Posts Tagged ‘life’

Random Film love…

August 17, 2010

I’ll go ahead and say it…I miss film, I miss the feeling of knowing that you only had 12, 24, or 36 shots.  I miss that rhythm of opening the back of the camera, taking out that exposed roll and slapping another in its place.  I miss that smell when you opened a new unexposed roll.  I miss the simplicity of it.  I miss the all metal cameras.  I feel all of this each time I pick up one of my relics from the past.  Not that I have a bunch of old collectibles, all my film cameras were bought used….well used.  Paint worn down to the brass around the edges, scratches, buttons that had popped off long ago.  I always considered myself a shooter not a collector, I didn’t care how it looked, if the meter worked, and it was light tight, it was good enough for me.


Today starts what I am going to work on becoming a reoccurring feature here; Random Film Love.  I’m going to hit the streets, pound the pavement, and get back to the basics.  I’m going to get back to what I loved about photography in the past.  Not that I don’t love it now…it’s just it was different back then.  I don’t know if I’m going to go as far as bringing 1/2 of the darkroom back (the developing stage), I don’t really have the space for the enlarger and trays and such, and I don’t think I want to go back to constantly mixing up developer and fixer every 3 or 4 months.  I’d like to thank Dwayne’s photo for the develop and scan of these rolls of film!


I always seem to come back to my old Junior High.  It was my first school upon moving here 20 years ago.  I met friends here that I still have to this day.  I remember playing basketball on the rough asphalt courts during 9th grade PE, then during summers when I was in High school and on into college.


Went back on two separate days – once in 35mm:

And once with the Square:

My 2010 Resolutions….

April 1, 2010

Okay, this is going to be a list my reso–actually, I’m tired of saying that word, let’s substitute goals.  Here is a list of goals that I want to accomplish this year.  Not in any particular order.  I know that we’re three four months into the year, but I’ve been late with a lot of things in the past; it’s how I rolled:

  • I didn’t get a cell phone until 1999, and I never had a pager; if I wasn’t at home you were going to talk to my answering machine

  • I didn’t start using digital until 3 years ago, and I bought a old D1X(which was 6 yrs old at that time)

  • I waited until age 33 to actually get serious and try to make my dream (photography for a living) a reality, why didn’t I try 10 years ago?

My 2010 Photography goals:


1.  Get physical with my imagery – Since these days so much is done digitally, alot of my photos just end up on my hard drive, or on this blog, nothing like the old days, when you had physical results from taking photographs.  You took photos,

You ended up with negatives or slides.   Some of those ended up in the form of prints


I want to make something physical – maybe put on my own show somewhere; something small, but something where I have an end to go along with the means.  Maybe I’ll do a photozine or a book, but something that I can hold in my hand, and in turn hand to someone.


2. Film – A while ago me and my wife were watching Kalifornia, in that movie Michelle Forbes is a photographer, and she spends the movie shooting with a Nikon F3 (I believe) and she asked me if I missed shooting film.  Even though I tailed off shooting film seriously over the last 10 years, it took me a little by surprise.  I did miss film somewhat, I recently ran a roll of slide film through my F4, I had forgotten how colors pop on slides!  So, I’m going to shoot more film this year, I’ve collected enough of it over the past 5 years that I haven’t shot

And I’ve accumulated more than enough film cameras…they need to be shot with.

3. Get project oriented – Come up with some projects that interest me, and then make them happen, not sitting around saying “I wish I could shoot, blah,blah, blah, maybe I’ll get to do that someday…”  Why does it have to be someday?  And when I start it, finish it.  What good is a project that you start, attack with full steam, and then just give up?  Even if it doesn’t work out like I envisioned – at least I can say, I finished….


4.  Keep a creative journal – this I’ve actually started:

and started: and started: and started


But it would be nice to keep it going, not write a page, or couple of pages, but actually have a book that I can come back to for inspiration.  And when I put ideas down in it…actually come back and try some of them


5. Take more personal photos -  life moves so fast it seems these days, the only way that we can remember the little details is to write it down, video it, or take pictures.  Like these of my wife and my niece decorating Easter cookies.

Something little now, but how are they going to feel about this moment looking back on these pictures in 10 years?  15 years? How am I going to feel?


6.  Network – get myself out there to other photographers, become part of the community.  It’s how you learn and how you find and create opportunities.


7.  And probably the most important thing on this list; getting comfortable with at some point I’m going to have to tell people that I’m a photographer.  Saying that phrase is heavy; there’s so much expectation attached to it.  You can read the books, take the workshops, the classes, do the TFCD work, do the photo zines, the 365 projects.  All that is so you can live it.  You can love it, because it’s what you are.  The moment you say that phrase, it’s what you do.

Christmas : By Josh Gaynor…

December 24, 2009

While at work today, I got a text message from my friend Josh saying that he had left a present for me on my porch.  It. Was. Awesome:

I always love Josh’s birds and other assorted animals that he draws, and I’ve been waiting for this limited edition framed print of Bela!

Thanks!


**I do love Field Notes’ motto: “I’m not writing it down to remember it later, I’m writing it down to remember it now” – something that I’m making a resolution to do next year, with a lot of other things (in an upcoming post)**



Cruzin’ (Cozumel!)

December 10, 2009

Sorry!  Don’t think that I didn’t remember to post the last port of call of the cruise!  Cozumel, Mexico – a land of beautiful blue water (it was really that blue!)

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Stephanie loved her fan that she bought, both for the way that she looked when fanning herself, and for the cooling effect.  It was hot, not Cayman Islands hot, but still pretty hot!

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After the little shopping that we did, we took in lunch at Pancho’s Backyard, a nice little place right close to the port.  If you’re ever in Cozumel, I recommend it.  We even got a free appetizer coupon from our cruise shopping director (that’s that tiny dish in the upper right corner…small, but can’t complain too much, it was free after all!)

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Collecting some sand – taking in the view…

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Oh Yeah, can’t forget the towel animal that we got that night!

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We enjoyed this experience of traveling on a ship, can’t wait until we are able to do it again!

Leaving out of Jamaica, the next day in the Cayman Islands.  They said the temperature was only 90, being from Texas, we could take that right?  Wrong!  Walking in the hot sun beat us down, when we got back to the ship; we slept for about 3 hours.

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B.B.D. was everywhere…

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That night, in honor of our visit to the Cayman Islands….what towel animal were we surprised with??

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Next up; last port of call – Cozumel!

Crusin’ (Jamaica…)

November 16, 2009

We arrived in Jamaica on Wednesday.  We had a guided tour arranged for us through our travel agent.  We got to do a little shopping, went up into the mountains to dine on some coconut, pear, and some type of bread I can’t remember the name of.  Then we had some jerk pork at the Pork Pit(great place with some great atmosphere)

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Cubans are Legal in Jamaica!

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Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee….that big bag of Jablum would have cost over a hundred dollars over here, only cost us twenty dollars.  So we took a bag home along with some cigars…

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Untitled-8The Jerk Pork from the Pork Pit…

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Rum Cakes!

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Okay, we couldn’t figure out what this towel animal was.  Even after we bought our towel animal book, we looked all through it and still couldn’t figure out what this was.  Any guesses?

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Next stop, Land of Pirates and Stingrays!

The Start….

August 29, 2009

Hello

Hi, How are you?  This is my journey.  Life – Photography – Skateboarding.  Let’s see where it takes me