devtank

L1003316

2010-06-10T23:31:00.001-07:00

L1003316, originally uploaded by Paul A. Roid Street Photography.

Oh my god, this is just unreal...

Open letter to commercial photographers

2010-04-05T01:19:00.000-07:00

I am a fellow photographer, I hope you dont mind that I am not going to be very sympathetic towards your work..

Popularity amongst clients is one thing, because clients cant see the way we do as photographers, that is why they hire us to make what they want to see into something they can see.

I see an awful lot of repetition in your work, a lot of content but not a lot of personality. I feel you rely on your equpment to give you a signiture, and as for shooting on film over anything else, I dont believe that the medium should be part of the message as your vision should shine through regardless of the tool in your hand.

I hope you dont take offence at my opinions.

I believe that we as visionaries have a responsibility to help our clients see beyond our ideas and encourage them to advance our vision & give them the ability to breathe life into new ideas beyond what it is we have given them in the first place.

Patrick

2010-03-17T11:33:00.000-07:00

I'm so glad Starbucks coffee reminds me what Saint Patricks day is actually all about.

The further one goes the less one knows -Derek Jarman

2010-03-15T22:38:00.001-07:00

I recently went back to my homeland and saw my parents for the first time in 7 years, and it was a compelling occasion because there are so many things one learns about ones self when one is confronted with the people who are responsible for your existence. Its not as easy to identify that when you see them on a regular basis.
I watch as my parents decline and fade. It is momentus, overwhelming, beautiful and assuring.

Don't stand so close to me..

2010-01-25T14:09:00.000-08:00

its the defecit that excists between those that you fancy, and those that fancy you. There's always dissapointment.

20090923|01|19

2010-01-19T01:09:00.001-08:00

20090923|01|19, originally uploaded by irq506.

I am thinking thoughts of escape. I need to leave.
Here have a picture I shot in September 2009.

*surance

2009-09-18T09:46:00.000-07:00

When you are younger, you are uniqly individual and presciously concentrated into a singular expression of consciousness, and all that follows. When you get older you emerge in the reassurance that you are not.

When I was younger I felt completely alone most of the time and again isolated within that because there was no relief, or atleast very little (just enough to figure out that there was indeed some kind of alternative). I watched others around me excel and achieve and I didn't understand how they did it, but as I grow older I realize that I stand shoulder to shoulder with a great many others who were in the same situation as me, and I also have the comforting realization that of all the confusing indicision I had, I can nowsee vast swathes of people who made alternative decisions or made no decisions and the consequenses of their actions is becomming clear now, decisions I wasn't sure of at the time and realize now that they were neither right or wrong but ultimately led to a short run or long run to similar outcomes. Or in some cases, extremely negative outcomes.

Typing on an iPhone isn't condusive to clear communication...

In-divid(e)-uality

2009-07-08T09:26:00.000-07:00

it seems to me that from what I have experienced, individuality is not respected or encouraged here in the US. Social reliance upon commercially mineable interaction within certain set rules of social engagement is, however. Dissent and alternative opinion are intrinsically ignored, feared and brokendown upon contact. Recent police activity and their following tribunals and investigations have come to terms with how much the police now over indulge in corrective action.
However, this is but a physical manifestation of an ugly behavioral trait of mass consciousness and the fear in with group thought nurtures.

EOM

reminder

2009-04-13T01:00:00.000-07:00

i forget stuff now so this is a reminder for me
RD-1 purch may 02 07

School's out..

