Lookout Everyone, originally uploaded by ernestkoe.
I don’t normally get out to the beach but today, I had a couple of hours to kill while waiting for the dogs to get groomed. I looked like an alien with my camera walking amongst half-naked, bemused earthlings. It was scorching hot that day but the light was incredible and made even better by the gray sand which served as a free, giant reflector and diffuser.
kindly look away
I am not responsible
if you fall in love
Wired Magazine hit this on the head!
Independence, originally uploaded by ernestkoe.
I am very much still in the throes of gritty photography experimentation. What I have learned thus far is this:
1. I am not a big fan of too much post-processing. Nothing against Photoshop, it is a marvelous tool, even deadly in the right hands and I feel it has a rightful place in the world of photography. I prefer getting it ‘right’ the first time, mostly because I am not particularly patient.
2. Street; I am drawn to the mundane. Maybe, a little part of me is searching for the divine in the familiar. I think what moves me most is not Places but Feelings. I like landscape and nature photography just fine, but I’d take portraits any day.
3. I am a geek. I love gizmoes, but I wish my camera were simpler. I use a Nikon D90. It is an amazing piece of technology, but I wish I could shoot a Holga to a digital back.
4. Upon reflection, my earlier point about Photoshop is only partially accurate. Yes, I am lazy, but not too lazy to squeeze the image in my head on to the screen with post-processing. There image straight out of the camera is not any more ‘real’ than the image out of Photoshop…
5. that too depends on the intent of the photo, I suppose.
Big Toe, meet Photoshop, Photoshop, Big Toe. I’ve never found a reason to take Photoshop seriously until now. Go figure.
There was something quixotic about the scene. I loved the purposefulness of the three people in the frame and the near ridiculousness of the entire image. Three tourist like me lugging their luggage unflappably through the heart of San Francisco as if this was utterly normal, like they were meant to do this and to do so with confidence and cool.
Perhaps, we are all strangers in our own strange land.
Monterey Mirage, originally uploaded by ernestkoe.
Too much flickr? Lately, I have been exploring what the flickerati do. The curious thing is that many don’t post many photos at all. Perhaps they are posting like crazy but limiting how many are publicly shown. The fascinating thing is that their Explored to photo ratio seems quite high, generally speaking.
I feel like I am getting to a point where my torrential stream of flickr photo uploads is calling for some restraint.
Post fewer, more meaningful ones?
Love this concept and execution by Kelly O’neal. If you haven’t already, check out her work at ekovisions.com. Kelly and I went to high school together and shared our own version of Freaks and Geeks. Two decades later, we find ourselves sharing a common creative outlet not apparent to me before now. As usual, Kelly is years ahead of me; I always knew of her work, but never appreciated quite as much until now.
We are totally headed for Socialism. Obamacare is the end of America as we know it. It is the biggest, fattest bait-and-switch lie to ever be perpetrated on patriotic Americans.
Case in point, just the other day, I saw FOUR fire-engines screaming down the street. It turns out that they were on their way to a little house down the road.
I was like, “WTF! One, why can’t people put out their own goddamn fire. And, number two, why are my taxes dollars going to put out a fire at a house much smaller than mine?!”
You see, this is why American is complete F*ed up! Why should I work so hard only to see Big Brother spread my hard earned wealth around? I mean, this is basic God given common sense. First we get a Public fire department and the next thing you know, them liberals will be taking away our guns.
Glenn Beck was TOTALLY right. God bless him for speaking the truth. Unless people finally learn to take some personal RESPONSIBILITY, we are headed straight for socialism!!
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Inspired by Daniel Miessler’s post
So, I find myself at a crossroads of sorts. True clarity still escapes me but a few things have come into focus.
For the first time in over twenty years, I have a hobby, photography. “Hobby” is a terrifying and alien word; terrifying because it is as much a statement about my relationship with “work” as it is one about “life.”
Words can be oppressive but I suppose language is inherently political.
My hobby is already teaching me a few things about myself. For one, I miss the joy of being immersed in one’s craft. Work used to be that way. Though, these days, I don’t wake up looking eagerly to write code or create user-interfaces. I lament the loss of that feeling particularly since the whole point of not having a regular job in the first place is to avoid the trappings of modern job-life. Work was play, and the existence of a hobby appears to have changed that equation. It bothers me deeply.
But I awoke this morning to a small insight. Beckett is three months and a week. He caught his first cold a few days ago, and has been a pitiful, heart-wrenching mess. This morning, at five thirty a.m., he was crying to be changed. I tried to focus.
C is starting her second day back at work after a three month long maternity leave. And as I laid in bed to coax resolve into consciousness, it occurred to me that I was tired. I felt this deep weariness borne from the wash cycle of life that was the last three months, a tiredness borne from the strange alchemy of happiness mixed with worry. In the confluence of all these changes, my rational center is struggling to hold, and my creative self is working overtime to compensate…
We were hurtling down the CSX tracks through North Carolina at about sixty miles and hour as the sun went down over the horizon.
The night turned electric orange, and as we watched ghost towns melt away in the glow of the night, I clicked away on the camera, hoping to catch the last final frames of our journey home.
Technically, it was all I could do to keep the shutter speed fast enough to get this shot with nearly no light. Did I say how much I love my 35mm f/1.8G?
This is pretty much SOOC though I did apply a touch of the Ken Rockwell effect by punching up the contrast and vibrancy just a hair.
