Statement Coats

2011-11-29T19:25:00.000-08:00

We're getting closer to the end of the Pittsburgh photos that I shot 14 months ago. I think there's only one more roll after this one.

Lolo you are too damn cute. Smile for me Lolo!

D'awww, there it is.

I like this photo of myself, in which I was explaining that to see the light meter in my camera you just rest your finger on the shutter release and... oh. Lolo's got heavy fingers.

I harassed Lolo at the grocery store.

While she shopped for peppers.

2011-11-18T19:58:00.001-08:00

Let's finish up with the Occupy Portland photos. These are from October 15th, when Occupy Portland joined up with a peace protest that I do not know the name of.

It's amazing how much you can assume about someone given so little actual information.

I loved this little old lady. You can't tell but she is wearing a purple tiara. Sometimes I do just want to throw my hands up and say, 'Yeah, let's eat the rich. Let's nom nom nom that shit.'

Being a photographer is interesting. You go in there wanting to really capture everything as it is, present it unbiasedly. Then the photographer brain looks at the little kid with the rain boots or the studded guy with the anarchy sign and says, 'Ooh! Photo that! That's interesting! Click click!' It was in this march that a man with a massive, probably balls-expensive SLR took a photo of me chanting, mouth wide, meeting the lens with an uncertain stare, from all of 30 inches away. I was a bit irritated with him, assuming that he was picking out the stereotypical Portland youth with weird-colored hair so that he could spin the Occupy story his way. But then again, I took the photos of the little kids and the anarchists. Some things just stand out as being more photographable.

2011-11-12T18:38:00.001-08:00

These are from the Oct. 9 march at Occupy Portland. That was the third day. They are now 38 days in and have been told to evict the two downtown parks they are occupying by midnight tonight.

I support this movement whole-heartedly. I want to see a world where people act with compassion and integrity, and don't step all over and then blame the less fortunate. I fucking support teachers and artists and janitors and I hope that we can learn to give them the respect their hard, honest work deserves. I would really like a government that listens to its people (not just the lobbying ones or the corporate ones) and acts accordingly. I hope change will happen. I hope the movement continues/starts back up. I'll be there supporting it when it does.

2011-11-11T20:16:00.001-08:00

Recently I have been thinking more about Blogging. Well actually I went to this show this past week, An Evening with Amanda Palmer & Neil Gaiman, and they are both such bloggery people that I couldn’t help but be driven to check their blogs and that got me thinking about blogging. How was the show? Well, I have a hard time organizing my thoughts even when I have very little to say, and in this case I have a lot upon a lot to say, and so I doubt I will ever really have a proper post on it, but maybe. For now we’ll say it was good. Very, very good. Amazing. Inspiring. I spent more money than I should have on a beautiful print of the married couple and made somewhat of a fool of myself in front of people I admire (as I am apt to do). Anyway, thoughts on blogging.

I think maybe perhaps I should start to blog. Life so far has taught me that the best way to get better at something is to do it. Really practice it. Not just a little bit. All the time. It’s something you’re told often, but it doesn’t really sink in until you figure it out for yourself. Blogging is a way to practice decoding the shit I feel about life. And writing. I guess there is some writing involved. I remember reading in an issue of Cosmo while I was in the bathroom at my friend’s house (she stacks them all up on the back of her toilet and Cosmo has done this clever little thing where they print about a 1/4 inch slice of a photo of a shirtless man model on the spine of their magazine--if I was into oiled shaved pec’d chests I would be really very excited about it) and the Cosmo magazine* had a feature on Emma Watson where she said that sometimes it helped her to write everything that was stressing her out down on a piece of paper because it made it seem smaller and more manageable. So maybe blogging will be like that.

Additionally, there is this odd sort of business around blogging and social media these days. People market themselves and make their living through blogging. I’m thinking of a professional photographer and fashion designer/seamstress that I doubt would be nearly as successful without the mass amounts of blogging each does. It builds up an online friend base; one checks in with a blogger girl who dresses neat or takes good photos or writes exceedingly well about her life, and then the girl launches a business and you can’t help but follow that too. Perhaps even support it with your yummy yummy dollar bills. Maybe recommend it to others. I know because I’ve been the person following and buying in the past. And advertising, which I don’t understand and am not going to get into. Who knows is all I’m saying.

So forgive me if this kind of mind-vomit starts showing up in this place. Eventually I hope to organize it all pretty-like so you, impatient consumer of the digital age, can click somewhere and have all the photographic posts all sorted out from the rest of the garbage, or all the sewing-related posts, or all the rambly words posts. You get the idea. In the meantime, I’m linking to a written thing by Neil Gaiman that he read at the show in this way that transported you to somewhere nice and cosy and exceedingly pleasant, which is to say that he read it in a Neil-y way (I don’t like audio books and yet I still want to own all the ones he’s ever recorded--something about his voice and verbal style...). Reading it will not be as cute as listening to it (and will have a much more bitter attitude, because you won’t have Neil’s peaceful, everything-is-alright voice to calmly deliver the jokes and to add the proper amount of nonchalant humor) but still, it is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/25/neil-gaiman-oscars-coraline.

