Avoiding Apples and Toast

On Tuesday night's class, in the final step of completing my 100+ faces project, I discovered that the CD I burned, supposedly containing my 100+ images, was empty, as was the folder on my hard drive. Oddly enough, probably from extreme rumminess, I laughed and thought "Oh well, I'm so over this project it's really not that big of deal to me." The more I thought about it, the more I thought I should probably care given it was my first huge assignment, one which I worked hard enough to give me claw hands and cataracts from the 'digital darkroom'.

Well, I am happy to report the following:

1. I like apples but not Apples. My skeptitude of all things Apple remains (all the computers at school are Macs).
2. I still enjoy toast but not Toast, which happens to be the name of the CD burning program we use at school.
3. I've happily discovered that my CD does have my project on it, putting it into a Windows machine revealed this.
4. I do not have to resurrect my entire project from my RAW files and can therefore forgo the subsequent casting of both of my hands and commissioning of a guide dog I would need if I were to redo everything.
5. I have uploaded my entire project to shutterfly. Here's the link:http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeANnLhizbOWbTKA&notag=1
6. I now have 10 showcase images selected, thanks to the voting of my classmates, which are posted below.
7. Do you have favorites? If so, please share :)

Autumn of Alex

Stephanie

Alex

MIT

IRA

Southie's St. Patrick's Day Parade

Boston Brahmin

Be

Blow

Smoke

Basket

Got Eggs?

Eastern Easter

The Hunted

Easterific

Get Your Laugh On

Thanks to Psycho Kitty for linking to another worthwhile web excursion!

Want to be entertained, maybe laugh a little? Try the Angry Alien Productions for kicks:

The Exorcist--The Shining --Titanic --Alien--Jaws
It's a Wonderful Life-- Freddy vs. Jason--Scream
Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Photography Project 1: Over and Out

Last night I turned in my first huge photography assignment--100 photos of people. I'm pretty happy with my results and really really happy to be done and here’s why:

1. When first introduced, this project was a portrait assignment, then morphed into the Family of Man tribute, and ended as a 100 Faces project--all that said I was pretty sick and tired of all the changes and wanted it to be done and over with.


Faux Flowers, Vrai Flower

2. I am a little tired of looking at the same 100 photos, all my photos, day in day out, except for the ones of people I know and like, like my pal, model, photographer friend above. :)

3. I need a break from the 'digital darkroom', which happened to be my office with the blinds draw and lights off.

4. As a result of spending hours in the 'digital darkroom', I have claw hands from over mouse maneuvering--they ache and so do my eyes.

5. I’m ready to stop working in my sleep. Every night for the past couple of weeks I've dreamt of working on my project, when I’d realize this, I’d wake myself up to stop, but I’d ultimately fall back into that dreamy darkroom.

I plan to upload my photos to shutterfly--when I do, I'll post the link. For the mean time, here are a few photos from this project. These were all taken this past weekend in Southie, Boston's Irish neighborhood, during the St. Patrick's Day Parade. I had to convert these photos to jpegs and assign them a different color profile to get them to look decent for the monitor, which is a shame because they look much better in print format, but you get the idea.

IRA Boy

Cymbalism

Kilty

Faces a Blur

His Hog

Darth in Southie

Storm Trooper

Glamour

Doh!

Southie's Sweetest

Girl

Country Cat

Sandeep Country Von Tigerle

Here's our new cat, who, as I write this, is being surgically rendered a Eunuch. Read all about him and his country ways on Alex's blog.

Inspiring Images

If a trip to Australia is in your future, consider bringing your kids and hiring this Australian portrait photographer to work his/her magic. You must check out this gallery--the photos are amazing and use only natural light (FYI, that's really hard). Hey come to think of it, if you can't make it Down Under, consider hiring me because I'll be of this caliber come June 2006, when I will be a credentialed, professional photographer. ;)

JP Manhunt

If you live in JP, commute on the Orange line, and happen to be in a car with the jerk blaring a really bad action movie on his portable DVD player, do yourself a favor, put on your headphones or plug your ears. Do not ask him to turn it down, because although you are contributing to the rent, you are in his living room. If you find this guy, hog tie him and call me.