2009-03-19T00:36:00.000-07:00

I finished the class I took in the Photographic Center North West (in Seattle), on a specific kind of social photography, and after ten weeks, I have not come away from it with a clearly defined new vision or path idea of an alternative possibility to the one I am currently languishing in. I know that there is the argument that life is what you make of it, but this is fuckin school we are talking about here, I paid money to be lead by the nose, to be given some definitive pointers and constructive criticism, but I walked wide-eyed into the airy-fairy world of American Education. A place of non discouragement, safe environments and positive encouragement, which seems to be the way for education as standard from what I gather.
I come from a different environment, where you are intersected from a more perpendicular rather than oblique or parallel angle. To be honest, the teachers approach really irritated me, especially because I knew him before I took his class. The guy is a very commercially successful photographer, and of course you will get that bent from him, which is fine, because thats ultimately what I wanted to use the class for. However I did not get the level of perceived intensity that this guy seemingly excels in in his everyday working life from the class. What I wanted was a set of instructions.
Im a grown up, I wanted to be treated like a grown up, I dont want to be in a class with university students who are in the class for a grade and subsequently drag the potency of potential down to a diluted level.
I paid good money which I saved hard to get, to do this too.

Marriage vs Garage

2008-12-18T23:57:00.000-08:00

I am a moderate bi man, and I disagree with Pastor Warren primarily and specifically on the point that in his belief in Prop 8, he shows zero empathy for what it is gay people are trying to achieve which is equality, and therefor he cannot impartially represent anything until he has negotiated a resolved for his issue.

Pastor Warren has specifically emphasized one particular aspect -which bears the greatest level of leverage for his side of the argument- on the belief that gay people want only specifically to have exclusive use of the term "marriage". The term marraige being fundamentally an institution between man and woman; the terminology specifically means union between man and woman, which is something which can never be applied within the realm of same sex relations, with this in mind, the gay community must recognize this and forge ahead to find a new term for the same mechanical institution of unity in society. This terminology semantic has become the focus of this situation, and has polarized opinion and changed the focus of the bigger picture which is in fact about general equality, and this is unfortunately now a manifesto being played by both sides.

Gay people do not need to embed on the need for the terminology to be correct, what we need is civil rights and civil union which gives us the express similarity legally, legislatively, and in time, morally to that which is known also known as marriage. We are not looking to change that which is written in stone, we are not looking for marraige, we are looking for that which marraige allows between a man and a woman, to be recognized naturally and freely between two men or two women.

If the resolve of this is to break the stalemate of terminology, then I propose that we as gay people accept a different term for our union, even though it will infact be identical in every way save for the fact that it is between that of same sexes.
In order for progress to be achieved, compromises have to occur. If we can sacrifice the term, and in our strength find a new one, then we will not antagonize those seek to maintain their own values (just as we defend ours) and yet achieve the goal in which we strive to achieve.

Time for change

2008-12-18T00:02:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago I came to an impasse. For whatever reason it happened and I made a seemingly split second decision to re-educate myself, within my discipline, but to get myself back into some kind of fluid state of mind and to break the cycle which I seem to have become entrapped.
Re-education, albeit my choice is mild, however I wonder if it is a microcosm of the bigger picture of the life I have come to exist in... My move to America, and my witness to the change from the familiar to the beginnings of a new way of living for Americans. A life of conservation, shared wealth, distribution of assets and a new time of creativity and invention. A new time, for change.
Elements of transformation are occurring around us consciously and seemingly out of our direct control as individuals, however en-masse we have created everything we see happening around us; the destruction of corporate empires which were built on the belief by the few that the way to achieve success is to streamline and singularize groups of employees into homogenous working environments, similar in theory to commun-ism...
However, with all power comes greed and corruption. We let the intellectuals command the actuaries and the actuaries command the accountants and the accountants command the lawyers and the lawyers get high on the echoes of their own immediacy and the accountants make sure the lawyers are happy by passing the figures on to the actuaries and the actuaries keep the traders informed of the numbers and the numbers swell and heave in a fantasy greedy mass of progress and interests and business... 'and its all fun and games until someone loses an eye' and in this case the cyclops eye is plucked and the one eyed monster is no longer king in the land where we have all had our eyes closed...
So the bough breaks and the economy falls, and all the safe-guards and insurance measures backups and escape pods haven't been maintained becomes somewhere along the way the night-watchman was invited into the party even though he's paid to watch the door..