*I’ve actually just remembered that the feature was not in Cosmo but in a different magazine. Elle, I think. But my little story about the Cosmos stacked on the toilet is just too good to leave out.

2011-11-09T20:24:00.002-08:00

There is this thing I do. It involves starting a sewing project, getting about halfway through, and then stuffing it into my already overstuffed drawer-of-unfinished-projects. Recently I managed to finish something from this drawer.

The apples shirt! It's actually printed with red flowers, but I remembered them as apples right up until I was at the store looking for some buttons shaped like apples to match the print and I pulled a scrap of the fabric out of my bag to match only to discover that they were really not apples at all.

I started out with a shirt whose fabric I liked but that was too short and too wide for me, so I sewed in the blue knit things and here it is. It has a functional pocket that could perhaps be called a kangaroo pocket but maybe not because it only opens on one side (which I've discovered drives me nuts because one of my hands is then left out in the cold and I feel uncomfortably asymmetrical).

My biggest issue with things I make is that they still seem to fit a bit oddly, and have unwelcome lumps in places. They just aren't as comfortable as store-bought clothing. I'm not sure if maybe this is because I don't have a serger... But I will get one someday and then I guess I'll find out.

2011-11-04T22:27:00.000-07:00

The Carnegie Museum of Natural History has this vast, absolutely stunning collection of gems and minerals. I spent quite a long time in that wing of the museum, as I recall. And because I get such a giddy thrill from textures and vibrant shades of red and orange, you all now get to share in my excitement by way of this post.

2011-11-03T20:41:00.000-07:00

I went on a solo wandering around Pittsburgh that put some serious mileage on my Birkenstocks and some blisters on my feet.

And then there was this museum.

I found it amusing that this museum had their dino guys working in this glass cage. Also I was in a mood that compelled me, in a manner similar to a mother with a newborn, to photo-document every minute of my life. The dino guy took all this photographing as a serious interest in old fossils and, emerging from his glass cage with this chunk of dinosaur rib that they were reconstructing, handed it to me and started explaining a bunch of stuff that I probably didn't even remember back then. It was heavy, the dinosaur rib chunk.

Oh and gyro guy! There was this wonderful gyro place that we went to. The man was really nice. As I remember he somewhat insisted that I take his photo.

2011-11-02T19:34:00.000-07:00

In going back through my Pittsburgh stuff to try to figure out where in the world I left off in posting it I ran across this photo from the Mattress Factory (the place with the polka dots). I don't know if I overlooked the photo the first time or just didn't find it worthy to post. My inconsistencies in opinion towards my own photos drive me nuts sometimes.

I have a weird vague feeling associated with this photo. I don't really remember the circumstances surrounding it very well. It feels like this was some sort of room that was... mostly closed off or something? And I shot this through a slit in a door or some such stuff? That's the vibe I get off this photo.

2011-10-14T18:57:00.001-07:00

Continuing the story of the Pittsburgh trip last summer...

I am so clever.

"Oh, is that our bus?" is what Lolo is thinking.

This shot is from one of the beautiful cathedrals in Pittsburgh. When I was younger I had this image in my head (no doubt planted by movies and books) of some lost person walking the streets and stumbling into some such large church and finding... whatever there. God or themselves or a moment of quiet. This sort of image confused me because it didn't fit in with what I saw around me. All the churches were plain white buildings, sometimes with a large cross touching a sky that the actual building didn't reach. There was nothing fancy or overwhelming or awe-inspiring about them. And most of all, they didn't look very damn open in the middle of the night for a lost person to wander into. Come on, where is the evangelism in that? During my trip to Pittsburgh I remember thinking, "Ohhhh, this is where the churches for the lost people of the movies and books are."

This is in the Cathedral of Learning? I think that's what it's called. Apparently some people study here. It looks cold and hard and just generally uncomfortable, but maybe that is conducive to studying without falling asleep.

The Cathedral of Learning is tall, and there are some views of Pittsburgh from upper floors (though not the top top floors because only the grease monkeys get up there).

I love this photo. Also, Lolo, dearest, I think that as long as you shall live there will be times when you remind me of PJ Harvey.

2011-10-12T06:48:00.000-07:00

I haven't got time to write up more stuff about the Pittsburgh trip, so here is a photo of the airport, the hot sunny asphalt of which makes me sad that summer is over and I'm due for nine months of rain, and a photo that I think would be great for a street fashion blog if that's what I was doing here.

2011-10-07T17:54:00.001-07:00

2011-10-04T18:21:00.000-07:00

2011-10-02T13:37:00.001-07:00

About a year ago I flew to Pittsburgh to visit a lovely lady friend of mine. I stayed for three days and shot seven rolls of film. The following are (mostly) from a groovy art-gallery-type place called the Mattress Factory. The photo yesterday was from there too.

My visit to this place made me grumpy at the lack of neat art galleries where I live, but then again I live not terribly far from the Portland Art Museum and I have not bothered to visit there yet so... yeah.

