Holiday Parties.

A week later, I manage to finish my roll of E6 for the assignment which was due last Wednesday. Fortunately, none of my classements finished the E6 project, so we got a collective extension.
The goal was to shoot an entire roll of Fujicrome and process it ourselves in the lab. The end process will make our images look "dotty," like an impressionistic painting.

Anyway. I skipped the Lodge and Lakeshore tonight. I decided to take the Yashica out to the Architectural Artifacts 20th anniversary party. The owner hired a mariachi band and had an open bar with wine, soda and beer. They were selling all the artifacts for 50% off. I spoke briefly with James, a regular from my Starbucks and headed next door to Lill Street Art center, where a holiday party was going on. More open bar and interesting artifacts. A lot of the artists at Lill Street are Starbucks regulars and I had no idea until I turned the corners into their studios. I wish that I had brought more 120 film; there was so much to shoot! The Yashica certainly gave me a lot of comments. People would say, "Now there's an old camera!" Great conversation piece. Haha.
I met a lot of cool people, including Christine, a jeweler who gave me a pass for the One Of A Kind show at the Merchandise Mart next weekend. I'll be sure to take a trip there next Saturday and and take my camera. Maybe I'll meet some other photographers. I took a shot of Christine in her studio, standing over her display case, and I'm very anxious to see how it turns out.

I left Lill Street and ate pavement as I was walking down the front steps. It was dark and no one was around, so luckily, it was unseen. Man, did my shin take a beating.

Sorry I don't have any pictures tonight; maybe by Wednesday I'll have something to show you guys.

Fer tog raffi

Taking initiative inspired from my friends Bella and K-rock and trying to blog more, even if there is nothing to blog about.
A rather non-productive Saturday, other than getting the apartment clean. Mostly I polished off far too many reduced fat Oreos and half a liter of Schweppes.

School is almost over for the semester. I'm relieved and a little sad. I'm starting to get the hang of the darkrooms and I wish I could have this kind of access when I'm not in school. I've spent an average of fifteen hours a week printing. Pretty good, huh? I'm particularly proud of the print I finished on Wednesday. I was the last person left in the darkroom at the end of the night (lonely, scary). I worked for a long time with Jane (the instructor) trying to get the color cast correct.

No access to scan, so I had to take a photo of the photo. I'm really happy with this image, which is rare for me, cause' I'm so effing self-critical.

I tried messing around with my Photoshop a little last night. I wanted to create a sort of "old, grainy, vintage self portrait" but only came up with this:

If it weren't so self indulgent, I'd probably like it more.

Last Christmas day, Dad and I went on a little field trip to Millennium Park for practice shooting. I'm excited to do this kind of shoot again. This time it may be in or around Detroit, so it'll be a nice change of scenery. I'm also looking forward to another Chucklebowl. I might bring the Polaroid camera again.

Speaking of holidays, I had a great Thanksgiving. I brought the school's Yashica (medium-format camera) to dinner and tried out a few shots. Not sure how they'll look yet; all the shots were indoor and at night. I still have to get the film processed. We'll see. At the end of the night, Elizabeth, Kristy and I were half-joking about The Bastion House: a place where writing, art and general creativeness will float about. I called dibs on the attic and making the second bathroom into my own personal darkroom. Hah. The three of us seem to talk about our professional advancement (personally and as a group) often. I suppose it's natural. Anyway. In moments of day-dreaminess, I often browse the apartment/home listings for LA or New York. A lot of the times, when looking at ads for homes in LA, I come across ads like this. Man. Californians really are nuts. At least they use their imaginations.

I checked the camera out and Jane gave me an additional assignment: take a roll of impressionistic photos with the Fujicrome film she handed me before I left. I still have no idea what to do with this project. My Photoshop experiment from earlier sort of throws back to this project, but no way in heck will I make another self-portrait.

MeTV has been background noise for most of the day today and the episode of Star Trek where Kahn makes his debut is on. It's boring. I'll opt for listening to Yo La Tengo and starting my English Paper revision instead.

PBTS

Nothing to write. Keeping it short.
Blocked. Have to save my creative juices for an English paper.

Here are some pictures from the Pat Brice tribute show at Lakeshore theater. It was great to see Kyle and TJ again and to see Jeff Klinger and Shawn Cole for the first time.
Fun.

Happiest with the pictures of Kyle and TJ.

Sean introduced CJ as "a comedian who makes me the hardest." He said this drunkenly and not on purpose. It was gold.

Jeff Klinger.

Brady Novak.


TJ Miller.

When he came onstage, I said to Kristy: "He looks like he just came off a ship" Then Kyle said into the mic: "AHOY!"


Shawn Cole.

CJ Sullivan.

