Shot my first paid wedding saturday. Kindra and Craig are absolutely made for each other, and it's been a long time since I've seen two people so in love. You couldn't ask for more pleasant, friendly, and laid-back people. Well, ok, Kindra was definitely on the spunky side. :-) I arrived there feeling like hired help, and left feeling like a long-time friend.





More photos at the DeviantART page.

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The heart is a fickle and ultimately unfathomable thing. This is not news to most people, but mine keeps unexpectedly smacking me upside the head in ways that I never see coming.

I crave being touched. I don't mean that in a dirty way, but that simple human contact feels so extremely good to me. I'm a pretty isolated person. Monday at school, Shaggy kept poking and prodding me with his pen in that endearing "annoying little brother" way. At one point he, having landed an unintentionally solid punch below my shoulder blade, massaged my shoulders for a just a few seconds. But you have no idea how good it felt to me. Not in a sexy way, not at all, but... I don't know how to describe it. It just felt wonderful to have another person reach out and touch me.

Later that night during a lab demonstration, he was rubbing the back of a girl he's seeing. This caused several feelings. I found myself envious of her because he gave, even for just a second or two or three, one amazing shoulder massage, and she was getting it, not me. Secondly, I found myself envious of him, having somebody to reach out to. There was even a little jealousy at work because he was paying so much attention to her. Standing there watching them, I started feeling more isolated than I had in a long while.

Earlier that day, Dark Haired Girl asked me to stop by after class, so I did. She'd had a very taxing day physically and emotionally. Without thinking we just sat up against each other and talked, caressing each others' arms affectionately. I told her about my day, and she mentioned that she was good at alleviating whenever I get a case of the lonelies.

And despite her terrible day, she gave me a neck rub.

She said she was tired, and wanted nothing more than to fall asleep against me, so she invited me to stay as long as I agreed to go before her girls got up. So I stayed and fell asleep with Dark Haired Girl in her room. None of the usual monkey business, save for a kiss goodnight, but rather just two people who needed a warm body to reach out to and be near. I slept so much more soundly there than I have in a long time. Is there anything better than the deep sleep you get when you've grown used to an empty bed, and then get the opportunity to share it with a trusted friend?

And I didn't have the lonelies any more.

---

So today, as I'm naked and about to hop in the shower, there's a knock at the door. I throw my pj's on, and it's Angela stopping by on her lunch break. We chat for a while, and she relays to me some of her man, sexual, and heartbreak woes, and I return a few of my own. As she's leaving, she says that I'm such a great guy, and I'll find somebody to have crazy sex with all the time. Then, out of nowhere, I blurted out "How come we haven't? We've been such good friends for so long, and you know I'd completely respect you afterward." Instantly, I felt like crawling under a rock and dying. She was just having problems finding decent partners in that arena, and I almost said it (if you believe me) from a place of innocence wanting to comfort her recent emotional bruises. Still, I felt like a total jerk-off for making such a proposition.

I realized after some thinking that I'd answered my own question: We've never done anything, not in spite of our friendship, but because we're such good friends. Angela is like a sister to me, and I couldn't possibly have anything else more to want from her. I sent her an email saying just that, and asked her to forget what I said.

She replied that she wasn't freaked one bit. I am blessed with some truly amazing friends.

Read This Plenty Of Fish profile and tell me that it's not the goddamned funniest thing you've ever read in your entire life.

Of course, I emailed her in a heartbeat.

Fapping their way to the top.

I was going to go straight to bed tonight without touching the computer, but while in the bathroom perusing a mazagine from its perch on the edge of my sink, I drew a conclusion.

Shaggy, my new super-duper friend from OIP, told me about a website called "Sexy Losers", a serial anime-style cartoon concerning raunchy sex jokes. The illustrator's onomatopoeia of choice for guys in the act of gratifying themselves is "FAP FAP FAP".

Tonight in the bathroom, I'm re-reading my Focus fine art photography magazine, and I'm seriously questioning and doubting the choices of artist portfolios they've published. It's photographic drivel. Total I'm-so-cool artsy-fartsy tripe. Then I look at the cover, and the magazine's subtitle:

Fine Art Photography. FAP! Coincidence? I think not.

