flashback: february 2, 2010

Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties 'cause it's cooooold out there today.

groundhog's day, one of my favorite movies.

the basic premise is... if you were stuck in eternity how long would it take you to transcend it.

today isn't one of those days i want to repeat. wake up drop by my cafe to have a cup of coffee and a muffin. rant about the 10 best movie oscar nominations. go to work, trudge a away for hours. eat lunch, mexican again. go back to work. head to icp to pickup prints from sunday. go into the office to work again.

if i woke up to tuesday again. i'd like to be more efficient.

the date on the calendar may not be the same, but my life has gone into a cyclic mode. really, quite sad, especially with everything i try to do.

the winter months are the hardest. from christmas to easter i don't go far. i always stay in the city for chinese new years. in past years, i would go skiing. between it getting too expensive, most my friends are burdened with kids and i'm liable to break something major, i probably won't make it to the slopes this year.

so the only thing to do is to look forward. i just booked my airfare to colombia/ecuador for this years holy week -- mar 20th - apr 19th. i still need to book some housing (anyone want to put me up?).

btw: this hardly serves as a flashback.

flashback: april 2007

Leogane, Haiti

Hard not to think about Haiti this week. I was there just shy of three years ago. In addition for the past few months I've been reprinting my Holy Week and Easter images. Last night, I slowly went through all the negatives and contact sheets from that trip. I'm still waiting to hear from my guides there, and still hoping for the best.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

PaP is up against construction like the above. I took it from my hotel window. Lots of pour concrete buildings, cynderblock buildings -- exposed steel rebar up top. the people were consistantly hopeful for adding on to their homes up top.

Souvenance, Haiti

Little shacks one story high, narrow doorways. My guide lived in one of these houses. In the background is his brother.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Maybe in a few months, I can think to the best part of Haiti -- the celebrations.

flashback: january 5, 2009

cairo, egypt.

tail end of my egypt trip last year, counting down the days. mm-drc and nzzzz had already left. i spent the day hang around with m-barule through khan-il-khaleli taking random pictures.

though a nice picture, this was one of the hardest things i ever printed taking over thirty sheets of paper.

dealing with rejection

Dear Urban Artist Initiative Applicant,

We are sorry that we will not be able to award you a UAI/NYC fellowship this year. We received over 400 applications in the Visual and Media Arts.  Unfortunately, with the limited funds available, we are able award only 34 fellowships

The response from New York City artists to this new grants program has been strong, indicating a great need in the field that we must try to meet. However, it has made this grant program extremely competitive, especially with so many excellent submissions from so many highly-qualified artists...

i think i've gotten too accustomed to these emails.

flashback: december 8, 2006

it was a friday afternoon and i embarked on a long flight to the other side of the world. i wouldn't reappear on anyway until sunday afternoon. i was on my way to sydney.

that year i just wanted out of the city. sydney and new zealand offered warm climates and good friends. over email k-livealittle and i booked up a packed schedule of stuff to do on the south island of nz. the north island would be spent with friends i would meet i sydney. in sydney i would just bum around more or less.

this past sunday morning i woke up thinking, "i am going to cambodia." i knew i wanted to travel for the holidays, but wasn't so determined. when i got a break i got onto kayak to discover airfare was 3200usd no matter which way i sliced it to see the temples of angkor.

i redirected my efforts to any airport that wouldn't screw me over in the world. i seem to go through this every year. i finally ended up with a one way flight to cancun for 150 usd as my base.

going in, the one way ticket home just after new years would be more than a round trip ticket during the rest of the year. the obvious options, belize city, guatemala city, and oaxaca (ss-lehman calls it my mexican hometown).

for only the reason of bus distance i ended up choosing tuxtla gutierrez. i'm actually not sure what is there. but it is near san cristobal de las casas, a town i've often heard as the amazing place in mexico. that is where i will likely spend the new year.

back in 2006/2007, i spent the new year on a beach in new zealand listening to crowded house music in a light warm drizzle.

paris

survived walking around photo paris; though i didnt get to talk to as many galleries as i wanted. so i still have a huge stack of photobooks, i'm not sure if i want to even bring back to the states, as i have yet another edit in my head already.

now i'm trying to photograph immigrant food around gare du nord. something i plucked off of lptt.

so while most of the hostelmates are out and about in the louvre or up the eiffel tower, i havent seen a touristy thing yet today. to make matters worse, i have yet to eat a french meal. all part of sneaking shots in for this body of work which though tasty, frankly isn't turning out the way i want it to yet.

my first book

i just finished the first run of my first book. 64 pages, 57 images. it's only about 4" x 5" in an edition of 22. what makes it not an instant classic selling for 600USD each is that entirely copy paper.

