. We drank. We chilled. That’s about it.

Moving on...

2010-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

And then that night I began the business of figuring out how to function again. I met this chick who seemed all right but turned out to be totally psycho. Or turned psycho after drinking. I have a photo of her, but I really don’t feel like posting it. I seem to attract the crazies lately. Oh well, c’est la vie.

Hand photo

2010-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

Meet my dad’s right hand.

Booze Cruise Again

2010-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

Yep, it’s happening again; Youths on bikes out terrorize the local bar scene. Or at least get drunk and have a good time.

Adam's memorial ride

2010-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

There would be more of these, but I didn’t much feel like taking pictures. Wasn’t totally together. I was sad and not really functioning so well. But the ride helped, and the funeral (minus the pastors that didn’t really know adam) was good. The ride after, without the police escort, was better. We took over the street, up broadway and down 23rd, a critical mass like this city hasn’t seen in a while. It was kinda epic, which fitted with what I was feeling at the time. Maybe you had to be there.

I just don't know what to do with myself...

2010-06-19T00:00:00+00:00

By which I mean I have the white stripes in my head. I’ve been reading this book, called The Photographer, about a photog who went into afghanistan with MSF during the Soviet-Afghan war. Towards the middle of the book, the photographer and one of the doctors are talking about what it takes to improve in their respective professions, and the doctor says to the photog: “…To take good photos, you have to age well.” I like that sentiment very much.

from Hefner grill

2010-06-19T00:00:00+00:00

All of these look a little yellow to me now, but I’m not going to go back and correct ‘em. Too much like work. I’m having a really great day thus far. Bike ride, hangin’ out, big truck burrito, and now I’m huddled next to my ac tryin to cool off. The hot laptop isn’t much help, but oh well.

speedo cruise and sausage fest

2010-06-18T00:00:00+00:00

yeah, yeah, way late to the party on these, too. I’ve been busy. so sue me.

MOAR COWBELL FRIDAY!!!1!

2010-06-18T00:00:00+00:00

photos unrelated:

my first time at the arbor

2010-06-05T00:00:00+00:00

It’s a sweet space. Really big, and then had a lot of cool shit there for the show, plus some live work too. Some painters painting during the show for our entertainment. Which, come to think of it, is a little odd. Painting isn’t usually performative, but I was entertained.

Jen's birthday

2010-06-05T00:00:00+00:00

This was shot number 6? 7? of a lot. Jen turned 21 sometime in the last month. good times had by all, anyway.

This hug was only awkward for this half-moment when I took the picture.

I see the strangest shit sometimes

2010-06-05T00:00:00+00:00

That’s a cap gun, by the way.

old photos now...

2010-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

They were new at one time, why not give them some love? These poor neglected photos need a home. Think of the photos.

couple singles

2010-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

single photos, that is. Clouds and the Cinco de Mayo dance party at iguana. At least, I think that’s what this is.

after rdrc came a party.

2010-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

Things happened. People were there. The details escape me.

For Adam...

2010-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

I already posted these to the flickr group, but here they are again. For those of you that didn’t know him, Adam was a really amazing guy. Nice, dependable, humble, an all around good guy, even after all he’d been through. He’s already missed.

Elder Hellkat.

There’s a memorial bike ride for him starting at Sauced, 1pm on Friday; the car procession will follow the bikes, so anybody in cars who wants to join should be there. Memorial Services are at 2pm at Frontline church, 6th and broadway. The reception is afterwards at the prohibition room, in the gold dome, 23rd and western.

out...

2010-05-19T00:00:00+00:00

of photos to post, after these. Well, there are more, but they’re not edited.

Ha. There are so many things that word could mean as a teaser! I could do a poll, what did you think matt mills meant when he said ‘out’? Out of town? Out of his mind? How do you feel about me talking about myself in the third person?

Ignore this post...

2010-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

Unless you’re cool. Because only the cool kids blog. Wait. Huh?

a dream and some photos

2010-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

So, last night I had this dream that I got to egypt and somehow had forgotten my cameras, all of them, and all I could get was a film camera, and the only film I could find was ISO 100 color film, and 120-size black and white. Thought you’d like to know that.

Also of note: If you’re staying at my house and happen to see me before I shower and wake up for a couple hours, I’m not really human yet. Cro-magnon or something till about noon.

Holly in her natural habitat

2010-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

Being awesome, that is.

advice from @busblog

2010-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

from the world famous busblog, tony answers questions sometimes:

Kurtis: How do you get over someone?

the only way is to get sloppy with several others. keyword: get. all this moping around, writing poems, feeling the depths of depression, etc - all thats played out. its the road most traveled. its for losers. its for the madding crowd. its for people who revolve their schedules around nickleback. first thing you should do this weekend is get a date, make some moves, and think about las vegas. yes you’ll feel horrible. but you were gonna feel horrible anyways. at least now when you wake up their will be stale champagne on the nightstand. and if youre lucky, it wont be all that stale.
+ + +

so true. and the champagne the next day is never stale if they’re making mimosas with it. And since I have several exes who read this, all of ‘em but you, babe.

sarah came back to town

2010-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

and then she left again. But good times.

NMF in Many Parts (6)

2010-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

This was the last show I saw, because at this point I could barely walk. Like, man I was tired. I drove home and I don’t even know how I made it. So tired. These are all with the 500, but none of the exposures were particularly long, a good thing in a jostling crowd mere feet form the mosh pit.

NMF in Many Parts (5)

2010-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

NMF in Many Parts (4- The People)

2010-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

2010-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve been working from the OKC CoCo for the last month or so now, and it’s a really great environment. I mean, not to sound like an advertisement. The concept of it is solid, though. Mostly, it’s getting work done, but there are all these really smart people around, also working, to bounce ideas off of and build relationships with. Most places I go it’s very hard to talk about my day job, the things I have to bitch about don’t even make sense to people who haven’t struggled with what turns out to be a missing } 300 lines up for hours. Anyway, yeah:

Full disclosure: I get my membership in exchange for shooting events for the CoCo.

2010-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

Maeghan took this. I think.

2010-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

Remember, this was all one night.

Church

2010-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

The Two Joshes

2010-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

At McNellie’s. As of this writing, it was yesterday, but by the time this publishes, it’ll be last wednesday.

Hangin' out with @Meaghan

2010-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

When a night just needs to kick it up a notch...

2010-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

Go to bluenote. Meet some ladies. Stir with rock music. Take photos.

The day after

2010-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

well, that might not have been the end of the night, but the pics got either not so good or at least repetitive (I photograph my obsessions at my best, and when I’m drunk it gets worse), so we’re moving on.

This is the next day. Holly, mourning. And then getting ready to go to work. And then the cat.

Open Beta 4-The Sidelines and The After

2010-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

All of you probably already know this, but I did a photobooth which you can see the results of here at the other end of this finely crafted link.
Fooling around in the photobooth.
Lots of love for the creator of okaybyme.com, the hyperlocal blog roll.
Powerpoint Karaoke

one of the joshes almost gets kicked…
by the one and only tootie (I wouldn’t post so many photos of her if she weren’t so damn photogenic).
After that at the rooster, well, you know the rooster. Drinking and photos.

portrait phase

2010-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

This was the point in the night where I was still fairly coherent. Yeah, that happens. but not for long…

morning after (brunch phase)

2010-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

any successful night needs a brunch/recovery day after… time outside, fresh air, all that.
yeah, it’s a nature photo. sue me. they look like trees!

Vic on the sidewalk, bourbon street, New Orleans

2010-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Vic at the absinthe bar in New Orleans

2010-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

the last skate photo. until the next one.

2010-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

skater down by the river.

I hvae no idea what this place is, but it looks cool.

66 trippin'

2010-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

Rex doin' his thing.

2010-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

old photos...

2010-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

2010-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

I have a ton more, plus a bunch of sequences. I might even make a video with the final product, we’ll see.

Sauced last friday...

2010-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

Together:

Really together:

The show:

belle isle / uglysuit

2010-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

The first rule of MashUp camp

2010-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Is you don’t talk about mashup camp. The second rule is pay attention and forget to take photos because you’re too engaged with the ideas of what’s going on. Or at least that’s what happened to me. This is from the McNellie’s, afterward.

couple extra things...

2010-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

big backlog to work through. Like I said on twitter, covering the LCD of my camera has made a difference. that, and maybe a certain lady who I’m going to remain coy about in public until I know it’s cool. Keep on rockin’, updates on the 3’s.

sigrid is leaving. Sad day.

2010-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

We’ll miss you. Burn wisconsin down and bring Rayguns when you come back, ok?
Edit:Some shit happened, and she’s not leaving yet.

hey @laniebarret, I took a photo!

2010-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

guitar man

2010-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

for @thirtysixthspan and @okccoco

2010-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

because he’s probably pissed I didn’t take any photos at mashITup camp.

Walking in the snow

2010-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

This was last sunday, and things were just at that stage of melting that we could play with really large chunks of ice. And now I’m out of backlog to work with, so I have to get more photos off the camera. Wah-hoo.

RAISING HAITI

2010-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

You should all come out to this show, all proceeds from the door go to the Red Cross Haiti relief effort. Linkage. RSVP, fuckers.
The photos are from the first show, which they’re just repeating because of the storm. Mo’ money, less pain and suffering. Although that’s not much of a slogan, it’s true.
Rex, who organized the whole thing.
@oh_tootie at the first show. There’s another one ~~tomorrow~~tonight.

hopefully people will see this when they wake up...

2010-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

More Backlog.
THE SNOW.
CKolby Homemaker. Good time going over to his house during the storm and eating a bunch of home-made food and playing dominoes. Man I love living close to everything.

Last post on blogger

2010-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

Well, this is the 371st post, and probably the last here on blogger. It's been a good run; with this and other blogs, I've been using blogger for going on five years (ha ha), but now they're stopping ftp uploading, and while I understand that, it's something I need, or at least that I really want. for the time being, I'll be posting at photomattmills.tumblr.com, and in the long term I'll be trying to extract the posts from this blog and put up something here that is more or less a redesigned and better Five Years. We'll see.

a saturday somewhere in there.

2010-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

This was the night after I moved in to my new apartment. A good night.

Cute Couples Night?

2010-02-03T00:00:00+00:00

Shit, I don’t know if they’re even still together.
Yeah, I’m posting two nearly identical photos. The first one because I think it’s funny, and the second one because I figure they’ll want it.

Again, two photos. But I figure they’ll want both.

This would have been a good way to end the night for him, if not for the rule that the first to pass out is fair game for sharpie.

ICEPOCALYPSE

2010-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

Yes, I'm annoyed by my own title.. but I do it because I know so many of you will also be frowning, and that makes me laugh.

So I went for a walk, down to Grant's house to make coffee, and he had some interesting news which I'm not sure I can share yet, not the big Ruby news, but something else really cool for him personally. All I can say is damn.

Just another wanderer. "I'll be all right, as long as I have some traction," he told me.

This was rush hour, on 23rd street... never seen it this dead at that hour.

And yeah, there was all this white stuff on the ground. god's cocaine party. Mostly sleet, though, not the fine white powder all kids and skiers love. Blowing wind, sleet in my face, and there I was, taking pictures. It's a 15 minute walk that took me about 20 due to detours.

I do love these lights.

Good coffee at Grant's, Then I walked to dinner at Mcnellie's. I kept drinking after dinner, getting drunk and thinking about hard math problems in my head. I always know I've had a long day at the computer when I'm thinking about math, drunk. (was it three or four pints? I was only there an hour and a half, must have been three). Yeah, Snow and Ice and everything nice. I'm going back to bed.

I love Winogrand

2010-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

From American Suburb X:

Interviewer: If you don't like "street photographer," how do you respond to that other Ã¦tiresome phrase', "snapshot aesthetic"?

Winogrand: I knew that was coming. That's another stupidity. The people who use the term don't even know the meaning. They use it to refer to photographs they believe are loosely organized, or casually made, whatever you want to call it. Whatever terms you like. The fact is, when they're talking about snapshots they're talking about the family album picture, which is one of the most precisely made photographs. Everybody's fifteen feet away and smiling. The sun is over the viewer's shoulder. That's when the picture is taken, always. It's one of the most carefully made photographs that ever happened. People are just dumb. They misunderstand.

Only not really. Hi Ms Miller. Heard you liked the blog and couldn't resist a little fun.

Ok, joke's over. Back to your regularly scheduled blog.

Friendsgiving part 1

2009-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

This post is brought to you by the agave-turkey-waffle-taco, and box wine.

some thoughts and some random

2009-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

I've been thinking, a lot of people are saying what a craptastic decade this has been, calling it the 'naughts' because that's what it ammounts to. The whole world and every single one of us in it has had kind of a shitty time. There are a few gleaming shiny bits of technology and a lot of death and hate and crap and that's about it. Music has gone to hell. I haven't seen any art that really floored me since about 2003, and all of that was made before 2000. What the hell, people?

I think I have one answer- it's not all of the answer, because so much shit comes from a lot of assholes- but for the first time ever, we have access to everything we want, ever. You know that impulse you have to look at every title in the bookstore at least once, so you don't miss anything? Or to go through all the rooms in the thrift store, for that one special find? That same impulse combined with the internet and the exponential growth of things available to look at has completely consumed our collective conscious. It's normal to be obsessed with something, and it's weird to be disconnected.

Here's the catch: obsessives are crazy. Not the good crazy, the stay up for three weeks on benzedrine and write the great american novel crazy, but the found dead in her house with two dead cats under piles of used toilet paper rolls crazy. We have been so obsessed with mining all that is out there and finding the gems that we have made no time to create our own identity. You think to yourself if you can just finish this season of lost or get that Eames chair or write the perfect tweet, then you can be at peace, but that's a lie.

The truth is, there is no such thing as being finished. There is no rest until you're dead, and no safety either. And as long as you spend your time keeping up with the latest and greatest of the whole world and all of your friends, you will have no time for yourself, to make the world a better place.

I'm not saying to cut yourself off from twitter and facebook and all of that. They are wonderful tools for communication, and they should be used that way. You are not a one person broadcast to the world; you're leaving a note for your friends. You can't keep up with everything, so you might as well take the time to do something that's worth sharing.

And yes, I realize the inherent contradiction, putting this on my blog. Where the hell else am I going to put it? Why share something like this in a channel nobody cares about any more, like a dumb old magazine or newspaper. This is the fucking future, and we didn't get our flying cars and vacations around venus and all that shit, but we did get blogs and iphones and all the tools we could ever dream of for making the world however we want it. Let's let go of the old shit and get out there and create something of our own.

Enough rant. I hope you read it and didn't skip to the photos, even though I like these photos. I have more in this vein, including an expansion of what I mean about not being a broadcast for the whole world, but that's another rant, and there are plenty of photos to bait you all with later, no? ;)

Adam lock Was back in ton for like two seconds, and these are two from that night at Mcnellies. Have fun kids, and look for freindsgiving photos tomorrow.

pretty freakin' awesome

2009-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

via succeedblog:

Pop Up from abw on Vimeo.

tail end

2009-12-03T00:00:00+00:00

these are the last that I have uploaded; next is Friendsgiving and maybe thanksgiving even, when I get somewhere with wifi that works. Anyway, battery is also dying. More later.

last wednesday

2009-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

Calories

2009-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

I just found out that 20% of the calories you burn are burned by your brain. Does that mean, then, that people with super high metabolism can think more and/or faster? Endurance athletes: ultramarathon runners, touring cyclists who do 80+ miles a day, anybody at the olympics, people like that. Can prolonged exercise make you smarter just by making the processor run hotter?

people come back to town for a holiday

2009-11-30T00:00:00+00:00

Somebody this weekend asked me this weekend, in a pointed, trying-to-give-advice kind of way, why I hang out with the people I do... as if there are better people somewhere. The truth is it's damn hard to find people I can talk to, I need all the friends I can get. Real people, people who don't fuck with trivialities. They sure as hell have their faults, but so do I.

Speaking of friends, of real people... a bunch of people came back into town last week for the holiday, all of whom I was glad to see. This is mostly about them, and the next few posts, too... it's been a good break. Now back to the grind.

Rayguns and Devin.

Caitlin, in from Austin fo a day, then gone the next.

I flew a kite that day, and it was fun even though the wind was weak sauce. Photo from Caitlin's cell phone.

Waking up Reaghan, who was napping after drinking all afternoon.

Neil, after I was drunk and a lost cause. Also gone now.

a quick wednesday post

2009-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

that is, photos from a wednesday night. these are from a couple weeks ago. still working through the backlog. all I have to say about what's happening right now: if you're not me, sorry 'bout 'cha luck.

a bunch of people I don't know in stillwater

2009-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

well, I do know the guests of honor, the Chelseas. This was a fun party until the cops came and I had to walk two miles back to Chelsea's house... never earned a night on a couch more. Well, maybe I have... there was that time in Brazil... or that time... well, anyway, I seem to just stay exhausted these days. No rest for the wicked. Here:

the last bike against hunger pics until the next one...

2009-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

Man, there've been a lot of these events. What is is about people on bikes and donating to charity? Anyway, these rae from the first weekend, when everybody just rode. The second weekend, I didn't really take any photos, I was was processing all of these for your ass. But more people showed then and money and cans were raised, so hopefully some people got fed.

had a thought walking to 7-11

2009-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

so, I was thinking about twitter... and social media in general... a mistake most so-called experts make is thinking of little updates as broadcasting, when really it's backchannel. You have a hundred twitter followers that also follow you, you're inside that circle of people, messaging them things that are irrelevant or unimportant to the rest of the world, but that they might find useful/entertaining/funny. Non-sequiturs. The useful information that you get from the chatter are the things you wouldn't have found otherwise. Most importantly, it's behind the scenes.

