Woodman Jr.

A while back I bought for $6 one of those little posable wood mannequins. I figured I'd do something silly with it, a la Man Ray's 1940's "Mr. and Mrs. Woodman" series where he took two of them and (mature artist that he was) posed them in sexual positions. Anyway, tonight after finishing a can of Coke...



I crack myself up.

Turkeys, Mexicans, Fall Foliage, and I.V. Drip Antibiotics

Happy Thanksgiving all! I spent the day at the hospital with Blonde Haired Girl (Dark Haired Girl's best friend) whose Thanksgiving was decidedly NOT happy at all. Simultaneous severe UTI and kidney infections. Poor girl. We thought she had a kidney stone at first. She kept crying and saying it felt like she'd given birth ten times back to back. She'd run over to the toilet in her ER booth/room/thing and I'd stand there while she bawled and trembled in pain, letting her lean forward and rest her forehead on my hip while I rubbed her back and hair.

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There's a Mexican restaurant here in town whose owner, every Thanksgiving, puts the money out of his own pocket to serve free Thanksgiving dinners. The news reported on him tonight, and they served 6000 turkey meals. His reasoning is that after he came here from Mexico, this area supported him and made him a successful businessman. He wants to give back to the community that gave so much to him. His small army of volunteers even drives meals out to the disabled and elderly who can't come to his restaurant to eat.

Can you think of a better example of what America truly is about?

It's just down the street from the hospital, so having not eaten anything all day, I went and had a marvelous free lunch. One of my regular customers at the drive through window was a volunteer at the dinner, and he said it was nice to serve me for a change. They didn't allow to-go meals, so I couldn't pick anything up for Dark Haired Girl. She wasn't hungry anyway, taking care of Blonde Haired Girl... or else she was just being admirably stoic.

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Well... I'm not just in the home stretch, I'm in the final mad sprint to the finish line at school. As we speak, I'm printing off portfolio pieces on an old Epson Stylus Pro 5500 that the IT guy was going to pitch at school. He even had ink cartridges except for magenta, so I had to order that online. A little print testing to tweak the settings, and I now have a wide format printer that will put out portfolio-quality prints, and it has gigantic ink cartridges that won't run out in a matter of weeks.

After finishing off the volleyball dvd slideshow, I've been dedicating 100% of my energy toward perfecting this portfolio. The actual portfolio case came in the other day. 11x14 black aluminum with a small window and a 12-ring binder inside. Not cheap. Thank God I sold 24 DVDs at $15 a pop.

One lady is pissed, though. I didn't put enough photos of her daughter in. I offered to re-make a version of the slideshow to include more of her daughter (it's only fair, she was one of the three seniors) and burn her a new DVD.

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It's snowing outside. This isn't the first snow to fall, but it's the first to stick to grass and cars. The ground is still too warm, as the temperature just dipped this evening to a degree or so below freezing.

What a colorful fall this was. I think it was about ten years ago, there was a fall where I was so preoccupied, maybe when I was going to Sinclair Community College or something, that one day I looked up and realized the trees were bare. I was horrified that in my preoccupation with whatever matter was at hand, I missed an entire season. That scared me to death, and ever since, I've had an informal vow to myself to be absolutely sure to look at the fall colors every day. And what a long, beautiful, and satisfying fall this was. :-)

So, yeah. That's where I've been lately.

Remember my "Faces" project I'd done a while back, and which is posted on my (now regrettably ignored) DeviantART page? Well, I mounted those prints on boards (as well as a few new ones of my dad, Ruben, and friend Heather), and reserved some gallery time at school.

My gallery is hanging up now, to critical acclaim from both student and faculty bodies. The only negative comments are that there are only nine pieces, to which I reply that it's hard to find people willing to have their portraits taken with the purpose of accentuating high resolution skin texture and flaws.

Half of my Business Practices class volunteered to me last week, so I said I'd bring in my gear this week (tonight). The shot of me is in my bedroom (no, I don't normally go topless at school), but the others were taken in my class at OIP. You have no idea how proud I am of the sitters.

Here they are, in all their beautifully flawed glory:

Hi all. I'm in the home stretch for graduation. Slowly but surely, the final portfolio is taking shape. I've got six completed pieces, which is just under the halfway mark, and several more in the works. I have a shoot scheduled with my uncle for a corporate portrait as well.

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Shutterbug... I realized as I hit the publish button on that last one that the reason I used to be such a poet is that I used to focus on writing as a means to express myself. Back when I thought I was a songwriter. I was in a lot more pain back then, too. Now, things are all-in-all going pretty well, and now all that creative energy is being poured into my photography. The same heart is there, just in a different form.

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I put my gallery show up at school monday. As Will Turner put it so aptly in Pirates of the Caribbean: a craftsman is always pleased to hear his work is appreciated.

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So this week I have portfolio work due friday, my resume's second draft due tomorrow, a real-world job due ASAP for Mom & Chuck (photos for a retail map of downtown Troy), and the DVD slideshow for the girls volleyball team. Their banquet is Sunday night, and they expect it done by then. I've got the Freshman and Varsity teams' segments completed. Now just the Junior Varsity, and then to figure out how in the hell to make it into a DVD. Stayed up until 3am last night, and I skipped school today to try to catch up on all the work.

Speaking of, I just got back from the Neon Movies in Dayton, the spot for not-quite-mainstream movies. The local American Heart Association had a little shindig there with the major contributors and a DVD slideshow featuring the photos taken at the event I shot along with several other students. I took photos of the guests, and stayed after it ended and treated myself to a Sam Adams Cherry Wheat beer and a ticket for the movie "The Darjeeling Limited", starring Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, and Jason Schwartzman. What a fantastic movie. If you live near an art theatre, I highly recommend it. Laughed my butt off through the whole movie.

There's a regular at the drive through who's a dead ringer for Adrien Brody, plus ten years. Never really thought about it until watching the movie tonight, and I thought "Damn, he looks just like that regular guy!" He's from Poland. Doesn't smile much, but he's not unfriendly. Asked him how to say "Good morning" and he told me, but I forget.