the idea is an old idea, i originally got it from t-bikedreams who did the same thing -- only he made a few hundred. i got one of the final ones it still sits on my book shelf. i just gave him one of the draft dummies.

i'm bringing it with me to paris as a promo item if i run up enough courage to talk with a publisher or gallery owner. i spent the entire month editing for a reasonable flow; printed a dozen images onto fiber based 8x10" paper.

then again paris may only be for wine and pastries.

t-bikedreams, though still hanging about icp, is said to be a very up and coming photographer of bicycle culture.

flashback: november 10, 2006

this is a bad image of j, i have better images i think. i met him three years ago sitting on his stoop. he would be out there in the summertimes listening to the ball games. he reminicses about his travel, living in denmark, traveling to ethiopia. he laughs at his own jokes.

there good odds that will be me in a good thirty or forty year. sitting on steps of the sro that i am in, laughing at my own jokes.

once upon a time

the only thing worse than listening to a game one lose in the world series is having to listen to this soon after.

for the past two month, i've had to sit through this most every day. at least every day the yankees play

flashback: october 27, 1999

oaxaca, mexico

in 2006, a teachers strike shut down oaxaca. on oct 27th of that year, shots were fired into the crowd. three died.

i went to mexico the following year, just barely knowing about the history in oaxaca. the main reason for my trip was to photograph the day of the dead. i stumbled on the anniversary rememberance.

last year i made it back to mexico for day of the dad, but didn't make it oaxaca until the 29th. this year, unfortunately, i am grounded in new york.

it is very comfortable returning to a destination. i talked to a handful of regular in oaxaca recently. i saw e-bazan on sunday at icp, he flew there yesterday. t-thegringatrail will be headed for peru for a jaunt through south america, i hope to met her in ecuador this winter or columbia for easter.

i will make it back to oaxaca next year.

getting to the seventh

every once in a while online, i see a photo contest. i normally don't give those a second look. for most, they just want to drive traffic to their website, the prizes are never that great. some of them are looking for free use you your images by trying to grabbing rights, so reading every terms of agreement is crucial. i don't want to discover one day while publishing my book that an image that i put into a photo contest i no longer own.

a few weeks ago world nomad put up a contest. the prize a couple thousand dollars worth of camera equipment and a trip to antartica with a national geographic photographer.

wow.

going through the terms it seemed reasonable. i went for it. heck, it was free, and just on flickr. i had no interest in the gear -- i've got too much. if i won i probably would have donated it to foto baryo. i imagined what to photograph while i was there, how i would feel in a land with no darkness, penguins scampering away from me.

there were a thousand entries. it took me quite some time to go through them. i thought i had a reasonable chance.

the results came in.

i didn't even make the short list.

back to the drawing board on how to get to my seventh continent.

what i submitted is here

flashback: october 13, 1999

ten years ago, i was sitting in yankee stadium. m-guydrive was there, i believe his sister as well. it was the alcs game 1, we sat on the first base side of the outfield. the yankees were facing the dreaded red sox. games between the yankees and red sox notoriously took forever. earlier that season we sat through a five hour marathon. this night would be no different.

orlando hernandez was on the mound for the yanks, i don't remember who pitched for boston. after a little fluke, el duque pitched his heart. but boston built up a 3-0 lead by the second inning and the yanks spent the rest of the game playing catch up. they tied it in the seventh with small ball. the already long game went into extra innings.

in the bottom of the 10th on the first pitch, bernie williams hit a deep home run to dead center. we knew it from the crack of the back. (burn baby burn). we rejoiced and took the train back home.

tickets then were easier to come by. we were already at a game in the alds, p-42eldridge was taken to the holding room because he pegged an indian fan's eye with a peanut. we would also make it to game 2 alcs, yanks win 3-2 (?).

life before stub hub, there wasn't as much blatant scalping. now people try there luck on ticketmaster just to turn around tickets onto stub hub. i thought about turning a $120 dollar profit on my single ticket for the game, i quickly gave up that idea.

available alcs tickets now are a $406 ticket and a $1056 ticket. i i.m. y-twokicks whether they were worth it, even though i know the answer. i did find a $39 ticket in the back on right field... in california.

i spoke with t-bgst earlier today, he lives in denver and was at the last two alds rockies games, $40 total.

i've become a grumpy old man.

maybe i will get tickets from the world series lottery to be a kid again.

i like pie

50,006 paid attendance in the new yankee stadium tonight. i was one of them. i found a ticket around the right field line on the ticketmaster site yesterday afternoon.

it was sloppy. it was one of the most exciting games i've seen. the game covered the full gamut of emotions.

the sung hero, of course, tex and a-rod.

the unsung hero of the game, brett garner. ok, he got caught off third in the bottom of the 10th. even if he had a moderate lead, he would have been out anyway. but in the top of the 11th, on one of the singles, he came in field the ball cleanly and fired straight into home.