That's true for most twitter users, I'd bet. Then there are the "experts" who think of twitter as a place to sell stuff; it's a free way to shout things about your product, after all. The problem is, when seen in the light of the above: all advertising on twitter is effectively noise. If your product is good, it will get word of mouth (actually, you'll get more word of mouth if it's bad or easy to make fun of; see snuggies, slap-chop, etc.).

yeah, yeah, I know...

2009-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

I haven't been posting. I have a shit ton of photos, and they're all uploaded now, so my only excuse is that I'm usually pretty tired of the computer at the end of the day and don't have the energy to write a whole lot or stare at the screen for an extra hour or two to put something together.

Anyway, these rae from the beginning photo class I taught at OKCCoCo - I only had four people show up, so it was a little bit of a letdown, but at least I was able to answer some questions and maybe the people learned some things. I said a lot, I know that much.

not cursing in the title.

2009-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

fuck it. I was going to write something but instead I cut it because let's face it, even I don't want to listen to my bullshit long enough to write it. The photos, though, I could stare at for hours... not that I do, you think I have time for that? no, I'm to busy doing your mothers. All of them, alphabetically. I'm all the way to 'c' now. Enough bullshit, time for the love:

Random ass night at the hell house.

More hell house, in the kitchen.

The real hell cat?

Yeah, alien spaceship shit, because I roll like that.

Or just the inside of the concert hall. There were people inside speechifying and I was kind of embarassed that they are the good guys.

Things I should be doing

2009-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

1. Getting ready for the first Oklahoma Citizen meeting wednesday-yes, the newspaper has a name, tentatively. I need to make an agenda, decide what I'm going to say, maybe put together a powerpoint, etc. etc. It's a lot of prep work.

2. Laundry- I wore one clean sock today and one dirty sock. Enough said.

3. House Cleaning- literally. My room has once more transformed into a series of piles, and the bathroom hasn't been scrubbed in a couple weeks.

4. Physical therapy exercises- these take about ten minutes, and I'll probably do them right after I get done writing this.

5. Promote my book. Done.

6. Process some of the pictures from the last few weeks. (The ones you're seeing here are from just after halloween. I have a bunch still in the camera from after that even).

And that's it. My todo list for right now. What I should be doing. Instead, I'm waiting on a phone call to go out and celebrate somebody's birthday. No names, I am a gentleman after all.

what's next?

2009-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

this is always on my mind. For a very long time, I've been casting about, trying to find my way through the world, and it's been a ripping good time. I've got a good job now, one that will eventually afford me a great deal of freedom, assuming I don't get tied down with a wife and kids and mortgage and all the trappings of modern life that are really just a trap.

It's a curve though. I'm starting at zero: zero knowledge of the stuff I'm doing, zero time to do anything but sleep and work, zero money, and zero photos taken since I started the job on tuesday. these will all help each other though: As I learn the job, I'll have more time to get out and do things; as soon as I have a paycheck, I'll have more money in hand than I've had in months; and of course, there will be more photos. (I just checked; there are a couple photos on the camera, but nothing of consequence).

one thing, I guess: I've realized that you don't have to be all one thing; that is, you can do a lot of different things, do them well, and it's not that you're letting go of one thing for another, it's that you're able to do both, and that all of your activities inform one another. It's a good thing I've come to this realization, because it's a really bad time to be trying to make money off of photography. (I'm not going to go into details, but someone was pissed at me recently because they thought I was putting out a certain photo for a profit, and it made me laugh. I've never made money off of what I consider my real work, the portraits, the documentary projects, etc).

the second half of the party pictures

2009-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

Don't be mad if I cut a picture you liked; they're still in the flickr set, but I wanted to trim this some. Onward!

This photo isn't here for the fact that I found waldo. It's here because the girl on the right recognized me. From this blog. Hi, if you're reading this. I didn't catch your name.

I'm a fan of this.

I don't know if it's a abberation of the lens or what, but does that guy in blue look flat to you? Weird.

Of course, Tanner got back in town and had to start things off right: by pummelling some dude at a party.

Because this scene never happened in the cartoon.

Rachel and Timmy had the best costumes of the night; they came dressed as each other. Everyone kept doing double takes all night at both of them.

I like these two photos together, eve though they're both a little blurry, because the look on her face (2nd pic) is the look I've seen 1000 times, along with the phrase "Did you just take a picture?"

Bearded lady?

The thing about this is, when they came in, I looked over at Rachel (the one in the green shirt, for clarity) and said to myself, "Is that Timmy?"

This could be a cuervo ad, if the label were facing the right way.

Because the party never stops.

The Morning after...

2009-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

So these are the last of them, except a coupla skate sequences... This was fun. And now, I've got a regular job, I'm going to be boring, but the good news is it's at least interesting work... learning a new programming language, plus a library or two, plus a new super complicated framework... all marketable skills, things I can use to get a job telecommuting from anywhere.

"hey guys, let's go get food and make a big brunch."

Made their money back, at least.

Feast in preparation. Man that shit was epic and delicious.

What's that they're passing around? Oh yeah, hair of the dog.

Sacrifices to the party gods.

Timmy said "Man, if I hadn't done these tricks a million times, I wouldn't be able to do them right now."

For some people, the party never stops.

so I lied...

2009-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

I was going to just be lazy and post the photos to flickr and be done, but some of these need captions and comments and snarkiness. Also, I think more people will see them this way. These are split into three posts, so as not to hurt your page load time and my bandwidth.

Oh yeah, a technical note- these pictures wouldn't have been possible without clever deployment of the on camera flash and a little reflector to bounce it off of the ceiling/walls. If you want to learn stuff like that, why not come to the class I'm teaching at the coco next week? /blatant plug.

Getting ready to race. Tanner hadn't ridden a bike in two months and took fourth.

At my checkpoint, I made them do pushups. "I hate you," Cody said, as he jumped back on his bike. He went on to win the race.

Brian said his costume was rock and roll jesus, something like that, but looking at it now, I can't help but think of him as Spider jerusalem on his jesus binge. All the comic book nerds know what I'm talking about.

Unfortunately, both dominatrixpizza.com and hotgirlseatingpizza.com are taken.

This is what happens when you run smack into a car that doesn't give you your right of way.

The look on her face is really worse than the bruise and small hematoma he had.

No comment.

Hey Look! It's JEM! I still have that theme song in my head.

We even had someone dressed as a streaker/flasher.

The second best couples' costume goes to Chris and his lovely girlfriend Talia (sorry if I just butchered the spelling of you name, but it's late).

This guy gets the award for "Costume I saw last year on a girl." It was weirder/scarier on the girl by far.

Dance floor photos:

Neil, you look taller now. What gives?

Really glad Slash came by to DJ. Wouldn't have been as rad without him at the laptops.

Cyrus came as... himself? not sure. but he brought whiskey, which everyone knows is a substitute for a costume.

I wish she were just a little sharper. A little stillness in all that movement. My flash didn't fire.

Cyrus is explaining to her that a star trek t-shirt doesn't actually constitute a costume.

Kelly, don't worry. The flash will make it all right.

That's it for now. tune in next time for more fun, excitement, and references you'll have to google to get.

Helloween race +party +the day after

2009-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

So, there's a lot of photos from last saturday, and rather than split it up into three or four posts, I'm just going to post this handy flickr gallery and call it a day. It was really epic. Like wow.

mimosa break

2009-10-31T00:00:00+00:00

before all the madness that is about to rain down on us, let's pause and just relax and have a mimosa:

halloween warmup

2009-10-31T00:00:00+00:00

Remember everone, this isn't actually halloween yet, just a preamble.

booze cruise: the return?

2009-10-31T00:00:00+00:00

well, at lest we went to the rooster and had a pitcher and it was friday. the rest needs work still, including my bike, which I need to get done before tonight, which is going to be madness itself. And then there was a house party, oh yeah.

See how much fun the guys are having? See that pained look on the girl's face? That pretty much sums it up.

Open Beta After Party

2009-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

I'm not going to bore you, my more general audience, with event photos of Open Beta. The fun stuff, as always, was at the afterparty. Some people might notice curious black spots in a couple of the photos; this is where that someone has been removed from the background. This person has especially delicate privacy issues (read: other journalists might be interested in harming him and his, and that's not what these photos are for), and I have to respect that. Odd social circles I find myself travelling in these days. Anyway, the photos:

The state of the economy: flea markets

2009-10-27T00:00:00+00:00

now, you'd think that with everything going to hell in a handbasket, you expect to see flea markets like this:

but then we went to another, and it was better:

Win some, lose some. This has been a moment of zen between moments of madness, brought to you by Matt's moments of Zen.

KRONDOR

2009-10-27T00:00:00+00:00

The Scene of the Preparations:

duct tape man:

Praise KRONDOR!

LOVE IN THE TIME OF KRONDOR

Plague Doctor and sailor?

Scaring small children

This is what winning looks like. FOR KRONDOR!

And then there was the after party at Bell's house:

Me, courtesy amber, who seems to take good pics of me every time I hand her the camera. That's talent.

Snack run.

Returning the favor to Amber:

And one-upping:

Taking a picture for her myspace?

I have no idea why there was a hooter's girl on the steps, but I do remember that this was a work uniform, not a costume.

it's been days since....

2009-10-27T00:00:00+00:00

I last posted, and these photos aren't what everybody is waiting on, but hey, all the selects are made, now all I have to do is go through and color balance and adjust some exposure, and everything will be wonderful. Meantime, here are these, which have been sitting on my hard drive for a week, waiting for me to have a working display again. There's a long saga involved, but I really don't feel like going into my broken laptop problems.

A brief post about bicycles

2009-10-27T00:00:00+00:00

just to frustrate the people waiting for KRONDOR pictures. Don't worry, I'm onto that next, I'm even skipping the openbeta stuff to get to it. But anyway:

The Science Museum (their real name, no kidding) here in the city has a little exhibit on antique bicycles, or the development of the bike, or something like that. Really cool, I want two of everything they have on display. including that steam powered bike. that's pretty rad.

Lori looks at an original boneshaker. She was there on assignment from to see some exhibit in the photo hall of fame, and got me in for free.

Harley moped with suicide shifter! OMG.

Steampunk bike. Or is is still steampunk when it's actually a steam engine?

I would ride the hell outta this wooden fixie piece of awesome.

The night that kamps failed...

2009-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

to provide free pbr. We recovered and drowned our sorrows at red rooster and then of course blue note...

Halloween store

2009-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

As Lori said, "Kill it with fire!":

Or better yet, lop off the top of it's head and make it in to a grotesque beer bong. Don priest robe and/or long underwear and demonstrate:

another day, another batch!

2009-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

This is another in a series I'm working on called "Boring but interesting enough to be AdultSwim bumps."

Drunken Fry goodness:

And after that there was a shit ton of stupid drama and fighting and I left early, 'cause fuck all that shit. Anyway, rap at ya later.

still catching up...

2009-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

This is all from last wednesday... so I'm only a week behind now... really the problem is me. I have everything I've shot up to yesterday edited and ready to post, but I'm lazy or reluctant to post everything all at once or something.

Soccer field very early/very late the night before.

Kamp's, which is technically not a club, since they're sketchy like that. But they did have free pbr until 11 that night, which led to a lot of the further madness.

OKC's newest sport, synchronized drinking.

I don't really know who this is, i mean I remember taking the picture and introducing myself, but anyway I'm kinda in love with this, ok?

Hat fight.

wow I'm way behind....

2009-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

blame it on the busted macbook (parts are on their way from hong kong, and we all know how long it takes a slow boat from china to get here...) or blame it on being bummed about not getting the magazine job I thought I was a shoe-in for, or, well, general laziness, but anyway, here are some pics from sunday before last, more shooting for the naked sun, which is still in progress and might actually be the saving of us all, if by us all I mean media/art people that would like to make money and keep on doing our thing at the same time.

last of the saturday photos, and a weird thing that just happened

2009-10-07T00:00:00+00:00

This dude's name was Izzy. I think.

So, I was just riding my bike around, the middle of the night being the best time for it, and I happened to turn down in to a neighborhood. I thought maybe there would be a way through to the next block, and sometimes there are even people out on their porches, partying, and that's always good for a drink or two.

This chick put on an awesome impromptu set. I'd listen to her again, even buy a cd, if I knew who she was of if she had recordings. Anybody know? edit to add: several people have told me that this is Ali harter. Thanks.

I couldn't have been more wrong. I mean, the neighborhood was all dead end cul de sacs and turned in on itself- the way I came in was the only way in or out. It was quiet, too. Like zombie movie quiet, all the houses dark, not even a television flickering that I saw.

Ed and Victoria.

I kept cruising, slowly, looking for some sign of life. I was about to give up and leave the neighborhood, and three big dogs jumped out of their doghouse, running and barking. Then, I saw the fence between me and them, and pressed down the little panic reflex. Not wanting to push my luck, I got the hell out of that weird neighborhood.

Katie, no metal face.

And then I found five dollars. (Not really, but Alex told me to say that when I tell a story that has no real point, so people don't feel cheated for reading it).

I think he name is Meg? (edit: jennifer. not even close there, bub. ther real question: where do I know a meg zinkly?). Cool chick, does good designs.

Plaza district fest part 2

2009-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

I'm not sure what the theme or the unifying whatever was for this street fest, but I think it might have been "Mess with the drunks," viz:

And then the dragon chased Victoria and Beach.

Tim, we need to talk. You have a problem with face paint. Admitting it is the first step.

Maeghan, we need to talk. You have a problem. It might have something to do with the fact that you told me to do these captions.

Velvet Monkey insides.

Stiltman.

John's band:

Plaza district fest part 1

2009-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

I'm splitting these into multiple parts, because I think they'll work better that way, and because I say so. Nyah.

hangin' out on the roof deck at Victoria's.

LOW-ANGLE SHOTS ARE COOLER AT 18MM.

Creepiest Halloween decoration I';ve seen so far this year. But subtle.

Now to the photos of the fest itself. First, the ubiquitous dad with a kid on his shoulder:

Homies. B'lieve me, they're tight like that.

Not sure what's going on here, but it involves intoxication on everyone's part.

Katie shows her metal face.

MOAR METAL FACE.

being lost

2009-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

Yesterday or the day before, sunday, anyway, I was driving down the highway and I had this sudden feeling of disconnectedness, of being lost. Like when in the night you wake up and don't know where you are.

I was coming around a curve, and it was raining, cloudy, but I know that section of road, have driven it many times. There's the normal state of having been somewhere, and you remember, for example, that the bathroom is behind you and your car is out in the parking lot or driveway, and that the roads that led you there also lead to home. It's a grounded feeling, a feeling that lets you ignore parts of the landscape that aren't normal.

For a brief second, coming around that curve, it was like all those connections, where I was going and where I was coming from, and everything that I knew the location of, all of that was cut off, and it was as if I was floating above it. It's so odd because I normally have a very good sense of the space I'm in and what is around me.

Then, I looked around I saw every detail of everything, blades of grass and tree branches, and the cars a quarter mile back, and the shapes of the clouds, and then, gradually, over a period of ten seconds, the feeling faded, and while I didn't feel really normal for a couple minutes, the hyper-awareness was gone and the highway was just highway, and the sky was just sky, and the weirdness went away, just like it does when you turn on the light in the middle of the night.

Anyway, now back to your regularly scheduled blog. There's some nice pics from plaza fest and outtakes from the naked sun shoot coming up, so stay tuned.

Throw Your Voice

2009-10-04T00:00:00+00:00

All of these need captions, but instead of me writing them, you should pull out a sharpie and write them in in the whitespace between the pictures. No, not really. Seriously though, the conference was really fun, I learned a lot about podcasting and a little about blogging. Breakfast from prairie thunder, coffee from cafe evoke and lunch from iguana, all wonderful. It was nice to meet everyone, and hopefully you all like the photos.

Some opolis show or something

2009-10-04T00:00:00+00:00

Friday was fun as shit. Definitely the best night out I've had in a while that didn't involve getting far too drunk. Actually, there was drinking, of course. But the funness was from the dancing and the company, Amber and Kat and some of their friends, oh yeah, and I saw Grizzly Bear's tour bus. At least, that's what someone said it was. No idea who these bands were, forgot their names already, go to the opolis web site and look i9f you care, but they honestly weren't that great, or I would have written the names down or shot the poster or something. But the night as a whole was a blast.

Ghost Bike:

This guy sucked. Took forever to start and then played bad music.

Amber looks all evil. But I'll give her the benefit of the doubt because she's the whole reason I was down there.

These guys strike me as the kind of music that's enjoyable right now, but we'll be embarrassed about in a couple years.

Dancing at La Luna.

Showed chelsea this, and said, what do you think of it, and she said, it's a good picture but her boobs look hexagonal. So, sorry Amber. Next time I'll try to make you not look evil and hexagonal.

The Opposite Signs... another band post...

2009-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

I swear I'm not turning into Jeremy Charles, or worse, Annie Leibowitz, but I do seem to be shooting a lot of musicians lately. This band I didn't really like. The sound was super mellow, smooth jazz like, and it really did nothing for me. There were some good moments, when it seemed like a song would break out and do something interesting, but then it got drowned in the hopeless drone.

Deluxe Craft Weekend

2009-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

Well, samples from the half hour that I was there. It seemed like a really fun time, and if I hadn't been sleep depping and working and whatnot this weekend, I probably would have really enjoyed doing some classes and just sitting around kibitzing with everyone. I could have gotten some of my bookbinding experiments done maybe. Anyway, photos:

a sunset, some clouds, and myself:

2009-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

oh yeah, and a bourbon tasting. MMM free booze. although I was exhausted and continued to be for the rest of the weekend.

What's wrong with this picture? Somebody out there knows.

