I actually came in with the intention of capturing the motion blur of clothes in the dryer, and you can just see mine in #22. But then the personality of this place beckoned, and I had to take a ton of photos... until these shuffling noises as if somebody was there kept coming from somewhere in the back, and I got a massive case of the creeps and left. I couldn't drive away fast enough. I'll explain more later, I just wanted to show you guys these. :-) Thinking of reading aloud my next post and trying to find a site which hosts mp3s.

The guy who was mopping the floor when I came in said these were at least 35 years old. Dude. That's eight years older than I am.

Public bulletin board. I was hoping for a few good Jesus-freaky ads, but this still pretty much captures the essence of midwest Ohio.

Used golf balls?

Detail from the jukebox. Where else are you going to find prices like that anymore? (but then check out the selection...)

wow.

God, check out that 60's flower motif.

Beautiful age decay.

Yes, this is the actual cash register the dry cleaners use.

Not sure what inspired me to take this one.

Hmmm....

Claw machine with some pathetically bad little toys.

Self portrait meant to have the effect that I'm not immediately noticed. I tried to take on the posture of Rodin's Thinker, but it didn't work for two reasons: 1) I'm too far away from the camera 2) I'm not a world-famous bronze statue, as you may have noticed.

Old yucky 70's yellow cracked and bowing folding table. I threw in the overhead light to make it look lonelier.

A bit closer

Intentionally overexposed about 2 1/2 stops to blow out the sign and lights, but properly expose the pavement.

Late night.

Before there were buttons and digital displays...

1/2 stop overexposure. Note the Mirthmobile to the left of the frame.

More time-stained charm.

This is one of my favorites from the shoot.

I had to play Patsy Cline's "Crazy". You can't be in a place like this and not play that song.

And here's the rest of the photos from Glen Helen in Yellow Springs. It's a happy accident that I mistakenly left the white balance on incandescent, because it gave the water a nice blue-ish cast.

The stream flowing down to create the following waterfall.

Aperture and depth of field exercise, but I thought it made a great photo as well.

I wanted to brave the cold water and get a photo from the inside of the cave out, but had nothing to protect the camera.

I think this may be the yellow spring which gives the town of Yellow Springs its name, I'm not sure.

Taken where the water ran maybe only an inch or two over the rocks, so I rolled up my jeans and hoped my boots truly were waterproof. I carefully walked right out into the middle of the river and plunked down my tripod... and my feet stayed dry. :-)

The standing figure on the bridge is Amy, the one who drove us there.

Driveway out of Glen Helen, taken lying down on my belly.

Photo I took as part of a series for another section of next week's Camera Skills class project... motion blurring and panning. This is my mom on her bike on the street in front of the house. Special kudos to her for helping me with my homework, as it was chilly and drizzly today, and she really didn't want to do it, but did anyway to help me out.

Hi guys! I don't think I've been this busy since the Air Force, and the Bosnia bombing campaign. What a mess that was. Anyway, here's the last couple of days in a nutshell. I'll explain in detail later, but I am in desperate need of sleep now:

1) Yesterday met up with Elizabeth Callahan from school to shoot this old abandoned warehouse for a project due saturday. She also had a model named Brandie lined up (pictured in the link to Elizabeth's flickr page), but unfortunately by the time we picked her up and set up to shoot, I had time for about four photos and then had to head -out to work. Fucking burritos. :-( My shots came out nowhere near as good as Elizabeth's did. I won't post them... it just doesn't feel right posting photos of somebody else. Anyway, both Elizabeth and Brandie are just the most pleasant people. Tomorrow Elizabeth will be shooting her in her studio, and said she'd call to see if I wanted to assist and take notes. I hope I can... they're both just the nicest people.

2) Today after class, went over to Yellow Springs with two other people and shot at Glen Helen nature reserve for our next project. Gonna post all the cool ones, but I'm feeling lazy tonight. I photoshoppped one down (originally, the files are about 2.something megs) for you to enjoy. I'm cool like that. :-)



Part of next week's Camera Skills project is to take two photos of water, one with the shutter fast enough to freeze the water in place, and one with the shutter slow enough (1/4 second or slower) to make it look all nice and creamy.

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Oh... one last thing... here's my latest Photoshop/Computer Basics project. The instructor put an image up on the screen and gave us four pictures to cut, paste, and blend together to re-create the on-screen image. Here's my result:

Addendum:
Woke up this morning with the bleary recollection of having written something about movie actors before hitting the hay. Then I realized "fuck, I was bitching again". What I failed to mention is that I got drunk at the Trolley Stop (where thursdays are acoustic open-mic night with dollar draft beer) having the time of my life. It was great. Place was packed like a can of sardines, the music was excellent, and the beer... well, cheap. Very very good time.