getting out of bases no outs without a run... [priceless.

now i sit back in the office, working, listening to the angels red sox games. i'm baseball obsessed this post season.

pictures to come from the "new" 6x6 folder. that is if hideki matsui actually fixed the light leak.

flashback: september 29, 2007

i want to go inside, but i don't.

i still need to get into peoples homes on eldridge.

flashback: september 22, 2006

i left d-bayside in kl, malaysia -- not everyone travels the same way.

after one of the spiciest meals i had in my life, i took the bus to cameron highlands to get some cool weather and hiking in before heading to the jungle. the evening was quite nice, spent the time with some south africans learning zulu folk songs. i got jealous of the other travelers who were bouncing around s.e. asia for three months plus -- but i realized that i had already been away for over three months that calendar year.

in my journal i jot down the track that i would take the next day.

trail 8 -- 2 1/2 hours.
robinson falls. up sttep slop on the left a sign board shows the way. steep incline continues for 1/2 hr. down a valley. Bottom of the alley path to the right up a steep slope until ledge w/ electrical pylong. Fran(?) here slope increases quite drastically until it leads off and begins a more gradual clim. Just before the peak

trail 7
veers off left and down towards a town mardi(?)

trail 3
leads...(?)

i must have fallen asleep at that point.

tck tck tck

just 16 hours before i attend the taping of letterman show. it will be my third time there, averaging once per decade. normally they tape at 5pm, but tomorrow they moved it up to 3pm. i was all prepared to let go of the tickets until then i discovered who the guest would be -- barack obama.

for the most part being near fame and power doesn't affect me. as p-42eldridge would say "they're sh*t doesn't smell better than mine." but maybe the president's does.

i'm also faced with the jhs problem. what if he wants to talk to me? what would i say?

d-bsoft, has a friend with terminal cancer. given the opportunity he would use that to talk health care.

this afternoon i was part of a choreographed human sculpture for oxfam. the initiative was called "tck, tck, tck" -- to get awareness for the copenhagen conference on climate change in december. at the end of the program, we were influenced to call the white house to encourage president obama to take a lead in the meeting.

i can always talk about that with him. then again, there is the other jhs problem -- he doesn't even know i exist.

[note: i spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to spell choreograph, going through pretty much every letter combination]

flashback: september 15, 2007

this was one of those huge days. i spent the majority of the saturday on eldridge snapping away with the rangefinder.

early that evening some of the locals started to get some drinks around the local cafe. the eldridge elite had, as always been drinking king cobras all day and have been long passed out.

the woodwards had an opening, there second since they opened earlier that year. it was richard hamilton. the artist mainly outside talking on his cell phone.

[picture from wedding... i have to find those.]

an old friend. p-42eldridge was getting married for the second time. two weeks earlier in bermuda. that was good fun, an entire resort full of people i grew up with. this was dubbed the "chinatown wedding." it took me off eldridge to jing fong. over 400 guests, some were people i knew who couldn't make it to bermuda, the vast majority were k-... village people. (there really is no better way to describe it).

back on eldridge, g and d- 18 eldridge threw a house party it ran until 4am.

i need to have one of these big days again

an offer i couldn't refuse

the sunshine played a midnight showing of the godfather, i knew today was going to be a grey day. so why not, it's a great movie.

it's odd to walk out of a movie theatre at 3am.

this was the first time i saw the movie in a theatre. the other times was on a small screen on dvd. it was great to see a non remastered print.

low latitude film. the intro wedding's highlights were all blown out -- but it gave the feeling of a summer wedding. if that was done today, some post production editor would probably broadened out the level and flattened the look of everything.

the plot is still solid. a hero's journey falling from grace into something different.

flashback: september 8, 2005

[image to come later, i hope; probably the cover of the playbill]

shakespeare in the park.

two gentlemen of verona, a musical production.

i needed to get it tickets then, the production would finish that weekend. (as per last flashback, i was in china during must of the summer). it was raining heavily all morning. but, i knew in the evening it would clear up. so during my lunch break i took a train down to the public theatre to pickup tickets.

what i learned that evening was rosario dawson can't sing and can barely act. dawson plays mimi in the movie rent later that year, i still have yet to see it because of her performance at the park.

the production was up to par though.

last year i was blown away by the public's production of hair. two gentlemen of verona and it share the same composer(?). hair still plays on broadway.

two weeks ago went to the production the bacchae. an old greek play with a musical greek chorus. that wasn't up to par.

flashback: september 1, 2005

forbidden city, beijing, china

at first it didn't seem so forboding with the droves of tourist, but then it became so because of the droves of tourist.

usually the week befor labor day is reserved for travel. the darkrooms are closed, there's an extra free day to tack onto. but not this year. work, work, work.