October, 2001:

Lunch at Macaroni Grill in Addison with Justin, and three other people.

Mmmm. I love Macaroni Grill.

I have twelve, no eleven, minutes to get up, walk the dog, shower, “iron” clothes, get dressed, put the dog away, grab my stuff, and get in the truck in order to make it to work at my usual time of tardiness.

I’ve got $200 that says I won’t make it, if any of you are dumb enough to wager.

Those of you who are interested in seeing more pictures from the shoot can have a look at the digital images Kari took.

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“Let The ‘Indian’ (Speakthenakedindian>) Speak“. [Does anyone catch that reference, and therefore my "true meaning".. aside from me, of course]

I urge you all to read the Indian’s User Info page and to view his UserPics. In that top image, “Indian door”, he is actually naked and standing sideways being covered only by a door.

Teaser
35mm FujiColor // Julie // Celestial Park

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This is one of many images from the shoot yesterday. I will be posting a bunch more. This is just to keep everyone from asking to see pictures. Comments and criticism openly accepted.

I wanted to get coffee tonight. And then I remembered it is Monday. And coffee is not allowed on Mondays because Mondays are for bowling. Unless… I got coffee earlier than usual. If I left at about 9:15pm, I’d still make it to Denton by 10:00pm.

I have a stalker.

Before now, I had only received voicemails from my stalker. Messages. Nothing but breathing. Sometimes laughing. But today, I actually answered the phone. I heard the breathing with my own ears. After three short breaths, the caller hung up.

The shoot went really well yesterday.

Julie, Nick-the-Log and I got to Celestial Park about 45 minutes early. This was good. It gave me time to meter for light, fix her make-up, and look around a bit for good light, interesting backgrounds and what not. I burned some time getting the basics out of the way: head shot from the front, head shot profile, 3/4 shot from the front, 3/4 profile, 3/4 head turned, etc. I played a little and took some interesting shots for myself. Kari showed up, and after very brief introductions, we carried on.

She had a nice smile and quiet but direct demeanor. She was very pleasant and a bit witty at times. Of course we were both very caught up in the task at hand, and so we didn’t have a lot of time to talk. Kari setup almost all of the images once she showed up. She and I had prearranged that it would work that way, as I was certain she was better at directing than I was. It was very helpful to watch her work with Julie because I could see how she controlled the situation. What did she do to direct Julie this way or that way? How did she lead from one image to another? What did she do to invoke the attitude from Julie that she wanted to see? At times, the two of them working together seemed more inspiring than Julie alone.

After the shoot, the four of us went to La Madeline to get something to eat.

Since I no longer live by myself in a two bedroom apartment, and I am not in school, I no longer have access to a dark room. Even though I have one of the best photo labs in America (BWC) less than 15 minutes from my apartment, it is too hard and too expensive to get them to do rolls and rolls of black and white. Because of this, I shot color negative film for the first time in ages last night. I wasn’t sure what to buy. I remembered someone recommending FujiColor 100 (yes the standard crap you can pick up anywhere) so I thought I would give it a shot.

I believe this film is more suited for landscape images. The colors were not very vibrant, and skin tones were not what I would like them to be.

I also learned that I need to get faster at metering light myself so that I wont feel inclined to use automatic aperture priority metering in rushed situations. We were working with rather difficult lighting situations, which may account for some of the inaccuracies of my N90s, but I found that of the images the camera metered automatically, it exposed them differently than I would have about 30% of the time… maybe a little less. Of the images I metered manually, I only messed up one, and even then, only by 1/2 a step at most.

Sometime today I will scan as many of these as I can. I am not sure where I am going to put them all, as the server I am using is complaining that I am over my quota, which is really not the case. I tried to fix it last night, but to no avail. If my cable modem wasn’t being retarded for the second week in a row, I would serve them from here, but when you get 7Kbps at GOOD times with 50% packet loss at best, it isn’t a very good idea.

I had a great time Kari. If you decide to go out to the train station sometime soon, and don’t mind company, give me a call. If you wait too long, I might just go without you ;).

Gully
35mm Ilford HP5+ // Julie and Amber // Heritage Park

Because Crowley is so far away, I had to make the trip in two legs, spending the night at a Motel 6 in between. I missed a street I was supposed to turn on, but it was my own fault for not transcribing Jana’s directions better. I eventually made it.

It was a small gathering of people who all had names. Unfortunately, I can only recall few.

Jana was a great hostess, making sure I was introduced to everyone, which I greatly appreciated. She was pushing the nuts a little hard though, so I was afraid they may have been laced with something. I didn’t touch them.

The second I was introduced to Sammy (which I will now call you forever *hA!*) and our eyes met, I knew I would like her. She has very honest eyes, and a warm smile. You can’t help but smile back. Especially when she is offering to take you to bed. I, of course, accepted. The pictures from her webcam should be up shortly.

Rob was very friendly and did his best to include me in conversation, which I was grateful for. Unfortunately, due to all of the new faces for me to converse with, and the fact that he left earlier than I did because he is blood shy, I didn’t get to talk to him much. This will be remedied in the future, I’m sure.

Julie and her fiance Jess both teach guitar (they might have other jobs too, I’m not sure). They played while we tried to sing along. While she was holding the guitar, she reminded me of one of those cute folk singers that has a million songs under her belt and every one of them tells a very detailed story about a very short period of time. At one point her and Jess (forcibly) played a Duet… on the same guitar. I even got to be a human capo for Julie, which is only one of my many talents

I didn’t get to talk to balulasfriend much, and cannot remember her name. She had an incredibly beautiful voice, however. She was a bit too excited at the contents of Sammy’s top dresser drawer, and being the only man there after a while, I felt I should keep my distance.

Katy decided it was important that she flash us periodically throughout the evening, which we, of course, were forever grateful for.

Stephanie is a Janis Joplin fan, so she got respect from me immediately. She watched and laughed and talked with the rest of us. She almost gave me a Frappachino shower. I’m kind of glad she decided not to.

There were more people. A girl named Erin… and… another blonde haired girl… and I’m sure I’m missing some more.

I had a great time. Jana and Sammy acted out scenes from the Fight Club, which was both entertaining and scary at the same time. Sammy gave a brief lecture on the proper use of a tongue piercing with me as her guinea pig (Down, not up, Jana. Like it’s walking. Do you need a picture?). I need to ask her if she offers private lessons, because I don’t think I fully understood. The police eventually showed up. At first I was worred they were going to force us to release the Pakistani prisoners we had tied up along the wall so we could watch them hit on Stephanie. It turns out we were just being a little too loud. Maybe we shouldn’t have had all of “the sex” in the backyard.

Thank you all for a great time. And if any of you ever meet Sammy, be certain to read the writing on her bedroom floor.