Most of my adult sentient life I have lived in the luxury of economic growth and posterity. I am 36 years old as I write this, I live in Seattle for the last four years and before this time I lived all of my life in Ireland. Until I was about 16 or 17 years old I had vague recollections of collieries (coal mines), a staple existence in the UK, closing and falling over like a houses of cards, the radio constantly on and the television, pouring bleak news of union leaders who fought seemingly endless wars with parliament. Margaret Thatcher & Ronald Regan and starwars anti missile defense systems, and everyday there were two punishment beatings and an assassination or an attempt in northern Ireland. I dont even remember the Irish news because it was all so dark and deathly, falkland war, nuclear threats, job losses, neighbours drinking themselves to death, depression dark dark dark... and the news from America was Dallas, Tube Socks, Oil, Sunshine abundance and the hemorrhage of young minds and hearts from Ireland to the UK and to America.

Things are different now, but really they are going to fit into a similar pattern again soon. You mark my words, -it'll happen. I feel like I walked past someone once a long time ago, a man on a street corner who said something like this, and I thought that he was a crazy old fuck..
..now its your turn.

Leibovitz

2008-11-20T07:06:00.000-08:00

I went to see Annie Leibovitz last night for a lecture in Seattle last night. At once I believed that I was again in a funk with myself because I walked away unsatisfied, its the second lecture Id been to in two months, albeit the first one was pretty stale and the work was very un-fulfilling. My immediate feeling is one of wanting more. I wanted to ask questions but handing cards to ushers before the event is not conducive to creative questioning on matters involving the lecture you have just heard..

However, my biggest complaint was with myself, and it wasn't last night, it occurred in my sleep and woke me up at 6-am this morning to tell me that I left my balls in desperation alley somewhere back on skid-row.. I dont know what has happened to me over the last three years. I was married, I was gelded by the woman I was to spend the rest of my life with and Ive been cowering in the shadows ever since..

Anyway, when I heard Mrs (I dont think she ever married, but I believe that if she was afforded the luxury of doing so, she would have, and for that reason I bestow upon her the married status of Mrs.) Leibovitz, tinker on last night about her working life in moderate detail she obviously had quite the run of luck or perfect timing for certain things to happen in a sequence of events which lead to cumulatively wider avenues of creativity inspiration and opportunity.

Ultimately, and what woke me up this morning, is that I was on that path, in its infancy, but I was there, and I was in a position to shuffle large blocks of chance around me like they are jellies on a plate, and for one reason or another, pulled back and retreated into the darker recesses of my life. I am prone to depression and I am my own worst enemy, I know what I need but for some reason I just cant seem to put the two together and make the shit happen for myself like I can for other people. ultimately I just cant -despite my best efforts- think of my own life objectively.

I think, ultimately Ireland gives us the belief that you must rely on other people to give you opportunities, and America makes you understand that you have to make your own opportunities. And yet within saying that, I see my friend who is obsessed with networking and schmoozing around people of influence like a slug in snot, believes that his opportunities will come only from knowing the right people. I think that may be part of it, but I think that this is something which should come as part of, your working life not necessarily exclusive of.

Anyway, Im hoping that I can get my head together and make a positive move soon because I fear if I dont, I will be stepping further into desperation.

0/0

2008-11-18T19:41:00.000-08:00

I went to the Safeway which is close to my work, for the first time this evening. I had thought about going to the shops after my day out yesterday and upon entry of my QFC turned my back and walked out because the price of butter had gone up more than 85c in one week, and it made me think that it was time for me to go elsewhere. Ironically a woman stopped me on my way out and asked if I was willing to participate in a quick customer satisfaction questionnaire.

So the Safeway experience was more than I had bargained for. Yes I saved money, actually quite a bit. However, the whole experience was quite daunting and quite depressing. What I gained in one hand I lost in the other. 0/0.

