hanging myself

i learned a lot wednesday evening and this morning in hanging my pictures. if i had to do it again, i would be so much more efficient.

so the premise is i was not allowed to punch any holes in the wall. i was painted with a texture and the restaurant had been just renovated earlier this year.

so the solution was to dangle down images from the air duct. that thought alone would lead to nothing but trouble. the first idea would be steel rebar, too heavy. then bamboo, too oddly shaped. thin pvc piping, i just couldn't get a long enough length of it. finally two weeks ago at home depot i picked up 8 foot (2.43m) long flat aluminum. they were an 1/8" (.3175cm) thick and 1" (2.54cm) wide.

the mentality was if i drill holes towards the top of the metal it would stay flat just because of gravity. i would not have to worry about buckling from top to bottom because it was a whole inch thick.

to dangle i would use 3/32" (.238125cm ) steel cable, lots of it. it would be held up with ferrule.

ferrule work by applying pressure to a bit of aluminum to prevent the steel cable from moving.

on wednesday morning on another trip to home depot. i had a revelation that i didn't want to be propped up on a ladder clamping down on ferrules well over my head. i was going to use climbing carabiners to just hook onto the airduct, but discovered anchor hooks a fifth of the price. that was perhaps the highlight of my thinking.

come evening time when it was to hang, the staff and i thought that it would be a light night. it was the day before thanksgiving. but there was a steady stream of customers until 10:30. leaving me only 1/2 hour to put up the man portions of the rigging.

i had managed to get them dangling from the ceiling. but they were far from level. actually the problem was buckling. not top to bottom but the thin 1/8" section would buckle from front to back causing the entire thing to turn. when one turned the progression interconnected 8" flats would turn also causing a mess.

after an hour of fustration i decided to just secure as much as i can so come friday morning i wouldn't have to dig metal out of the wooden bench below it.

for the next two nights i couldn't sleep.

i tried to mentally figure out what i could do.

the best solution i came up with is hang each of the 8" flat independently. this way if one buckles the others don't.

this morning, promptly at 7am i got to work. i pretty much dismantled everything i did wednesday night. everything was individually supported. still at the ends. the problem was it was still buckling. in my bag i had a bit of string, and hoisted up the sag to be "even." it worked.

it's pretty close to being level. because the duct is sloped it feels that the images are getting lower and lower. but i couldn't align it to the duct, mainly because of lack of skills. also because if the aluminium was at a slant it would instantly buckle and flip to it's side.

the other problem with leveling is that the ferrules don't allow for adjustment. once they are clamped down that is forever.

i recently discovered turnbuckles. up until a random search on how i could have done things better, i thought turnbuckles were only for bashing the head of your opponent in professional wrestling. they are a pair of screws that can adjust it's length without reorienting the cables they are attached to. in wrestling and boxing they use this to adjust the tension of the ropes around the ring. i could have used it to get an adjustable length on my steel cables.

the string has got to be replaced with cable as well when i get a chance maybe tomorrow, sunday or monday morning at 7am. 20/20 hindsight says i should have tested that beforehand and drilled a whole in the middle of the flat so that it could be shored up.

hindsight actually says i should have used an aluminum shaped as an "L" because that would not buckle in any direction.

i've learned so much. see my craftsmanship at vannesa's dumpling house. i can only hope that the rigging stays up and i don't get sued.

i'm probably going to setup a date for everyone to get together.

flashback: november 25, 2004

Yazagyi, Myanmar

we had made it out to burma. another trip with k-livealittle. the goal of the trip was to catch the taunggyi balloon festival. that wouldn't happen for another two days. before and after we booked a whirlwind tour over all of myanmar, three internal flights trying to do things at every moment possible. that was what traveling with k-livealittle is. i feel sorry for the guides who tried to keep up with us.

the previous day we hiked to the yazagyi monastery. helping out with some construction work along the way, oddly enough. we were to spend the night at the monastary sleeping on bed rolls.

at three am, i woke up to use the facilities inside. only there are no facilities so i crept out to outhouse. i found that a great full moon was out. after i was done with my business, i snuck back in to grab my camera and take a handful of available light shoots. the above was the only that came out reasonably.

the next morning was breakfast and a hike back to pindaya, the local town. on the way i taught novices from another monastery how to juggle -- that was fun.

i remember closing out the day with a local candle light festival that went through the pindaya graveyard, though i wish the pictures came out better.

pirates

a lot of talk about pirates in the news these days. but this is not about that.

usually thanksgiving friday is pretty boring for me. no work to go to. everything is either closed or super crowded. for the past few years i've either gone to the museums or head to the movies. last year, i went to no country for old men.

right now the only movie that seems interesting is changeling. people have been talking about australia.

hugh jackman, nicole kidman... very australian. baz luhrmann directs... very australian. feel like kylie minogue, olivia newton john and men at work will do the sound track (that's doubtful but wouldn't it be nice.)

