Today I had the double-whammy working against me: I was not only "I'd rather watch paint dry" bored, but also was working on the attention span of a hyper-caffeinated Carrot Top. So I went to the new Piqua Mall to walk around, and see if Mitchel was in her new store. Back story: My friend Michelle (a.k.a. Mitchel), after assistant managing stores over the last few years, now is full-fledged store manager. Anyhoo, I had no intention of spending any of the last $9 I had to my name, but I meandered into what is possibly the greatest retail store on the face of the planet: Steve & Barry's. It's a primarily college sports apparel store where normally priced, a freakin leather jacket there will cost you no more than $15. On clearance, maybe $4 at the most. Well, I was browsing when I came across a clearance rack of hockey jerseys, and came across the last XXL one. It was THREE FUCKING NINETY NINE. Normally that shit will cost you around $80. But I got it for $4. It was for Ohio University (where I shot the sorority bid day last year). Here I am now:


I had a hell of a time finding ANYTHING that would fit over my big honkin' shoulder pads, let alone dark (because that's my drop-in hockey team... the darks). I am so studly it hurts. Never mind that I found an old portable flash, and bounced it off the ceiling to make the photo look good, but it ended up giving the appearance of having my picture taken with overhead flourescent lights. And I'm paying school to teach me what about photography??

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And here's a little something I cooked up in Photoshop the other afternoon in response to the ranting ad nauseum of conservative talk radio hosts:

Hobbit Feet, Spring, and my Star-Cross'd Heart

Hi all.

No, I should end that with an exclamation point: Hi all!

Better. :-) Anyhoo, finals are underway, and I had my Commercial 1 final friday afternoon. We had to shoot three separate shots, all within an imaginary budget of $200 where hourly rate, film sheets, and Polaroids cost money. With a mandatory profit, coming in under budget gives you extra credit, whereas going over budget takes points away. I not only shot all three scenes in two hours, but actually flubbed the first one and after shooting the other two reset the first and shot it again. The extra sheets of film and Polaroid cost me, but the $30 per hour rate brings me in under budget. I rock.

Spring has finally (actually, prematurely) arrived here in Ohio. Aside from the freezing fog late this season, this winter just. plain. sucked. Of course, the actual calendar beginning of Spring has come and gone, but you know how the seasons tend to overlap. We've been having well above-average temperatures here, and I took the opportunity to snap a few photos:




I really like the barefoot one, better than anything I've taken in a long while. I have hobbit feet. It's the perfect snapshot, so whimsical and carefree, almost narrative. It conjures up all sorts of stories and images.

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Volunteered to take photos for a Cub Scout food drive two weekends ago. Dropped off the photo CD to the food pantry, and the lady who runs it kept saying that she'd compensate my time. I insisted otherwise on the grounds that she didn't ask me, I came to her and asked if I could help. That, and even though I'm not church-going by any stretch of the imagination, it feels wrong to take money from a church run pantry, especially when I wasn't hired. She gave me a big one armed hug and said "Here, then I'll just love on you a little."

I'm so charming it's sickening. :-P

Come to find out, she wanted the photos not just for posterity, but because the newspaper is going to run an article on the event. Dudes! My photos are going to be in the paper. This rocks triumphantly.

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But the real reason I need to talk to you: Dark Haired Girl. Her friend (and one who originally stopped me as I was leaving that fateful night), Blonde Haired Girl, is getting on us about officially dating. Her daughters are beginning to question her too. I'm starting to feel a little pressure from people.

Remember Eagles Girl? I hung out with her this weekend, and, well... things happened. Very good things. I even told Dark Haired Girl out of respect (not guilt or apology) and she was completely fine with it. And she was on a date last weekend, and that didn't bother me one little bit. I was actually happy for her.

I have to admit that this was an, *ahem* busy weekend for me, and that quite bluntly, the following night I had what was possibly the most brain-melting sex with Dark Haired Girl that I think I've ever had with her. I can still feel it in my knees. We're so sexually compatible ... we move in harmony like Beethoven's 9th symphony.

In a nutshell... I'm completely confused. There's additional dimensions to my sordid dilemma, but it's bedtime for Bonzo, and I need to hit the hay. We'll save the rest for a later conversation. Thanks for listening.

*** Continuation the next day ***

Sorry... I was nodding off in my chair writing that last night. But I don't even know exactly what I'm trying to say. She and I have talked about our relationship at great length, and we're comfortable where we are despite outside pressures to make a more conventional and easily digested relationship out of it.