I realize that my malcontent, disappointment, and disillusionment over most (not all, but most) of not only Focus', but also B&W Magazine's featured portfolios is sparked by the fact that most "fine art" photography is mainly just ego masturbation. What gets published is less like artwork, and more like the cum stains of snobby photogs. I'm neither moved nor satisfied by (most of) these images, and it's because I'm expecting photographic inspiration and fireworks, and instead am subjected to page after page of pretentious artists jacking their egoes off and cumming pure pretension onto the pages of these magazines. So you posed a hot naked woman on a boulder in the woods, and gave the photo some overblown abstract title. Big deal.

Now, I myself have just recently entered the world of art photography, and given my last post, am guilty red-handed (palmed?) myself of a little ego stroking. But at least for the sake of you, my dear readers, I try to keep it to a minimum.

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Just as a post script, 'ejaculate' comes from the Latin 'jacere', meaning "to throw." This gives rise to not only the word 'javelin', but also 'jet'.

Something to think about the next time you see an airliner overhead.

2007 Is Turning Out to be My Year

Friday afternoon I get a message on the machine from my Commercial 1 class instructor reminding me that the quarter started, and that we had class that afternoon at 1.

Quoi??

So I call the business office at school, and they tell me that I'm on the schedule for this quarter, and they'll call back when they figure out exactly what's going on. Naturally, the phone rings off the hook all day afterward, so I don't hear from them. This is what we call foreshadowing...

Saturday morning Lee picks me up to shoot a rodeo. He'd been toying with the idea of offering video services, as customers keep asking him. So we stop at the greatest camera store in the miami valley (who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent), and buy a Canon GL-2 professional camcorder. Used, it was still $1600. It's an adorable little unit that you wouldn't expect to pack such a punch. It's about the size of camcorders in the 90's. (now that today's are the size of a softball) I spend the day at the rodeo filming events, and when he dropped me off at the end of the day, he came in to see how the footage looked.

My mom used to work for Warner Cable selling and writing local commercials. She knows video production. We looked at the footage, and you couldn't ask for better image quality. Crystal clear. Mom, Lee, and Chuck all raved about the quality of the shooting. Of course. I did it. :-P But final goal achieved: bossman is happy.

Ego much? I haven't even started...

So I take my bad videographer self and spend sunday night in Cincy helping my sister pick up and assemble a futon from a friend who's moving (to Dayton, no less. now there's a step backward). God, you should've seen her friend's apartment... straight from the 30's with wood door frames, steam heat, wood floors that came together in a herringbone pattern in the corners, and glass doorknobs.

At my sister's, I reassemble the futon frame over many beers and pizza, and we spend the night goofing off listening to all sorts of music. She works at a little record store, and she's always been little Miss Indie Music. I show her my DeviantART page. A fun time was had by all.

On the way back from Cincinnati, I stop at OIP to talk to the business gurus. Sho' nuff, they say it looks like there aren't any problems, that it looks like my Universal loan kicked in, and that I have class at 5 that night. I run to the bookstore (out of pure glee, it's about 30 feet from the desk) and discover that I have $450 credit on my card.

I spend the rest of the day with my feet not even touching the ground. I am a student again! Now there isn't any way to mention this next part without sounding like I'm flat-out bragging, so I'm not going to hide it. I'm boasting.

I run to my go-to guy's office where he's chatting with another instructor and tell him the good news. I tell him about my portrait project on my deviantart page, and he pulls it up. Later that day after I've come back to go to class, the other instructor who was in there pulls me aside in a hall and basically tells me that he took a good look at my portraits, and that he was really impressed. He said that the lighting was perfect, and the subjects were powerful and intriguing. I think I must've blushed about ten shades.

But that's not all. My dear two or three readers, this very blog you're reading has inspired another instructor's class project. Camera Skills is the first class you take. You know "This is a lens. This is a shutter button. This is how you turn the damned thing on." Photography 101. Ran into my Camera Skills instructor, and he said he'd been showing off this blog to his class. Ok, so I clam up a little, but then it's my fault for putting it in my student website forum profile.