i finally ran into a tv trailer. it looked supercampy, like pearl harbor or a production by michael by and jerry bruckheimer.

my question would be why does the trailer sound exactly like pirates of the caribbean?

shopping spree

so i bought:

five 1" x 1/8" x 8' lengths of flat aluminum.

a dozen or so 3/32" wire clamps

40' of 3/32" steel cable

96 silver and gold binder clips

50ft of archival linen tape

all this to create a rigging for my photos.
i hope it works out well. i'm starting to think i need more steel cable.

a new look

this week i go back to a more "normal" darkroom schedule. no more fiber prints, no funny bleaching schemes. i get to work on image from my recent trip to mexico.

two months ago, i had purchased 4 boxes of 11x14" paper cheaply off of craigslist. now 11x14 is normally too big for me. so like turning my 8x10" paper to 4 4x5" sheets i thought about what other sizes i can pick out. 7x11" came up. this way i can print up an image almost fully on the sheet to the size of 7x10.5".

it doesn't look too different online. but holding the print, the image looks more massive. less whitespace makes the it look darker and a lot more moody. i like it. but unless i get another influx of cheap 11x14 paper, mexico may be the only set of images that go on this size.

that being said i might give 5x8" a try

flashback: november 18, 2005

echito, new york.

this was the first time i went to church for a service in the u.s. abroad i constantly go, really there's not much to of anything to do on sunday mornings in latin america. and i guess technically i've attended masses for weddings and christianings of friends.

i haven't been back to this church since christmas of that year though the congregants still recognize me. maybe i'll drop by some day.

not that i believe any more than i did, but i can understand why others do. what the echito project has done for me is to expand my understanding of the world, from my very own street oddly enough.

naked

since the border crossing incident at niagra falls, now 14 years and change ago, i've always tried to keep my passport near me. the only a handful of times did they stray away.

today, i sent my passport on a journey without me. it is in philadelphia now getting more visa pages. i had run out of free pages earlier in the year. in bolivia, i tried to get some more but that was a entire episode of problems which involved the state department and an fbi record.

if it comes back soon, i get to go somewhere cool like egypt or vietnam and cambodia or who knows. otherwise for christmas and new years i will end up in france or tokyo. (anyone looking to travel around then?)

until it is back in my hands i feel a bit naked.

flashback: november 11, 2008

milan, italy

it was our first night in milan. we were coming from florence earlier in the day. i'm not sure if we gave milan a good chance but florence is a tough act to follow.

the one thing that was great that day was going up to the roof of milan's duomo. that is spectacular. i'm going to have to trudge up one it (there it is... bad scan but an image none the less). p-91orchard mentioned something about a bon jovi song and his coworker being up on the roof.

that evening y-twokicks and p-91orchard treated me to dinner. chinese restuarant. they felt obligated to buy as it was my birthday. the food was horrible. but the company was good. y-twokicks was still trying to figure out how to be a millionaire by the age of 35. and p-91orchard was looking to change jobs.

eight years later, y-twokicks still hasn't figure out how to be a millionaire and p-91orchard was recently laid off of that same job he was trying to get out of in 2000.

for dinner i eat alone in the darkroom street meat. chicken and rice halal. i've never made a big deal of surviving another year. just every evening i strive to live a little the next day.

crunch time

spent most of the weekend reprinting images to match up with the rest of the set. i figure i have to hang everything the friday after thanksgiving. so i have so much to do before that.

make postcards

flatten prints

spot prints

bleach out back prints

buy dry mount tissue

figure out how to use dry mount tissue

work out an opening reception

figure out how to hang the work

call up and see one last time if i can tape stuff to the walls

this is all a bit overwhelming

i'm back

most of yesterday i joked to my hostel mates that
photography and day of the dead are only a cover for
what i was really doing in mexico. tacos and
latin pop music videos.

now that world is over.

i had a good time. i'm not sure if i got as good
of images as last year. it was very comfortable,
but no means relaxing. i think i only got one normal
evening of sleep during the week.

will i go back next year, *shrug*. i might be more
apt to head towards patzcuaro, where i spent day
of the dead in 2003.

on a more local note.

too bad there is no red or blue on the my black
and white tv because i'm trying to figure out
what's going on. virginia just announced. yippee.

again

like a groundhogs day scene. this morning, like last year
i got up at 5 in the morning to head for the cemetary for
the last day of the dia de los muertos festival. i think
i took relatively the same pictures as last year, only more
of them.

but the big difference is this year i got to drop off a
slew of pictures to people from the previous. and the people
were really grateful, really don
't get a chance to do this too often outside of new york.
(pretty much at all) so it was nice.

in an hour or so head to the cemetary again. along the way
i should pick up something to eat. this is especially difficult
as alvaro is closed today and i don't know what to do.

this cant be good

the clock on the hostel computer says 4.30am. an d i
have two more days of this. maybe i should get some sleep
before i dehydatemyself completey.