2011-10-01T13:27:00.001-07:00

More to come later.

2011-09-29T19:43:00.000-07:00

All my beautiful muses are so far away.

...I have resorted to taking pictures of babies for chrissake.

2011-09-28T19:13:00.000-07:00

2011-09-25T18:32:00.000-07:00

This is the last time I consider coasters a quick or easy project. Straightforward perhaps, but not quick & easy. These were a wedding present for some friends.

2011-09-18T22:37:00.001-07:00

2011-09-16T22:09:00.000-07:00

Some photos from last summer.

Even though I shot this over a year ago I remember loving the subtle differences between the colors in the rug and the fence. What I didn't remember was that I had loaded slide film into my camera, which meant this roll was headed for a cross-process.

I love this lady. I stayed with her last summer.

2011-09-09T19:47:00.000-07:00

Alright. I've been meaning to do this for a while now, so let's get this show on the road.

Dyeing Things Using Dharma Trading Co. Dyes Tutorial!

I found the most wonderful-feeling, soft pair of jeans at Express over the summer. Nicely thick and firm fabric that cradled my toosh and thighs brilliantly. One small snag: I refuse to wear ridiculously whisker-washed (or whatever the hell it's called) jeans. If the fabric spans the entire value scale of blue in a couple of centimeters, count me out. But I bought the jeans anyway. There had to be a way to fix them, right? Denim seemed like a pretty serious dyeing task, and the one time I tried to dye something chocolate brown with RIT dye it ended up a sort of beige-ish and faded from there. Time for something more 'professional'. Some internet searching lead me to Dharma Trading Company.

The jeans in question.

Some shirts I planned to dye at the same time. Both 100% cotton, the purple one had some weird discoloration from when I left it in my sunny car for a week or two, and the nude one just being a terrible color on me.

Okay, so the process went like this:

Discharge color.
Prewash all to-be-dyed items.

Introduce some dye.

Their website has really good instructions for all of this, but I am going to repeat it for the sake of sweet sweet redundancy.

Things you'll need for 1 lb. dry fabric (all of it came from Dharma except the salt and the pot and the water and the measuring stuff):
Measuring cups and spoons
Textile Detergent
Dye
Non-iodized salt - 3 cups
Big 'ol pot (not aluminum)
Water to put in pot - 2 gallons for discharging and 3 for dyeing
Soda Ash - 1 tbsp for discharging and 1/3 cup for dyeing
Color Remover - 1/2 tsp
Calsolene oil - 2 tsp

Step 1: Discharge color

They have somewhat confusing instructions on their site. I pretty much followed the "Discharging With Color Remover" instructions. A note: you need to know the approximate weight of the stuff you're going to dye. I took all my jeans and fabric to the store and used the spring-scales in the grocery department to weigh it. The jeans were a little over 1 lb., and I think maybe the two shirts together were 1/2 lb. or so.

Here's my setup for discharging and dyeing. The big bag is of Soda Ash, and then the smaller one is color remover. I used a Nalgene to measure out my gallons, and a big ceramic-coated steel canning pot to do the dirty work. For doing the color discharging, it says not to use certain materials, like aluminium.

Put the 2 gallons water, 1 TBS soda ash, 1/2 tsp textile detergent and 1/2 tsp color remover in your big pot and mix it all in, but don't breathe it all in. Add your cloth, have it be damp, and heat 'er to a simmer. Simmer simmer, add another 1/4 tsp color remover every 15 minutes for an hour. Stir often for even discoloring. I don't remember how much I stirred but it was probably a lot because I am anal about those kinds of things. Remove, rinse, don't burn yourself and be careful where you pour out the pot because it is actually all full of the dye you just sucked out of your jeans and I ended up giving my bathtub a nice blue tint.

This was what my jeans looked like after I de-colored them, while they were still wet.

After they went through another wash and were a little bit drier (I don't remember if they're completely dry here or not... I don't think so.) they appear lighter, though not totally white. Which doesn't matter as I'm dying over them, but if for some reason you want some white jeans, know that it may take a lot of work.

Step 2: Pre-wash. Do this even if you didn't do the color discharging.
Dharma says to pre-wash using their special *detergent stuff* because it'll get out any grease and weirdness that might cause the dye to take weirdly. The thing that I RIT dyed had a greasy spot on it that ended up darker than the rest of the fabric, so this is a first step I don't skip. Hot water, 1/4 cup detergent. The detergent smells kind of bad. Everything used in this whole process smells kind of bad.

Step 2: Pasting up the dye
Note: if you are picky about color you'll REALLY have to know how much your article of clothing weighs so you can measure out the proper amount of dye. The Dharma instructions say to use 1 Tbsp dye per pound of fabric, but my understanding is that this is really really general. It will take more dye to get things to darker colors, generally. Using this confusing table, I find that I can get the premium color of Cobalt Blue for the low low price of just 2.4 Tbsp dye. I'm probably going to toss in an extra Tbsp of blue and one of Jet Black, because I want my jacket* to come out dark as shit.Next, you add water to get the dye to a paste. Then add a cup more of water to thin it out. Get all the little dye clumplets dissolved, because little dye clumplets landing on your fabric will create little dark spots and make your dye job uneven.

