turkey

Seems like every year around christmas and new years i'm out of the country or at least out of they city. i haven't spent a new years eve in new york city since 2002 -- i've even been in a different timezone new years.

this year is no different... the offices here are closed from the 22nd to jan 2nd so i would be foolish not to go away.

it took a good few days to find a something. the search started in peru to do the inca trail and some others. to tanzania to hike up kilaminjaro. across vietnam, to entice k-livealittle and maybe into angkor. across japan, ski a bit and enjoy a "western new years".

just as we decided on japan. i was clicking around, $825 r/t to rio leaving the 12/21 returning 1/6. my eyes almost popped out of my head. that was absofreaking unbelievable fare. so we booked it. sent s-thephotonottaken and email looking for info. even people at icp were willing to help me out to find guides and places to stay.

then the email showed up. system glitch. back from the start.

that lead to the scramble yesterday to "get me outta here!". again spanning the globe. thoughts of quito and la paz. across every major airport through central america -- even emailed t-enrichtheworld to see if he was still in honduras maybe i could drop by. still the flights were too expensive. looked back at japan and lima. i took a look through western europe as well even though i knew i couldn't afford it with the price of the euro. finally looked into instanbul that seemed the least unreasonable.

tried to stretch it from odessa, bucarest or sofia to istanbul but we got concerned about timing.

so it's going to be almost 2 weeks in turkey and a long long afternoon in amsterdam (xmas, the city will be super closed).

next spring

spent the evening scheming up what i'm doing next spring.

[ship formal wear to isreal]
[ship large camera to trapani]
[ship film to trapani, rome, isreal, and athens]

2/07 nyc {chinese new years}
2/20 nyc ->($621 r/t, return athens)
2/21 -> rome -> catalina ($39, wegolo.com)

2/23-3/10 {backpack across sicily}

3/10 -> trapani
3/16 {palm sunday}
3/21 {good friday}
3/22 trapani -> rome ($120, air one)
3/23 {easter sunday}
[leave my major bag somewhere]
3/24 rome ->($596 r/t) telaviv
3/25 {anat's wedding}
4/01 telaviv -> rome
[ship formal wear and film back to the states]
[ship large camera to corfu or athens]

4/04-4/16 {backpack rome -> corfu}

4/16 -> corfu
4/20 {palm sunday}
4/22 corfu -> athens ($119, olympic air)
4/25 {good friday}
4/27 {easter sunday}
5/01 athens -> nyc

5/04 {kam's wedding}

5/06 {process pictures until the olympics}

and now i'm hungry, i hope the ramen place is still open.

no country for old men

so bored today ended up buying a new backpack and a pair of boots from ems. shot a couple rolls on eldridge -- snuck into the synagogue before services its looks amazing. opening up in two week, all shiny and new.

then i headed for no country for old men with y-twokicks. $12, wow no movie is worth that, not on the first watching at least. but luckily this came close. very fargoesce, i'd recommend it for $8. but maybe my scale has to be more lenient? i rarely watch movies in the theatre. this is my first movie i watched in the theatre all year (of those that i don't know anyone involved in personally)

shoot me

i printed that up yesterday, it's of course from mexico. that's one of the best images i've printed from the trip.

that's how i feel this morning.

spent the entire weekend, assisting in a photography workshop -- setting up chemistry, washing prints, and everything in between. after the assisting, i was in the darkroom for another 5 hours printing up my mexico stuff.

outside the darkroom, i was having drinks saying goodbye to someone moving to brazil and photographing a band of a friend of my friend's girlfriend -- but happen to play across the street from me and overlap with a long term project.

i'm pooped. i haven't had a weekend like this in a while.

up early

being on film is long term rewarding. it takes a week for me to process and contact sheet all my vacation rolls. then over the course of a month or so make work prints of some of the interesting images.

nov 2nd, i was complaining that i was back in the oaxaca hostel at 2:30am only to leave again for the cemetary at 6am. but it makes it all worth it to have a pair of images like the ones above. even if it means waiting until i'm home for two weeks.

something new every day

started off simply, at work we needed to rollback to a mysql database from oracle. the data wasn't good on the old mysql database so that had to be wiped. my coworker said he would run a delete on the tables. i suggested using 'truncate' because it makes it easier for database extents and indexes to be created properly. he didn't even know that such a command existed and commented "you learn something new every day." i replied "actually yes".

now in the office we're tracking if that is actually true.

what did i learn today?

lots of little random things that in the big picture doesn't add up to much.

how about this one. someone in the darkroom was printing up pictures from ethiopia. and we got to talk about the country. in ethiopia, 6 o'clock is high noon. the 1 o'clock is one hour after sunrise, 2 o'clock is 2 hours, etc. up to 12 o'clock being sunset. I forgot to ask what time it was when it was say 6 minutes after sunrise.

ethiopia is also on the julian calendar. they 7 years behind, so it is just now the year 2000. they have 13 months in a year, 12 months of 30 days and one month which is five days long.

