The sun is just about to rise in this photograph taken on the banks of Black Creek in the LBJ National Grasslands near Decatur, TX.
Print Available. Part of Five A Week.
June, 2006:
photographer at sunrise
My dad stands behind his camera as the sunrises in this photograph taken on the banks of Black Creek in the LBJ National Grasslands near Decatur, TX.
Print Available. Part of Five A Week.
Bonnie – 68
ytt: welcome to the grasslands
These days I’m a giant ball of frustration when presented with any menial task that wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for someone elses stupidity. I spent 2 hours Wednesday night and 3 more hours last night presented with this exact scenario.
I’m wrestling with a new online system that I intend to use to showcase my photography and to sell prints. In true “MySpace”:http://myspace.com/ fashion, this particular product offers all of the features any professional or ambitious amateur photographer could ever dream of. However, it offers them in the most confusing, cumbersome, incomplete, difficult to use fashion imaginable. Various inconveniences and a dead-end user interface has led to a waste of 5 hours of time with no tangible result for my effort. And that sums up how I spent yesterday evening.
This morning’s meeting went well for which I’m grateful. The rest of the day has been a mixture of boredom, busy work, and restlessness that I could surely do without. Lately, my desire to capture the world with my camera has made every second spent in front of a computer monitor or in traffic a restless, foot-bouncing, clock-watching extravaganza of unbearableness. I look at the clock – 2:23pm – and think, “Wasn’t it 2:22pm, like, an hour ago?”.
My mind is starting to run wild with ideas for some more journalistic photography projects. Unfortunately, I have very little experience in that realm, so, it’s time I get some. I’ll be making a more official request with all the details ironed out in a few days. Until then, if you have a friend, family member, or co-worker with an unusual life, job, talent, passion, skill, or story to tell I’d like to hear about it. Email and let me know. If it interests me, I’d like to photograph this person doing whatever it is that they do. In exchange I’ll offer two 8×10″ prints for each of you.
My sister-in-law (and therefore my brother and nephew by proxy) have been giving Jess and I the silent treatment for a few months now. Earlier today I sent an email to her telling her that I was fed up with it and that she either needed to confront me and tell me how I had wronged her or, or drop it and get over it.
Family
I’m pretty sure she’s upset because I refuse to disassociate myself with a good friend of mine who happens to be my brother’s ex-girlfriend. I’ve known this friend since before she dated my brother. They dated for over 5 years, and they’ve been broken up for at least 3 now and I’ve maintained a friendship with her this entire time. I’m not going to end that relationship because my sister-in-law has jealousy issues. That’s her problem. I doubt any good will come from the email, but, I had to make one last attempt before filing her (and my brother and nephew by proxy) away as one of those family members you only see once or twice a year. I really enjoy hanging out with my brother, I love my nephew, and I was really starting to enjoy my sister-in-law’s company too. I hope she decides to talk it out or just let it go.
Tonight we were supposed to head to cow-town for dinner, drinks and fun with a friend of ours. She cancelled last night. For those of you keeping track, that’s three cancellations in as many days. Of course in each case there has been a perfectly good reason for cancelling, but, it’s still annoying and I’m starting to feel a bit avoided. It may be a blessing in disguise. This will give me some time to play with my new camera and lens bags (which should be on my door step today), bash my head into the desk some more over this new photography software, edit some photographs, spend time with my wife, and get ready for a very early morning tomorrow.
Texas Horned Lizard
by “Ross Tsai”:http://flickr.com/photos/rosstsai/
Tomorrow my Dad and I plan to meet somewhere near Decatur around 5am and then head into the “LBJ National Grasslands”:http://www.southernregion.fs.fed.us/texas/recreation/caddo_lbj/caddo-lbj_gen_info.shtml. This place is beautiful. On the surface it appears quite common, especially if you’re used to to the landscape of North Texas. However, after you start to look closer you realize it’s much much different indeed. First of all, these gentle hills, small creeks, trees, rocks, dirt, and lakes are more uninterrupted than you would find in most of North Texas. The surrounding land that isn’t part of the grasslands is mostly owned by energy companies and quite accessible as well. This means that this may be one of the few places to catch a glimpse of North Texas landscape that is not speckled with man-made structures. Further more, this makes it all the more inviting to the nature and wildlife that used to fill these parts of the world. It should be spectacular.
Again I find myself yearning for that “Sigma 70-200 f/2.8″:http://www.adorama.com/SG70200DGNKA.html?kbid=62466 which would make photographing wildlife so much easier. If I had my new gallery up and running, I’d give referral codes to all of you and offer you handsome rewards for leading your friends and family to purchase my work. However, since I don’t have these things yet, all I can do is ask really nicely. Please. Pretty please. One thing you can do is to “pick out one of your favorites”:http://flickr.com/search/?q=forsale&w=37996577120%40N01&m=tags&s=int&z=t, then display it in your journal, link to it, and mention that it’s for sale. You *can* do this by hand, of course. However, if you have a Flickr account (“sign up for Flickr”:http://www.flickr.com/signup/, it’s free!), take a few seconds to “configure your blog”:http://flickr.com/blogs.gne and you’ll be able to post any Flickr image to your blog with the “Blog This” button that will then appear above my Flickr photos. Easy, huh? It’d mean a lot to me.
ytt: broken mirror
I’m going to try a different format this time, you tell me if you like this better.