There is a different psychology in there, pokey, over heated, barrage of audio nonsense, over zealous use of cleaner, and the most aggressive spot lighting I have ever seen in anything other then an amusement fair. Starchy, under saturated, low fiber rich in monosodium glutamate.

Homeless, poor, overweight, unkempt, uncared-for, unkind, lost, lonely and unloved people. Men who have the divorced look, lonely men, poor men, sad men, sad women, over prescribed, under appreciated statements of a society on the edge of fucked. Its that horrible taste you cant seem to get out of your mouth despite your very best efforts, until eventually it dissolves away in a shot whiskey or if your lucky a glass of house red.
What is most disturbing, is the fact that this a legion of people, an entire generations load of human detritus. And we who transcend it are responsible for it as much as those who have transcended us.

In stark contrast to this I spent the afternoon walking around the University Village, an outdoor mall catered with upper-middle-class, social climbing, aspirations to grandeur, nouveau-riche, wannabe couture shopping, lavishly embroidered with a swathe of stay at home wives and Ugg-Boot wearing teens. Save for the fact their own levels of personal hygiene may be somewhat, considerably more, obviously, detectably, improved. That and the lack of raised voices, there is not much of a difference between the Safeway crew and the Universally Villaged.

Film Superiority

2008-11-10T12:11:00.000-08:00

Im so out of the technology scene now that its just not funny. When I was in about a year in the camera shop where I work, I started to bear a distaste for the frivolity of the digital camera scene. The market, the marketing, the product and the lack of quality gave way to all things which are the opposite. I went from owning the top of the line professional digital camera to a lowly manual camera which shot film. two years later Im still shooting film but I bulldozed that camera and eventually ponied up to the level of quality I was missing all along, and bought a Leica. The stuff used to be very expensive but in comparison to any decent digital SLR now, its almost on par. However thats where the similarities end.
So Canon and Nikon introduce updates to their gear and they are all song and dance routines. Colleagues from other camera retailers show me the gear and what it can do etc and its all shit. Its complete shit. Really; take a step back from the ownership and pride and look at what you just spend three grand on. 20mp and 14bit tech isn't even a scratch on the surface of what currently excises or for that matter what has excised for the past 20 years in film technology -pre 20 years ago sure, there is comparisons there.
Kodak just announced new film. I got two rolls shot it and experimented with it up and down the scale. It scans with a clarity and a scale which blows digital technology off the face of the planet. It costs $4.49 a roll and cost me $3.50 to develop it without prints. Its called Ektar 100, oh and if your hard drive crashes the negs are OK -and they are waterproof too.

USA Election 2008

2008-11-05T00:04:00.000-08:00

...I wish I was black.

...sounds a lot like

2008-11-03T10:32:00.000-08:00

Just got this from Channel 4 news (UK) in my inbox;

"I have spent the past days here in America swinging across seven key states. There is an exceptional sense both of excitement and paranoia in the air. Let me deal with the latter first.

There is a fear in many states of both fraud and theft in the voting process. One of the reasons that people have voted early in so many places - it has been possible in 34 of the 50 states - is the fear of complication.

In Atlanta I found a voting machine that had mysteriously ‘failed’ knocking out a thousand votes. I found early voting queues where people had still not voted five hours after they’d joined the line and the authorities were refusing to extend the voting time to include them."

Ok...
what is going on in this country? This is the USA, ok for most of us the USA means Coke, Levi's, etc, aka the epitome of western-ism. the benchmark for freedom etc etc
So when I read this kind of commentary, it makes me think of a country in turmoil, which makes me think of Zimbabwe, Congo, S.Ossetia, or any number of other countries in conflict or turmoil -take your pick; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_2003–current

What is going on here? (I seem to be a little disadvantaged actually living here apparently, because I cant seem to see the wood for the trees), tell me... are we at war here in the US? I dont mean American foreign policies (Iraq), I mean within the shores of the US, Homeland Security, internal spying, etc etc -Ive become sick and tired of hearing about people complaining about it (albiet mostly only people over the age of 50, because the pre fifty year olds have MTV on too loud or have the Youtube/America's Next Top Model/Lost[sic]/[insert any current inert gaseous brain-filler here] Headphones on), but I also need to hit myself over the head and wake up to it.