Romantic Disaster at HiLo

2009-09-23T00:00:00+00:00

Romantic disaster is a local band that's doing amazing things. They've got a great sound and a great look, the kind that even comes through when they're all wasted and playing a quick set at an AIDS benefit show at a dive like the HiLo. In fact, it probably added to the rawness and unpredictability of the whole thing. Of course, your humble blogger was drunk off his ass, so maybe I was just responding to the visceral loudness and hotness of their lead singer. But I've heard them play before, when I was sober and so were they, and they're good. Put them on your list of bands to catch, and then someday, you can be like, "I saw them in this tiny ass club in OKC. The bassist used to make my pizza." Oh wait, that's me.

Norman Bike against Hunger Alleycat

2009-09-23T00:00:00+00:00

Not much to say except Ken deserves mad props for putting together the whole bike against hunger series... and to everyone else who organized, Pearl, Stewart, Isiah, and whoever else I'm forgetting, thanks you guys for putting together an awesome set of events; every one I went to was a good time. Now, photos:

And last but not least, a sunset. I've gotten in the habit of shooting these recently. They're cliche sure, but pretty anyway.

friends at the hilo

2009-09-23T00:00:00+00:00

I'm doing something I've long threatened to do; these are here as a nice tight edit, and there are more over in my flickr. Also, romantic disaster was there, photos and review to come.

what? 300 posts!

2009-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

Yeah, I'm as shocked as you are. Some of those are drafts that were never published, but still... a year and a half and three hundred posts later, we're still here. Wow. This one sort of snuck up me. It seems like just a couple weeks ago I had the 250th post. But no. Anyway, some random photos before we get to fair stuff and bike race later today.

I don't have enough superlatives for the meal I had at Musashi's last thursday. The show was fun, but the kobe beef there is tied for the best steak I've ever had. The fried rice was also really good. I like places that pay attention to their staples.

Yeah, ooh, pretty fire. Thanks to Lori for letting me show her a good time.

Completely unrelated: Justin and Miranda.

Little creepy there Justin. (photo by @maeghan).

This picture is really kinda weird. Hipshot and unintentional.

This is weirder. Tim pole dancing.

state fair photos

2009-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

So I went to the fair saturday night.... insanity. The only time I see this many people in one place is when I'm not in oklahoma. But a fun time too, I got my annual fair lemonade and saw the slap chop guy (look at my twitpic, I'm too lazy to repost that one). By the way, can you tell I love my new wide angle way too much?

Katie, Erin, and some other people I only half know on the Fireball ride.

Also, Tommy and Deepak.

Ok, back to room cleaning.

Opolis show

2009-09-21T00:00:00+00:00

Went down to norman with Chelsea (and now she has a twitter so I can link that: @thenakedsun) and took photos of the band "Deer People" (or is that "The Deer People"?) and anyway, hated the photos when I first looked, but really these aren't that bad. There's a second band down there, Mayola, they were good too. Louder and more energetic, but a lot simpler musically. I liked both.

On the way to Norman.

Oh yeah, there were random firedancers.

And then the sky opened up. And it rained a lot.

Like, really a lot, even for a place where the rain has been going for two weeks.

And then there were the bands. I was there covering Deer People, so naturally I have a lot of pictures of them. Here:

Saw this between bands backstage.

Then Mayola rocked out a short set... I don't know about you, but sometimes really high energy three-chord rock is what the doctor ordered. And their bassist is a badass.

So yeah, despite having my camera stolen (borrowed, I guess) I did manage to take a ton of photos myself at that party. Yeah, I know, more drunk people. but they look good.

Made You Look

2009-08-26T00:00:00+00:00

First off, a video:

B Boy Sequence II from Matt Mills on Vimeo.

.

Then, just a few stills not in that sequence. The battle was decent, but I missed most of it, jumped up on stage with Chelsea (who you'll be hearing a lot more about in a little bit) and squeezed a spot with a view of the dance floor. Kicked some dudes bag out of the way. It was good to see the little part that I saw; the show was so small this year I wondered why they bothered. The art was all pretty decent, but nothing stuck with me. There should have been more, in more space. Bricktown wasn;t the place to have it, people. Anyway, photos:

Up next will be photos of the afterparty, which was way more epic.

BIKE PROM

2009-08-24T00:00:00+00:00

I was going to be all cool and separate thes out into three or four posts, but I realized there's no reason to do that, because I've got a ton more posts coming, including a review of big truck tacos, some fliks from made you look 09, and crazy sunday with puppies. So, without further delay, bikeprom (and yes, I'm being lazy by not adding captions, but most of these are self explanatory):

refreshokc at coco

2009-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

driving around

2009-08-20T00:00:00+00:00

I'm at a loss for subjects that aren't drunk people and aren't boring. This is all I've been able to come up with in the last couple days. Oh yeah, and some of sober people.

Nighttime, trying to get pictures of lightning. At least the signs look cool.

So there was a fire, and I drove around it trying to get closer, this is all I could do.

Not my shoes; issues.

The rest of the backlog

2009-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

Random party

2009-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

These are from a random party last week; I'm still working through the backlog. I'll probably post everything else sometime tonight.

Ran to the bar for shots, 'cause there was only 3.2 beers at the party.

Christa and KW- It was cool to see him out, even randomly.

The dude on the right was leaving the country (or was it his birthday?); it was his party, anyway.

Last Wednesday

2009-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

Shoes.

Hipshot outside the 'note. Dude in the truck said "Hey Baby, come here," but she just kept walkin. Smart Girl.

Maeghan, Tommy and Deepak.

Tiffany.

Matty in his studio.

Matty took this outside while I was distracted/occupied inside.

Interesting what I came up with looking at the same person. Totally different pictures.

beginning at the beginning

2009-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

So I have a huge pile of photos from the last week, and I've been procrastinating on posting them because of work and lazyness and such, but here, finally, on a coffee fueled sunday night, I've gotten them all out and will post them in blog-sized chunks until I get bored with them and post all the rest in a large-ish post sometime on tuesday.

Mom on her first day as a retiree. Lunch at Olive Garden.

This dude was sort of bewildered at the camera. Also, he took the next photo, of Christa and me. Bewildered by focus as well.

Yeah, that's me. A sight rarely seen on the internets, although there are really far too many pics of me out there at this point.

Cmay in her natural habitat.

Lambo outside of work. Did I mention I work at a nice place?

Morning

2009-08-11T00:00:00+00:00

File this one under "up way too early for work."

Booze Cruise Meets BROQUEST

2009-08-11T00:00:00+00:00

Or at least one of the members of BROQUEST was there. All in all, a fun night. I keep hearing that other people are doing booze cruise on saturdays now, if that's true could someone tell me? Chris? I just want to drink and ride bikes with people, and who cares what night it's on, right?

Anyway, between last week's illness, starting the new job, and all the things I was doing over the weekend, I've been neglecting all the backend stuff- editing, organizing, and blogging. It's tiring, and the list of things I need to get done tomorrow is a mile and a half long. May or may not do all/some of it.

Another Norman Saturday Night

2009-08-11T00:00:00+00:00

I felt kinda really off shooting saturday, ended up dancing as much as photographing. That's what I get for eating a whole hot n ready sausage pizza.

This girl had everything I look for in a woman: 1. a camera 2. madness 3. the tendency to flip shit and run off.

Cameron, also late of BROQUEST, although he finished in a different place.

This was a complete accident. I like it.

This was completely on purpose. I like it as well.

The morning after... It's funny how few pictures I have of scenes like this, when it happens to me all the time. Expect that to change in the weeks to come.

Technical difficulties...

2009-08-05T00:00:00+00:00

For those of you paying attention, there has been a little hiatus, a delay, a mini vacation even... Partly because of work, and the interruption to my sleep schedule, but also partly because it seems like I pick up every little bug that comes along since my accident. I felt like death for 48 hours, and I still have something of a sore throat, but I think I'm going to be all right.

These pics are from Monday; Lori texted me from work, asking me to get people up there, so I did; Christa and Jonathan came out and had drinks. It's sort of a hellish job, working in a karaoke bar; I hope Lori gets something else soon.

Anyway, I like my new job so far. It's actually challenging to steam milk. I still don't really have a grasp of what I'm really doing, but that will come in time.

And for those of you that have read this far down, a surprise: Booze cruise is happening this Friday, 9pm. The plan is to do two rounds at each bar, so we can keep some kind of momentum. Starting at the rooster, have a couple pitchers, then to the drunken fry, because I really want to try that truffle shit, and then to nancy's, so we can all get banned from yet another karaoke bar. I'm going to be annoying everyone in my phone/twitter followers about this too for the next couple days, hopefully enough people come out.

Outtakes...

2009-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

These didn't really fit with the rest of the pictures I took last night, but I Like them anyway, and I think at least some people will like 'em. next post in 5...4...

ISO 25,000

2009-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

So this is crazy, really wild, I mean, talk about no light, some of these are taken in the reflected mirror ball light off a black wall, just insanely no light at all, but here are the pictures. This is going to be fun. I'm playing around at ISO 25k, which is just unheard of, it's so noisy it's an extra level of abstraction. Focus is "guess and get lucky sometimes," other times it's just blurry and that doesn't really hurt things because these pictures aren't about detail but about energy and tone and exploring places that heretofore were invisible to the camera, and a lot of times to the eye. These are places people go but not places that are easily seen unless you go there, at least until now. Enough ramble. The photos!

OKCCOCO has an artshow

2009-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

Lots of good stuff. Somehow I didn't shoot any of Kanaly's work, but he had some up as well. Anyway, Last night was crazy and photo filled, I've got two more posts in the pipeline for tonight.

Make-a-wish Has a Rock Show

2009-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

Sometime Last week I found out that some of my friends from highschool were doing a benefit show for Make-a-Wish Foundation, and they needed a photographer. So, I ent and shot a few things, didn't stay the whole night. The first band was really shitty, the same three chords, all at the same tempo, and the same one note drone from the lead singer for every song. It was boring and shitty. then Hundresomethings came on, and well, they were better. They still lack a little edge, I don't know what they need, but it's not bad to hear live. Then I had to go. The good news: they raised over $2k last night.

Friday Booze Cruise

2009-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

Mikey T and his epic dome.

The guy on the right, talking to KW, is originally from paris, but is more of a world traveler these days. Very cool dude.

I like how these guys got physically closer and closer as they talked, eventually ending up on the floor face to face.

This was kinda cute; She was trying to put the lip gloss on him and gave up.

See what I mean? There was a good hug soon after this too.

Yeah, two Kelsey portraits, but I like 'em both. Sue me.

Why magnum needs a blog

2009-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

Ok, so go read this statement from Magnum Photo's blog. The gist of it is, they aren't blogging for the foreseeable future, and might not blog ever again. The reason they give is that blogs aren't a good platform for quality content. It's offensive and wrong-headed, to say the least. Even if/when they do come back, if it's as several blogs or as one feed, if the focus becomes more about dialogue than content, I think they're missing something big.

To say that blogs aren't a good place for quality content is ignorant and misinformed. (Links go to rebuttal examples.Also this). Those are all blogs, all that I've come across recently; there are countless sources of good content on the web, places that have really brilliant content, displayed well. The last one is a community effort, and in fact arose because of a group of people looking for a place. So, to shut down a blog to build a community seems silly. Why not blog the process of making the new site?

Why aren't the photographers of Magnum, surely some of the world's finest visual storytellers, blogging themselves? (With the notable exception of David Allen Harvey, who runs Burn magazine, of course). It'd be the best group blog ever, if they would embrace a little technology; the best eyes in the world, reporting daily what they see. From the perspective of one who does it, who has done it now for going on two years (with a little hiatus between the end of the santa fe blog and the start of this one), it's not hard at all to knock out a blog post a day, sometimes two or three. Especially if all it consists of are photos with captions. Every other day is even easier; even when I was working full time at a job that had nothing to do with my photography, I still did that.

I guess part of the problem is that to get a group of photographers to do anything together is something like herding cats; if you've ever walked in a city with even four or five of us you know what I'm talking about; it takes two or three times as long to get somewhere (even dinner) because the whole group sort of wanders off after a picture, and then the rest have to wait, and by the time the one gets back someone else has wandered off. Now imagine a group like that, all self-interested, agreeing to do something like a group blog, to share space on the web with anyone else?

Thinking that way is really wrong-headed. Separate channels for each photographer presume that each one is doing enough to hold a reader's interest indefinitely, and that readers of one photographer won't be interested in others. It's silly. The truth is, group blogs of like minded people (or at least people who are all talking about the same things) usually have more readers and better content than single author blogs. Think LAist, BoingBoing, or blogs like that. The rising tide lifts all boats. And, because there are other people out there doing the same thing in the same space, you're apt to learn and improve your own content as time goes on.

Of course, nobody listens to me, or at least nobody at Magnum.

Photography as a New Liberal Art

2009-07-28T00:00:00+00:00

This is not a post about taking photographs, but about looking at them, reading them, and understanding what they are and are not. If you want to know about taking photos, there's a ton of good literature out there. There is a whole subset of phototographers who think that the techniques of photography (exposure, sharpness, depth, grain/noise, etc) are an end unto themselves, but this is a false path. But the fact that they exist and are there to tell us what the rules are so we can break them effectively is a good thing.

The idea of "New Liberal Arts" comes from Snarkmarket and their interesting if incomplete book New Liberal Arts, which is based around the idea that to function intelligently in society today, there is a new skillset outside of the traditional lines of the liberal arts. The main point of learning liberal arts is to learn how to think critically about the world. Since it's my area, and since the chapter in the book is one of the areas that comes up short, I thought some expansion was called for in the area of thinking critically about photographs. These are all just starting points, ideas, and not rules forever.

The first most important consideration when looking at a photograph is the content of the picture. A photo is a two-d simulacra of the 4-d world; It takes a cone of space (the angle of view) and a slice of time (the shutter speed) and reduces that to an image on a piece of paper, or more commonly now, a screen. There are parts in and out of focus, there is a limit to the detail that can be seen (and no software, no matter what CSI tells you, can bring back detail from a pixelated image). There is a perspective, and by this I mean a camera position, high or low, close to the subject or far away.

What does this mean to us, the viewer? Any rendering of a scene is only a partial rendering; at any given time there are an infinite number of perspectives and the same infinite gradation of moments that the camera can have, and we are seeing only one. I am categorically opposed to the idea that all of these perspectives are equal (relativism be damned, it's solipsism with a coat of postmodern paint). Some moments are better than others, and if that weren't the case, there would be no art in photography.

A photo can be evidence, it can tell a (short) story, but through selection of moments and perspectives, the photograph can tell a lie, too. It is impossible to tell by looking at a photograph if it is true or false. The only thing that can be determined is if it has been altered after the fact. This is why people are always so aghast when someone is caught photoshopping news pictures, because it disturbs their questionable belief in the veracity of the medium of photography. It's a religious belief, one which has no grounding in fact; you'd see similar responses if you went in front of a church congregation and gave them a logical proof of atheism (ask a Jesuit, they really do exist, but reality is not wholly logical anyway).

So, a photo can't be true or false from the perspective of a viewer, and here I'm only talking of candid pictures, not staged or manipulated after the fact. I can walk into a party and make 300 pictures, and just in the selection of what to show, make it look like the best party ever or the worst time anybody has ever had outside of torture chambers. Neither is true. Or they both might be.

Ok, that's all the lesson I have in me today. The important takeaway: a photo is never the whole story. Sometimes it's enough.

leftovers

2009-07-28T00:00:00+00:00

These are a few random things from before dfest that I like but I didn't put up the first time for whatever reason.

Mom getting ready to do dialysis.

I actually like this better than the other image of these two that I posted saturday.

More barcamp. By lunch, everybody needed power.

Hornbeck does yoyo.

booze cruise: the return

2009-07-25T00:00:00+00:00

So last night was the first booze cruise I've been to in months... between time off the bike and booze cruise itself kind of dying out, it just hasn't happened. I don't know about anybody else, but a week doesn't seem complete without riding my bike around on a friday night and getting smashed. So I did. Unfortunately, the night was ruined at the end, the second or third stolen purse at blue note. Sucks. The photos weren't all that great, I wasn't really focused, but as always, there are a few cool things. Anyway, next up is a post from barcamp okc, which is going on right now.

Casey at rooster.

Faye terrorizing Ken.

Faye and M____, who's name I should remember, but I don't. I'm a bad person, I know.

#barcampokc

2009-07-25T00:00:00+00:00

These are from the morning session of Barcamp OKC. What you don't see is all the interesting conceptual talk, which is really the cool part and unfortunately doesn't show up in pictures.

Night Shooting

2009-07-23T00:00:00+00:00

just photos

2009-07-23T00:00:00+00:00

edit to add captions... because I realized some of these need them.

I said: I really don't think it's a good idea to sit there. Does she know where that floor has been? Somebody else said: Yeah, I'm pretty sure I've pissed on that exact spot.

I'm not exactly sure what was going on, but it seemed like the whole situation was about an inch away from a fight between this guy and...

(interlude for the dress)

this guy, the one with the backpack. Fighting is stupid. Ruined a perfectly good game of pool.

This was 5-10 minutes later; she just happened to glance over as I was taking the picture. At least I hope she's not pissed :).

Goldie with the serious face. Or tired drunkface? There are a lot of thing you could project onto that face. I think she's just zonin' out a little.

Rachel on the phone with Timmy.

Yes, it's kind of a cliche, Cody lighting a cigarette, but whatever, have you ever see a cigarette that bent and crazy looking?

That thing on her shoulder? a waterproof portable radio. I don't care what anybody says, if she's packin' her very own personal dance machine, she's cool with me.

just a quick post

2009-07-22T00:00:00+00:00

before I rush out to Mcnellies for 3 dolla burgers.

starbux is giving away pastries

2009-07-21T00:00:00+00:00

And I'm not drawn in by their evil conspiracy. It's taken years, but now they're finally making a move. Wake up, Sheeple!

(At least one person reading this will get the joke. The rest of you, don't worry, I'm not any more unhinged than I ever was).