Anyway, he says they don't dwell on the text or anything, he just shows off how much extracurricular shooting I do. He now requires his students to start a blog and post at least two non-project related photos a week, and write about them.

This blog has inspired curriculum at school. So, yeah, I'm ego tripping a little at the moment. I'm going to have to go trip and fall down in front of people or some other Bridget Jones moment to bring me back down. :-P

---

And here's some of the other, more flattering photos I took friday night in the basement at L&V:

Turning point?

So it's Friday, and all I've been able to think about over the week has been personal photography projects to keep myself busy, and last weekend's total overstimulation in the social department. (not that I'm complaining, mind you!) I've had a lot of time to think. In fact, maybe think a little too much. And I've pondered at length whether I'm pondering too much. Yeah, it'll drive a guy batty, but I let the bats out of the belfry wednesday night with the much-needed release of some welcome drinks and dancing.

So here's a breakdown of what's been happening: Tuesday I went and shot a panoramic of the river through town here while it was flooded, and perfected the image on wednesday. Unfortunately, I can't seem to upload it to my DeviantART page, where I've got other new photos (hint-hint-nudge-nudge). I can't even upload it to here, even though it's a only 69k jpeg, and the others are uploading fine. So, you don't get to see it. Nyah.

BUT!

Wednesday afternoon, Angela called on her lunch, bored and broke, so I invited her to pop over if she didn't want to just hang around Honda for the length of her break. Took a couple of shots of her, and she is officially now the first non-me subject in my gritty portrait project. The same techniques I applied to my own portraits yielded very surprising effects on her. While producing a photo that does look rough, the the combination of that and her expression produced a very strong and beautiful image:



Of course, I also got her in a more flattering pose, and touched it up in Photoshop a bit:



Printed a 4x6 of it in time for her to take it back to work.

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Wednesday night I am invited by friends to go out, so we all meet at the L&V, and then head over to the B. (business names now initialized to cover my ass) Usually, I don't have much fun there, and again the DJ was playing only rap, but with just the right amount of drinks in me, I actually got complimented on my dancing. I just let the world melt away around me, and let the carefree good times roll for the night. It's so much more fun to go out with a group of people!

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See, for the first time, I was completely satisfied from last weekend in the sexual and social departments, and I could just completely chill out and enjoy myself. I feel like I've been in a state of transition lately, and it's all coming to a head. In a nutshell, I think I've made a giant leap in growing up.

On the radio tonight, they were doing a BBC documentary on the nature of childhood, especially the transition therefrom to adulthood. I've never really felt like a true adult, especially in my current situation, which is more like a second adolescence. I've always said that childhood ends when Mom stops being able to make everything better. Well... when I'm hungry now, and I don't have any of my own groceries, I can rely on hers. When I was sick over the holidays, she watched over me. When I got into a fender-bender, she payed the repair bill (although I'm working it off, repaying her with my monthly Stillwater paycheck).

But lately, I've been obsessing over the idea of getting my own place. Simultaneously, my photography has vastly matured, and for the first time in a while I'm truly pleased with it. I've stopped acting that proverbial teen girl at high school parties who goes off crying in a corner when things don't go her way. Normally, I'm a teensy bit slobby with my living space, and lately I've been doing the dishes and cleaning up a lot more lately. Is that nesting?

www.PregnancyWeekly.com says this about nesting:

This is an uncontrollable urge to clean one's house brought on by a desire to prepare a nest for the new baby, to tie up loose ends of old projects and to organize your world.

What if my new baby is... myself? A short while ago, I wrote a post about being bored with myself. That post came at the tail end of a good long spell of feeling that way... and I think maybe that was a period where my spirit was incubating a bit, not quite ready to hatch.

I just get the sense that I've transitioned significantly over the last week or two. Last weekend's emotional overstimulation of dates with both J Girl and NYE Girl, and the passionate night followed up with a friendly night with Dark Haired Girl, have exponentially added to the immediate feelings of satisfaction and clarity, and the overall sense of growing up.

I'm so confused, and it's the best damn feeling I've had in a while.