I need to come up for air, take a gasp of reality and maybe even make it back to shore...

*this rant has been sponsored by someone somewhere

The Grey Room

2008-10-21T22:10:00.000-07:00

I built a darkroom, well its not really a darkroom its a grey room because its where I now work all of my film. I finally bought heady duty shelves which I am using as benches for developing, and chemical mixing, and on the other side will be the light boxes and the negative archiving, sorting and cataloging. THe scanning of course is still tied to the computer which I am trying to ween myself off a fifteen year dependency.

I am basically substituting one computer for another and hoping that the computer in my head will be as much entertainment as the one in front of me has been for the last half of my life. I am actually cheating here in that I purchased an iPhone and that now fulfills the email cravings and some of the eBay dependancy. Its also that handy calculator, GPS and map in the pocket amongst also being a "walkman".

Anyway its the first piece of technology I have purchased in a few years and I am feeling good about now living in the US and not being totally and utterly sucked into consumerism.

I just wish there wasn't so much sugar in everything though...

the older I get the more lost I become.

2008-10-12T00:52:00.000-07:00

At least when I was a kid I rebelled, and in my twenties I had something to say. Now I have nothing much to say but still feel the discomfort of conformity. It doesn't help when those you choose to spend your time with condemn you for it either.

Ouch!

2008-09-08T08:51:00.000-07:00

I put my back out. aka hurt my back not by actually doing anything other than getting film out of the fridge in work.
Shit.

In a ditch.

2008-08-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

I wanted to drop a few lines about how much I feel I have grown negatively away from the heartbeat of the world. Familiar things seem unnaturally abstract and the realisation is discomforting. Simple every day things, food, bus tickets, money, people on the street, everything has changed, its still as expected but there is change within that and its unsettling. I prefer to be in control of these changes, like if I moved to another place, then I could expect a change and deal with it. This however is different and uneasy. There is more to this then I can write about now.
However this morning I read the lines of a friends of mine, a man who actively disengages himself from communication with me periodically and whether he knows it or not has always been mind boggling to me. However, the method of delivery is not important, what is, is the message, and I find out that he is active and flowing again. We are the same, he and I. The cycles are small and frustrating or large and eventful right now he is fluidic where as I am in a rut, and I believe I have been for some time.

Permanence

2008-07-11T09:32:00.000-07:00

Thursday July 9 2008, I came home to find a bulky plain white envelope which I immediately assumed was another piece of mail from my favorite unsolicited friends. For some reason I opened the envelope in the front room usually I grab and take it up to my office.
Inside I could see instantly that this was a renewal Permanent Residency card which assumed was for another year whilst the rest of my application for permanent residency was being processed. However upon further inspection I saw that the car was valid for ten years. The accompanying letter was a welcome to the United States of America as a new permanent resident.
So effectively, what I believed was to be a long-winded potentially desperately futile attempt to secure permanent residency in the US haas in fact come to full fruition with expediency which I had not expected.
This has far reaching implications for me, I can now travel outside of the US to visit my family, I can also now plan ahead, I can make purchases of items larger then my pockets will allow, I can buy a car, and now I can finally look for a new job.

I also won two hundred feet of Fuji Velvia 100F Slide film on eBay, so Im pretty happy this week.

Its all just in and out y'know

2008-07-08T08:16:00.000-07:00

Dressing up life with the filler, hobbies drinking etc its all just dressing on the fact that we all want to fuck eachother. Ill fill your holes if you fill mine.... and for some, babies need to happen.
All the other shit is just garnish, in the end we all just want to be fucking eachother all the time, everyone, all in a big hot sweaty cauldron of slimy boy and girl cum.
In fact Id like to be there right now.

