Posts Tagged: postaday2011
Weekly Photo Challenge: Morning
The WordPress prodders suggested this photo topic to me (and millions of others). It makes me think of one thing.
About three years ago my late cousin Tommy and his wife Maia were hosting Thanksgiving at the compound in Orinda. He insisted that our family come over the day before to hang out and spend the night, and just leisurely cook and drink and relax. We did. We had a lovely time all around. And it was one of the last times I’d spend an extended amount of time with him in good spirits.
I brought my camera and tripod along to play around with some night shots. Then, since the room we were in had gigantic east facing windows, we were roused by the lovely dawn. I got up, grabbed the camera and tried to figure out how to expose for these solar edge events.
On second thought, there is one other thing that comes to mind when I hear “sunrise”: The Who playing “See me, feel me” at Woodstock.
Trying to Re-Engage
No, the photo is not stretched horizontally. That’s just how they used to make ’em. And no, I didn’t pump up the saturation at all. Sometimes the light just does that. I don’t know why.
I fall further and further behind in dealing with my photographs. This, despite the fact that I am shooting far fewer photos lately. Of course, both of these facts are related to starting a new job and feeling the pressure of getting work done. Few walks around the neighborhood when I’m at work, bringing work home on occasion, studying up a bit, and various other tasks and projects make it difficult to do much writing or photography. For the last month or more, I’ve pulled some really late nights doing everything from getting taxes done to a spectacular, last-minute, marathon sprint to complete online traffic school. The late nights make me slower at work, which makes me bring work home, which leads to late nights, which,…
I believe, and I hope, the worst of it is now passed.
Similarly, I am also fabulously behind on both this daily post to the blog, and the project 365 group on flickr. I continue to feel a bit torn about both of these projects. I want to do both everyday. I really do. I want to be able to say I did it, and I want have the resulting output from participating in projects like these. But on the other hand, I think that it does not often make for very good or interesting results if one is always pressed for time. Does it make sense to just take a picture of anything at all and throw it up there just to meet the obligation to post something everyday? Does one get better by doing that? Does it make sense to write a few sentences in the most dry and mechanical way just to meet the arbitrary goal? I think that if one isn’t taking time to think about it, or attempt to practice a particular kind of shot, or whatever, then one is not communicating anything or improving one’s skills.
As for photos, since there is plenty of work to do catching up on processing and archiving photos already taken, I am going to solidly re-commit to uploading something everyday, but the photo will not necessarily have been taken on that day. I took this photo on April 29th, but posted it to the group for the 28th. I had nothing on the 28th. Zero. And yet, I got a handful of fun shots on the 29th. Some days are just like that. And while there will be a photo representing each day, there may be multiple photos in my submission to the group taken on the same day. That’s a clear violation of the group rules, but it’s the only way to keep with it at this point. And I’d rather put up photos I actually like than put up photos taken on 365 different days but that I mostly hate.
As far as the blog goes, I hope to get back at it and write about something everyday–about something other than why I’m not writing.
After Work
Painted Hearse, Oakland CA. April, 2011. (click image to enlarge)
These past few days I’ve been too engrossed in work to make it out to stroll the neighborhood. So I’ve only shot as far as the curb in front of my place of employment on my way back and forth to my own car. But I think there’s plenty of photography to be done right there: churches, hearses, lowriders, chinese hamburger-stirfry-donut shops–you name it.
Silhouette Memorial
War Memorial Silhoutte. Click to view large. © neo serafimidis 2011
As I passed, a jangling of neurons: something strangely familiar. I stopped. A minaret against the sky. Ironic perhaps, in these xenophobic times. Awaiting the crescent moon and the north star, just the same.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Lines
Lines © 2010 neo serafimidis
Lines. Lots of them, from a year ago. As soon as I saw the challenge topic, I thought of this shot.
A few more lines.
After I posted this the first time, I turned around to leave the room and saw my old Stella sitting there: strings, grain, all lines.
Swinging into Record Store Day
The Complete Tiffany Transcriptions
In honor of Record Store Day today, I took our guests for the day, Sarah’s sister Carrie and BF Glenn, up to Down Home Music. As many of you know, this is one of the most important records stores around for folk, Americana, jazz, and more. The result was that I picked up the 10-disk box set of Bob Wills’ complete Tiffany Transcriptions. I was absolutely overjoyed to find it there. I had it in my shopping cart on Amazon for awhile and then it sold out. But the double joy today was that not only did I find it, but I supported an independent record label/company/store that’s a major player in documenting Americana and folk music from around the world.
If you didn’t do it today, get out there tomorrow and buy something from your local indie record store. And if you are in the SF Bay Area, definitely check out Down Home Music. Really.
What’s New is Old Again
Afternoon Edition 4. Oakland CA. April, 2011.
I am now on the fourth run of The Afternoon Edition, wherein I explore the environment around my place of employment. It looks like a very rich area for exploration, except there is an official warning to not venture into the neighborhood to our immediate West as there have been problems. Anyway, this shot uses a Lightroom preset downloaded from flickr friend underthewaves called Ultimate Vintage. It sure worked on this one.
Long Day
Stupid. That’s me. I spend all day being stupid at work, and then go to have dinner with dear friends where I really crank up the stupidity on topics ranging from perfect pitch to commodities markets. Display ignorance, too. The good thing about friends is that they forgive you, at least the first few dozen times.The upside is that when I left work this evening the light was reasonably nice and I decided to shoot a couple cars that are often parked nearby, such as this stylish hearse. Once I get settled a bit more and start making some progress at work, I’ll be ready to start exploring the neighborhood with camera.
And just for the heck of it, I’m going to create this post from within flickr’s share tool. I used to use it and didn’t like it that much, but it looks like maybe it has changed over the last couple years–which is like 14 in web years. So, maybe it will display properly.
And then, i’m going to review some regex concepts. And then I’m going to install Tiki Wiki on my laptop to see if it will work well at work as an in-house wiki, and then… I’m going to… get… my few hours… sleep… … before …. zzzzzzz
Tax Time
At tax time, the stacks of papers explode and go everywhere.
For me, doing taxes is like one of those little puzzles where you have to slide the numbered tiles around. It’s pretty much a 15-hour task every time. I start at one little corner and something sets me off looking for a statement or receipt. And then I discover some other items that need doing, filing, entering, shredding or ignoring into a special pile for later. And so on. Until the room looks like a puzzle of piles of paper. That’s when I start staring off into space, dreaming about having a goat farm in northern Sonoma, making cheese, maybe some olive trees, and some quince…
So it’s no wonder I haven’t been posting much, or getting much of anything else done. As previously reported, the highly sophisticated procrastination involved in all this takes huge amounts of mental energy. The good news is that I actually managed to complete and file the goddamn taxes tonight. Not only that, we’re getting money back. The bad news is that I still have my mom’s taxes to do. And that won’t be easy without the the SSA 1099. I wonder if I’ll be able to get anyone on the phone at the Social Security office tomorrow… or what the price of land around Guerneville is these days…
Stop for a Reason
Derelict Storefront, Berkeley CA, April 2011
I had every intention of riding my bike to work today. Instead I drove again; there was talk of rain. I just missed the light in the left turn lane at Sacramento on account of the slow ped in the Acura in front of me. Slightly miffed, I glanced to my left as he drove off down the street. I glanced back to the camera on the seat next to me. I managed three shots with adjustments before the light turned green.
When I got this evening, someone emailed me about photos of colorful old buildings in the east bay. Note to self: remember to always try to make lemonade.