I'm writing this from my restored and much loved macbook. Friday night, before I went out to shoot these pictures, I was leaning over my desk to grab my bike off of the wall, and I knocked over a 16oz cup of coffee right into the computer. I knew there was nothing I could really do then; the best thing to do is let it dry first. So I did, I went off to the party, had a good time, (moar hellkats=more good times), and rode home.

Next day, I tried to restart it, no dice, so I opened it up and there was a ton of gunk on everything, of course. Coffee+2.5yrs of dust, pretty much. Disheartened, I gave up and went to Mcnellies to be attacked by the photographer from lookatOKC. No, I don't want my picture taken. No, I won't sign a release. Go talk to the wedding party. It's my own fault for wearing my houndstooth fedora; that thing draws attention like whoa.

Paperazzi deflected (yeah, I'm aware of the irony, but at least I know the people I take pictures of), I went home, and little elves hadn't come in and fixed my laptop, so the next day (sunday), I started dousing it with alcohol, and then I had the bright idea to get out a toothbrush and scrub away the crud. I let it dry overnight, plugged everything together, and it worked on the first try. Go me.

also: the more I use my new camera, the more I love it. I've already shot 2000 photos with it. ok, fine, I'll shut up about it already. But the good news keeps on coming, I have a job interview tomorrow, I fixed this laptop, etc.

post #250!

2009-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

Never though this blog would make it this long. But then I also thought I'd be long gone from oklahoma too. Anyway, It's been an interesting four days, to say the least. I got my new camera on wednesday, and I couldn't be happier with it. The D700 is an amazing machine; it makes everything that I do easier and pushes the realm of photographic possibility farther than I'd thought possible. Yeah, it's that good.

That was my first delay; I was having too much fun with the new camera to blog. Then the power went out in my neighborhood overnight, and there was no internet; then, finally, just as I got these photos edited, i spilled a coffee into my macbook, ruining it. so now they're re-edited, and here for your enjoyment.

Next post: look for the gratuitous cat photos (not what you think).

No, you can't tawe my picture

2009-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

dear lookatokc photographer,

No, you can't take my picture. Yes, I'm also a working photographer (for a given value of working), no, that doesn't mean we really have anything in common. You take party pics, i take pictures of my friends at parties. You use a flash when you don't need it, I hate it even when I absolutely have to use it. You have a huge camera bag weighing you down with shit you don't need, I only own two lenses. All of these are strikes against you, but really, it's just that I don't like having my picture taken.

Some of us don't want to be in the paper. I might be the only one, but I'd wager there are at least a few people out there who like anonymity. Or who need it.

Certainly there's little value in party pics, hell, I take thousands myself and put them on this shitty blog, but the big difference is that I know the people that I take pictures of, for the most part. I feel weird not knowing people and taking their picture. It's knowing the people that lets me get closer, get a little more meaning in the phototographs than the standard grin and grab-the-person-next-to-you. Some of them, at least (yes, there are a few posed pics here on the blog and more on my facebook, but those are here for the people in them, not for me to show off).

More D700. More Awesome.

2009-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

It's too early and I haven't had my coffee. So here, pictures without many words:

I can has... tongue?

larry and his flask

2009-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

This band, Larry and his flask, is a crazy high energy bluegrass punk band. Good sound, but I didn't stay for the second set. I don't know, the blugrass part of their sound got annoying to me, but then I loved them for the first half. Go figure.

The guy with the base, though, I swear he was playing tourette's or something, different instruments every song, running around, throwing his base on the floor and then on a table, just crazy. Entertaining as hell.

Anyway, new camera's here, I'm playing with and and enjoying the hell out of it. Laters.

Norman B-day's and such

2009-07-13T00:00:00+00:00

another round of drinking and photos... this was one of those nights that sort of blurred together towards the end... really fun, though, and I woke up in time to head off the hangover with water. Protip: Water works best before you actually feel the hangover. If you already have a headache, you're going to suffer more.

Anyway, I rode my bike to get down there, 20 miles in 2.3 hours... terrible time, I know, but I did it, and that's the important part. There was a lot of terror and panic, and anger at everything with four wheels, but it's all part of the show at this point. I've just got to recondition myself, and that's going to take time. How long before I can ride ten miles in half an hour again? I don't know, probably a while. How long before I don't flinch every time a car passes is more important, and hopefully that'll be sooner. Pain and fatigue I can deal with, fear is harder.

Less seriously, though, the night was a blast. 2 hours of bike riding to get to 6 hours of party=8 good hours. For example:

Fabulous shoes.

B-Bell in classic black and white.

Birthday Girl Shelby. Peep that bling.

An infinity of bromance? No, I actually think they were headbutting or something. I did mention that things were blurry for me at the end of the night, right?

Traci and Casey, now roommates and rhyme-mates.

Incidentally, this is the same guy (mario, I think) who had the shoes. Makes me wonder: Are they clown shoes?

Shelby and Cody, and the damn taco bell cup I was sorely tempted to clone out.

LOLWAT?

Anyway, I've got a bike to ride and pictures that won't take themselves.

Wednesday pool adventure

2009-07-10T00:00:00+00:00

So I forgot to post these- edited them, output jpegs, and then forgot to actually upload and blog them. I thought I did, sorry I lied to you cody. My fault. Anyway, these suffer a little bit from being shot at insanely high ISO on a small format camera, so don't judge too harshly. On a related note, I can't wait to get my new camera and really get to shooting again.

sometimes...

2009-07-10T00:00:00+00:00

Sometimes all you have to do is get out there and push the button. When there are doubts, when the haters are getting to you, when you worry that you're past prime, never going to amount to anything, that's when you've gotta go out and make pictures. Prime the pump, get those psychomotor cues going. Creating something is the best solution to get out of a funk; there are precious few things better than an unexpectedly good picture. I wasn't expecting much out of these, but I really like 'em.

Fuck I'm verbose today. Wrote my intro for the OKCITY book too. Might do a limited run(10-20), and publish a pdf for free.

this is what happens when you double tap long exposures- more often than not one or the other will be good. for this one, the second frame was really blurry.

i tried this in black and white, but his eyes really make the picture. I don't think I had a good portrait of him before this either, so it's doubly good.

This was going to be titled "the fight," but I don't know if it comes through.

Another eye picture.

Photo Walk

2009-07-09T00:00:00+00:00

The 4th was a good night; I ended up sort of all over the place, first riding my bike to a party right on the river in Tulsa, and then catching a ride out to the sticks for a huge bash in a field (this being the 4th, and it being oklahoma, nobody's day is complete without going out into the middle of nowhere and Blowing Shit Up).

We get there and there's a $10 cover per head. Then we stand in line for beer for half an hour for 3.2 bud light. Then, just as I'm tweeting about how a fight would be a nice mood lifter, it starts to rain. So, the people who have tents run for them, and the people who don't run for their cars. I'm not lying when I say that I probably had a better time sitting in that car listening to music and talking than I would have getting obliterated and setting fire to the whole party.

Then we bailed and headed back to Tim's apartment, where everybody just crashed. Which meant that my bike was across downtown from me when I woke up in the morning, so of course, I went to get it. I didn't have to walk, I could have waited for a ride to pick it up, but the walk appealed to me. And then there were photos:

oh yeah, I was supposed to post these...

2009-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

Yeah, meant to put these up yesterday. Got distracted by Hulu again. Royal Pains this time. Good thing House is in the off season, or I'd never get anything done.

Seriously though, I went out to Tulsa to take a break and recharge, sort of reset myself. One of the nice effects of travel is you almost always get a fresh look at yourself while trying to look at a new place, even if that new place is only a couple hours away. I'd been feeling a little blocked up creatively and a weekend away from my routine was just what I needed.

I actually fasted this weekend- not in the "not eating at all" sense of the word but in the "staying hungry" sense. One moderate meal a day, the occasional beer, maybe a snack. Whenever I've tried the cold turkey no food approach, I've failed miserably, because I lack the willpower. One meal a day is enough to give you the edge of feeling hungry without making it into this huge task.

About that- the edge of hardship- when things are difficult, sometimes it will make you sharper, quicker, more discerning- you can rise to the situation in a way that, when everything is easy, you couldn't. I've always thought the best art comes out of working around limitations, not when the limitations are removed.

Midnight photo sesh

2009-07-03T00:00:00+00:00

Couple photos... Went to sleep on Timmy & Ali's couch, woke up when Ali got home after the bars, hung out with all these dudes. Tulsa=Coolsville thus far. My team won at trivia, although I don't think I contributed more than one or two answers. Bike Against hunger got some money, and some gift certificates on top of that. Today's adgenda includes a bike shop and finding whole foods.

The cookout

2009-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

After pride, there was this cookout, with a bunch of excellent food. The chef from Cafe 7, which is on the northside somewhere (chime in in the comments if you know where it is). F'ing amazing ziti, pretty good kebabs, pesto crusted grilled chicken, it was nice. Some days I forget to eat until late in the day, and then circumstance prevents it for a couple more hours, and then I'm rewarded for the wait with a meal like that.

It was really nice, but I wish I had more photos of the whole thing. Like I said, I was having an off day sunday, maybe because of the lack of sustenance. I had to let the hate pass before I could even look at the photos again, that's why I took these sunday and you're just now seeing them.

Anyway, I'm several days out from my last cup of coffee. I think that's what I'll go do now. That and get ready for TULSA: THE SEQUAL.

Pride Parade

2009-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

So, it's pride 09. I wasn't on, but these I like. For those who don't know: I'm straight. And I'm not going to lie, this was mostly about being a part of the spectacle and drinking and cooking out for me. But yes, I do support a whole range of gay rights, marriage and equal protection and other things. But this was a party on wheels.

I'd like to say the big fail is because of the lack of intimacy with the subject(true), or sub-standard camera equipment(not true), but really it was because I lacked two things: focus and a camera strap. I wasn't focused on taking pictures, more on riding the new bike, and I didn't have a strap to hold the camera so I was constantly death gripping it and worried I would drop it.

Two days before, but already started at the Copa.

The Bike Horde.

This was something about people wearing leather and being gay? Not sure. update from my friend hope who Knows Things: "The picture at the pride parade the people in leather. Its the national leather association. that's what the blue and black flag with the red heart represents. its a BDSM community with a very strong Gay following. I know i always have the strangest information. but there you go."

This really surprised me; Dell is a big company, glad to see that they were out there in support. They have a pretty big call center here in the city.

The Boneshakers were out, all five of us that are still here and riding.

I don't know what to say about the dude on the horse.

The crowd at the end was something else. A couple thousand people, easily. All along the route there were spectators, but nothing to make me expect this.

night portraits

2009-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

I actually took this because I really liked the light, and I wanted to remember it for future studio use. Single, harsh light can be good, even from directly above the subject.

Another "miracle" picture: there's no way to express how little light there is when one of the biggest sources in the picture is a cell phone screen. Of course, there's quite a bit coming off the streetlights too.

Ok, tiny post over. The pride pictures are mostly edited, they'll be along sometime soon.

it all sucks

2009-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

So I was going to post some more pictures, but I hate everything I've shot now, and so there's nothing else to post.

last tulsa shit

2009-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

I'm posting this from the backyard of a cookout after pride parade. I promise, this is the last of the tulsa photos. Until I go to tulsa again in a week or two.

skate photos...

2009-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

I said at the time on twitter, that I wished for a wider lens, but really I think these aren't bad at all. A camera that can shoot sequences would be nice, and I could have shot more varied things with more lenses, but I think sometimes limitations can drive creativity, and that's what happened here.

For everybody that's tired of Tulsa pictures and posts, don't worry, I've got one more small post and then it's back to OKC pictures. And yeah, I could have put up all these pictures at once, but would you have looked as much at them, seen them as well? Anyway, there'll be a lot of pictures from pride parade hopefully, and I've a few from this week too.

More Tulsa, With Cars!

2009-06-26T00:00:00+00:00

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY... was when I took these. Sunday morning, mostly, although the car show was in the afternoon. i really wasn't that impressed visually with the cars... i liked their style, I thought the work was impressive, but visually to me cars are just a big dead thing in the frame. If I'd been reporting on the car show, I would have picked out little details, but as it was I was just walking around with Rachel and Gretchen, all of us trying not to die in the heat.

Coming soon (after I take a nap to kill the hangover): The skate sessions.

Tulsa Weekend post the first

2009-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

There will be several posts, as I took a lot of photos and they're awesome.

Oh the life of a freelancer...

2009-06-24T00:00:00+00:00

A week ago, I went down to medicine park to assist Jeremy Charles with a little advertorial. Hold the reflector, keep the lights from blowing away, that sort of thing. While I was there, I had a little down time to walk up the main drag and shoot a few pics of the town, and while details were being decided, I was able to shoot the little kid who was the subject of the ad in question. It was nice to get out and shoot in the mode of dropping into a location, gestalting, and shooting pictures based on those impressions.

It's also always nice to work with a pro of Jeremy's caliber, someone who knows their look, knows their gear, lights, who "gets it." That said, working with a family of four who are inexperienced in front of the camera, and having two small kids in that mix, was stressful.

a few that don't fit

2009-06-24T00:00:00+00:00

these are from various random rolls, don't fit anywhere, but deserve to see the light of day anyway.

Mom was in the hospital...

2009-06-23T00:00:00+00:00

for once, i actually managed to Shoot pictures of mom from start to finish in the hospital. This visit was more than a little silly. She had a non-specific infection, possbly blood, possibly kidney, but they made her stay in the hospital for 4 days when she could have stayed at home. Ostensibly it was to monitor her, but I don' think we would have done a worse job of that at home. Add to that the stress factor of being in the hospital, and the whole thing was kind of ridiculous.

Mom the day she went to the dialysis clinic with a fever.

The first cultures, which were the only ones that came back positive.

Hallway going into Presbyterian Tower, OU Med center.

Mom coming back from the vending machines. Not happy.

In the last few minutes of her stay, the doctor came in and removed her catheter.

On the other hand, she did feel quite a bit better getting out (no more infection), and she doesn't have a cardiac catheter any more- the leg graft they did several months ago is working, and as of today, she's about halfway through training to stick herself and do the whole thing at home again.

Velvet monkey opening/16th st. Friday

2009-06-22T00:00:00+00:00

All I have to say is I was really off that night. A lot of blurry pics from too low a shutter speed. So that's why the coverage isn't as good as it should be.

Brofest: The Morning After

2009-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

I'm not exactly sure if this was the morning after brofest or just the morening after some other party. But this guy is full of hangover.

The brunch club. Stuart here is thinking "I can't believe that I leave in just a few hours."

Celery so big it gets a photo op.

Brofest

2009-06-20T00:00:00+00:00

These pictures are all from the raddest ride kickoff/fundraiser ever. Stuart, Pat and Cameron are heading across the country on the Broquest (link goes to their site). This is why film sucks sometimes; I'm just now getting the pics from their out of town party up and they're already three states into their Portland to Portland run. Oh well.

The Dudes of America played, and they're a bunch of rockstars. I'm too lazy to caption, you can figure it out. That and I'm blogging while flying down the highway. wah-hoo.

random

2009-06-19T00:00:00+00:00

So I've finally gotten my film developed, and the first batch is just some random photos. There was another roll of old film I found in a drawer, and I think at least one of these is from that. It's really weird and difficult to be working with files scanned from film automatically. I can't adjust exposure or white balance or any of that good stuff. Oh well, at least they're better than nothing. I can't wait until I get a new body in though.

lack of posting (and why)

2009-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

So I've been doing stuff and seeing things, but the reason I haven't been posting that much is this:

That's almost a week's worth of shooting. I know, I know, that's not a lot, but it will make for about a week's worth of posts, once I get around to developing it. I'm waiting on some money from a lens I sold. (With my canon body out of commission, I didn't need the 24-105 any more, so it went on ebay and sold quick).

Meanwhile, there was a race yesterday, Bike Against Hunger the First, which was pretty cool. Kudos to Ken for putting it together and for all the rad prizes. Cody won, and I'd swear he rode up to my checkpoint on one wheel. He was there and gone in about 10 seconds. Yeah though, if you ever get the chance to work a checkpoint, bring a sign and a nice chair. A beverage and a book are optional but the book probably saved my sanity, i just wished I'd had the rest of that stuff. That, and it's impossible to run a checkpoint and take pics of the checkpoint at the same time. It's one or the other.

OK, I'm going to save the rest for another day, because there are a lot of stories to tell, and a lot of pictures that go with them, so rather than mix things all about, I'll just wait until I can get the pictures, and then tell the stories.

people suck

2009-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

The comments on the story about the accident in tulsa are really terrible, really sad. I can't believe people actually think like that, that the solution to driver negligence (which is almost always the case of bike accidents involving a bike and a car) is for cyclists to not ride their bikes.

I ride a road bike. I ride it on the road because it's made for pavement, and because it's illegal for me to ride on the sidewalk. For a lot of miles of my riding, there are no sidewalks. Bike trails are nice where the exist, and I don't mind dodging pedestrians and slower cyclists even, but the trails almost never go anywhere useful. I ride in the middle of the lane because that's the safest place for me to be. I am more noticeable and to pass me you have to use the other lane. I'm almost never on roads that don't have a passing lane, at least when traffic is an issue. Every cyclist with any experience knows the roads with the best pavement and least traffic to get where they are going, and new cyclists often hear about them the first time they meet other riders ('You take 10th st all the way from where? no no no, take 4th to downtown, then...').

If you're a driver, watch where you're going and don't drive drunk, ok? I see a lot of people bitching on the internet about aggro/self righteous cyclists, but if a random cyclist started killing drivers at random, and got away with it (hit and runs are the rule), wouldn't you be mad at them? This case would have been just like that, if an eyewitness hadn't run the driver off the road to stop her.