Media as Entertainment or Education, and Choice.

2008-05-01T21:49:00.000-07:00

I was sitting having my lunch in my usual lunch place today when the manager who was also on her break and sitting beside me and her other regulars, sighed and with a tardy look on her face grimaced and said to nobody in particular "why is it that they print shift like this?". She was referring to a news item about a person who was hit and dragged under a bus on a street nearby. The reaction of those in the immediate vicinity was to make little of it. So I asked her what her issue was with the information, and her reply was that she didnt want to know about shift like that and that it was too gross to think about and that they didnt need to write about it. Hers is not the first time Ive witnessed this kind of response to news delivered in a graphic nature. People I work with, and people close to me have had this numbness and lack of interest in acknowledging the fact that they are part of and have a direct or indirect relationship to everything. So I asked this manager why she was reading the newspaper in the first place? Her answer was to get up and walk away.

I often wonder about either the intrinsic incapability to deal with the most basic sense of responsibility, or the lack of desire, and what is in that belief structure and how it occurs. I often wonder about those who cannot deal with graphic news of things which occur in the world in which we contribute to directly and indirectly.
I believe it is easy and convenient for us to blame the media, even though we are the ones the media is in existence for. It is my firm belief that it is a cyclical pattern driven by fear of change, in that we dont care because the media doesn't care, and apparent peer pressure. The media is channelled by what is socially acceptable and what is socially acceptable is in-turn generated by a desire for acceptance. Acceptance for Identity is quite possibly a major factor in this. Acceptance issues are very apparent here in the US, and in most modern first world nations where there is a large population of converging ethnicity. Identity has a direct correlation to social acceptance, and the media -just like society- is dependent on that acceptance of credibility and sociability. Certain countries, (France jumps to mind), have evolved significantly differently in that theres is a population of inclusion, and with that comes awareness and social responsibility from the ground up. Every man woman and child has a direct sense of being plugged into their world. France is known for fast moving political climates, opinion, resolve and as a side-effect also known for its civil disobedience.
Unfortunately the intelligentsia transcend themselves indefatigably from one form of oblivion to another and become so distant from the 'proletariat' by their inane sense of disclosure within very limited spheres of influence in the incredible belief that communication and discussions between their own echelons is the antidote for problem solving en masse, therefor follows the cyclical mechanism of elitism.

This whole concept ties in somewhat with my burgeoning belief that the level of choice in the US is now having a detrimental effect on society, nationally and globally as American culture is mirrored across the globe. Freedom of choice, in its current environment, is very attractive in an immature and short sighted way in that the appeal of choice is somehow linked psychologically, with a sense of control and power, however, interestingly enough, these freedoms of choice which are available to us are as much chaperoned by the very fact that the choice has already been made for you by the lack of real options open to you in the first place.
With choice is responsibility; responsibility to offer the right elements for choice meaning; that the 'elements' are equidistant in design and cover the gamut of possibility over an equal and shared horizon, or to put it simply the options for choice cover the broadest spectrum from black to white and back to black again. Also, choice is responsibility to accept the knowledge of conviction in someone's ability to understand what it is they are choosing and why it is they have that choice in the first place, meaning its vital for us to know why there are four choices and that those choices cover the scale completely and that we know why we have these choices and also we know why we are making the choice in the first place.

You have been a wonderful audience, thank you and goodnight.

Undertakers lover Overtakers.

2008-03-27T21:35:00.000-07:00

Seattle loves to overrate the underrated....

As for me.. time for change.

545

2008-01-03T12:43:00.000-08:00

the new year begins, as does a new future..