Dates, revelations, realizations, dilemmas, thickening plots, flood waters, and spaghetti

What a freakin weekend! This all ties together at the end, bear with me.

Let's start from the beginning. I mentioned the date with J Girl, right? Yeah, that's right. That was friday night.

So saturday night I go out with NYE Girl. We meet for coffee at a place downtown, and chat until the shop closes. She's super quiet, and little old me does most of the talking. Rambling on and on about photography, more like it, but still doing most of the talking. In an earlier IM conversation, she'd mentioned that there was a particular street she wanted to walk down at night because there was a great view of the courthouse. So I offered to take her up on that walk. Sure enough, we walked down to the end of Franklin St. where it meets Elm St., and when we turned around, there it was! The street stood with two street lights, and at the end was a house and few trees. As though the street were built to point directly at it, rising above the end was the illuminated courthouse.

Born and raised here for 28 years, and I'd never noticed the sight. Thanked her for showing me. I'll have to get my camera out there. Maybe tonight.

So we spend the next hour or so walking around Troy's neighborhoods talking about the historic architecture and whatnot. Walked her back to her car, and she thanked me for taking her out. I thanked her for coming out, as it's hard to find people who will. She said "That's hard to believe." We hugged goodbye, and I went home.

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Dark Haired Girl wanted me to call her that night, as a co-worker of hers was having a bar-hopping birthday party, so I called and met up with her at a local Irish Pub. Played DD for the night, and we went from there to another place to finish the evening. Drove her home, and ended up spending a wonderfully romantic night with her.

Spent Sunday at home watching "Dances With Wolves" on tv. Around 4, I start thinking I need to go to the store. Lo and behold, Dark Haired Girl calls, inviting me to Blonde Haired Girls house for spaghetti and movies. So I go to her place, we go to the store, and we walk around with her little girl, buying our separate groceries.

See, here's where it gets weird. Dark Haired Girl and I have known each other for a long while and are so comfortable around each other that we often end up acting like boyfriend/girlfriend. And as good as that feels... very good... I found myself getting very uncomfortable with it as the evening went on. Not uncomfortable with her, quite the contrary, just really squeamish with how much the night began to take on the illusion of being in a steady relationship. I know full well that's neither her intention nor mine.

I started getting the feeling that I wanted to bolt like lightning, and I felt really ashamed of feeling this toward such a great friend, but there it was, tugging on my sleeve. The urge to get the hell out of there and be alone.

Of course I didn't. I finished out the evening, and two movies: The Night Listener (very good), and Basic Instinct 2, which was terribly boring. Sharon Stone, who at her age is now the very definition of MILF, just got irritating with her character's nonstop purring. I asked Dark Haired Girl, "Jeez, I wonder if her character sounds like that all the time, like when she's ordering Chinese takeout or picking up her dry cleaning." Speak like a normal human being, dammit!

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Anyhoo, this brings me to the final twist of the story: J Girl emailed me, and basically wondered what my feelings were because she likes me. And truth be told, I really like her too. The times we've hung out, we've just had a total blast together. It'd hurt if she said she never wanted to see me again.

BUT




... and this is really immature and selfish




I just want to date. I don't want anything serious with anybody. Not J Girl, not NYE Girl, not Dark Haired Girl, not any of the women I'm talking to on Plenty Of Fish. I'm making some wonderful new friends, and better friends out of existing ones. It's just that I revealed my true colors to myself sunday night, and I'm scared to death at the thought of not being single. I still have some serious growing up to do.

So... I've been bitching nonstop since November of '05. Nonstop. And what happens when I get what I want? I decide it's not what I really want. But it's not like I don't want it. It feels great to finally be honest-to-goodness socializing for the first time in my life. It's delirous to go places and not have to pretend like I'm not watching people around me.

I mean, it's not like I'm playing some tiger on the prowl trying to scoop up as many women as I can and get in their panties... no. I just am finally coming out of my shell quite a bit more and busting out of this impenetrable bubble I've been living in since the divorce. It simply feels good to be social.