Fact: you have to double or triple your speed to reduce time traveled by a significant amount when driving in town. That means that even a full 60 seconds waiting behind a cyclist (this is a lot longer than you think) going 15 mph waiting to pass is only going to slow you by about 30 seconds in your overall travel time. You spend more time than that sitting at red lights, making coffee or chatting with co-workers. Hell, I spend more time staring at the wall persuading myself to get out of bed. It's not worth getting upset over and certainly not worth killing some poor guy who's just trying to get somewhere.

If you're a cyclist, be careful. You'd look hotter in a helmet, and by hotter I mean sexier without head injuries. Use lower traffic roads, lights, and bright clothing. Of course, none of that helped me this last time, but I know it's saved me a thousand other times. Don't be an asshole, but take the lane, it's yours by law, and if you're off to the side, it's easier to go unnoticed. If a driver is coming towards you, yell at them, whatever you feel like yelling, as loud as you can. More than once yelling "HEY!" has saved my bacon.

I think that's all. Good luck and good night.

Car Kills Two Cyclists in Tulsa, third in hospital

2009-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

I already posted this to twitter, but I figure more people will see it if I put it here too. I look at all those bike pieces scattered in the road, and I'm thinking, if my bike had been super light carbon, that'd be me. Lugged Steel Saved My Life. (For those that don't know: I was hit a couple weeks ago by an inattentive driver).

Text story here and video:

This is a sad day. My heart goes out to the dude in the hospital and the families of the dead.

(another post to follow, more generally about sharing the road.)

photos

2009-06-06T00:00:00+00:00

I swear I get out in the daytime sometime. just not a lot. Nocturnal,
you could say.

photos of the brace

2009-06-06T00:00:00+00:00

So last night I was mobbed at the party when I took off my shirt... mobbed with markers. This is the result.

Wednesday photos

2009-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

This is sort of a test post, I'm mucking about with the stylesheet. I'm also writing some essays for the photobook I've been trying to do since january. Wednesday was a success though, in that I got out and had a good time. And I took some photos. The style might not be right, but I'm working on it.

photo adventures

2009-05-31T00:00:00+00:00

This is from the rest of the last batch of processing. Traci (last picture) came and rescued me from my stircrazyness on Friday, whereupon we went downtown and walked around, lots of fun things to see around that time of day, just as work is getting out. Then there was sauced pizza and a norman party, where everybody thought my brace was fake until I told them the story. Getting out again, I've told that same story 20 million times. hopefully I'm done telling it now, but I have a feeling I won't be able to stop until I'm done wearing the brace.

My dad, playing with the dog. I don't know what occasioned this look.

Most people would take a picture of the statue that this camera watches, but I found the sign much more interesting.

I know I've taken and shown similar, but I don't care.

This is the inside of an old bank building, downtown. The architecture was quite detailed and decorative, very nice. the kind of stuff nobody makes any more.

Alleys:

Traci, picking her outfit. With ISO 400 film, this was like 1/30th of a second at f/1.2. The party was darker, so those pictures didn't really work out.

old photos..

2009-05-31T00:00:00+00:00

since I've had to resort to shooting film, I had to get it processed, and there was this random roll that has been on my printer stand for a while, so I had it done as well. These are from the end of spring 2006, at the annual Doc Studies barbecue. Looking at this old work, I couldn't help but notice how different it is, and how much higher a percentage of misses I had back then, even with the same camera & lens.

Two of the graduating seniors.

Professors standing around. The difference in the personalities from right to left is so huge, if they stood any closer, the universe would have exploded.

Kari, my girlfriend at the time. I'm going to leave it as an exercise for the reader to make up what happened between us. I can tell you it won't be as interesting as what actually happened.

Paseo arts fest

2009-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

I forgot my cf cards, and so I had to improvise and use my phone camera to take a few pictures. It was a very zen experience shooting this way, with complete simplicity. I was able to concentrate soley on the images. you only have one button to push, and that's it.

I was sitting there, at sauced, at Haley's booth, and I was watching all the ametures with their digital rebels, and I realized that the difference between them and the professionals I had worked around and with was principally one of concentration. The pros are zeroed in on what they are doing, the only thing in the world for them is the viewfinder.

Matty from the Rodchenko(sp?) angle.

On a completely different note, I found a really cool company called Elphel building the open source camera I dreamed up last year. they sell a bunch of boards that could theoretically turn any old 35mm film camera into a digital camera, in either black and white or color. Their examples kinda suck, and I suspect it has something to do with the tone curves they're using, but if I can get the parts and get it to spit out 16 bit raw data, I would be one happy matt mills. For the nerds: Elphel's web site.

it's 6:30 and I'm still up. time to give up on sleep?

2009-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

(note: where I say today, I'm mostly talking about sunday, as I started writing this at about 5am monday morning, thinking still as if "today" were sunday. It's a total brain dump/rant, but there's a lot of good tidbits, anyway).

I can't sleep. Maybe if I write everything down that's on my mind, I can get some peace and rest.

The lawyer situation: I've made the initial contact with someone who is supposed to be good, but may or may not know anything about bikes/bike law. I sent along the police report, descriptions of my injuries and the photo of the bike I put on twitter. So, on that, I'm waiting.

Injuries: everything was better today, except for right after I woke up; moving around a little worked out the little bit of stiffness that I had, and the only thing that's bothered me all day has been my ankle, and that only in the last couple hours. For some reason, bad days seem to follow the good ones, and I'm more than a little afraid of waking up in agony. Maybe that's why I can't sleep. No pain pills today though, that's something.

On the subject of pain pills, I'm somewhat divided, because on the one hand, they allow me to function on the bad days, at the worst moments, I can still get out of bed and move about the house, but I'm always a little hazy on those days, and it's nice to be clear. Would I just be in bed, suffering? Does pain by itself slow healing? When will I stop feeling like I've been hit by a car at 35mph?

Questions for the doctor (appointment on the second): How long will it take me to recover? How much of a recovery can I expect to make? Am I permanently damaged? When can I get rid of the shell? Where is the break exactly? Can I see my X-rays? How much PT (physical therapy) will I need?

Questions for the lawyer: How hard is this going to be? Is all of my stuff (bike, camera) covered? How much PT will I be able to afford? What about lost work time/income?

I've got lists of things that I need and/or want; things that are missing, notably my passport and notebook and flask; lists that I don't know if I'll ever tick off all the items or not. How is it that despite being an invalid unable to drive or walk I have so much to accomplish? And the number of little side things on my mind, besides. For example: I have to get my car registered and licensed this week, and I'm thinking about either getting an iphone or fixing the netbook, but I don't really know which to do, and I can't do anything at all about these things till friday, which is when I get my last paycheck from OSU. The paycheck is a surprise, though. I'm glad for it, and that I'll be able to fix/do stuff once I get it.

Then there's all the nice stuff people have done for me, from loaning books to bringing me beer to just coming over and hanging out and talking. I have a stack of comic books that I've read thanks to Cyrus and a bunch of DVDs that I've half watched on the nod, thanks to Adam M. I had the best cup of coffee I've ever tasted while I was still in the hospital thanks to Francois. I've got beer and good literature thanks to Stuart. I'm just now digging into the lit. Ken got me a freakin' camera, even if it is just on loan for a while. That's why there's still a trickle of pictures up here. I haven't forgotten any of you, and I'm trying to think of something nice to do, in gratitude, once I'm back on my feet.

That's about it. I think I've gone from the surface to the deep parts of what's on my mind. If I wrote any more, I'd be telling my life story, as all the other thoughts I have are just snippets of anecdotes from disconnected stories.

sam's club and the electric cart

2009-05-23T00:00:00+00:00

I've never before actually needed to ride in one, but they say there's a first for everything. Today, I used one of those electric carts to get around sams. FYI, they're a pain when you have to use them. That and for some reason I kept getting dirty looks; I guess because I have the brace on under my shirt people thought I was a healthy person abusing the cart, if that were possible. Oh well. Photos:

For memorial day, or whatever holiday this is. Yay flag.

Bathroom sign at old chicago.

And finally some rain.

Wednesday Cripple

2009-05-21T00:00:00+00:00

Out of the house

2009-05-21T00:00:00+00:00

Went out last night. Did the whole blue note/ladies night thing. Tommy G came and picked me up, and off we went, into the night. It was nice to see some of the people out that I hadn't seen in two weeks. Of course, as sure as the night before, the morning after is a bitch. I woke up and I couldn't move, there was a lot of pain. I'm sure it was a combination of attempting to detox and the night out, but still, I'm glad the pain pills were within arms reach.

So, as things stand, I still need to get a lawyer, I don't know if there's going to be long term damage, and I still don't have a job. Sometimes I need the pain pills and sometimes I don't. it seems to depend on what I've been doing more than anything; the easier I take it, the better off I am.

On the good news list, I have a camera now, thanks to Ken's boss. It's a digi Rebel, nothing to write home about, but it's functional, at least, and I figure I could do worse. It's not like I have any assignments anyway. Project idea: Photograph all the stuff people have loaned/given me while convalescing. I might work on that after my nap. photos of last night to follow later too.

fallout

2009-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

I write this blog for two reasons, to share pictures and so all the people in my life, no matter how far flung, can get an idea of what's going on in my life. Now, since I had the wreck last tuesday, I've only posted once, just putting up some details and leaving it at that. Since then I've been popping pain pills at regular intervals and working my way through the stack of comic books and movies my friends brought by. Then someone bitches in the comments that I'm boring him. I told him to go fuck himself, because, hey, I deserve a couple days off for the broken back.

On the other hand, I do have a few updates to pass along. I got out of the hospital Friday, and promptly took a nap. When I woke up I realized I hadn't looked at my camera in several days, so I pulled it out and found it was broken. My 50mm 1.2 won't autofocus and the mode dial no longer works at all. And the battery door is broken off. The bag I was carrying has a hole in it, too.

It's hard to get up and down, but I can walk and stand pretty well, although that does depend on me keeping up with the pain pills- one every four hours and I can move and function pretty well. On the pain meds, I can do most normal stuff.

I didn't take any before I went to sleep last night, mostly because I was feeling fine and I really don't like the drugged feeling. This morning, I was regretting that decision, because all of the minor aches had turned to major ones, and it was a task just to sit up in bed. I took pills, and now I'm fine. I can't wait for the day when I don't depend on pills to get around the house. Should be soon.

the wreck

2009-05-14T00:00:00+00:00

since I've told this about twenty times yesterday and today, and a lot of those tellings were under the influence of strong drugs, i figure one more time won't hurt.

i was riding my bike into town on 4th street and a car t-boned me hit me from the rear. The lady said she was singing to her kids. my lights were on, and i'd bet they weren't looking. I can't remember any of what happened. paramedics said the car was pretty messed up, but they also noticed I had my lights on. at least the car didn't run off.

they took me to ou med center, where they determined I have a spinal fracture but no damage to my spinal cord. bruised ribs, some cuts, and my right ankle is stiff. I'm alive and I'll heal, which is the good news. i'm going to be laid up for a while though, have to wear a torso brace for 6 weeks.

everybody's been awesome, thanks for all the support, food, books, and just dropping in to visit. I'm here till tomorrow at least, then home and more rest. pills. no bike for a while. if you want to get in touch but don't have my number, just send me a direct message on twitter. laters.

(Edit to fix how the accident happened, I was more bruised on one side than the other, making me think I was t-boned).

another wreck

2009-05-14T00:00:00+00:00

since I've told this about twenty times today, and a lot of those tellings were under the influence of strong drugs, i figure one more time won't hurt.

i was riding into town on 4th street and a car t-boned me. my lights were on, and i'd bet money they weren't looking. paramedics said the car was pretty messed up too.

Finally, I know where the flats are coming from

2009-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

Or at least some of them. It's a bad idea to leave your bike in a hot car- heat raises pressure and softens rubber, and then before you know it, you've had 10 flats in just a few weeks. And it's always a bummer to go out to get your wheels for a ride and find flats.

Last night was a typical monday- blue note pool, tommy g night ride, but with a couple bonuses. Ran into some people who told me rumors of photo work, so that's pretty awesome. Also: Alibi's, which I'd never been to before last night, has $3 bottomless cups of beer. It's shitty light beer, but it will make drunkface just fine.

Meet Tasha. Cool chick. I fixed her bike a little. And by fixed her bike, you know what I mean. Flat tire, of course.

So, after some drinking, it was time to ride and work off the beer. We got about a mile, and then I had a blowout. My guess is my rim strip already had a hole from the first blowout of the night, which happened in my car before the evening started. So, I had to sit around and wait for some one to go grab my car, and then we made a walmart run for more tubes, and then the ride was back on.

self, tasha. Tommy needs his own camera, he's got a good eye.

By the time we were actually riding, it was 3:30am. We did a couple parking garages, a little bricktown, I skidded the ramp in front of the theater (it's a really long ass ramp, ~100 yards), and the freewheel riding dudes (tommy and lem) I was with didn't care.

"Wouldn't it be cool to climb that fire escape," Tommy said. "Except for the fall and die part," I said.

Lem

Tommy

Water Boarding Party

2009-05-10T00:00:00+00:00

remember when I said I was bored with taking pictures of drunk people? somebody heard that and responded with the wildest, craziest thing I've ever seen at a party. They had a water boarding party. In priest robes.

They swore up and down that they'd gotten them legally. The robes. And as for the water torture, well, what's a little torture between friends?

Actually, everyone pouring got poured on too, so it was at least sort of fair. And there was a "safe word," in the form of a hammer that the person on the board would drop when they'd had enough. Which was usually seconds. Nobody made it very long.

Right now, you're thinking to yourself, "Did MM get waterboarded?" and the answer is a definite no. I drowned once before (note, the near-death count has gone up since then), was resuscitated, and for about six years of my childhood I didn't go near the water, and I took very shallow baths. So, I don't need to experience simulated drowning, I've had the real thing.

Other than the torture, it was a pretty standard evening, with a lot of beer and liquor consumed, and crashing out on the couch. I hadn't been letting myself get that drunk, but once in a while it's fun. At least I didn't black out.

felt like saturday all night...

2009-05-09T00:00:00+00:00

Band plays art opening. Man bites dog.

So yesterday was really crazy. For a dude like me, who doesn't have normal, that means it was extra special.

A little taste of ISO 25,000. THIS IS HOW REAL MEN TAKE PICTURES.

(edit out long drawn out account of room cleaning, wheel building, and finally bike tube acquisition, which was crazy to do, but after writing it out, boring to tell).

These two old dudes were just sitting togetther mooning over each other in a loud bar filled with people a third their age. Aww.

Then there was booze cruise and Sauced and Hi lo, and hanging out at Erin/Colby's place, with some random Cmay thrown in just because my night wasn't interesting enough already.

People always do this. Not usually in triplicate, though.

On a random somewhat tangentially related note (but who wants boring details?) I realized last night that I like philosophies that allow me to do nothing and reap benefits for it. That's all.

Bike ride? Bike ride.

kamps

2009-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

I hate grading

2009-05-06T00:00:00+00:00

You know that story about how some monasteries require applicants to stand outside and wait for three days before they can enter? After a semester of teaching a bunch of kids who are just there to fill in a blank on their degree rubric, I understand that now. So many people aren't in college to learn, they're there to buy a piece of paper. And when you expect them to do more than sit there in class and stare at the wall, they balk. Sometimes there's one or two good students, but they're the exception. It would be nice if we could limit our students to those who wanted to learn.

Dinner on no diet day. Gotta love it.

Oh well. I'll never be an ancient sage of anything, either, and I'm not taking another teaching job, unless it's teaching photography as art. I'll never forget the blank faces I got after showing my students "La Jetee." It wasn't that they didn't understand the film, they had just ignored it. Anyway, the sun is shining, the outside is gorgeous, and I'm off.

stoking my paranoia

2009-05-05T00:00:00+00:00

from Schneier:

... Twenty years ago, if someone wanted to look through your correspondence, he had to break into your house. Now, he can just break into your ISP. Ten years ago, your voicemail was on an answering machine in your office; now it's on a computer owned by a telephone company. Your financial accounts are on remote websites protected only by passwords; your credit history is collected, stored, and sold by companies you don't even know exist.

And more data is being generated. Lists of books you buy, as well as the books you look at, are stored in the computers of online booksellers. Your affinity card tells your supermarket what foods you like. What were cash transactions are now credit card transactions. What used to be an anonymous coin tossed into a toll booth is now an EZ Pass record of which highway you were on, and when. What used to be a face-to-face chat is now an e-mail, IM, or SMS conversation -- or maybe a conversation inside Facebook.

Security itself is an illusion. It is a perception that exists only between our ears. No army, insurance policy, hazmat team, video surveillance or explosive sniffer can protect us from our own immune system, a well-intentioned but clumsy surgeon, failing to look before crossing the street, an asteroid randomly hurtling through space or someone willing to die in order to do others harm.

Creative Commons

2009-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

Just added a CC tag to the bottom of the blog. I had always meant to, but it slipped my mind until this business with the AP threatening to sue people for quoting, linking, etc. So you know that it is: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Now back to your regularly scheduled blog.

for sale (ignore this unless you're interested)

2009-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

Here you can see the rewind knob is a little broken. It still works, but isn't pretty.

Time for a new bag

2009-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

This is one of those "the shit in my bag" posts, sort of. Way back when, I didn't carry that much, life was simple, and if there was anything I needed but didn't have, I could usually just do without it.

Things are more complicated for me now. I often find myself away from home for a couple days at a time, so the stuff I carry has ballooned a bit. For the last several months I've been using a "Metropolis" chrome bag (I've had the bag for years, actually, but I prefer smaller bags when I can get away with them). The problem with the bag, and shoulder bags in general, is that they're very picky about how they're packed- if things are arranged wrong, something's always digging into your back, and if they're full, they stick out and fit weird. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but it seems to me that when you've got a lot of gear, a backpack is the way to haul it.