I guess my main concern is hurting those around Dark Haired Girl. I really don't want her girls or Blond Haired Girl to start thinking negatively of me, that I'm in any way trying to use Dark Haired Girl.

I dunno. What do you guys think?

Three out of four readers make up 75% of you.

So tuesday night I bought a tube of Crest Pro-Health toothpaste. On the catchy graphic face of the package, it claims "Whitens Teeth by Removing Surface Stains". BUT! On the Drug Facts fine print side, it says, "products containing stannous fluoride may produce surface staining of the teeth".

Then, there are those irritating two minute commercials on Discovery Channel for the Tempur-Pedic Swedish mattresses developed by NASA. Wait... are they Swedish, or are they NASA??



Stop fucking with my head!

Thanks, Nan, for the previous comment! I appreciate it.

Well, here's the scanned chrome of friday's lab that I mentioned in the last post. It's everything I'd hoped it would be. One of my other instructors looked at it and told me to keep it well protected, because it's a portfolio piece.

See, we graduate by assembling a portfolio in our final quarter which gets judged. If any images aren't up to snuff and don't pass... you don't graduate. Simple as that. Lately I've been hitting the panic button, but this class has yielded two portfolio-quality pieces, so I've eased a little up off the button, so to speak. Anyhoo, here 'tis:



Me likey. :-)

Hi all. Finals for the quarter are approaching in the next week or two. Where has this quarter gone? Seems like yesterday when I was typing "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."

Dark Haired Girl took me out to a Dayton Bombers game they played against the Cincinnati Cyclones last night at Hobart Arena here in town. Bombers lost, just the same as last time. The Cyclones' goalie Cedric Desjardins is a brick wall, man. Hardly anything gets past that guy. Anyways, a couple of fights tried to break out, but the officials weren't having any of it. Not like last time where they let two guys box it out for what seemed like a couple of minutes. That was tacky in my opinion, but the crowd loved it.

Anyhoo, saturday I went to J Girl's house because she had an idea for a photo but didn't have the means to make it happen. With me behind the camera and her playing art director and model, we made it happen. She originally wanted a monochrome image, but I liked the color one. Here's what I cooked up in photoshop:




They're from the same raw image, but each went through their own individual process... the black and white isn't just a mono of the color. I'm going to see if I can't submit this for extra credit in Commercial 1. Fashion photography is commercial photography, not portraiture, and I definitely used the skills I've learned this quarter to make this shot happen. To get the definition across the arch of the shoe, I improvised with a piece of paper that was lying around.

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Spent St. Paddy's evening at home. Angela came over, and we ran to the store to pick up beer, movie snacks, and something to cook for dinner. Got drunk watching From Hell. I didn't want to go out (considering I had $5 to spend), but didn't want to spend the evening alone, either. It was nice, aside from eating Oreo cookies while drinking beer. Talk about clashing flavors.

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Was desperate for money to buy props for lab on friday, so thursday (notice how this post is totally chronologically random?) I went and sold plasma. Five and a half hours later, I walked out of there with a bandage on my arm and $35. Lab friday was a success, at least I hope. I think I may have overexposed the image, but the polaroids rock. I see the developed chromes today. Wish me luck!

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Sunday Kizzy was curled up on a stack of folded towels, and I had to grab the camera. Don't let her apparent sweetness fool you, she's a total booger. I guess biting and hissing is just her way of saying "I love you."



Still more new photos at the Deviant Art page.

I'm drinking beer and watching Jackass (my new-found guilty pleasure) on MTV. So I decided to have a few cheap beers to put on a notable buzz and then grab a pen and scrap paper to take note(s)of my thoughts:

1. I was baited-and-switched into watching MTV's "Scarred" when the TV guide said that Jackass would be airing. That Jacobi host, without any prior context, comes across as a total poser.

2. I miss going to the laundromat. I don't miss having to feed five gadzillion quarters per weekend to those infernal machines, but I miss the ambiance. The human interest soap opera. Call me a drama queen... or else a documentary photographer. Synonymous terms, I've come to learn in my embryonic career as such.

3. MTV is, at least in their night programming, aimed not so much at the teen crowd as it is people my own age in their late 20's, who are trying to relive the halcyon days of their fast fading youth. I am no exception.

4. That pink-haired Esurance.com cartoon chick is hot. Their insurance is still ridiculously expensive, though, last time I checked.