*So, uh, I half-wrote two different dyeing tutorials based on two different dye jobs I did: the Express jeans and the two shirts, and a jean jacket. In trying to merge them together they didn't quite line up in all places...

Step 3: Salt + water + dye?
Dissolve 3 cups non-iodized salt in 3 gallons warm water. I use a Nalgene to measure out my water. I also add 2 tsp calsolene oil because I have it around. Reading back over the instructions they've changed them since last time I did this and I can't figure out when exactly to add the dye, so I guess now's as good a time as ever.

Step 4: Stir a lot
Stir a lot for like 20 minutes. Don't get too excited though and splash dark blue dye all over your kitchen, save the excitement for when you will be rocking your sweet new-looking duds.

Step 5: Soda ash
Dissolve 1/3 cup soda ash in warm water. You want to be able to mix the soda ash in with it directly touching the fabric as little as possible, because that'll cause dark spots. So, mix 1/3 of the water+ash mixture in, wait 5 minutes. Mix 1/3 in again, wait 5. Then mix the remainder in. There is a lot of stirring that goes on here too.Stir & stir:Stir for 30 minutes to 1 hour. 1 hour for darker colors.

Dump:Dump out all your dye bath. Using a steel sink or something is a lot better than say, that nice (used-to-be) white bathtub in the apartment you're renting and probably won't be getting the deposit back now dammit. If you're not using dye fixative then you can at this point rinse out your garment in cool water until the water runs clear. If using dye fixative, dump the dye bath but don't rinse out the garment. Fill your pot back up with hot water, mix in 2 Tbsp. dye fixative, add your dyed thing and let soak for 30 minutes. Then you can rinse in cool water until the water runs clear.

This is me totally rockin' it in my three-piece dyed ensemble. This was the single-most uncluttered corner of my room only because the door opens inwards.

A note! I didn't use the color remover on the two shirts or on the jacket, just the jeans. The shirts and jacket came out fine, I was just worried about traces of the whisker-wash showing through the jeans dye job.

More notes! Often threads used in clothing have higher polyester content (try 100%) than the actual clothing, so it will not dye as well. Hence the lighter threads on the shirts and (if you can see it) on the jacket.

Still more notes! I've been really happy with the results of this dye. I think it fades at about the same rate as clothing that you purchase already dyed, maybe a touch faster. When I first dyed my jeans I asked my friend about the color and he questioned whether they were even reflecting back any light at all. Now, probably like 9 months later, they are closer to the navy blue that I expected them to be in the first place.

A final note! This is me as a Stegosaurus last Halloween. Ease of navigating through a bar while in costume is something I will consider for next year. Anyway, the pants were jeans that I dyed the same color as the corduroy tail (which I also dyed).

2011-08-18T22:00:00.001-07:00

Holy crap where is the summer going?

I etched some pint glasses for my boyfriendeous person for his birthday/going away present. I used this stuff.

What's really rather unfortunate is visible on the two glasses on the left. Even though I left like an inch between the design and the edge of the tape/stencil, and even though I was absolutely sure I didn't get any of the noxious goo outside of the taped part, it still somehow etched outside the tape. Vapors maybe? Anyway, next time I am totally covering the whole thing in contact vinyl.

On an image-manipulation note, I have started attempting to use GIMP. It's been kind of an uphill climb so far, one where the keyboard shortcuts are all different and I will inadvertently try to use one I'm familiar with and totally screw myself over. That and I can't really find anything I'm looking for. HOWEVER, my hopes are high because 1) it is not as un-intuitive as I thought it would be and 2) it comes for the low low unbeatable price of FREE, which is just marvelous when all I ever use Photoshop for is levels and cropping. I don't need to pay $500 for that.

2011-05-13T10:28:00.001-07:00

Here's hearing it for places you used to live.

2011-04-21T15:39:00.001-07:00

2011-04-15T21:18:00.001-07:00

I took out the skylights in my bathroom because they were filthy and because I wanted to see what was going on up there.

2011-04-09T16:40:00.001-07:00

2011-04-07T14:33:00.001-07:00

2011-03-29T14:08:00.001-07:00

I have a friend who grew up on the coast, and he loves the constantly rainy, windy, 45 degree weather. I don't know how someone can dislike being dry so much.

2011-03-23T15:42:00.000-07:00

These photos are from 2009 sometime.

2011-03-23T12:11:00.001-07:00

I miss summer.

I'll try to not go on about how 9+ months of drizzly rain bullshit, courtesy of the great Pacific Northwest, tends to piss me off.

Unrelated, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have this gem of an EP that managed to slip by my notice all this time. It's called Is Is.

2011-03-17T22:33:00.000-07:00

I went to Pittsburgh last summer to visit a lovely lady sorely in need of a visit, and it was great times. These are from a cross-processed roll, and I think I still have like 6 other rolls from the trip but those will come later.

2011-02-24T15:44:00.000-08:00

KITTIES!!!