And actually, the chrome bag is the perfect size for the hardware I carry- my cameras, my laptop, the cords and chargers, etc. But if I need anything more, say a jacket, an extra layer of clothing, and/or a water bottle, then there's just not enough room to wear it comfortably. This was brought home rather painfully this morning trying to bike in a t-shirt with a wind chill of 30ËšF. I made it from 23rd and robinson to 10th and broadway- about a mile, give or take some meandering and alleys. I could tell that trying to ride the rest of the way home from there would be a bad idea- a frozen matt mills can't ride his bike or take pictures or philander or any of the fun stuff. Beyond that, dying of exposure in the city with a charged cell phone is stupid. So I called my dad, and he came and picked me up.

I'm too lazy to make a list, and this photo is short my flask and some tools I can't seem to find, but this is everything else.

I'm a chronic couch surfer, a product of living in the burbs and partying in the city. That and all my friends live in the city. The best solution would be to move, and as soon as I have a job that lasts more than two weeks, I'm going to do that. (Remember: I'm available to photograph anything but weddings, even on short notice). For now though, I'm switching bags. Sorry Chrome, you're cool and all, but it's time to go back to my roots, a nice big backpack I've had for like 10 years. Stuffed very full, it'll hold everything I need for a week of hard travel- say, everything I'd encounter between here and timbuktu. As it is, I can put everything I need for a weekend of night parties and morning blogging.

The bag all loaded. Not too huge.

Awake and working after the party

2009-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

Mesta park, rolling around, version 1.

Mornings like this one are why I started carrying my laptop in the first place. everyone else is fast asleep, but I'm up, can't sleep, and so it works out that I should be here, typing.

Yesterday was one hell of a day. I got up and made myself the perfect cup of coffee, Siracha coffee beans in the french press. Then I had another cup, the bottom of the pot, while I caught up on newsfeeds and twitter and all that.

And then this is version 2.

While I was chatting with Grant, I had a brilliant idea: convert my used cd's into a radio scanner. What use is a scanner, you say? Information about what is going on. News as it happens. Things to take photos of. This particular conversion was by way of the used record store, so I grabbed all the ones that were worth anything, and started to head that direction.

I got as far as my car, which I discovered was dead, and so I tried to start my other car (a mostly-broken mercury sable) and found that it too was dead. So I went back in the house, got my bike, and headed to the record store.

I get to the shop, tell the lady I'm selling if she's buying, and she takes my stack of cd's to examine them and make me an offer.

"$55?" the woman behind the counter offers, rejecting one. "Sure," I reply- it doesn't seem like enough, but I'm hoping to hit up a pawn shop and get lucky.

So the first pawn shop I go to, I have to explain that no, a scanner isn't the same as a CB. They don't have anything. I'm ready to give up on the day at this point, but as my path took me down reno towards downtown, I passed another pawn shop, and stopped in to see.

This was one of those slightly sketchy places, the kind that sells more guns and ammo than anything. That, and they have a large selection of used tools. I asked one of the guys behind the counter, did they have any scanners? He allows that they do, right this way. He one pulls down from a shelf which is mostly pistol ammo, a handheld that seems perfect. I turn it over and see the price: $69.99. He's gone off to ring up someone else, so I fiddle with it a bit, find out that it covers a ton of spectrum,and then when I get his attention, I ask him if he'll take 50 for it. He says yes, 50 plus tax, and so I say sold.

This was pretty much the entire crowd the whole time I was at Uptown.

From there, I go to fourth street and ride into the city. Beatnix for lunch, and they really do have the best hot roast beef in town. If only they'd get sourdough bread, it'd be perfect. I sat there after my sandwich was finished, and programmed in all the frequencies that the public services us here in the city- something like 35 channels in all. Then I have business to do.

The saga of the missing pictures continued with yours truly going to sauced and finding them still down, but Matty promised they'd be up by five, and that they were just moving things around, etc, etc. Which reminds me, I've gotta go back by there today and see what they put up, how it was done, and really if anything got done at all.

I killed about two hours then, playing with my new radio in the park. The thing I've heard on that thing already are hilarious and interesting and I think it might work out to be a good thing.

Dinner with Grant, Damaris, Timmy, Kolby, Erin, and this girl from Tulsa, can't think of her name, it might come to me later. Indian food, way out on 23rd street, really good, really filling.

Random dude. Every party needs at least one to liven things up.

Then it was time to go to the dance party, only there wasn't much dancing or partying going on at uptown united. For most of the time I was there, there were more people chilling outside than inside dancing. And I do mean chilling. It got chilly for this correspondent; I was only wearing a t-shirt, though.

Timmy, passin' out.

After waiting an hour and drinking all of my beer, The party still wasn't really going, So I left, back to rendezvous with Timmy and some of the rest of the gang; we met at Grant's, and then went from there to the former bike cave, where there was much drinking and cards and dice, and pizza and passing out also.

This was the pizza part of the evening.

The dog even got some.

There. That was my friday. Now I'm going to try to pass out for a little while.

4 hrs

2009-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

4 hours sleep... moving the banked track with the RDR roller girls... five hours of bike polo. Can't think straight. So photos.

I know this is from last night, and you know where to file complaints. I like it.
Moving party! With some beer.
Polo break.
Sparks run? what's wrong with this picture?

Grant plays with his new camera.
Erin:

Midnight bike rides part eleventy-million

2009-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

Tuesday, I went out for a bike ride, just to get a little air, and ended up at the blue note, which has become my bar of first resort. I actually made really good time on the ride in, at least for me: 7 miles in half an hour.

When I got there, Chris was sitting at the bar (hi chris). Next thing I know, I'm doing an irish car bomb with him and Victoria, and the night rolls out from there. A couple beers and a couple shots later, we head back to Chris' house. On the way, I confirmed what I'd heard earlier in the day: my work had all been taken down from Sauced. It's gone, and I'm pissed. Fuck Sauced.

Eyeing a bolt-hole to attach the chain guard.

Anyway, we got to Chris' house, which he shares with KW, and I watched Lisa put the finishing touches on her bike. It's a cute girl cruiser, fashionable and functional.

The bike. Yes, I know it'a a little blurry, so was I.

Then I rode my ass home, no idea how long it took, but it was a pretty nice ride, except for the south wind. I always pass by this last scene, but for some reason early on April Fool's day, it grabbed me. Who cares if I look foolish? Nobody was around, anyway.

Blue Note. Again.

2009-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

At the blue note on a wednesday, although I started the night at McNellie's. It feels better to be making portraits, although I've lost all sense as to whether these are any good or not. I was just a little off the whole night (actually, for the last several nights) and I can't put my finger on why, exactly. Oh well, it'll work itself out.

Cat gives me the crazy eye.
This is a look that says "I can't believe I've run into my ex" and "How can I get away from him?" Trust me, I was there.
Cyrus does normal? is this a fluke?

ok, some pictures already

2009-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

It was a nice uneventful weekend... well, things happened, but it was fun and nobody got hurt this time, which is to say no fights, trips to the hospital, supergluing of wounds, etc. So all of the things that have defined my weekends of partying didn't happen. Just drinking, followed by sobering up in some chill spot (thanks to the bike cave and the schofield house, respectively, for their hospitality). Anyway, photos:

Matty at HiLo- yes, that's a plastic tiara on his head.
Tanner, at the bike cave, concentrating on some Texas hold 'em. I passed out like a narcoleptic on valium.
Andria, while she was getting me shitfaced on sunday afternoon. Jager is still a good time though.
Bartender, chatting. This was moments after she was showing off her tongue's lack of connective tissue. I like this picture better though.
Trinity and her beau, forgotten his name. She was saying something about me taking pictures at monster's ball.
Rainstorms, tonight. Hope tomorrow is nice, I've got work to do.

I'll only add to these that three times in the past five days women have offered to pose scantily/provocatively clad for me. I'm not a skeezy dude, they asked me, but it's kinda funny. What change in my complete lack of game caused all this? More as it develops. (oh yeah, and bike polo post soon).

I suck at team sports pt 1

2009-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

I'm sure there will eventually be a part two to this, but my stomach started disagreeing with me, and is only now, a day and a half later, finally settling down. So I only played one game, and only shot two of them, and then I ran off to drink (see previous post). Anyway, here's the goods:

Start with ladies' night

2009-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

"I have something in my nose? What?"

So, It's very early on friday morning, and I have about three posts in the queue. They're all vaguely about drinking, and/or bikes, and or insightful important need-to-know information. Those are the only types of posts I do, so we'll see if I can do them all in one feel swoop.

Sigrid was there, writing on people's knuckles.

Wednesday was the famous and ever popular ladies night at The Blue Note, and really it was a nice time. I walked in and there was Cyrus, chillin' at the bar with a new 'dew. I actually like the new hair better, even though it is a little funny to see Cyrus in a crew cut. I laughed, I admit it.

For example: Reaghan.

We were the two drunks at the end of the bar solving the world's problems. We came to the conclusion that people are better taken individually than in groups- there's some context missing, but that's what I remembered hung over this morning. That and a lot of pretty girls. Which brings me to the next part of the story. (You people reading this should realize that this narrative has a pretty good basis in fact, but I'm glossing over the boring parts of the evening).

Then Cyrus upstaged all this knuckle writing by doing his whole forearm.

New girl comes over, Jordan, we meet, get to talking, and it turns out she wants to be a Suicide Girl, but needs a photographer. I was, of course, doing my normal thing, taking drunkpictures at the bar, and so she asked me if I would do it, and me being an idiot, a sucker for a pretty lady, I said sure. So it's me and Cyrus and her hanging out and drinking, and one thing leads to another, and they're kind of talking, and then I look over and they're making out. Making out pictures don't do anything for me, but I snap a few anyway, because the impulse to document is still there.

Like I said, making out pictures don't do anything for me, but I love her surprised smile in this picture.

So I turn to Rachel, who was sitting at out table, and say something, chit chat like, and then Jordan says "Matt!" and pulls up her shirt. Reflexes and impulses being what they are, I snapped a couple frames. Demand all you want, but I'm not going to post that on the internet unless she tells me to, which is unlikely.

Does this look like a girl who would flash the camera for fun and profit? I like it, either way.

From there, the night is a blur of the HiLo and then to Reaghan's new abode, where there was this somewhat interesting other girl, but then everybody passed out pretty quick, and nothing happened. Her name was Kat, I'm pretty sure, and I remember her asking about my camera earlier in the night. Maybe I'll run into her again. If not, it's the bus theory of meeting women. I'll let you work that one out while I'm working on the next post.

Walking back to my car, there was a random tractor. But that's oklahoma.

Bike polo

2009-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

Bike polo is fun. Evidence:

Always remember the super glue

2009-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

So, tonight, during the course of bike polo, and well before I'd arrived, Timmy wacked the back of his head against a concrete pillar. Whe I first saw it, I thought it wasn't that bad, but after a second look, I realized the wound, while small, was all the way through the skin and really needed some kind of closure. I jokingly said I could stitch it up if we could find a needle and thread.

Now, I do have some pretty good first aid training and experience under my belt, so when Timmy actually wanted me to stitch it up, I thought, ok, no problem, told him it would hurt, but we could do it. So we all went back to grant's house, and we got out a needle and thread, I sterilized it in bleach, and we waited for grant to get back from the store with some peroxide to clean out the wound. Before you even think it, yes, I know that peroxide robs the tissue of oxygen, but iodine is harder to get in the middle of the night.

We all go into the dining room and I lay down a towel and pour in the disinfectant. It's a little cut, but it really needed like two stitches to close it and keep out infection. It wasn't going to close on its own. So, I stick the needle in. It goes through with a little pushing, and then refuses to come out the other side. So I pull it out, bend the needle some more, and try again. Still no joy; the point is just too dull.

We talk about taking him to a doc-in-a-box clinic, and Grant is looking up phone numbers when somebody brings up the possibility of super glue. I don't remember who, but I'm still kicking myself for not thinking of it before I tried to stitch him up. It's perfect for little out of the way wounds that need to be closed but can't be sutured for whatever reason (lack of insurance and sharp needles this time). So, Grant goes to the store again, gets some super glue, and the cut is fixed up better than the ER would have done in about five seconds.

Moral of the story: Don't forget the super glue.

twitter thoughts too long for twitter

2009-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

A conversation today on twitter got me to thinking about photography, and culture and style and art and society. There was a photographer, who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent, who's work really demonstrates all that's wrong with the world right now.

The photographer that brought up all these questions is a very successful commercial photographer. Very polished, styled images. There are a lot of things that I don't like about them. A lot of his images are super low contrast, with no blacks (tonality, not people) at all, while also cropping off body parts willy-nilly. His lighting also bothers me- the photos strike me as the kind you need an army of assistants (well, at least two or three) to maintain-complex and unnatural. Not every shot should be into the light, all of them can't be at golden hour, and sweat is never that perfectly placed. It's a distinctive look, but it's a plastic look, it's one I've seen a thousand times before.

We live in a dissafected, disenfranchised society. There are the indebted, and there are the people we owe money to. The rich are few and far between, something like 5% of the population at any given time, depending on your definition of rich. Money as we think of it now has no basis in the real world, but is merely some numbers in digital domains.

Given that, where is art? It's all gold and glam and crazy hair and tight pants. It's abstract and disconnected and complex. It's thin, insubstantial. It's going to fall apart.

It's the lack of substance that I keep coming back to in my thinking; those photographs, even of somewhat interesting subjects, were plastic and boring, stamped out of a mill of complicated lights and staged action-peaks that only look like decisive moments. They are the shiny object, to be consumed and tossed away without thought.

Where are the real photographs, the photographers of the world as it is? I'm not talking about people wandering to far flung regions to uncover the the worst of the worst, I'm talking about the local people, the ones doing projects and reporting on local things? Where are these photographers? They're out there, I'm sure it's not just me laboring under a delusion. I know because I'm one of 'em.

This one goes out to Mom

2009-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

Yeah, sure, sappy, I know. Go fuck yourself. My mom is in the hospital for the 13th time since September. Or was it August? I can't remember when she started dialysis, but it was around then. 3 A.V. fistulas, a peritoneal port, 6 cardiac caths, a couple infections, surgeries to install and remove the above, time for monitoring, recovering, etc, etc. She's been through a lot. And she's still not done, although it now seems that they've got a handle on why the fistulas keep failing so consistently, it's a 2% of the population kind of problem. Now she's going to rest for a couple months and they're going to do something different for a dialysis access.

She might murder me for posting this, but oh well, at least then I won't have to worry about my student loans. This was right before they took her back for surgery today.

Home, where the laptop is

2009-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

Phil the wonderdog, and his owner Todd.

So, it was a fairly disastrous weekend, with a few redeeming moments that made the trip to Austin just shy of a total waste. So I blogged about Thursday evening, and then took my laptop into the kitchen for some browsing and conversation. I plugged in the laptop so it could charge, and then when I got up I tripped over the cord and knocked it onto the floor, breaking the screen. So, sans laptop, I didn't blog or process pictures the rest of the weekend.

Steves was there, somewhat improbably.

That afternoon, there was an alley cat and a movie premiere. I got DFL in the alley cat, and saw half the movie, which looked pretty good, and then decided to strike out towards the action. There were free drinks somewhere, I could smell them. Come to think of it, that might have been the empty beer in my hand. Oh well.

The bikes piled up before the alleycat. Yay dfl!

That night, my luck was a little better. We got in to a party with free tequila, but then, standing in a long line waiting for drinks, Sarah decdided to go see Devo, who I don't care about, and so we all left the party with the free booze and I went and walked sixth street for a couple hours while they were at the show. That's where I saw the coolest thing of the whole trip.

There was a guy standing between two van de graaff (lightning) generators, all covered in chainmail. The lightning striking him was modulated so that the lightning was a speaker. The lightning noise was the music.

F'ing amazing.

From there, I wandered until my feet hurt, then sat a little, then wandered a little, in a "diminishing returns" situation until I was walking a block and sitting on a curb for five minutes, and then getting up and moving along. Somewhere in there was pizza and a coke. Then Devo was over, and everyone went back to the party with the free drinks, where, after I'd had one beer and one shot of tequila, they ran out of booze.

Back at the house to sleep, only to wake up in the morning to no computer and no internets. Saturday was half-decent DJ's during the day followed by a rather nice evening hanging with Todd (my host, remember) and his girlfriend Kelli. Fairly interesting people, the both of them. Todd really really needs to show his paintings in a gallery. I know people, professional art people (gallery people), who would kill for paintings like his.

Oh yeah, cmay was there too.

Sunday morning, we woke up and drove back. Contained in that sentence was another highlight of the trip- driving north on I-35, big puffy clouds overhead, radiohead on the stereo, and finally, for a little while, everything was right with the world. Now I'm home.

People at the "Mess with Texas" show right next to the capitol. This was a nice moment when I was sitting on a rock.

SXSW update....

2009-03-20T00:00:00+00:00

So we're still here, still haven't seen any shows, and if it weren't for our gracious and intelligent host, we wouldn't even have had and free beer. Austin is really going to have to kick it up a notch to save itself from this one.

Beginning of the night, all dressed up, still hopeful.

We went to the party 45 minutes early and there was already a line a couple hundred people long. For some reason, when you tell people free beer and hot DJ's, they line up like it's the cure for stupidity. And then stand there. For two hours. While people cut, and get to go in vip.

On the way, the night looked promising.

Seems to me it's an intelligence test. It sounds like a good idea to go stand in line for a little while and get a bunch of free shit- booze, music, hot, scantily clad women etc. There's a limit to how much you can stand there though, and here's where the intelligence test comes in: the smarter you are, the sooner you leave. When we left, there were still 200 people standing in line, not about to get in.

The line, when we got there. Seemed like we'd get in.