Got to talking to the girl I sit next to in Photoshop/Computer Basics last night. She was mentioning having taken photos in this old abandoned building in downtown Dayton the other day. I mentioned how cool that sounded, and that I'd like to go there sometime. She said she's going back today, and I could come if I wanted. Gave her my phone number to call me this morning... and speaking of, I need to get offline!

So that's the news awaiting "fruition". I can't believe I used that word. I'm funny when I'm drunk. :-) Here's last night's post:

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Thank you all for replying to my posts... instead of responding in the comment section, I figured I might as well in a new post.

(btw, I am really drunk... a point I'm not so much boasting, but rather am making as a guilt-laden confession)

Of course the girl I asked out politely declined. I didn't expect her to say yes... if she did, I'd've flipped out entirely, and a near-incohoerent post of ecstasy would've resulted. She's pretty, and therefore has her pick and choice of men. I'm not being "poor-me" ish, but rather realistic. Honestly, in that situation, what chance do I stand? Not much. Single women want one of three men... Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn, the fast and furious Vin Diesel, or Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. That's pretty much it, and I of course am nothing near any of those requisite men, and therefore command exactly ZERO positive attention whatsoever among eligible women under the age of 45.

Married (or otherwise spoken for) women LOVE me, though. They adore me. An unfortunate and curious paradox, I must say.

I'm still proud as hell that I drummed up the courage to ask, though. :-)

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I'm too damned tired to continue... but there fantastically good news to report, which will come to fruition tomorrow. I'll give you the whole scoop later. :-)

A few bits of news... popped by L&V the other night, and noticed that a "sold" tag had appeared adjacent to one of the photos. This got my hopes up, but nobody working knew whether it had actually sold or not. I told them I don't care about the money, I just want the ego feeding that somebody liked my stuff enough to buy it. :-) Here's to hoping...

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For the first time in my adult life... I ASKED A GIRL OUT! It was great! And contrary to my preconcieved fears, I didn't turn to stone or die some horrible death. It was actually rather easy. All I said was "Hey, what are you doing after work?" and then mentioned that I had class in about two hours, and I killed the time till then at Joe Muggs, and she was welcome to come hang out if she wanted. I'd buy the coffee. I think I played it cool, although I was so nervous it felt like my internal organs were liquefying.

I'm so proud of myself I could just burst!

I'm in a weird place right now. I've been on my own for only about two and a half months, and already I'm starting to want to un-single myself. I mean, I wrote in an email to Steff that I'm living the life of my dreams, free to come, go and do as I please. Just tonight after work, I went over to Joe Muggs' and bought a cup of coffee, sat down, and alternately closed my eyes or stared into space while sipping away. Nowhere to be, nobody wondering where I am, and no schedule to follow save for whatever the hell I want to do next, and whenever the hell I decide to get up and do it. Do you have any idea how many years I spend dreaming of that exact moment? Believe me, I was savouring every last millisecond of it.

But fuck if it wouldn't be nice to have a girl to hold hands with.

My heart's been weighing on me like a huge chunk of granite lately. I keep wondering if that's a sign of weakness... as though if I could be more free-spirited and independant, I wouldn't feel this loneliness. I wouldn't feel the desire for companionship as an intense need to somehow complete me, but rather if I could somehow become less shallow, I could simply want a girlfriend as one would want a fancy car... nice to have, but not at all necessary. I'm so confused.

Now's not even the right time... I still have miles to go to unlock who I truly am before I can share that true Andy with anybody else. Right now, all I have to offer is some immature, incomplete, frightened, and distorted version of who I'm supposed to be, wanting nothing more than to latch on and suck all the pity and attention out of whoever is unfortunate enough to fall prey to my desperation. That is neither right nor fair to do, and is the ultimate setup for a horribly unhealthy host/parasite relationship.

It's a harsh truth that spending time with myself is of the utmost necessity for my soul to grow. I need to be alone for a while longer. I need solitude. I hate solitude. I crave it. I love it. I despise it. I require it. I resent it.

But I need it.

A brand new page...

So after dabbling with basic lighting and posting the results, I wrote a comment about nude photography and my pathetically bad attempts, and of the possibility that I may yet turn out a few good ones. I started thinking...

hmm...

Ok, how can I emulate Man Ray a little?...