Man, I want me some kitties.

2011-02-20T23:13:00.000-08:00

One of my friends in elementary school used to get dropped off every day in an orange bug like this one. There's something about this kind of car that's always caught my interest, probably because so many of the ones I see are some sort of crazy color.

2011-02-19T22:49:00.001-08:00

There is nothing particularly exciting about this photo except that it is representative of a place (and a time) that I love.

2011-02-16T14:23:00.001-08:00

The return drive was less noteworthy (and better) weather-wise. I will note that we drove most of the way across a snow-covered WY in the middle of a clear, bright-mooned night and it looked absolutely stunning. I squirmed and clenched the wheel, itching to pull over and take some photos, but never did for lack of a good place to pull over (there is a surprisingly long stretch of I-80 in WY with no rest stops), lack of a tripod and good shoes to tromp through the snow with, and abundance of an already-irritated travel partner.

2011-02-13T23:41:00.001-08:00

More on my spring break trip last year:
The gloom of the road lifted once I was dropped off at my destination, and despite the hardship and fact that over 50% of the break was spent in transit, I still don't regret a thing. I loved getting to see old friends and family, and I loved my break.

In regards to the last two photos...
Little did I know it would be the last time I could ever see them all together like this. Several months after this photo was taken one of the people in the photo died, the result of some freak bacterial infection.

It makes me think about the part of photography that has little to do with how the picture is taken and everything to do with what it captures; the camera's unique ability to take the light reflected from that one instant in time and deliver it to a little strip of plastic film. By the time the light has finished permanently altering the film, the instant is already gone.

Which brings me to one of the reasons that I prefer film photography over digital. Besides my personal preference for the look of it above digital, using film is more romantic. Something's just very impersonal about digital photography, about the people and places and moments you love being broken down into 1's and 0's to be tumbled around in a computer with everything else. Obviously I can only sing the praises of film so much seeing as how I do partake in the conveniences of sharing photos digitally (I hardly ever mail out prints these days), but these are my thoughts about it all.

RIP, Brian. I wish I could have spent more time with you, but I feel like I got an [unusually, given my experiences with most people] large amount of good from the times I was in your presence. You are missed, remembered.

2011-01-26T14:40:00.000-08:00

Last March a friend and I made a last-minute decision to drive 1200 miles across the western U.S. during spring break. Being the responsible, forward-thinking human being that I am I didn't bother to check the weather forecast. I mean, March, right?

We ended up driving right into a huge snowstorm on the first night, and the next day ran into a road closure that left us stranded in THE BEST PLACE ON EARTH (aka, Wyoming) for an extra day.

2011-01-19T23:37:00.000-08:00

I'm working on photos, I promise.

2010-10-17T00:11:00.000-07:00

2010-09-11T10:36:00.000-07:00

A post from the summer just now getting up:

My lovely friend Lolo had a post somewhere where she talked about disenchantion with Holga shots. I'm having a similar struggle. There's a fine line between control and not. I can't tell whether to feel worthless or not at taking a photo that 'accidentally' looks cool. The end product is the same, so what's it matter the intention or the process? But yet that does matter. I like a print more if I find it is printed B&W darkroom by hand.

I took a roll of half-frame Holga prints to get printed at this wonderful devoted-to-film camera shop in north Portland. When I came to pick it up they said they wanted to put one of my prints in their customer show (flattering, but also makes painfully obvious the normally-ignored fact that every shot I take is being looked over by other photographers, making me feel uncomfortably exposed). The print they chose was given to me. Disappointment. I quickly flipped through the other ones. Crap. Crap crap crap. Dammit. (Turns out the holga viewfinder is cropped a lot tighter than what the actual view will be). But really, it didn't seem like there was any artistic merit to these photos at all. Just the cheap gimmick of the frayed half-frame.

In the weeks since I took the photos I've started to like them more. I'm really glad I got prints of them instead of just got them to a disk, because there really is a lot more flexibility in holding the print in your hands and turning it this way and that to get different perspectives than to have an orientation 'chosen' for you on the computer screen (what is that special keystroke that lets you flip your screen again?) And while each image as a whole (especially those that are both half-frame and double-exposure) tends to be a bit busy and overwhelming, I do really enjoy looking closely at each image, picking through their density.

The photo the place chose is here, and the overall gallery (large but worth looking at because there are some really great shots) is here.

Things to think about:
A) Try to look closer at mistakes that make cool photos. You might learn something about a composition or exposure or style that you would've never experimented with otherwise.
B) Try to learn more about the Holga. Take more photos, become more acquainted with the beast.
C) I'm currently trying to take more control over these types of half-photos. No more double exposures unless I know exactly what it'll look like, and a record of what shot goes onto each frame (or each half-frame at least).

This post will mean more once I actually get some of these photos scanned, but (as evidenced by the subjects of the surrounding posts) I am pushing through a backlog of photos that stretches farther back than the summer. I'll get there eventually.