Did you know that about 90% of the people that sell car parts online are actually the same people? Try it… pick a random part on a car, search for it, visit the top 5 sites that offer to sell it and call all 5 of them. Same place? I bet it is.
Monday was mostly uneventful. Well, except for that part where I tore my passenger side mirror off backing into my driveway and then Jess and I spent nearly two hours on the phone and online trying to get someone that wasn’t a moron to sell us a replacement part. It’ll be here tomorrow. We decided to duct tape it in place until the replacement came and to let Jess take my truck to work until it was fixed since her drive is shorter.
We had the best damn “show”:http://gentlenews.com/theshow/ we’ve had in a long time Tuesday night including one of the coolest songs we’ve ever sung. I’d link to it but “Justin”:http://gentlenews.com/ is a big, fat, lazy slob who hasn’t got around to putting it online yet. I know! All of you go to “this post”:http://gentlenews.com/archives/2006/06/20/have-these/ of his and tell him to post the archive. Comment anonymously and don’t tell him who sent you. If it’s not up in two days, I’ll give out his phone number.
Bonnie
If it wasn’t for Justin’s “hot”:http://flickr.com/photos/revjim/171217921/ “ass”:http://flickr.com/photos/revjim/171218055/ “wife”:http://flickr.com/photos/revjim/171218109/, “Bonnie”:http://empurple.com/ I don’t think I’d even bother to speak to him any more. Speaking of his hot wife, she’s stopping by my place this Monday for a photo session. She *says* she’s not taking any clothes off but we’ll see about that.
Wednesday night was supposed to be a photo shoot with a “beautiful woman”:http://flickr.com/photos/revjim/127118736/ and a fantastic friend but shit happened and she couldn’t make it. Jess and I had a nice big plate of Bruschetta and home made “Perogies”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perogies instead. After that I settled in to my office chair to edit photographs but, instead, ended up spending all night working online with a new business partner. Hopefully, in a few days you’ll see the fruits of my labor.
Today has been a nice busy work day. Being busy is good. Being busy with boring work is… well… worse than just being bored. Today was a mix of both.
GO JESS GO!
After work today we were supposed to meet a few friends for dinner. Since the duct tape we put on the truck on Monday didn’t even make it through Jess’ one mile commute to work, and, because we were meeting people after work for dinner and one of us would have to drive a considerable distance in it, we decided we should remove the mirror until a replacement could be installed. Jess boldly accepted the challenge, donned her grease monkey girf hat, and “went kamikaze”:http://sivatonight.livejournal.com/386363.html on it this morning. I must say I’m impressed.
Of course her hard work was all in vain since our friends cancelled for the evening a few moments after Jess told me she got it done. While I fully understand their reasoning for cancelling, I intend to take it out on her with lots of boob starring, a few accidental “oops, did I bump into you there”s, and, possibly, and all out boob grab. I think an IOU for a very sexy photo session is also in order, don’t you think?
Tomorrow is Friday. I’ve got a big meeting with a bunch of bigwigs that I’m a little nervous about, but, otherwise, the work day should prove to be uneventful. After work, Jess and I are meeting a friend for dinner, drinks, and general debauchery in cow-town. If you don’t have any plans, lemme know and I might let you tag along.
Smallest GeoCache Ever?
Saturday Jess is abandoning me for work followed by further abandonment to baby sit for a friend. Sunday afternoon Jess will be abandoning me yet again for work and then Sunday evening we’ll be going out to a Comedy club with some friends as a birthday celebration. So, this means I’ll be spending all of Saturday and most of Sunday all alone.
That’s where you come in. I’m thinking photography, nudity, booze, sex, general debauchery, and illegal activities are in order. Maybe I should rent a canoe and head out on the river again or do some geocaching or pay a visit to some more abandoned buildings or have a phree pantless photosession day. What are YOU doing? Maybe we can do it together. Get it? Do it? Together? Bwhahahaa.
Rob and Vicki: New Love
These two wonderful people are about to have their first child. This photograph shows them both holding on to the new love growing inside her. Sure, it may be a little cliche, but I like it just the same.
Print Available. Part of Five A Week.
in search of passion
Either my passion in life is greater than everyone elses, my local readers and their friends and family have a distinct lack of passion, people are very camera shy, or I’ve been quite misunderstood in what I’m looking for.
*_Dum Vivimus, Vivamus!_*
h2. the past.
Some time ago (over 4 months now) “I set out to find an unconnected group of people alive with passion”:http://djamesphoto.com/articles/2006/02/10/models-wanted for some aspect of their lives. Unfortunately, other than a recent lead with a writer, the few remaining responses I’ve received have involved objects or things that are enjoyed in the respondants life, but not anything that affects their life in a large way or occupies even a portion of the majority of the days in any given year.
h2. artists.
