365.238 not today

I don’t know if it’s something(s) that I ate, or the bs texts I got from a buddy (about nothing of any consequence) last night that brought up a bunch of stuff I put away many years ago, or the beautiful weather, or what, but I feel emotionally wretched today, and really have no desire for anything except beer, cigarettes, and ice cream—all of which I generally feel extremely good about giving up—much less shooting another #*$&^%(  picture for this project.

So here’s a shot of my desk. I just set the camera, lens first, down on the desk and shot away. This was the best of the 1 pictures that I took. Hooray for coping out.

D7000. Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 AI. ISO100, 6 seconds, f/16. No post processing beyond importing into Aperture, converting to jpg, and outputting at 900px wide.

Beautiful, ain’t it.

365.237 closing time

I might be sortof on to something here…

I was trying (unsuccessfully) to do a bit of light painting with the Zomb-E Series and some small LED lights and the laser pointer I used often in Grad school, but now serves as the world’s most adored (or hated, depending on who you ask) cat toy…

Any time I pull out the laser pointer, Ivan perks up, and every time Ivan perks up, Olive takes a strong interest, since she’s the only worthy recipient of attention from the big scary/big cuddly thing that tortures/loves on them.

So I swung the rig around, pointed and focused as best I could, and took a couple of shots.

I find this quite interesting, and processed it to look like a run-down dive bar/club just after last call, when the bartenders flip the lights on to let everyone know it’s time to get the **** out, and then the jukebox/stereo slows to a halt, and everyone looks up from their drinks/conversations, and begins to pound down that last one, stuggles into a coat maybe, or pulls out money to pay the tab.

I don’t know how successful this was, and I’m going to have to do a bit more with this, I think… maybe light the wall somehow to really make Ivan pop, or maybe find a way to trigger a few flash pulses during the long exposure, maybe.

But at least it’s something new (for me), and something that looks like it might have some potential to keep me experimenting/learning/moving forward, so it’s win either way.

D7000. Nikon 75-150mm Zomb-E Series. ISO100, 6 seconds, f/3.5. Medium processing in Aperture to give it that gritty, sort of shined-up Long Island dive bar vibe.

365.236 it even smells like a street

If I were going to scribble out a picture of David Bowie strutting across the Diamond Dogs stage set like any other Candidate, I think it might look something like this… maybe.

Incidentally, I’ve hit a point where I feel a bit stagnant on this project… that means, I think, that my ‘vision’ has expanded past my technical ability, and perhaps I’m close to discovering something new.

Maybe.

D7000. Nikon 75-150mm f/3.5 Zomb-E Series. ISO100, 1/10th (APmode), f/3.5, -1EV. Minimal processing in Aperture, mostly to make it a bit dirtier, and to straighten it up a bit.

365.235 the new chandelier

As part of the renovations following the broken pipe and large hole in my bedroom floor, the apartment owners installed a new chandelier in the dining area.

The new chandelier is much fancier than the old chandelier, which was not really a chandelier at all, to be honest, but more of a table lamp, inverted, dangling from the ceiling.

The new one is FANCY. Believe. And I’ll be having some fun with all the shiny surfaces and little plastic crystals and whatnot, for sure.

D7000. Vivitar 70-210mm f/3.5 Series 1 (Kiron), in Macro mode. ISO100, 1/15th (APmode), f/4, -1EV. Minimal processing in Aperture.

365.234 calm, peaceful

I’ve spent the day going through all the stuff I pulled out of my closet to make way for the new carpet.

For the past three or four or five months, my todo list has contained a line that changed slightly from week to week (I rewrite the todo list every Saturday or Sunday evening in a little moleskine notebook), reading—with more or less profanity and specificity—”clean out closets,” so the burst pipe under the apartment, and the resultant emptying of closets was fortuitous, and I’ll be able to throw out, recycle, donate, give away, or put on ebay/craigslist, something close to 1/3rd of all the stuff, and everything else has a specific purpose or fills a specific short- or long-term need (some nostalgic items will be kept, to aid in memory of good times, bad times, and things I’ve learned but may have forgotten).