Now, they were at capacity when they stopped letting people in, I'm sure. But after a bunch of people leave, why not let the people at the front of the line in? Instead, they were only allowing VIP's, which unfortunately, we're not.

The same line, 45 minutes later.

So, we gave up after about an hour of just standing there. In our defense, there were maybe 20 people in front of us; it seemed possible, when they said they were at capacity, that we might get in after some people left. Then we came back to the house, (Todd's house) and drank beer and talked late into the night with todd, todd's friend who works for SNL, and his girlfriend, who's name I've forgotten. Longtime blogreaders and friends will know this is because I'm horrible with names.

This was as far as we got. Then we gave up and commenced drinking.

In austin. on a couch.

2009-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

So, throwing yourself at the mercy of the universe occasionally does work out. I'm on a couch here in Austin, TX, mere miles from downtown and the famous and ever popular SXSW music fest.

The whole journey started this morning, when Sarah twittered about going to SXSW today, to catch some band. So I called her and asked if she could delay an extra half hour, to give me time to get my shit together ( I thought we were leaving tomorrow). She told me she didn't really have shit together either, and so I had time, meet at her house, and everything would be cool.

It took for-ev-er to get out of OKC though- one thing after another kept going wrong, or errands that should have taken just a few minutes took an hour, and on and on. It was like the karmic forces of the city didn't want to let us go. Finally, after something like 2 hours of running around, we were ready to go.

The drive down was good- there was a nice sunset, some McD's, a little nap, and not a few pictures. I drove the last 40 minutes, and after a couple tries, parallel parked the car on an off street east of downtown. We got on our bikes, and not two minutes later were yelled at by some cops. Nice job austin PD, making people new in town feel welcome.

So, jetting away from that situation (nice thing about bikes in a city- there's little chance for someone in a car to catch you), we found ourselves right in the middle of the maddness, on the mainline, we hit the central nerve, etc, etc. Only to be greeted by a sign outside all the official venues: no photography without a press pass. Bullshit I say. The good news is that for the most part we're going to be frequenting unofficial parties and venues; apparently that's where the best parts are.

Went from there to the long branch, which was a cool little joint. Nice atmos, good music, interesting clientele (if you could call them that). I had a couple beers, and that (and a short ride back to the car, and a short car ride) brings me to the present tense. Oh yeah, and there's a crazy jumpy dog in the house we're staying at.

day 1 sxsw

2009-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

Today has kinda been a blur... there was morning coffee, burritos, american appearal factory seconds sale, walking around, biking around, whole foods, lots of music, lost of fun. And I haven't even had any free beer yet.

Japanther rocks your face off

2009-03-18T00:00:00+00:00

Show was good. bunch of good pics. invented the unintentional photo essay. Don't worry, I'll explain later. Gotta go get my shit together for SXSW. See you all on the flip side.

a few from last night

2009-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

FYI, she's staring at tanner trying to track stand and chug beers. Tanner was able to get three without a foot down, but that photo just looks like a dude chugging beer on a bike.

Jim, all dressed up at the party. Martini: extra dirty. Suit: extra sharp.

Adam Lock, back in town for the week.

Three guys play some music

2009-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

Ended up at sauced friday, and didn't have time to post these yesterday. some people might say that makes me a bad blogger, but they need to get a life. The band is called, I think, The Double Clutchers. I could tell they were having fun, not a bad sound, but a lot of covers. I enjoyed it.

This girl is not a member of the band. Rule of thumb: stripes = trouble. She's not wearing paisley, that's all I'm sayin'.

test

2009-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

trying to post to get the feed to update. real post coming in a bit with photos of a band. fun.

Pictures until I was too drunk to focus

2009-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

By which I actually mean there are more photos, and some of them are in focus, but after the last one here (which we'll pretend was intentional), I was walking the fine line between blackout and just stupid, and so none of those photos are any good.

I'm actually not sure any of these are any good, but they're kind of fun, at least. That's the threshold these days for blog-worthy photos, if I think someone I know will get a laugh or like it or link or somesuch, then I'll put it up. Actually, there's a quality threshold as well, see paragraph 1 for example.

Wednesday was a pretty epic night, and actually it's a good thing, because my money's just about run out again. Time to find another jobby job. I did a pretty good job of embarrassing myself in front of girls I barely know, and some old friends in the mix too. It's strange, the way things run in circles sometimes.

I've never seen a look on Cyrus's face like the one below, but it's probably always there under the surface- a sort of laughing incredulity. Either that or it's drunkface and I'm reading too much into a picture.

Reagan always makes the best photo-faces. It's like she's screaming "I"M REAGAN" with her whole face.

And here's the old friends I was talking about- Chase and Brian- I've known Brian since high school. He'll probably get pissed and send me more death threats, but that's a risk I'm willing to take to bring everyone quality photos.

I really like this pic, for some ineffable reason. I know, I know. Shoot me.

Openbeta2

2009-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

Last night was openbeta, and it was actually a really cool interesting event. I'm not just saying that, you know; a lot of talks and conferences bore the shit out of me, and I just leave in the middle of them. OK, so I stepped out for a smoke in the middle of one of the boring lightning talks, but other than that, it was good.

This is Grant, giving his demo of Twircl, which still hasn't launched, but is by far the coolest thing I've seen one of my friends come up with since art school. Twircl is a direct group messaging app that runs on top of twitter, something that the system needs.

These are the wimgo girls, and, well, do I really need to say anything. Thanks for the pen, ladies.

Grant kills 'em with his presentation:

Voltron Presents: Why they're awesome. I need to find out if they have any staff photographer openings. Maybe they need a screwball wandering correspondent for their web side? Y/Y?

The view from OKCCoCo:

Afterparty:

There was a good reason for these faces, but I can't remember for the life of me why.

Film is too much

2009-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

Shooting in a bit of a different mode yesterday. With the digital camera. Decided film was too expensive. So sue me. I don't think the look suffers that much.

I like how even the McD's sign is screwed up.

Every time I talk about this project, people bring up the tower theatre; looking at the fron of it, I wonder if it wouldn't be easier to just build a new one in the vacant lot across the street.

The shooting yesterday wasn't as good, as fulfilling as is was the first couple outings; I thought, walking back, that I might just give up the project and move on. But it seems like I'm onto something; the dilapidation there is a symptom of the wider economic problems. I can't tell if it's getting worse or better. Also, I look at the pictures, see I'm doing good work, and can hardly stop myself.

Some random photos:

2009-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

There's a post about momentum coming, but to tide everyone over until I can get that together, here's some photos from earlier in the week. Francois, on wednesday:

Ray-guns, at McNellie's:

Cody at blue note:

It was one of those nights where I was the drunk one. Not as drunk as some people, though, and that turned out to be a good thing. I told Sarah early on in the night that I'd make sure she got home alright. She did, and I crashed on her couch. My good deed for the week done, I give you the morning after:

More in a few minutes, when I get the real momentum post together.

Momentum Artshow

2009-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

Momentum 09 was last night, and I was really surprised by the quality and scope and size and attendance of the show. It was packed, the work was 75% good, all stuff I'm not used to seeing in this town, and it filled a freaking warehouse.

There were a lot of big open installations, a lof of big cool paintings, some shit photos (sorry everyone, but the photo showing this year just wasn't that great, with a few notable exceptions). Hving these clouds right by the entrance set the mood for the place: it was as if someone took a piece of a real art scene out of the air of New York or Santa Fe and stuck it here in oak city, improbably and strangely. So it seemed natural to see a crib full of beer bongs and a whole room of homoerotic black fraternity induction paintings.

Then there was my friend Bobby's band, playing a pretty rad live set. If they'd had a cd available, I'd have bought one, and that's not something I do a lot. These kids know how to rock.

Then there was this womblike installation in what used to be a woman's restroom. It was completely transformed and amazing; all it needed was some giant pillows on the floor and some mild hallucinogenic gas in the air and it would have been perfect.

I didn't know what to think of the deer. But I like the photo, so sue me.

Some MC, not all that great. Nobody's perfect, maybe he was havin' an off night.

Then there was the after after after party, which was really about four people in Jim's apartment eating cheese and drinking french wine. I'd like to say it was a nice end to the night, but there were a couple fights on the lawn that complicated things. So instead it was kind of a haggard exhausted end to the evening, but at least it was in good company.

Candid Portraits for Hire

2009-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

So, this is a New Idea. At least, I think it's new, and if it isn't, well, I don't know anybody that does it. The idea is, a lot of people like to have good pictures of their family; in fact, this is the only thing a lot of people care to have pictures of. But studio pictures from places like walmart or sears or even glamour shots suck.

So instead of a studio, what about the home? And instead of a quick grin-and-grab, what about spending some time with the family, say two hours- over dinner, maybe, or an afternoon in the park? Candid pictures the whole time, and give the family digital copies that they can do whatever they want with? If they want to order prints through me, that's fine, but I'd rather make money shooting than printing, so that's where the charges come from.

The pictures here in this post were shot in the space of about an hour and a half; These aren't all of the keepers, just enough for a teaser. I ended up sending the family 25 images in all, all of which I was happy with.

So, if anyone is interested in this being done with their family, just drop me a line at my email, rates are negotiable, and depend on how much and what you want me to do.

Just photos

2009-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

Just photos. need flickr next.

She swears she hit her eye on a cabinet door, and actually I believe her.

Kanaly busts a move.

Ole?

Perspectives? More like Photos

2009-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

Last night was portrait night, or a really wild ass night, or a depressing fucker, or a wild debauch, all depending on your perspective. Crying girls, a night in the drunk tank, someone got neck punched, someone else got shot down, couple people got laid (I assume), someone went 59mph on rollers, it goes on and on. Me, I took it mellow, took some pictures, and passed out on a couch. I'm feeling lazy, so here's photos. If you want more details, call someone who knows.

Crane go Boom

2009-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

Crane accident at the Dean Mcgee Eye institute's new construction. No injuries reported at this time, however the operator did have to call home for a spare pair of pants to be brought to the site.

Seriously, it's a good thing that nobody got hurt, and I can't help but think it's probably a indicator of good procedure somewhere that nobody was stupid enough to be underneath the running crane. As for the causes, could be operator error, could be equipment malfunction, I don't know. Five minutes from now it'll be old news.

Update: My dad (a pipe weldor with ~40 years on construction sites) tells me that it was almost definitely operator error. The main line was pulled too tight, the cable snapped, everything jumps and goes slack, at which point the lack of tension causes the jib to fall. It was a huge stroke of luck, according to dad, that the crane came down in an empty area, and also that the operator is alive.

another cool montage

2009-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

Warning: this thing does contain some explicit images, so if boobs offend you, f off until you grow up, ok? On with the show:

Found via 1854, the blog of the British journal of photography. Appearently somebody is trying to get this banned or unbanned at a festival across the pond. That story is here. Cool work, anyway.

your camera does matter

2009-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

OK, so I'm tired of all this bullshit on the web about how your camera doesn't matter, no need for that 4000 dollar setup, etc. Then there was this crap (which I got via kottke, a pretty good blog usually) about how the old masters, those before autofocus and autoexposure had it about the same as anyone with a point and shoot. The photographers he mentions for the most part shot with Leicas, cameras renowned for their speed, quality, and ability to work in low light even with the ISO 400 films of the time. (The author of that piece confuses old color emulsions, which were very slow, with black and white, which have been reasonable since the mid nineteen thirties). Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of my personal heroes, whom he mentions by name, was famous for almost always using a 50mm f/2 lens and ISO 400 Tri-x, moderately fast film with incredible tonalities possible.

I'm not saying it's impossible to make good photos with cheap or lesser cameras. I'm even using some of the shots from my old G9 in the book I'm trying to produce. But telling people to buck up and try harder in the face of the crap that is the consumer camera market right now, well, that's bullshit. The factors that are comparable are not the important ones to photographers. The important things are all related to creative control and perspective. The reason little digital cameras mostly suck is you have little control over how the thing sees; it's very hard to fit your vision into a little screen. Here's a list of the things that do matter, though:

1. Format size. This comes before every other consideration, as it is a defining characteristic of how the camera will work, its weight, how the image is printed, how depth of field is established, all sorts of things. Bigger gives higher technical image quality, and smaller means better ease of use. My personal choice is the 24x36mm rectangle- a good balance between optical and tonal qualities and the ability to move around. Notice I say here "format" and not "megapixels"; the difference being that format is very important and megapixels aren't anymore.

2. Shutter Lag. THIS WAS ALMOST NUMBER ONE. That's because it's so often overlooked and it's perhaps the most important to the most photographers (potential and actual). A camera's shutter lag needs to be small, less than one tenth of a second, for it to be remotely useful in getting a moment, which for me is all of photography. Most crappy (P&S) cameras, you could press the shutter button, go have lunch, come back, start a pot of coffee for the afternoon, and then, finally, the camera will make the exposure. Completely unacceptable. In most old manual cameras, this wasn't a problem, because the mechanical path from the shutter to the button was short and fast.

3. Focal Length. You may say that for a given photographer, they will have many lenses, but many tend toward one end of the spectrum or another- James Nachtwey uses wide angles a lot, Cartier-Bresson preferred the fifty (normal in his preferred 35mm format), paparazzi live and die by their telephoto lenses, and if you ask ten photographers, you'll get ten answers, all unique. I'm a normal and wider kind of photographer, 50 and 20.

4. Minimum F/stop- This determines the most amount of light that the lens can allow to pass through. I cart around a huge honking 50mm f/1.2, which gathers light somewhat akin to a radio telescope collecting signal, but that's because I work in dark rooms with sketchy nonexistent lighting a lot. For most people, f/2 is plenty for most situations.

OK, so for most point and shoots, the lenses suck, the format sucks, the viewing sucks, and the shutter lag is longer than a smoke break. It's a miracle these things make pictures at all. You almost have to be a savant to get anything good out of them. To the people out there that know better, please stop bullshitting amateurs into thinking that their camreras are capable machines, because more than likely the machine sucks and they haven't a hope of getting better with it.

PS- Ken Rockwell, while being a little odd a lot of the time, has a lot of good smart things to say about photography and cameras, so long as you know he's joking half of the time. The other guy makes some good points, too, but really, if the camera didn't matter, we'd all be painters. Now go take some pictures.

Sunday Sunday Sunday

2009-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

Today was a good day in paradise. Started out sleeping in a bit, then went to brunch/coffee/movie with Lori:

The brunch we were going to go to (the guatemalan on classen) is closed sundays, or at least it was closed today, so we went to cafe do brasil, where I got my chorizo fix over eggs and a side of Mimosa. Coffee at coffeeslingers, mostly to kill time, and then onto the movie, Taken, which was awesome- the most realistic fight scenes I can recall in a movie. Brutal, fast paced, and it could've ended about five minutes before it did. No need to sugar coat the ending, Hollywood.

Then, with Lori off to study something boring, I was free to go shoot golden hour on 23rd street. I had to go around twice to get the photo of the capitol.

These same people are always hanging out on that bench in the corner. I don't know if they live in the apartments out of frame to the left or they're homeless and that's just their spot.

Homage to Eugene Atget. Wig shop. It was always a little but of a surprise to hit the end of a roll so quickly; about half an hour walking and 141 pictures.

So, I walked from Robinson to Classen, dropped off the four rolls I'd shot at Walgreens, and went to grab a bite while they were being run. I have my doubts about the usability of these photo cd scans; fine for web, but I'm going to need to scan them better to make prints. Might just not bother next time and scan everything at home. Then again it does make blogging a lot easier.

Lacking the will to blog

2009-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

Right now, I should tell the story of the excellent day I had shooting with Jeremy Charles, or rather him shooting and me assisting, but I think I can may be just say that it was a good time, picked up a few new tricks for my lighting bag, and it was nice to be able to talk to someone about photography who's been where I'm at and receive a little encouragement. Also, I had a moment to grab a few photos of the first band, who's name I forget. This is why I usually take notes of these things. Anyway, Photos (now with black borders!):

Why I quit my job/ What Happened today

2009-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

So, it's been a long ass day. I got up and I was sore from a fall last night, I'm still stiff, actually, but that's another story.

I got up and went to work, and for once I was pretty on time, or at least I was there earlier than the other two people in my office. I go back to the processor to turn it on, and there were a couple pieces out of it, so I opened the lid and took a look at the tanks, and the rinse baths were a bit frothy. If you know anything about processors, or about photography in general, It's not a good thing for your rinse baths to be opaque, and also not a good thing for them to be frothy. The froth turned out to be rinse aid, which is strange and unnecessary, but whatever. I digress.

So, I see the processor in this state and I'm a little upset. You've got to understand, this is a quarter of a mil sitting there let to rot. Not only that, but the utility of it, its ability to make prints, was seriously degraded. Maybe I'm crazy. But I was a little pissed. So, I tell everyone we really need to drain and clean the machine, and then we can get back to printing, it'll take a day, but the prints will be better and the machine won't in danger of breaking down imminently.

As background, I've worked on these machines before, and I have a pretty intimate understanding of the chemistry involved. If you want, you can look it up, I'm not in the mood to explain it here. There's no need for the rinse aid in the final baths, because the prints are dired with hot air right away. Which I tried to explain to the office manager (or whatever keith is), but he wasn't having any of it. By this time I'd been to get cleaning supplies, pulled the rinse bath rollers, and cleaned the first set. I put the machine back together and went outside for a smoke.

I'm outside, then, with one of the other people I work with, Haley (not Luna). Keith, the office manager, comes over and starts talking about the machine, and I try to explain to him that really the machine should be thouroughly cleaned once a month, and he goes off on me. Says he just got off the phone with some so-and so from tech support who told him it only needed it every six months, and moreover my experience didn't matter because I'd never worked on this machine, and I said to him, fine, let's just let it drop, no reason to be angry. So he yells at me some more, and I tell him to let it go some more, and seemed like about ten times we went back and fourth like that, and finally I tell him, fine, find another photographer. And I turned on my heel and grabbed my shit and I was gone.