Soggy Chainsaws

Charles (Chuck) Todd, Joshua Tree, 2001

Waking up to rain and the sound of a chainsaw this morning brought on a longing to be home in Seattle with my family. Growing up, we always had an acre or two in pretty densely wooded areas—that said there was a lot of work to be done outside. Chopping trees, chipping trees, pruning trees, hauling stuff, burning stuff, all of these jobs were my dad’s jobs. Chuck is unique in that although living in one of rainiest parts of the world, the rain never stopped him from spending the day outside doing his manly chores and, I’ve never seen him wear any raingear. So hearing the whine and grind of the chainsaw on this rainy day made me think of him.

Jimmy Jam Returns

Jimmy Jam Joined Jus!

I'm happy to report Jimmy Jam (see earlier post here) has returned to Jamaica Plain. You can see there's nothing Jamaicaish about this Plain we call our home, but the important thing is Jimmy is BACK!

Bathroom Monkey

Monkey Maid

As the end of every weekend approaches, so does cleaning anxiety brought on by the pile of dirty laundry, the film in the tub, and the dust bunnies that can no longer swish down the hall in my wake because of their increased heft. This would all be solved if I could just hire someone to do the cleaning for me; problem is, I don't really want some random person in my house, which is why the bathroom monkey seems like a worthwhile option.

With bathroom monkey you get a clean bathroom and a fun new animal to play with. The problem is I'm now not sure monkeys are that nice, given the latest attack in the headlines. Plus, I really don't need another animal, as I now have a third cat, which my dear husband was kind enough to let me take in. To return his favor, he gets to choose the gatos name (good deal huh?). Find out the top choices here.

Decapitation Ditty

Do you want a new song to whistle, or drive your friends and family crazy? Of course you do. Again, Logan's Dave provided this.

Spibiblicomic

It's my husband who is the graphic novel reader and puts my bible knowledge to shame, but if the bible were like this, then we'd be on the same page. I found this by way of Logan's Dave.

Say 2 Hail Marys, or Better Yet....

Did you poop on your grandma’s bed? Did you kill your sister’s pet rabbit? Well, neither did I, but chances are someone did. I did however do some pretty bad things and I know you did too. If you want to feel better about those things, you now have a venue for creating a hierarchy of badness.
"How?" you ask.
"Easy," I say, "just go to this amazing, simply amazing blog, called PostSecret.blogspot.com ."

This blog is the most refreshing thing I have seen in a long, long time--it has even temporarily lifted the jaded cloud overhead. I've caught a glimpse into a window of naked honesty and human vulnerability, which I don't come across too often. Most of the time I want to forget I’m a part of the humanness of this world, simply because the lack of humanity and humility makes me want to glide away with Jimmy Jam. But this, this site, however weird it might seem, makes me want to like them, us, me, and give all those sad and bad people a good old pat on the back and say “Hey, I’m bad too, it’s okay.”

Maybe some of you will be super human and honest and send in your biggest baddest deed, I know I will. Big ups to Samit, Yuss Yuss! Duffintely! for leading me astray--truth be found and truth be told!

Jimmy Jam, We Miss You

Jimmy Jam
This is Jimmy Jam, the flying squirrel who used to grace us with his presence every night. Unfortunately Jimmy has gone missing, probably because of the cold and snow. I hope he's hibernating and not decomposing.

You probably think he's a mouse, not so. He might be small but he's a mighty fine flyer. It's the flaps of excess skin under his arms that allow him to fly, glide really since he doesn't do any flapping.
*note: this is not a good photo, I know that. Lack of light=slow shutter speed. Slow shutter without tripod=blurry badness.