Two and Four Zeroes

Thank you.

Eeyore's Birthday Pt. 2

This weekend also gave me the opportunity to learn a little about Adobe Premiere and Soundbooth... I didn't think anything could be more difficult than Final Cut Pro, but I guess I was wrong! They're quirky... my next task is to learn the Ken Burns Effect in After Effects.

Eeyore's Birthday

Eeyore's Birthday is an Austin festival held at Pease Park (give whirled peas a chance!) the week after 4/20, since some hippies back in '61 decided that one weekend in April was not sufficient for their public cannabis consumption needs.

The festival is largely family-friendly, with a petting zoo, juggling, puzzles, ice cream, and so forth. The drum circle is the line of demarkation, however. Past that percussion, the park was rather hazy and fragrant.

In a way, I suppose it's a form of nonviolent civil disobedience. The people in Austin don't feel that marijuana is a crime, and so they demonstrate. There's not really any inspiring speeches, just a lot of coughing, laughing, and drumming.

Maybe it's equivalent to religious self-expression?

Or more likely, the good folks of Austin just know how to have a good time on a beautiful day. I love where I live.

TSM Banquet

Tonight I got to eat copious amounts of food with some of my favorite people, the stalwart Daily Texan staff. I realized that my best times this semester were a result of being on staff at this amazing paper with these awesome folks. I'm just so damned fond of everyone!

And we know how to party.

Goofy damn photogs.

<3

Oh, I almost forgot... I was awarded Runner-Up Texan Photographer of the Year, which totally blew me away. Andrew Rogers snagged PoY, most deservingly! Damn I love this job.

Leaf, West Campus

I'm ready to be done. I've already mentally checked out for the most part. This semester holds a few pleasures more, thankfully... still, it's awfully ronery in my room now that Dan is gone nearly all the time.

Marleyfest

Austin is simply great, that's all there is to it. We had a reggae festival in town over the weekend (curiously coinciding with 4/20, hm...) which I shot with Andrea and Karl. This weekend was an interesting one at the Daily Texan... we decided to have an analog, film weekend! We mixed up a huge batch of C41 chemicals and got the ol' dunk processor going again. So, most of my shooting recently was done with my trusty Pentax K1000, including much of Marleyfest. I'll get in to scan some frames soon, so you can get the big picture. I shot some digital backup stuff on Sunday, so here's that.



Austin, truly an oasis amid a vast conservative desert.

Beautiful Corpse and the Bathtub

Elaine and I worked on some portraits the other night, and I think I ended up with this being my favorite image... there's some trickery here, see if you can see what it is. There's a few other picks from the shoot that I quite liked on my flickr. Follow the image, and they're right next-door on the photostream.

This may be one of the first times I'm really pretty satisfied with a photographic situation that I posed and set up. It's a tough working environment and hasn't so far meshed with my usual way of thinking, but I think like anything, it's all about adjustment and accommodation. Also, Elaine is just gorgeous and great to work with as soon as we can stop laughing and being goofy. Pic related, as always.



Big weekend coming up, we're doing it all with film rather than digital at the Texan. Bryant's even shooting sports with an F4 and an old manual AI-S 300mm f/2.8. That's just manly as hell.

See you all at Marleyfest!

Annie Ray

From another profile assignment on Annie Ray, a local indie scene photographer with a great deal of talent, and a cutie to boot. She sets up a strobe and umbrella in front of grungy funky club walls and shoots photo-booth style photos of people at these events. The pictures end up hyper-realistic, with a great slightly overexposed quality, and she comes out of every night with many, many fabulous portraits. Did I mention she's a cute girl?

My own lady situation is more hilarious than anything. Oh ladies.
I've reached that point in the year-- let's be honest and call it SPRING-- where I'm slightly annoyed by every happy couple I see, hear, or think about. Sigh. Where are you, girls who dig me?

Annie's strobing inspired me a little... Jordan's a badass. You can tell from his shirt!

Parkour on Campus

Profile piece on Patrick Yang, prominent member of Austin's parkour community. These ladies and gentlemen use architecture and public spaces as their jungle gym, so to speak. It's a fascinating and very aerobic activity, involving a great deal of conditioning and technique. I was surprised by how cool it is, and how interesting all the people are.

You may have seen parkour influences in free-running through cities like Jackie Chan or David Belle. I was just watching Jackie Chan's First Strike, which has some really amazing parkour-style moves.

Andrew and the Very Civilized Dinner

Several of the Daily Texan folks got together last night at Karl's house to make and eat a lovely dinner.

Aside from this wonderful communal meal, I feel little pleasure lately in eating. I've been so busy that eating three meals a day has become a task, a chore, something I need to do in order to keep my body fueled and ready for the absurd demands I make of it.

I'm also thinking of going vegetarian, just for my intestines' sake. I'm tired of feeling like I've got lead in my belly. I love meat, but I think vegetarian meals will allow me to concentrate better on my work.

Edit: By the way, this was taken with Bryant's BEAUTIFUL 35mm f/1.4 Nikkor. What an amazing lens! Nikon NEEDS to make an AF-S version so that Canon isn't the only game in town.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

I have incredibly talented friends. Elaine Wang is certainly one of the greatest among them. She starred in a production of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, as Guildernstern (or is it Rosencrantz?)




I'm continually astounded by the excellence of those surrounding me.

Daily Texan People...

You can spot them anywhere.

You Guys Rock

By the way, though it may be a lame milestone, I'm still grateful to everyone for 18,000 views on my photostream, and over 70,000 total photo views. I know this number is sort of dwarfed by the Daily Texan's everyday run of 60,000 copies in which my photos are often displayed, but flickr and this blog are direct viewing activities which require your intervention and desire to emerge yourself in photography. That's far more important to me than the people on their way to class who are just going to glance at my little playing-card sized photo. I appreciate everyone's support, criticism, and input.

I do this because I love it, but without an audience, I'm pretty damn irrelevant. So thank you, one and all!

Truly Truly Outrageous

Man, I'm having the best time shooting recently... trusting my exposures has led to some really interesting frames. This broken D50 is sort of like a blessing in disguise. My head really feels in the game right now.

I also feel like I'm hitting a good stride in my post-processing. This iMac is a godsend, and has made it possible for me to make very quick changes that look great.

When it comes down to it, though, I'm constantly inspired by what I'm seeing on P. Frank's blog and Joe Bug's website and Magnum In Motion slideshows... there's really just so much great photography out there, I have to try my hardest every day just to call myself a photographer, when there are people like them producing jaw-dropping work. I'm not even close to what these folks are doing, but hopefully I can get there.

Hipsters in Repose

The more I look at this photo, the more I love it.

(Part of my continuing posting of The Roots' concert at 40 Acres Fest)

Epic Weekend

This was an epic weekend of shooting. TIPA, immediately followed by 40 Acres Fest, with the Roots headlining. The Roots.

The Roots. They're absolutely amazing.

I got to see a bunch of old friends while I was in College Station, and even went swing dancing. Now there's an aspect of my character I could stand to develop. I'm just not a whole person until I can dance!

I'm going through nearly 1500 photos, so I will be editing these takes for weeks to come. Oh hell yeah.



Andrea and I won 1st place for our "photo story," by the way.

TIPA

Here's the three submissions I had for TIPA's two person photo contest that I entered into with my esteemed colleague Andrea Lai (baller that she is.)