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I know what I mean, it's just coming out all wrong. Change of subject: The rivers around here are flooded from nearly a week of rain, and I headed down to the Englewood Dam to take photos. Remember the last time I went there with J Girl? The photos are in my October archive. Anyhoo, I'll be posting the new ones on my DeviantART page, but here's a panorama of 12 shots stitched together, as a teaser. ;-)



I'm such a tease. Don't you feel teased? I do.

Seriously. If you do nothing else this weekend, at least click on this link. I mean it. It's the Gizoogle translation of this blog, and I laughed so hard I drooled on my lap.

Is it just me, or is Bush also pissing you off now more than ever? I'd say more, but Jon Stewart beat me to it, and with much more eloquent bluntness. I'm so angry, I just want to break something when I start thinking about Iraq and Guantanamo and all the other fucking senseless bullshit. Bush and his administration are like a persistent festering infection that's keeping our beloved nation sick. I can't wait until he's outta Washington so America can finally begin to heal.

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But enough of my opinionated hippie ranting. It's otherwise been a fantastic week, kids. The Plenty Of Fish thing is working beautifully beyond my wildest expectation, and I've been having many wonderful email, IM, and phone conversations. Also, the high school winter sports season has kicked into full swing, and I've been busy not just on weekends, but also weeknights. This is bringing in a smidgen more income, which is good, because now I'm not quite so desperate.

Went out with J Girl tonight, and she looked very pretty. Nothing much, we just met for coffee, then went bowling. I bought the beer in exchange for a small piece of photography equipment (a dark bag for handling film). Under my expert tutelage, she broke 100 twice! Later, went for a bite to eat and then to walk aimlessly around walmart. Had a fun time picking up the display digital cameras and seeing what previous customers had taken pictures of. It was a really fun night. :-)

After hugging goodbye, I went to see Dark Haired Girl at her daughter's birthday party. Stuffed myself full of Pringles, chocolate, and root beer while learning how to play "Skip-Bo". I hope I never have to play that pain-in-the-ass game again. Too many numbers! Gaaaa!! But I'm just yanking her chain. Had a great time sitting around cracking jokes with her, her daughter's friends, and Blonde Haired Girl. Remember her? The one who initially said hi to me that fateful evening? We all hang out a lot together, I just never mention her.

And to top it all off, I'm getting together with New Year's Eve Girl for coffee tomorrow evening. Well, this evening, I guess, considering it's 3:00 in the morning. (still burning off all that sugar)

So, is this dating? Are what I'm doing with J Girl and NYE Girl considered dates? I'm not really picking up on any romantic undertones to any of what's going on. Well, ok, one POF conversation is getting a little flirty, but otherwise I simply consider what I'm doing as hanging out with female friends with whom I share the common interest of photography. But isn't that essentially what dating is? Must it always be like something out of a movie or sitcom; the protagonist's epic quest for true love? I don't think so.

Eahhh... K-I-S-S. Keep it simple, stupid. And I think I'm doing a fine job of doing just that.

New artsy photos after the text...

Shot a high school wrestling invitational this weekend, half of friday and all day yesterday. You can make all the jokes you want about mostly naked men rolling around on mats together, but let me tell you wrestlers are seriously tough and mortally dedicated motherfuckers. I saw more than my fair share of facial gashes and bloody noses, and all that they wanted was some cotton shoved up their nostrils and off they went again. What really impressed me was how wrestling takes not only sheer head to toe muscle power, but also agility, lightning speed, flexibility, and BRAINS. It's probably more physically intense yet snap-judgementally intellectual and strategic than any other sport I've seen. I find it interesting that most wrestlers I talked to were actually very humble and soft-spoken.

In short, it completely blew me away what these people do. I say 'people' and not 'guys' because there was one female. She kicked serious butt, although she ultimately lost her matches, but neither quickly nor easily. She was a tough cookie who put the boys up to one helluva struggle.

But enough of that. I didn't play hockey this morning as again the weather was damp and rainy, and also every muscle in my core and upper and lower back was screaming from yesterday's marathon workout. Plus, I didn't have the $15... and I slept until 12:30pm. So, no hockey. Big-ass bummer. Mom got for me a couple of free passes for public skating at the arena, as she and my stepdad work hand-in-hand with the arena's director, but that's only on the weekends, so I'll just have to hit the inlines this week to keep the leg muscles from getting too buttery.