Christmas alone

2007-12-25T23:58:00.000-08:00

For the first time in 35 years I have been completely alone this christmas day. I had breakfast with friends and a few phonecalls, post that nothing at all, and Im glad of it too. I quite like this bachelor thing.
However in two days I get a special delivery from Canada. Its the only gift I get this xmas, and its the only one I want...

bleeuurrggghhh

2007-10-30T12:46:00.000-07:00

Im really sick.
Im sure Ive written it before.
Ive been on an doff ill for the last five weeks. Everyone says "oh its this bug that going around", ...eh I dont think so. I think a chest Xray might be a good plan and some pressure on the doctor.
Jesus, doctors here are UN-believable........... WTF? Where I come from, when your sick you go to the doctor, s/he tests you bend over say aww etc etc then asks a few questions does some more tests, then does some more asks a few more and then says ok you are sick with.... and writes you a perscription if you need one or sends you to the hosp for an xray or somewhere for something. Here, you go in, you tell them whats wrong with you and what drungs you want and then you leave and thats it.................................
I almost want to flee to canada just to go to a doctor.....

Anyway, I think I have something serious.

A moment

2007-10-20T23:10:00.000-07:00

Welcome everybody, everybody welcome. everyone meet everyone else. Be glad to know you are all here because you are all very intelligent people in my own personal belief of what intelligence actually is on a basic street level understanding.

I decided Id spend the day in bed (Sunday), I have been very busy and sick for the last few weeks so Im on vacation in bed today with my new Radiohead album www.inrainbows.com I paid a quid for it.

Im browsing the internet like I havent done in ages looking at other peoples photography and came accross this guy http://www.chrisjordan.com/ and am fascinated by his vision. However it almost shits me now to the point that I want to turn the tables and start laying the shit on the Europeans. (even though ironically this photographer is in fact American himself, though a victim of his own short commings -this will become apparent as you read on).

its become quite the catch phrase for use to drop the open gated gesture of "In the US.." which from living here now for three years and going from the open mouthed ignorance of a audienced outsider to an informed "embed", I can honestly say is possibly the most over used and under appreciated turn of phrase currently bandied about without much regard for its actual meaning.

Im not one for religion, to me its the politicism of ones personal belief mechanism and convenient metaphore for understanding the things which are not that understandable. However, the largest policitcal institution out there -the HRE (Holy Roman Empire), (I enjoy a fully paid up membership being Irish, I dont have to subscribe every month or even year, we are endebted with lifelong memberships from birth we can get away will all kinds of stuff you pagans cant -I dont even have to go to church its great) anyway sorry for boasting, where was I, oh yes..
Not being one for religion etc, they (we) have a great book out there that if it wasnt called the Bible would probably be on the NY times best seller list indefinitely, and in it somewhere around page 368 it says 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" which basically means people who live in glasshouses shouldnt throw stones.

It bothers me considerably that our impotent (in any real sense) guardians of moral elevated authority -the media- Im thinking specifically of non american media and within that specifically british media because every other media organisation with inclusion of al-jazeera (yes yes yes these people just love to copy the already tried true and tested formulae and drop it on its head and re-engineer if from the waist up -but they fail to realise that their signiture methodology comes from a source that is the antithesis of what they themselves represent, kind of like eating your own hands, but then agian its because of that religion stuff -again), is parrot-like in the shadow format of these two organisations. Specifically the BBC. Its that over use of the phrase "In the US" which bothers me so.

In the US, the US part of this phrase refers to a country for those of you who have forgotten. This country is not a bucolic paradigm to which it has been customarily designed through the culpapble lack of language.