2010-08-09T18:54:00.000-07:00

I think I know what it is. The rut, I mean. Maybe I just need to kick back and let go of what I've been doing? Bust out the HOLGA; the B&W film; the tiny, old, manual-focus point and shoot that will have me guessing at my distance from the subject and hoping that in all turns out all right, even with a 2.8 aperture.

Get back to shooting people (what makes a good people-photo? A balance or an agreement or a crossroads of the photographer and the subject... Something I need to quit being chickenshit about). Anyway, some of the film I went through this summer I took to get developed at a place where I paid to have them scanned to a disk for me, which is the only reason I can present them to you now and not in another six months (though by this point they are already a few months old).

I really love my rockclimbing bruises. I never remember putting my knees into the wall that often when I'm up there, but then I get back and strip to uncover the remains of a battlefield on my legs.

Part of my scramble to take some photos of the house I lived in for 2 years, probably shot the week I moved out (or maybe the week before, if I was really on the ball).

More photos like this last one coming up later! I have been not-so-excellent at photos this summer, and popped open the back of my camera only to discover I was halfway through a roll of film probably three or four times in as many months.

2010-07-12T20:37:00.000-07:00

I'm being forced into a break in putting up photos due to lack of access to a film/photo scanner, so that probably won't start up until October or so (the thought of which makes me cringe considering there are still photos from March that I haven't posted yet).

---

In my last blog I linked to the photo blog of an acquaintance of mine (I don't actually know him at all, really). His new one is here. I don't know what it is about these photos that keeps drawing me back... They are just the right amount of messy. If they were more neatly done the effect wouldn't be the same. It'd just be a photo of a road or a dashboard or a person sitting at a bar. Maybe I'm drawn to the way he totally owns the underexposure and the so-so focus and the non-traditional composition. Or maybe it's the (somewhat romantic) idea of giving up control of the photo. Using expired film and shooting from moving vehicles and catching blurs of colors and shapes and the hazy, indescribable feeling of the moment, instead of worrying about exposing for the sky or getting your friend to step a few feet to the left so the fat lady in the green sweater isn't in the shot.

Not that there is never a time for control. Just seems like there is something to be learned from almost everybody.

2010-06-05T00:38:00.000-07:00

I don't really know where my photography is going these days. It's alright though, I guess. I think a lot of people are more lost than they care to admit.

2010-05-25T00:02:00.001-07:00

2010-05-24T23:57:00.000-07:00

Portland held a very strong allure for me when I first moved out west for school. I've always liked big cities, and Portland in particular possesses a certain quirkiness that gives it an intriguing personality. As I've made more trips over to Portland some of the novelty has worn off, but it is still a city I would like to explore more. I'll be living near(er) to the city this summer; hopefully I will take advantage of the opportunities this presents.

My friend Fishy has an uncanny ability to sense when a camera's pointed at her. Granted I am not the most inconspicuous, what with the big bulky SLR and the 97 seconds of focusing and light-metering before each shot, but Fishy will still catch me trying to photograph her from across the room at a crowded party and look up at the last second, pulling on The Face. It is a face-tugging-off-to-side sort of look, and I hate it, mostly because of how many of my photos it has ruined. When this happens I have two options (besides just giving in and photographing The Face): making an amusing/frustrated comment about The Face that will get a giggle out of Fishy (giving me a smiling photo instead of a Face photo), or sighing and dropping my camera, hoping that next time I will prove faster or Fishy will prove slower/less motivated, and I'll be able to avoid The Face. Looking back on this photo with my previous Fishy experience in mind, I realize that it's probably one of the only ones I have where she's not making the face I hate. I think here she was just tired and incredibly not in the mood to be photographed, and so just sort of stood there with the spacey look she has.

Portland likes to keep itself weird.

2010-05-18T18:26:00.000-07:00

Back when it was still fairly winter-y around no one took any amount of sunlight for granted, so when March offered a couple of warm sunny days, people took advantage.

This kid (the one on the right) was already up in the tree when we got there. He has a book and a paper cup of tea in the tree with him. I still can't imagine being patient enough to bring tea into a tree.

This is a photo taken of my by someone unfamiliar with the workings of a manual-focus SLR, but I like it nonetheless.

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The building in the distance is one of the most iconic and overly-photographed buildings on campus.

Someone was growing a bunch of cacti on this windowsill in the Microbiology/Wildlife building.

2010-05-15T22:35:00.000-07:00

This is the materials research cleanroom at the university. I would like to be able to say more about the stuff in here, but I don't know very much about most of it.

This is The Tang. It's a sputtering system.

2010-05-14T23:42:00.000-07:00

Many of the older buildings on campus happen to house the engineering/science labs. The building that this lab is in was completed in 1949 or 1950. Many parts of the labs bare obvious signs of having been in use in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

Everything is lit with these fluorescent bulbs that wreak havoc on the color balance of my negatives. I usually have a pretty hard time getting it back to something decent (and honestly I don't think it quite makes it most of the time...).

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This is one of the places where I work on campus. On his first visit a friend of mine described it as a grown-up's kindergarten. "Look, you've even got little cubbies," he said.