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The Plenty of Fish thing is panning out much better than expected. Got several positive emails in the last day or two from some curvaliciously pretty women. That, and I'm still in correspondance with New Year's Eve Girl, and she's not a minor, as I had so feared. So I'm not a creep! Thank God! For now, the conversation is just about photography, though, as she's a seriously talented hobbyist. I mean, she has some stuff on her DeviantART page that blows me away, much like Chickpea.

Let's not forget J Girl, whom I haven't mentioned in a while. We've been emailing regularly, but haven't gotten together since the Englewood shoot in October.

October. Damn. That was a crapload of fun, too. I'll have to get together with her again soon.

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Now, for the main event... tonight's photos!

(á la Kermit the Frog) YAAAAAAY!!

I have a project in mind for the view camera (once I can afford the expensive sheet film it takes) to take portraits of friends and family. They won't be soft, everybody's happy, pretty pictures, either. They'll be monochrome face shots that confront the viewer. 4x5 film will capture every last little pore and blemish, and the portraits will be above all, honest. In my opinion, there's a nobility in such portraiture.

Practicing lighting with the digital, I took a few self portraits to give myself an idea of the lighting and exposure, and I think they give a great idea of what to expect:


Using both my monolight and portable flash to give (mostly) even lighting without looking too much like direct on-camera flash.


Showing the portable flash (hand-held). I bought on clearance at a local camera store a little translucent plastic plate that you stick on portable flash units to diffuse the harsh direct beam of light in a nice soft spray of light. Took this to show you the plate. (which I used sans monolight in the side-looking self portrait a few nights ago) You'll notice in all the pictures, if you zoom in, that there are two reflections (professionally called "catch lights") in my eyes... the big round umbrella of my monolight and a small rectangle... the diffusion plate.


Aimed up a bit to show my entire head and hair, and less of my neck and shoulders. This and the next are more of what I want the portraits to look like.



I think this is my #1 favorite (yet ugliest) self portrait to date. For this one I used a new trick in Photoshop I discovered tonight. Using the least flattering blue channel to turn an image monochrome is nothing new, but then the background was somewhat exposed and gray. So I used the exposure window (under the Image / Adjustments / Exposure...) to increase the exposure while decreasing the gamma to darken the backdrop and make the pores and blemishes really POP out. Neat-o.

Lemme know what you think.

So I'm looking up the phrases that people typed into search engines to arrive at my blog. This one I found particularly amusing: "How to restrain boners on a date"

Just had to mention that. If you haven't already, make sure to check out the photos in the post below...

Just call me Andy Leibovitz, celebrity portraitist...

Howdy all, it's your friend and humble narrator. I stopped by school today to get a few things out of my locker, and had a nice chat with the bookstore people. Bought some film for the Holga, and one roll is special b&w film that has extra sensitivity to the red end of the light spectrum, so the photos come out more like infrared if you use a red filter. Veddy veddy intereshting...

Things are getting a little tight, and I told Lee that I'm gonna hafta be finding another part time job. He said he'd do what he could to keep me busy more during the week. So we'll see how that goes. I did make a web sale today. A single 4x6, but I'm still tickled pink. :-)

In the mean time, I don't know if I mentioned picking up a sheet of thick black material (a lot like canvas) at the gi-huge-ous Salvation Army down by the Dayton Mall, to be used as a portrait backdrop. Ultimately, I want to use it for the large format portraits. I tacked it up on my bedroom ceiling the other day, and tonight after watching an hour and a half special on PBS about Annie Leibovitz, I was motivated to snap off a few self portraits. My monolight is in the trunk, and it's too bulky to get this time of night in my PJ's, so I just handheld the little flash I found at... the gi-huge-ous Salvation Army. God I love that place.

Anyway, of the handful I took, these stood out:




Ok, ok, ok... so I have a secondary motivation. I filled out another Plenty Of Fish profile, and I needed some "hot" photos to compliment the silly ones I posted. I need a date, dammit. That's all I have to say about that.