The only real difference between an “artist” and someone with passion is that the artist is capable of focused his passion into a medium that can be digested by one of the 5 human senses. That doesn’t make non-artists any less passionate.
Nearly all artists have day-jobs. Even those that get paid to produce thier art still have aspects of their day-to-day requirements that venture from what they really want to be doing: the day-job. Even the most successful portrait photographer finds himself prefering to create fantastic photographs of people in a giant box lined with pillows than to photograph the “next big thing” author for the back cover of her new book. The difference between the day-job and the art is the passion.
h2. I want your passion.
I want to know what you do when you’re not doing your day-job. I want to know how you’d spend your time if you had no obligations. I want to know what you think about when you’ve got nothing more important to consider. I don’t care if you don’t think it’s photograph-able… that’s my job. I just want to know what it is.
So, right now — right this very moment — if you’re willing to allow me to photograph your passion some time in the near future, email me and tell me what it is you are passionate about. Don’t just tell me what it is… tell me why you’re passionate about it, how it affects you, what it makes you feel, how it changes your life, how you fold it (willingly or otherwise) into your every day life.
Just in case there’s still some confusion, let me give you some examples of what I would write to me if I were doing what I’m asking you to do:
h2. some of my passions.
People.
I’m passionate about people. As nervous as it makes me, at times, I love meeting new people. I like watching complete strangers interact with one another. I like interacting with people I don’t know even when I know I’ll never get a chance to speak to them again. Before it was forbidden by federal law, I used to spend hours sitting at the airport watching people meet one another in the terminal, watching their reactions: from tight hugs and passionate kisses, hearty handshakes and big smiles, to rolling eyes and twirling hair. I use photography as a means of focusing in on this passion… as an introduction to more people, and as an excuse to dig deeper into human nature.
Communication.
Tied into my passion for people, I’m deeply interested in communication. I believe that this world is filled with people with so many interesting things to say wanting so deeply to find other people interested in those things. I enjoy reading old letters, eavesdropping on conversations on buses, and talking to people about their lives. From text messaging to IM to email to hand written letters to phone calls to website comments… I love reaching out to people and finding a common bond.
Technology.
Some people look at technology as something that will eventually take over the natural world. I, however, look at technology as the next natural progression. I am fascinated by the sheer number of tasks that have been rendered obsolete in my short lifetime alone, let alone in the thousands and thousands of years before me. I’m not only interested in what’s around the corner, but I’m also interested in learning what has been forgotten over the years thanks to technology. For instance, how did someone make a cake 1,500 years ago? Where did they get their supplies? What did they cook it in? My passion for technology often tends to center around my passion for communication as I look for new ways that technology can help people communicate better.
Honesty.
I regard truth and honesty above all things. This ties in to my passion for Communication. I wish to never be lied to and I wish to never have to tell a lie. I wish to never have an opinion muted so as to not hurt my feelings. I want to understand every inside joke. I wish to never be misunderstood. I wish to not have to play games where I know what I want and I know what you want and yet neither of us is willing to tell the other. I want to no longer see you pretend to feel or believe one way because you’re afraid of what society or your friends or your spouse might thing if you believed another way. I wish to live without ambiguity.
*_Dum Vivimus, Vivamus!_*
When I write to you
When I write to you with many words to ensure clarity, I fall victim to skimming and find myself misunderstood. When I write in terse poetics with razor precision and carefully selected blades they are examined only on the surface leading, again, to misunderstanding.
It’s a good thing that I enjoy writing to you. Otherwise it would be nothing but pain.
what are you looking at?
Taken somewhere on the west side of the TX/LA border near I-20. This very large turtle had no idea what he was getting himself into trying to cross this road.
Print Available. Part of Five A Week.
consider ME: a clarification
In case you were wondering, the point behind “go figure: consider ME”:http://revjim.net/2006/06/20/go-figure-consider-me/ is not about telling my friends to pay me more or even to pay me at all. I mean, sure, I’d be happy and grateful if they did, but that’s not the real purpose.
More than anything, its purpose is to bring understanding about what it is that I put into each photo session, in terms of both time and money, and trying to install a sense of partnership and responsibility into the friends and acquaintances that I do choose to work with for free. As “Josh said”:http://revjim.net/2006/06/20/go-figure-consider-me/#comment-8339 I can’t expect to make any kind of money selling to only friends and family as I’m tapping a very limited resource. However, my friends and family have lots of friends and family. A limitless resource, if you will. At this point in the game, $84.04 will help a little, but bringing even one paying portrait session or a handful of fine-art purchases my way will help a lot more. Especially when I then make friends with those people and get them to bring me even more business.
Advertising is expensive and I’m willing to accept that. They way I see it, I can spend $84.04 and advertise to my friends’ friends through word of mouth, or I can spend $84.04 and take out an ad in the yellow pages.