That's all I got, other than telling you all, never go to the bar "Wilde's."

Night Photography Project

I struggled through a rough few days trying to figure out how to work this blasted Mamiya.
Turns out I grabbed a studio camera instead of the Yashica, which is what I should have checked out.
So I had to do some night photography without a meter. I used my digital as a guide.
I downright hate the technicalities of photography. I wish there were an easier way for me to remember all the jargon and specifics. Blarh.
We'll see how the photos look tomorrow after I get them processed, but I'm not gonna' be too hopeful.
Here's one I took with the Rebel:


Little different from a medium-format film, but you get the idea.
Seems I still cant shy away from my b&w habits. I like color photography alright, but there's nothing quite like the plainness of black blacks and white whites.

*shrug*

Things I learned from today's group photo-shoot:

-I need to tidy up my organizational skills.
-I cant direct everyone perfectly, every time.
-I have to remember new people's names almost immediately after I meet them; none of this "You, there!" crap. I'm reminded of Brady Novak's bit: "This is JOHN, I'm meeting JOHN, I'm shaking hands with JOHN."
I also need to pay attention to how people are looking at the camera/where they are looking etc.
-I have to understand how to use flash and learn more of my camera's options. These are skills I've been putting off learning for too long.
Generally, I have a lot more to practice.

I don't want to post any pictures as the group hasn't even seen any: that would be unfair.
I'm scared to even upload them.

Ok. It is a "photo blog," so here's just one non-group photo from the shoot today:


It's busy, but I like it.

HS & GGI

I've adopted a great little surge of motivation. I'm not sure where it came from. All I know is I'm excited to get started with entertainment photography again. I don't want to say too much because I sometimes succumb to the ridiculous belief that I'll jinx myself. So much for logic.

This afternoon, I took my first try at head shots. My subject was a girlfriend from work: an actress. After looking over the finished product, we decided that this afternoon was merely a "practice run;" we'll do a second shoot on another day. It was also very windy today, which made it very difficult for Christine's hair to stay in place. Lots of work needs to be done; there are a lot of things I need to pay attention to when I'm shooting.
A lot of you have probably already seen these from my Myspace, but here are my two favorites:


I'm so surprised with how much I learned from one simple shoot. I really got an idea of what looks good and how to direct. I paid close attention to details. Hopefully I can keep it up and get more practice whenever I can. I need to pay attention to emails, answer them immediately and return phone calls; this seems to be another
bad habit of mine.

I went to Globe Gong Idol tonight. I'm glad that I've been able to make time to go to shows again. Here are some shots:


Faye and CJ.

Tony Blanco and John Springsteen.


I've taken far too many pictures of this person.


Faye and Mandie.

Tony Blanco (foreground) and group.

It'll be a little longer til' I can get to another show...I'll (most likely) attend the Pat Brice tribute show. I'm really looking forward to this show. I'll finally see the legend known as Shawn Cole!

I've used the words "a lot" far too much in this entry.

That's it.

Hi. Remember me?

Yeah, yeah.

I have pretty much zero time to myself these days. It's all Starbucks and school work. It's hard to get out to relax, let alone to go to comedy shows.

I went to the Blerds at LST last weekend. I got to see Mike Burns (my favorite dick/fart joke comedian), which was a total bonus.

I'm looking forward to this month's show.
Seems the more I shoot, the more discerning I am with decisions on the final cut. Last weekend, I picked only six images. I should be more careful when I choose to smack the shutter, but it seems I always miss the moments I want the more. It's a matter of being really careful, paying attention to what I'm doing with the settings and holding really still. We all know I dont want it to come down to a tripod and/or flash. "Use whatever available light I can" is my rule.

Plans for headshots are finally coming through, I think. A friend of mine is needed them, so we have a session set up for next week. Here is a prelim. photo I took on Wednesday:

She has a hard time relaxing in front of cameras, so it may be a bit of a challenge. At the same time, she's a friend and I make her crack up, so it may be smooth. The shoot was supposed to be today, but it fell through. After that, I'm gonna' try another performer, someone I don't know as well. We'll see how I do making people feel comfortable. The week after that, I'm doing a set for "a band." Sort of top secret. You'll see. If I can be confident and do a good job with these, I may start charging people, save up for a website and make a legitimate business outta' this. No bullshit this time.

Maybe it's a stretch, but I really think my English class is helping my writing. No more comma splices, no more fragmented sentences, and less pronoun misuse.

As far as color photography, the dark room isn't as hard to use as I thought it would be. Our professor is bat-shit crazy and totally unclear about our assignments. It's totally weird not shooting digitally anymore. I'm still not used to the lack of immediate satisfaction.

Keep an eye out and remember to set your phones to vibrate.