Since then, I've had a pretty chill day. I went to sauced and had some coffee, shot some photos for the 23rd st project (coming soon, next post, I swear), and built a bike for a pretty girl. The girl is attached to a guy, but sometimes it's nice to build something just because you can, because it's something positive in an otherwise shit day. Maybe the photos are good though.

Also, if you know anyone looking for an experienced photographer, photo assistant, fine printer, entry-level web programmer, locksmith, or portugese translator, I'm available.

photos of the random

2009-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

Edit to add: photo of me by the inimitable Tara, the girl with the glasses in the second pic.

First day of 23rd st. Project

2009-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

So today was the first day of working on the 23rd street project; just a walk up and down with my leica to see what I saw, and to try to get a handle on what the project would and could be.

So, as I was walking and talking to Grant, I was also thinking. Grant graciously came along to watch my back. I have this tendency to concentrate so much on what I'm photographing that I walk out into the road to get the right angle, and not notice oncoming cars. So it's good to have someone along who isn't trying to line up things visually, much less conceptualize a new project at the same time.

The project as I see it now can go a couple of ways; I can see it happening fairly quickly, couple weeks of work, but the idea, the interesting thing to me thus far, is that 23rd street is the border between two really distinct neighborhoods, and that contrast causes all this crazy activity, lots of bums, shops, empty storefronts, crazy shit. It's a busy area.

But also there's the possibility of following the street for a while, six months to a year, to see what happens, because as midtown wraps up to the south and paseo continues to develop to the north, there's no way all these buildings will stay run down; they're going to become prime real estate soon; it's already happening to a few little strips.

I like the idea of this photo essay as a series of intense contrasts; the tension between the neighborhoods from the north and the south, the new shops and their new customers and the old bums and winos and just the plain residents (somehoe nobody has yet targeted the down-and-out demographic, except maybe Byron's liquor). It's probably an avenue I'll pursue (or at least be thinking about while I'm shooting.

Edit to add: Film scanning is a bitch. I think I'm probably going to just shoot this with my canon digi, just to save myself the hassle and the expense of film. OK, croudsource an answer: what do you think? Is the film look in the above pics worth the hassle? (shitty scans, I know; part of the cost would be a new scanner).

Fucker

2009-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

So yesterday was a fucker of a day. After I said all that about loving life on the road and how I'd rather be doing my job than carousing and womanizing and drinking (still basically true), I had a fucker of an afternoon.

It was made worse by the fact that I had a great morning- I was shooting really well, not too tired or too sore in the shoulders. Well, there was a bit of technical difficulty at the beginning (I had changed my manual ip to try to get my comp working on their network, and voila, it worked, but then the guys out front couldn't connect to me. Never mind they could've found me in the network browser). But being a little pissed just sharpened me up, and I hit all the marks just right. That I also have to make up the marks as I go, or rather intuit them (an important philosophical difference, but we have to many parentheticals already) makes no difference.

Then the afternoon came. Groups of dancers, first duo/trios, and then gradually increasing until there were 30 on the floor. So, just as we were getting into the groups of 6-8, one of the pins bent in on my card reader and I was in trouble. So, I sent the guys out front, my boss, an IM asking for help. I get no response, and in short order I had worked through my extra cards. So, I ran out to their area, and in the process, missed a dance routine. Threw me off the rest of the afternoon. Got heated there for a second and I was tempeted to walk off from the whole thing, but my better nature prevailed, and I'm still employed. that is, they didn't fire me for a mistake, and I didn't walk off mad.

Then dinner, and my boss was in hot water for us leaving "early." Early being maybe 15 minutes to beat the crowd. Oh well, now nobody in the whole crew gives a shit, we're only doing this job for the money anyway. Why won't people figure out that giving subordinates shit just pisses them off and gets you less work, of lower quality? Foster a good work environment, and good things happen. Positive reinforcement. When your buisiness depends on creative people, all that bad emotion can really fuck up their day, which in turn screws your product.

Enough rambling, back to work for me.

Up too early

2009-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

Why am I awake at this ungodly hour? It's saturday morning. I should be drunk, passed out with my arms around some beautiful woman I don't deserve. I should have partied all night with my friends.

Instead, I'm here in a town in north carolina in a town who's name I can't spell right (albamarle? albermar? something). Today, I'm going to go and sit in a chair for hours on end, and take pictures. This instead of waking up with said woman, making breakfast and nursing a hangover all day, orange juice, eggs, coffee, maybe a mid-afternoon bike ride.

No, today I'll shoot more than 10,000 pictures. I'll hear the same 50 songs repeated about twice, some more than others, and some more annoyingly than others (I never did like Annie). I'll hold up the 5 pound camera setup for most of that time, a 12-13 hour day, with a short break for lunch. I'll be exhausted and ache at the end and probably have one dinner choice, because everything else in town shuts down at 8.

The strangest part? I prefer this to staying at home. I'd rather be out here on the edge of what I can do, busting my ass, trying to do something nearly impossible (produce good art on demand, several hundred times in a day? that's so absurd it's beyond consideration, but here we are). This is difficult, but it's the life I've been missing out on in a lot of ways, going different places, doing photography, a little suffering but much joy.

Other than the people in what I'm already thinking of as my old life, there's nothing I miss. With the exception of the hypothetical pretty lady, who 9/10ths of the time I'm texting from the road anyway. What's wrong with me?

just a few phots from the road

2009-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

I'm in albemarle NC and I can't sleep. Insomnia-blogging. not much to say right now. might think of more later and give it another post.

video from last night

2009-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

some bike tricks and a couple falls from Matt Mills on Vimeo.

Oh noes! Tornadoes!

2009-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

So, i kind of wasn't going to blog this, it being old news and all, but I wanted to at least share the pictures. Funny story: for the pictures of everybody crouded together in the bathroom, that was for the second cell that passed over us, the one that wasn't really anything to worry about.

My first day in the office was actually good. Doing sysadin-like duties already, although I don't really think I qualify for the title yet. Or at least I was doing them until the power went out. Point for twitter- I found out about the storm a little ahead of everyone else on twitter. Then I sat there for twenty minutes trying to find decent radar coverage (not really possible on the internet, unless you get a live feed from the tv stations, which is easier to get from, say, a TV).

vaccine misinformation and other BS

2009-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

a weekend in kentucky

2009-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

So I started my new job for reals last weekend, and it was strange, like everything else in my life. The traveling was some of the easiest I've done. Nothing went wrong (in an unfixable way, at least). Like I said, the things that are usually difficult, like morning coffee or lunch, were handled with ease. For those not in the know: my new job is taking pictures of dance competitions. to the tune of 20k images a weekend.

The hard part wasn't really taking the photos, either, although I can tell already that my timing and camera handling is going to get a lot better (this coming from someone who didn't think that was possible). This is a good thing.

(There was some bs here that I cut out, because some shit shouldn't see the light of day. not while it's half baked at least. suffice to say that dance competitions are hard to fit into my worldview; they are, in a word, problematic).

At the end of the day, the girls probably mostly have a great time dancing, and enjoy having quality pictures of what they love doing. I can dig on that. Thinking of it that way, it's hard to hold onto my objections. At the end of the day, I'm a professional. I do the job, nobody gets hurt because of it, maybe some people enjoy what I produce even. That's fine with me.

The abbreviated quest for coffee

2009-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

So I woke up at about 4:30 this morning, local time. I sat around for a little bit, then decided to get my ass in gear and shower and clean off two days of road dirt and sleep. Every time I needed something, there it was in my bag. Even Q-tips, even my phone charger.

So, fresh, dressed, I pulled out my laptop and read a bunch of feeds, all the usual blogs. At this point I thought I'd try to go and find coffee, usually an exercise frought with difficulty not least because of my level of awareness.

Out the room door and down the stairs of the convenient downtown hotel. and into the lobby. I already knew that the continental breakfast didn't start until 7am on saturday (seriously, the majority of travel is business and on the weekend; some people have to be out the door earlier). I had little hope, then, of finding coffee in the lobby. I found the usual breakfast nook empty, per expectations, but as I was snapping a photo of it, the desk clerk came around the corner and I asked her: Where can I get coffee?

That angel, that wonderful woman, told me that she was making it right then, that it would be out momentarily. F'ing amazing. So I stood around for a minute or two, then she came back with an airpot. Awesome.

That's this trip so far in a nutshell. I'm a professional working with professionals. Everybody's doing their job, there haven't been any disasters yet. (As I type that I knock the wood of the desk). And today, I get to the best part; for six or eight hours, I'm going to sit in a chair and take pictures.

It's not enough; I'm still gonna have to push my own work, keep making my own pictures, but it's a start. I think I'm gonna like this job.

Rushing out the door

2009-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

First off, I'm writing this in a bit of a rush, scratching off that last to do item from my list before I hit the door. The Regular Wednesday sesh was a lot of fun; not only did we hit the litter box, but we rode around and hit some spots as well. Down by the chase building, a little bricktown love, and then we rocked up the monster hill. It's the only monster in town, another sign that OKC isn't a real city. Anyway, photos:

I love how everyone's starting to get the no handed shit down pat, or at least look good for the thirtieth of a second I need to get the photos. Nice to see hornbeck in town, too, and on his new whip no less.

So anyway, that's all folks, I'm out. I'm going to try to shoot and post from the road, we'll see how well that works. I'll be twittering, at least. On the flip side.

posting before I dash off to the office, to ride to kentucky...

2009-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

This is where I want to live when I grow up:

This will be my corner store. Wait, are those apartments above that store? Can I change my mind about the house thing? Awesome.

dream jobs

2009-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

no time to post thouroughly, but topic for later: why the hell aren't we doing our dream jobs? Or busting ass to work towards them? Not allowed to use the words "in these difficult economic times" or anything of the like. The time to do that shit is now, easy or hard.

not usually a fan of flash...

2009-02-03T00:00:00+00:00

But the volume knob here is pretty badass. Actually yesterday I was talking mad shit on flash for web design because it usually sucks and just does the same stuff that you can do faster and better in javascript... but this I have no idea how I'd do, and it's a cool effect.

New Furniture...

2009-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

So I got a new couch today, courtesy of Grant (hi grant). The best way to get me to clean is to move furniture, and/or get new furniture. Something about rearranging everything makes me want to organize all my crap and throw away all the various detritus I collect over time. So, after sleeping through the super bowl, I started to work.

The room actually seemed to get worse for the first couple hours, so I paused, laid on the new loveseat and listened to tom waits, which for some reason motivated me. Nighthawks at the Diner for anyone who cares.

I don't throw away all of my junk; I'm enough of a romantic that some stuff I keep around for sentimental value alone. I have bits and pieces of most of the cameras I've owned over the years for example. The ones that weren't stolen, that is. Certain pictures, too, I just can't part with or throw away prints of, even if they're a little damaged. The tech stuff I'm pretty good about trashing once it's past its prime. So, because it's such a rare occurrence, I give you my room, as clean as it gets:

Also yesterday, I had my first gig with Take Two productions, and let me say it's nice to work with professionals. I was running the wider of the two video cameras, something I've never done before (all my video experience has been single-camera work, documentary, and as cheap as possible). It took me a few numbers, but I got the hang of it. It didn't help that I was on an hour and a half of sleep; I probably would have been a bit quicker on the uptake, a little smoother, if I had been able to sleep saturday night. Or at night at all; It's 5am and my super nap ended around 9pm.

Anyway, I might end up preferring to run video on these gigs, given that I get more work from take 2; there's less pressure. We'll see. I haven't done stills for them yet, and I'd like to try that too; It's more in my bones to do stills. This site isn't "videographermattmills" for a reason. Anyway, my newly clean and cleared bed is calling my name.

comments are broken

2009-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

I'll fix them soon, I promise. Right now I have to go teach.

cmay's party, then some booze cruise

2009-01-31T00:00:00+00:00

Last night I went to Royal Bavaria for Christa May's birthday. Christa is the evil genius behind Furburger for those that don't know. It was a fun time, except the service sucked. And I was off my game, not that many good photos.

Then We all headed into the city, ostensibly to go sing Karaoke at the Celebrity Club (no celebrities there though). They were at capacity, so I headed over to the rooster, caught up with booze cruise (which didn't cruise that much).

Then we moved on to a house party, Cody and Steve's new spot:

This Girl Was madly in love with her board:

Cody trying to pass out:

Can you tell that's the same bed Cody was in? Can you guess what's going on?

It's all good in the end. Or at least it was when I was leaving:

Then home, to sleep for 12 hours. Whenever I sleep dep, the crash is the best part. I'm guessing that's why I wasn't shooting that great, I was exhausted from not sleeping much, just a couple naps in a couple days really. Anyway, it's time to ride again.

The $3 Cure for Cabin Fever

2009-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

yesterday, after far too long inside the house, I drove downtown for three dollar burgers at Mcnellie's with a bunch of people. Ended up being nine or ten of us, crowded around a table for 7, but it was good. Delicious food and friends and some photos were just what the doctor ordered.

In other news, I think I'm going to spend the better part of tonight folding paper. The maquette is printed, I just have to fold everything and sew it together. Oh yeah, and cut up the last few photos. Speaking of photos:

this is pretty cool

2009-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

just drinking my morning coffee and found this: (via A Photo Editor)

edit- This was made by Eyal Landesman.

no way they're really thinking about this in oklahoma

2009-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

in response to some stuff on facebook, about nuclear power in oklahoma, and maybe putting it somewhere out in the desert:

the problem is nuclear waste stays dangerous for 10,000 plus years. We're talking geologic time here. There's barely anything manmade left from 10000 years ago, much less a solid intact structure. It's a fool's gambit to put this stuff in a salt mine or inside a mountain because any number of unforeseen events could leak the waste into the biosphere.

Of course, the waste is only a small part of the overall problem of radioactivity. People talk about Chernobyl and Three mile island as if they were the only nuclear accidents to ever happen, but actually they happen more frequently than you'd like to think. see wikipedia for more examples, although I'm sure that list is incomplete. These are built by the lowest bidder, remember.

"Support in the short term" is like saying ok, a little poison is all right. This stuff is so toxic (before, during and after use) that we build ten foot concrete walls around it, then put more security and perimeters around that, and then beyond that is a line where you don't have to wear a dosimeter any more. There are workers in some facilities who can never leave, because they themselves were irradiated so much that they are toxic to the outside world. (I have a feeling that they don't last long like this).

edit to add: the article from the oklahoman. Seems there aren't any real plans, just some legislators getting their panties in a bunch. 8 to ten years until they become operational is another problem for an "interim" solution.

lil gallery for everyone

2009-01-26T00:00:00+00:00

Click here. You've seen these before, but not like this, not really. Soon, there might even be a pdf.

I should be working on the blook

2009-01-26T00:00:00+00:00

And applying for jobs and trying my hardest to come up with the zillions of dollars I owe some silly people who think they're ever going to get any money out of me. As I'm pretty sure I'm never going to get any money out of me, what chance have they got?

Anyway, there is a final final edit of pics for the blook, just under fifty pictures, and they're in a sort-of order, so I'm going to mock that shit up and print it off and see what people say.

In other news, some lame pictures for your ass:

yes, super boring, because the last week was all shot to hell between being in the hospital with my mom's multiple operations and my stomach flu. Isn't the dog cute though? I promise to get out more and take photos this week. Now, page design!

Suzi Uzi/Roller Girl White Trash Bash

2009-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

A Good Start to the weekend

2009-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

Photos After Midnight

2009-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

too true

2009-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

via Schneirer:

Part of the debtor mentality is a constant, frantically suppressed undercurrent of terror. We have one of the highest debt-to-income ratios in the world, and apparently most of us are two paychecks from the street. Those in power -- governments, employers -- exploit this, to great effect. Frightened people are obedient -- not just physically, but intellectually and emotionally. If your employer tells you to work overtime, and you know that refusing could jeopardize everything you have, then not only do you work the overtime, but you convince yourself that you're doing it voluntarily, out of loyalty to the company; because the alternative is to acknowledge that you are living in terror. Before you know it, you've persuaded yourself that you have a profound emotional attachment to some vast multinational corporation: you've indentured not just your working hours, but your entire thought process. The only people who are capable of either unfettered action or unfettered thought are those who -- either because they're heroically brave, or because they're insane, or because they know themselves to be safe -- are free from fear.
Quote is from The Likeness, a novel set in Ireland, by Tana French.

Funny that this wholly logical analysis is an old zen idea- that true mastery of any art (and thereby life itself) is freedom from fear. It's particularly apropos because I'm getting about 5 calls a day from various debt collectors with delusions that I have the ability to pay them. Man I need a real job.

just some photos....

2009-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Party that Grant Built

2009-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

I don't know about everybody else, but this looks more like Charlie Chaplin than anything else:

This purse, it went so well with his shoes, he just had to try it on.

And I'm too lazy to caption the rest.

Silly Rabbit, Tricks are for bikes

2009-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

So, I've been a little lax in posting photos the last few days. Chalk it up to new year depression. January always gets me down, and it takes a few days for all the old habits to kick in and pull me out of my funk. It's been a good couple of days though.

Sarah and Damaris see the green fairy:

I'm officially a pedicab driver:

Add to that the other new job, the one where I'm officially a professor, and it couldn't get more ridiculous. Unless of course you're Steves with a tablecloth on your face:

The litter box session was pretty good too:

The next night, at the ever popular 3020:

Karaoke at the raintree:

This last one comes with a public service announcement. There is a reason Old Milwaukee is so cheap. Do not try to play asshole with that shit unless you're prepared for a monster hangover.

Reaghan and Sigrid's house Warming

2009-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

New Years Eve 2008/First Day of 2009

2009-01-02T00:00:00+00:00