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You know, I just had the coolest idea! Hopefully I'll have an addendum to this post by the time you read it...

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ADDENDUM: ok, here 'tis:



I dunno. So so I guess. It'd probably look better with an attractive female face like Angela's. Or maybe not. Kinda cheesy now that I think about it, but that's trial and error, folks. Thanks for letting me bounce the idea off of you.

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Ooh! Ooh! I forgot to mention... the pretty young filly who asked me for my email address new year's eve? She actually emailed me today! I'll keep you posted.

We'll tak a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

Hi guys! I trust you all had a happy (and safe [enough]) new year. Sunday morning I awoke to a damp rainy day that had my back aching like crazy. At hockey, I lasted only a half hour before my back tensed up beyond skating. Hobbled back to the locker room using my stick as a cane. It's still sore tonight after all day yesterday and today, but it's feeling better as the air is drying up and barometric pressure is returning to normal. Here's to hoping the weather clears up and my arthritic spell subsides by next weekend.

Spent new year's eve working Troy's First Night Out celebration by taking event photos and family & couples portraits. Brought the computer and printer, and sold 4x6's for $5 a print. Made $95! Hell yeah! At one point I got bored and took a picture of myself.

Hi, I'm a dork.

A very pretty (dare I say 'hot'?) young lass asked me for my email address. She came in with a friend to have their portrait taken and purchased two prints. We chatted a bit about music and other smalltalk, and I showed her my mp3 collection while the printer did its thing. About a half hour later, she came back in and asked if I had a myspace page or anything so she could get the names of some of the bands we talked about. I instantly went into nervous blather mode but managed to give her my email address without fainting of flattery.

Now, don't get your hopes up just yet. She looked to be all of about 17 years old, but I'm hoping to death that she's one of those really young-looking 22 year old types.

---

Anyway.... after that, Lee and I headed over to where the strawberry was to drop at midnight (Troy is, after all, the strawberry city). Took many pictures of the band that was playing, wide-angle shots of the crowd from the stage, and our fearless leader, the mayor, giving a speech. Last time they dropped the strawberry, they actually dropped it. Literally. It fell straight down and broke. I'd've paid money to see that. :-) But this year, they (wisely) raised the strawberry UP to the 2007 sign.

At midnight, people flooded the bubble wrap dance floor (uber-fun) and sang the traditional auld lang syne. Also, traditionally, people all around me started smooching. Popped off a great shot of this cute couple:

Awwwwww!

If you look closely, you can see how their heads, his collar, and her hair and hand create a valentine shape. Feeling a little left out photographically as the crowd dispersed, I took this dashing self portrait:

Dude in the background finds my self portrait amusing.

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Had lunch with Angela today. Now, I asked her if I could mention this under the guise of her dreaming this and telling me about it, but no, she wanted the truth. So here it is...

She ate a magic mushroom before picking me up to go split a pizza. Happily munching away, we were talking about each others' romantic hardships. She then proceeded to hallucinate that I had a very happy and positive aura, and a guardian angel watching over me, with falling stars sparkling between. I found her vision to be very warm and touching, and a poetic mental image. All in all, I have been rather lucky in things, staying mostly out of harm's way. Who's to say she's wrong?

Either way, guardian angel or no, I still took her keys and drove us back.

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And now for the obligatory chat about resolutions. I keep my resolutions, and it started two years ago with the resoluion simply "...to begin, and leave it at that." Last year, my successfully kept resolution was simply "to continue."

For 2007, what would make a solid resolution that is ultimately attainable, yet deep and far reaching enough to demand a year-long effort in achieving? I have two:

1) To actually use my view camera. How many times have you tirelessly lusted after something, and then when you finally get it, use it once (if at all) and then just let it collect dust? Me: guilty. But not this time. That 4x5 is going to get used as much as I can afford for portraits of friends and family, as well as nature photos through all the seasons. It will not become a museum piece.

2) Disheartened but emboldened in my resolve by the sight of so many people kissing around me at midnight, I WILL kiss a girl at midnight next year. I've got 364 days now to find a victim... I mean, candidate. Yeah... that's what I meant. :-)



You know you want me.