24 again

to me it was just another weekend. but to others it was my birthday. i never really put too much stock into birthdays -- so i survived for another year, so what. rather celebrate living than just being alive.

that being said, there were cakes, free meals and random happy birthday comments involved. circling around a going away dim sum meal and a housewarming.

spent rest of the weekend shooting up the kids during the housewarming (above) and printing up the mountain of mexico stuff. hopefully i can finish up those pictures by xmas so i can go away again.

postcards from the edge

071108 by ewah

postcards from the edge is a program from visual arts that auctions off donated postcards for aids therapy and research. anonymous, unique pieces of art are sold for $75. the last two years i submitted travel stuff, i am still unsold (boohoo) -- but i often use copies of them as my holiday card.

the deadline is today to submit. i've been putting it off for so long and then there was mexico.

last night after spending almost 2 hours making 80 contact sheets from the mexico trip i had a about 20 minutes left. so rushing around i made the above entry.

i've been working around these hand prints for the past 6 months or so. it's a complete departure from the street/travel/festival stuff that i normally shoot. it's also pretty unique (like a fingerprint) and fast go get going.

this doesn't look as good as the 8x10 that i did a few weeks ago, though. the size of the paper seems to be too small. but i love the splatter pattern.

one day i hope to enlarge them to be he height of me. =)

casino royale

watched it last night.

lacks the one liner cheese of the other bond flicks. but also has too much emphasis on the random poker match that seems to cut into and out of espn2. who plays no limit texas hold'em in yugoslavia anyway? what ever happened to baccarat?

an ok movie. not great. but somehow it ended up on the imdb top 250 list.

for the past 2 and a half years or so i've been chomping away at the imdb top 250 list. i started with only 70 movies on that list. but every week i would watch one or two and on the current list i'm down to 21 more movies to watch.

32. 8.5 The Matrix (1999) 240,061
40. 8.5 The Departed (2006) 129,324
47. 8.4 Laberinto del fauno, El (2006) 72,765
60. 8.4 Leben der Anderen, Das (2006) 24,422
89. 8.3 Ratatouille (2007) 39,248
103. 8.2 American Gangster (2007) 12,681.000
105. 8.2 The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) 54,160
140. 8.1 Children of Men (2006) 76,089
151. 8.1 Grindhouse (2007) 44,891
161. 8.0 8½ (1963) 16,080
165. 8.0 3:10 to Yuma (2007) 18,743
177. 8.0 Hot Fuzz (2007) 62,393
188. 8.0 Belle et la bête, La (1946) 5,552
201. 8.0 The Exorcist (1973) 61,970
205. 8.0 Superbad (2007) 41,552
209. 7.9 Stalker (1979) 10,142
228. 7.9 Shaun of the Dead (2004) 66,829
232. 7.9 Rope (1948) 16,056
246. 7.9 To Have and Have Not (1944) 7,807.000
248. 7.9 Hauru no ugoku shiro (2004) 20,985
249. 7.9 Stardust (2007) 18,476.000

what is left is mostly the new stuff that the library doesn't have readily available. and then they're movies like 8 1/2 which i've borrowed a few times but slept them everytime i try. and there is the matrix... i swore after johnny mneumonic i would never watch another keanu reeves movie.

all in all i've gotten a real edumacation. and can spot influences on alot of movies and tv shows i watch now.

i'm back

so this is what i did

10/26 home -> JFK -> MEX -> mexico city -> MEX -> oaxaca
10/27 oaxaca
10/28 oaxaca -> tlacolula -> mitla -> tlacolula ->
santa maria de tule -> oaxaca
10/29 oaxaca -> cuajimoloyas
10/30 cuajimoloyas ->(w) llanos grande -> oaxaca
10/31 oaxaca -> xoxocotlan -> oaxaca -> xoxo -> oaxaca
11/01 oaxaca -> mitla -> tlacolula -> oaxaca
11/02 oaxaca
11/03 oaxaca -> monte albon -> oaxaca
11/04 oaxaca -> etla -> oaxaca
11/05 oaxaca -> OAX -> MEX -> JFK -> home

on my desk at work are 53 rolls of film, pretty evenly divided between 120 and 35mm. so i did a fresh batter check on the leica, looks like the meter konked out somehow while i was there, take it to nippon later this week. *sigh*

last night in mexico

Three words: Lucha Libre Uno

4:30am

even though i don't really get to stumble home at 4:30 in the morning very much now in new york. it seems pretty common place whilst i'm travelling. i'm pretty tired and probably drunk.

long day tomorrow, the last full day tomorrow. i would like to get san augustine de etla in the morning/afternoon and the museo de arte contemporaneo in the late afternoon and evening.

let see if i can even get up for breakfast.

disappointed

spent most of the day in mitla and tlacolula just to get small town aspects of day of the dead. that part was great. it smelled of marigolds and mezcal, someone at the cemetary told me depending on the town. the dia de los muertos festivities last pretty much for two weeks around the oaxaca valley.

it was a relatively laid back day because i was getting ready to spend the entire night in the cemetary. i was well rested. and made it there just before to midnight, only to have it close down at 1am.

back at the hostel now. though, probably get up at 6am to catch it opening at 7am. its 2:30a now.