The new paint and carpet really changed my bedroom, and sorta looks like the bedroom of someone else, someone I once thought I might become, but the economy happened, and I happened, and I since abandoned that dream.

But suddenly I have that person’s bedroom… so I wonder if I can remake the rest of my apartment to match. And if I can do that, maybe I can remake myself to match the space in which I live, since it would be the space of the person I want(ed) to be, and not the space of the person I’ve since become?

Does this make sense? Is this possible?

I don’t know.

But if I can pull even part of it off, maybe I can come to feel something like this picture: calm, peaceful.

D7000. Nikon 75-150mm Zomb-E Series, extended by 100mm. ISO100, 1/3rd (APmode), f/3.5, -1EV. Minimal processing in Aperture.

365.233 from a dream

When I was younger, from the time I can remember, up through my mid 20s, I had a recurring dream every time started to get sick. The dream always preceded the illness by a day or two, so it was likely triggered by the immune system waking up. I was in my late teens before I suspected a correlation, in my early 20s before I became fully conscious of the dream/sickness relationship, and about 26 or 27 before the dream came to an obvious starting point.

It went like this: I would open my eyes and find myself laying on my side on a hilltop, or, more accurately, a high levee. I could see way out into the distance, and zoom in on various details, pick out individual shrubs far away. The effect was much like the tilt-shift miniaturizing effect.

As I lay on the levee, looking out over the landscape, it would become obvious that I was a massive thing, much larger than anything else around. 

I would lay there for awhile, examining various parts of the landscape—invariably small shrubs for some unknown reason—and then suddenly find myself in one of those shrubs, but it would be like a giant forest.

For the first 10 or 15 years of the dream, at this point, I would wake up, usually a bit frightened, and always covered in sweat. One night, I was in the dream and realized that I was in the recurring dream. I made a conscious decision to remain in the dream and see what was in the forest.

The forest was in spooky, contrasty, greyscale, with many dark tree shapes and lighter patches where the branches thinned slightly.

I was creeping along a path, and then off the path, around a large open circle that was bright white, and emitting a screeching sort of television static noise.

[Now that I say ‘television static’ that’s what the forest looked like in the dream, like it was made from analog television static.]

For 5 or more years, I woke up at this point. By now, I was over 20, and found it ridiculous that I was waking up frightened and in a cold sweat from something I knew to be the recurring dream, even as I was in it.

I crept closer to the clearing, trying to look past the bright light and the screeching noise to see what was happening. I expected to see some dark seance or strange religious practice going on.

And then, when I was maybe 26 or 27, I saw it.

A giant spider, all dripping fangs and million-eyed, completely filling the clearing, and towering over me, cowering from the light, which seemed to gather around and press in on it.

That was the last time I got really sick.

All my illnesses since then have been exceedingly minor, and short-lived, and I haven’t had the dream at all.


Anyway, this sorta looks like the landscape from the early part of the dream, when, lying on my side, I first opened my eyes and began to raise my head and look out over the valley below.

Sorta.

D7000. Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 AI, reversed. ISO100, 1/3rd (AP Mode), f/8, -1EV. Lit with a blue LED light bar thing, and the mini maglite to bring out the knife edge. Minor processing in Aperture, including a straightening and cropping.

365.232 in the zone

 

Given the afternoon I have ahead of me—ice cream and movie at work that will keep me 2+ hours late, traffic due to lateness, cleaning momma’s house, etc.—it seems unlikely that I’ll have the energy or will ttlo shoot later.

How fortuitous, then, that I decided to make this picture of myself earlier, fully capturing me ‘in the zone,’ except I was really shooting, and not really working…

iPhone 4, Hipstamatic. Wonder lens, W40 film.