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I'm always at least somewhat amused to consider the impact that my mood has on the photography I post online. What is worthy of posting, where (what goes on my blog, what goes on my flickr, what is omitted from each), how much editing and poking is required before a photo is good enough... all are heavily mood-dependent. It can get kind of interesting going back to things I've uploaded before, under a different mood, and wonder what the hell I was thinking.

2010-04-16T21:44:00.001-07:00

Another photo from the B&W roll I found recently.

2010-04-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

2010-04-11T19:59:00.000-07:00

A roommate of mine left on a study abroad to India in January. These were shot just before she left. Props on fulfilling your ambition to travel, Ror. Hope it's all going well for you.

2010-02-23T22:00:00.000-08:00

2010-02-20T00:48:00.000-08:00

I'm really unhappy with the color tint on the bottom photo. Turns out that I have been taking for granted the auto color-balance that processing places do when they make prints from the negatives. Now that I'm scanning in the shit myself, I'm not having such a fun time color balancing. But you'll all stick around to witness my trek up the long steep road of figuring-it-out, I hope?

2010-02-18T18:48:00.000-08:00

I shot a roll of film in my senior year in high school (or shortly after graduating, I don't remember) with the intention of developing and printing it myself in the darkroom. However, it was a hectic-lazy type of summer, and somewhere in the midst of running around between houses and lazing around and doing nothing the roll of film disappeared.

Then the other day I pulled a cardboard box full of vitamins that my mother'd given me at some point down from the cabinet to make room for booze, and there was the lovely B&W roll amidst the vitamins. I'd been through two major moves (one across the country for school), as well as just some time generally bumming around different areas, and somehow this roll of film resurfaced after I'd long written it off as completely gone.

I don't think I've ever been happier with finding something long lost.

The first is my favorite shot from the roll. I don't even remember taking it.

2007-04-30T19:45:00.000-07:00

Limitations

2007-01-06T22:00:00.000-08:00

Within a Spicy Pickle

2006-12-28T12:00:00.000-08:00

For the Richard Avedon assignment. From top: Rukaya, Eleanor, Celeste.

2006-11-03T18:11:00.000-08:00

The little Eleanor mini-series.

2006-09-26T18:45:00.000-07:00

What sort of sound does an Eleanor make?

2006-09-21T19:33:00.000-07:00

There. That's what you get when you tell me I should post more photos. You get photographs of yourself. The drips and slotches and chemical screwups are still there like they were in the negative. Because I hate Photoshop. No that was a lie. That's just the kind of photographer I am.

2006-09-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

We're back in business.

2006-05-25T18:55:00.000-07:00

2006-05-24T17:33:00.000-07:00

Silly HOLGA... you focus in the strangest places.

2006-05-24T17:14:00.000-07:00

Focus? Who needs focus?

2006-05-24T17:05:00.000-07:00

2006-03-29T19:36:00.000-08:00

Wow all of my photos are of the same person. Mayhaps I need to branch out...

2006-03-26T10:40:00.000-08:00

Some crazy contrasty stuff popped up on the left when I converted to jpeg but I'm not going to put the effort into fixing it right now. So shoot me.

2006-03-24T07:51:00.000-08:00

2006-03-23T19:42:00.000-08:00

2006-03-20T15:34:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I like this photo so much... It looks crappily taken because I was shooting over my shoulder without looking.

2006-03-19T18:55:00.000-08:00

I did say there would be more double exposures from me.

2006-03-17T16:54:00.000-08:00

Also from Denver. My mum likes this one a lot.

2006-03-12T14:44:00.000-08:00

Thanks to a victory against my scanner, I can now start putting stuff up again. This is another one from Denver.

2006-02-20T17:43:00.000-08:00

This shot was taken a long time ago, but I just now got around to making a print. I don't know what it is about this photo, but it makes me really happy. Titled: I've Got Your Egg In My Pocket.

2006-02-16T18:55:00.000-08:00

I found an interesting quote today:

"You know what I think? The ease of digital photography is making us a world full of crappy photographers. When you only had 12 shots on a roll and had to wait a week to see your photos, you were more thoughtful..."

-Gene McSweeney

2006-02-11T19:19:00.000-08:00

Result of another travel into double-exposure land.

2006-02-07T19:37:00.000-08:00

...What a rebel. This shot was from forever ago. I think it's from the first or possibly second roll of black and white film I ever took. I'm wondering how much my style has changed since then...

2006-02-06T18:44:00.000-08:00

Oh my. Is.. could it be?? My first successful darkroom solarization? I'm so happy.

2006-02-02T19:48:00.000-08:00

2006-01-30T16:55:00.000-08:00

2006-01-21T18:09:00.000-08:00

Waving Goodbye with the Can to the Sky

2006-01-20T18:01:00.000-08:00

Oh, oh my. Have we actually caught up? We have! I shot this a few weeks ago and printed it yesterday.

2006-01-20T18:00:00.001-08:00

So. So so. I have found a use for this little blog of mine. It shall be my photoblog in case I ever leave DeviantArt. I'll be posting one or more of my old photos every day (let's hope I remember) until I get caught up.