5. John Heder in sequins, makeup, figure skates, and long hair makes kind of a cute girl.

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On a more serious (but no less influenced) note, I made up my project today where I was partnered with a classmate (and righteous cutie) to shoot to a prescripted advertising layout. I, of course, give her, and only take for myself, 50% credit for this. One half. Fifty-Fifty:



I'm so proud of this one I could burst. I can't stop looking at it.

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Attacked the dark room today and turned out some serious develop-stop-fix ass kickery, especially an 8x10 of Dark Haired Girl that I took last (friday) night of her in that perfect lateral light of sunset. As was most of my photos of other people. So for legal propriety's sake, you can't see them.

Nyah.

Silver, pretzels, and Vizzini from "The Princess Bride"...

My day just isn't complete until I do, say, or otherwise fall into some circumstance that embarrasses the ever-living snot out of me. During the aforementioned "Men's Weekend" I passed out, and true to male nature they messed with poor defenseless little ol' Andy. (of course, I'd've done the same :-P ) At least I still have my eyebrows, and no sharpie marker scribbled on my face.



I absolutely hate this photo, but I'm willing to share it because my gut says you'll get a kick out of it. So you owe me bigtime for this one.

I expect no less than a topless photo.

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But seriously... made my first ever silver prints, from the first roll of film shot with Chuck's Nikon FG. You know, the prints made with negatives and an enlarger, and you develop instead of scanning and printing with an injet printer? Here are the decent ones:





I kept the photoshopping to a minimum, and only adjusted the levels to bring the scans as close as possible to what the actual print looks like. I've got a lot to learn, but it's a good start!

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Bought this neat little green candle holder and pack of tea lights at the dollar store yesterday to give my room a little needed ambiance. Well, I'm burning it now, but I'm not seeing a big difference. Maybe that's because it's still broad daylight.

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And I just checked my inbox ...no boob shots yet.


I'm waiting!

I still have a bunch of boxer underwear that Caro bought me back in the day. They're old and threadbare and uncomfortable now. Well, in a move of purgation of the past, I bought a pack of my favorite boxer-brief underwear, and threw away my old boxers... and some emotional clutter at the same time. You have no idea how freeing this tiny little gesture has been. Little by little, I'm still in the process of becoming my own man.

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This may surprise you, but I'm used to be a music man. I sang for three years in high school, and my senior year I sang with the Men's Chorale, Senior Choir, and Show Choir. I took music theory. I can hum an "E" out of thin air and be damn near dead on concert pitch. My ultimate goal (especially after seeing "Mr. Holland's Opus" in high school in the mid-90's) was to to become a composer and music teacher. I had a guitar for many years. I even wrote and recorded a song in my living room with my (then new, but now 4 years old) computer.

Problem is... I never really got good with the guitar. To say I "played guitar" was an insult to the mystique and heritage of the instrument. I knew how to play it logically, but almost never from the heart. When particular friends of the family would come to visit, they'd produce enthralling sounds from my very own instrument that I never ever could. They unlocked my old Fender, and made it sing with a glory, fireworks, and soul that I could never even begin to reach in a million years with my sensible playing. I always felt stunted, and that no matter how hard I would ever try, I'd always feel disappointed in myself.

Well, next quarter I have a class where we choose a topic and shoot to that topic for the entire quarter. Whichever topic I choose, one certainty will remain: I will go old-skool and shoot 35mm black and white film, and make silver prints instead of inkjet. Coincidentally, my older sister has a photography course coming up in her Graphic Design major, and I've lent her my auto-everything Canon Rebel.

So I'm using my stepdad's old Nikon FG. You know, the fully manual auto-nothing kind with the thumb lever you use to advance the film after shooting a frame? I bought batteries for it today, and shot my first practice roll of film with it.

My stepdad took a photography class as part of his art degree back in the early 80's. He knew logically how to use it, but was never a photographer at heart. I've seen some of his photos from them. They're perfectly sensible. But today as I looked through the lens, and as I shot my photos, I saw fireworks, glory, and above all, fluency and soul.

I can make his camera, his instrument, sing in ways he couldn't. I unlocked its potential. The guitar has been a point of frustration of mine for years. But today, as I drew the parallel between it and the Nikon FG, the fourteen year old weight of that frustration was lifted from my shoulders.

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BTW, if you want to hear my song from 2004, it's at This Link. It's called "My Own Myth", and I can explain the words if you'd like.

I used a program called Fruity Loops to program the bass and drums. I recorded the guitar and vocals one at a time by plugging them into my Sound Blaster card.