1) backlight it
2) use unusual angle
3) stark setting
4) keep it borderline abstract

And wouldn't you know, I went downstairs and moved the coffee table out of the way. At one end of the living room I put the tripod up so high I had to stand on a chair to use the camera, and then pointed it down at the floor, zooming back just so only the geometrically patterned carpet is visible. I set the light on the other end of the room about belly-height (because I wanted more shadow than hightlight) and aimed it at the empty spot. I stripped off the pj's, set the camera timer, and fired away...

A little photoshopping later, and I had produced several startlingly good images, which I will not force-feed you here, but will provide this link to, and welcome you view them if you wish and give me an honest critique.

So driving home tonight, I think how pretty the Adams St. bridge looks at night, so I head home with the intention of driving down by Arang and shooting it from that angle to get the courthouse dome in the background. I took about six different shots, but the others (despite my tripod), were still motion blurred.

The only alteration I made to this was to erase some weird refractive light spots. Otherwise, this is the exposure right off the camera, as is pretty much the same for the previous.

So I come home wanting to use this night alone to clutter the living room as a makeshift studio. About a month ago I bought a screw-base flourescent bulb because I hear all the hotshot digital photogs are using this thing called a spiderlite, which basically is a disk with several flourescent lights on it. It's a nice steady light rather than a harsh flash. So I commandeer Chuck's clip/bowl light and stick it on my old tripod. The light was way too harsh, so to diffuse it I found an ice cream bucket in the garage, and taped some paper around the sides so the light wouldn't bleed to the background. I'm proud of my McGuyver moment. :-)

Trying to look all dramatic and shit using my gray card as a prop. I took a whole bunch of crummy pics with the light to the left of the camera shining down, but they just didn't look good. Note the bright background (mom's curtains in the living room). I didn't think of the whole bucket/paper/tape idea until I moved the light off to the side.

The first one I took, and probably the best. Nice pose (I was reaching around to hit the shutter button), good highlights, and nice deep shadows.

Profile. Me no likee. If anything, the most I should go is about a 45 degree angle from the camera.

Note to self: buy oil-fighting face wash.

I'm thinking I brightened up the shadows a little too much in Photoshop, what do you think?

I like the hint of a smirk in this one. ;-)

Nice deep shadows on this one! All I did was warm the color up, and leave the contrast/levels alone.

And a bit wider angle.

No, I'm not on acid...

... but tonight's Computer Basics class project was to take elements from thirteen provided photos and combine them with Photoshop into one composition. The range of styles was boggling! The girl next to me, a fashion photographer, made using the same photos something much more serious and pleasing, like a backdrop she'd pose one of her models against. I went for the whimsical, and three hours later produced this image:



(Note the palm tree from "duckie invasion", as well as an eye from duckie himself serving as both eyes of the Sphynx.)

Things are going well at the new digs. Everybody there is cool as hell, and really seem to have accepted me. It's so laid back there as opposed to Lowe's. Lowe's was like a civilian version of the Air Force, where everybody nervously walked around with ramrods up their backsides. Totally different at Chipotle, and it really makes for a cohesive team.

That, and everybody keeps talking about going to parties. Every day I'm there, it's more stories about parties. Maybe if I get in good, I may actually get invited to one... wouldn't that be exciting? Hey, there's a first for everything. :-)

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It's happened. I've hopped on the bandwagon, and been lured in by the siren call, ensnared within the inescapable whirlpool. I've fallen under the spell of cheerleader-y charms. Yes, folks. I have fallen madly in love....



... with Rachael Ray. God help me.

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It's getting kinda lonely in here.

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I honestly still have all the nice deep thoughts that I once used to post. I'm just online so very seldom, they've usually dissipated into the ether by the time I sit down to type, leaving me only with the recollection that some time earlier I was having a great and lofty (nigh poetically so) idea. And by now, it's just an imaginational poof of smoke. I hate that.

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Class went well tonight. Struck up chitchats with two different students from other classes. I feel so free there at OIP&T, and everybody thus far has been really receptive to me. I'm still not quite sure how to handle that, but I'm forcing myself to take advantage and talk to people... and it's working!

We went into the very barebones basics of Photoshop, yet still I learned a ton of stuff. Mr. Fancy Pants here didn't know nearly as much as I thought I did. So we're futzing with layers, and our project for the night was to apply what we had learned to the small handful of photos in the sample directory. I created this... the invasion of the duckies!

I took these today to finish off the Camera Skills project due saturday. For each of these photos, there is a string of gradual over and under exposures, but I'll not bore you with those. I just wanted to post more photos from my home town of Troy. There's no place like home. :-)

This is over by the train bridge, and in the background are the Troy High School baseball and softball diamonds.

Adams St. Bridge. Old skool readers, remember the black and white film roll I posted last summer? This is darn near the exact same spot I was standing when I took the picture of the bridge at night.