2006-01-20T18:00:00.000-08:00

The angle's not very oblique, even though that was the assignment. I have a lighter version of this, but I don't know where it went.

2006-01-20T17:58:00.000-08:00

Inverted in the darkroom, not Photoshop.

2006-01-20T17:54:00.000-08:00

In the halls of school during passing period. Silly silly motion, but I screwed up the first roll of film I shot for the Motion assignment by... um... using fixer instead of developer. And this roll was shot really quickly to make the deadline, so...

2006-01-20T17:52:00.000-08:00

Lolo in Lace

2006-01-20T17:46:00.000-08:00

I Dream of Shoes on Powerlines
HOLGAs are fun, but I didn't do so good keeping the light leaks out. Expect more HOLGA goodness from me.

2006-01-20T17:39:00.000-08:00

This assignment sucked. So you were supposed to shoot random people without really looking throught the viewfinder, and being the slick, sneaky photographer that I am (not) I got yelled at by people when they saw that I was taking photos of them. Whoops. So this was the Winograd assignment. You know who Gary Winograd was? Well it was named after him.

2006-01-20T15:56:00.000-08:00

Tetris, anyone?
So we went wandering down this one street in Denver looking for this one alleyway, and this was it. It wasn't as cool as promised, but it was okay. Liz stood and posed for us, and that made it okay.

This is Molly. I'm not sure she wants a photo of her up here. Hopefully she won't get mad. It's titled, People and Buildings. Fitting, huh?

2006-01-14T14:11:00.000-08:00

Took this photo when I was down in Denver. It would have worked really well for the Architecture assignment, but that's not what I turned it in for.

Instead I turned this in for the Architecture assignment, which is silly because it's not architecture in the least, but the photo teacher liked it.

2006-01-08T17:39:00.000-08:00

All of these were taken at the hospital I used to live by. The top is titled Bricks, Grates, and Princes, and the other titles don't really matter much. Bricks, Grates, and Princes was my first sucessful double exposure, but I'm hoping to mess with double exposing a little more, so hopefully something else I like will come out of that this semester.

2006-01-02T18:27:00.000-08:00

I took this one of Lolo at this party we went to, and she was lounging on the grass with this camera perched on her palm and then I told her to freeze but someone snatched her camera away, which is why her hand is all out and such. It's titled Back and Twisted, and it's that first photo that I had a title I liked for.

This little series of photos I turned in for the Favorite Body Part assignment. ...That assignment that needs to be called something else. I don't actually think that the back is my favorite body part, though I do like it quite a bit. Collarbones are lovely, but I didn't shoot them that day. But I did get quite a few good photos out of that roll. I still haven't printed all the ones I like. No title on these. And the tattoo's fake. I was babbling about how I wanted to take photos of people's backs with tattoos on them, and Liz said she had a cheesey tattoo of a tiger, and so on her back it went.

2005-12-24T15:52:00.000-08:00

Liz doesn't like this photo I took of her, but she is looking simply awesome as usual. It's a bit weird because she was standing in the front entrance of my school and I was outside shooting her through the glass and there are reflections. And that's the weird bit. Yes...

2005-12-23T09:43:00.000-08:00

Oh Liz is so cute. So this was again taken at the bus stop, and it was for Natural Light, the last assignment I did for 2004.

2005-12-21T18:02:00.000-08:00

Oh man, this assignment was way fun to shoot. I love Liz for laying outside on the tennis court by her house and letting me crack eggs on her ^.^

2005-12-20T12:46:00.000-08:00

This was for the Alleyway assignment. I like this photo because there's a red flower on the windowsill, but you can't see it because the photo's not in color. And I don't know what's up with the white corner. It's not that way in the physical print.

The title of this is Window into Trees and Lace. It was turned in for the same assignment as the first photo.

2005-12-20T11:42:00.000-08:00

I remember I took this in the window of a bus at the bus stop. I spent about 2% of my sophomore year waiting at that bus stop for the connecting bus that would take me home, and this wasn't the only assignment that I shot there. And Liz's got a lollipop, not a cigarette. And I turned it in for the reflections part of the Shadows/Reflections assignment.

Speaking of assignments taken at the bus stop, about half of my Solitude assignment was shot there. The other half of the roll had this sock in it, and it was really weird. Anyway, this is what I ended up turning in.

2005-12-18T21:13:00.000-08:00

I remember this. I had this photo planned out in my head long before I went out with Amanda and shot it. This one turned out wonky because of the ad in the background. ...Though my photo teacher said he liked the ad, an act which I still consider to prove him truly mad.

Mmm... I like this one. It still makes me feel all warm and happy inside when I see it. Turned this one in for the second assignment (Shadows & Reflections) of Sophomore year. I don't think I have turned in a photo of Amanda since. This is depressing. I must shoot more of her in the future.

2005-12-18T21:01:00.000-08:00

This was at the airport when my mum was going off to Russia, also at the beginning of sophomore year. It doesn't make me cringe as much.

So this was the first photo I turned in waaaay back at the beginning of my sophomore year. I have one of those cringy feelings when I look back at it.