America is the pretty red ribbon used to bind the segments of that beautiful whole, that whole which represents vastly more then the sum of its parts. It is a basic and complex summation of parts. It is easy for us to use a phrase to prescribe a percieved mindset which exists within a geographic location to a single fragmentalised action, a pre-structuralised subset or a specificly designed mechanism, and even easier for those of us who cannot begin to wear the livery of pre-established foundation, to throw valuable words around in a trivial frivolous inconsequential manner, specifically in this time when every syllable and inference is of the utmost of importance.

head in a vice

2007-10-08T19:43:00.000-07:00

Probably the most stressfull week of recent times. This past month has been tumultuous to say the least. Feels like saturns return.
My dad wants me to go back to Ireland to help him move. I dont have the time or the money to do that, so I risk losing my entire back catalog of negatives.
I got a lung infection and missed a week of work so my pay check will be horrendous.
I am in the midst of my immigration review, and recently learned that the level of paperwork needed to make the review work properly as a joint venture between me and my estranged wife, just isnt there, so I now have to get a divorce initiated within the next five days. The cost of which is undesireable considering I have a number of small debts to pay off. I also have to get my I-751 form and paperwork in and pay $200 for the luxury of that, within five days or I will be faced with immediate deportation proceedings -that actually means the deportation is immediate, no chance to sell off and pack up. Though there is chance to appeal but from afar -after you have left the country........ I am asking all that know me to write me character references, -it amazes me, the people who i would consider friends havent bothered to do it and the people I consider colleagues have been on it from the moment I asked.

Yeah, a vacation would be really great.

Im so scared

2007-09-30T10:20:00.000-07:00

I am a ruin right now.
Im in a terrible mental place.
Its a fulcrum point, Ive had one before like this that I can remember comming out of but not being in. Very turbulent times.

I just started crying. All this bad energy flowing out of me, like rain.
I am scared. I am confused. I am lonely.

I feel as though something has been building for some time now.
The lonliness is too much.

Im tortured. I met a woman, or she met me, wrote me and we talked, something happened, emotions connections something amazing, something I want to cherish. She told me she is ill permanently. She will have a long life but a little shorter then most. It didnt bother me because it strengthened the connection, I want her more. When I was 21 I had a connection with someone who died the same way. I had nearly forgotten about it (not him), that rush of emotion came to me today.
I dont know if I want to do this again. But I feel as though its my destiny, like I have little choice. Turn your back on your attraction, to her, to the life she has to live on her own, or with someone else, someone who might be good for her or someone who might not. She wants a child, Ive said to myself someday I would love to have a child but Im not ready. But the thoughts of it have been intesly running through my head. I never think about a cild being a shared responsibility between two people. My life is wrong, its off track, I need more then what I am doing now, I thought I would be on point in life in a different position, I feel a calling in another direction.
Im 4 years into my second life and I feel that I am running out of time. Like sitting on the back seat of the bus as its driving into a wall at 100 miles an hour, the back seat is the denial of responsibility, and the bus is the life I feel I have no control of. You see out the windows these are memories, the only window which is not a memory is the front window, the bus hits, and you are catapulted from the back seat through the front window...
I have had no connections with anyone here, its so cold. I dont understand people here. Maybe its just Seattle, maybe its more. I would have said maybe its me but then this woman happened and now I now that its not. This woman is the first intense connection, Ive made in years. I feel as though Americans have dispatched with something original and something in their core makeup. I feel that there is no feeling. All feeling is suppressed, replaced by a clinicalness or example. I fell in love with my estranged wife and then I watched as she moved further and further away from me. Add to the lack of feeling the possibility of problems.
I have growing pressures on me, my father is 79 and is growing weaker as time goes by, he keeps requesting I go back and help him. I wanted my return to be one of choice and a happy one. I wanted it on my terms. I want to leave Seattle and try somwhere else, maybe SanFrancisco. I have a review with immigration, a big deal, ultimatley they may tell me that I cannot stay in the US because my estranged wife and I are nolonger a viable couple -through no fault of my own I might add, maybe I didnt work hard enough at it, but then again, I think I did, then I just got bored when nothing was returned and a year later she figiured it out and instead of trying to repair it she. Anyway, I might have to dump my life here, and leave, Id like to travel, but then again Id like to go to this woman, hold her in my arms, accept her and make my life with her. Travel with her, be with her. But Im not sure I want to settle yet, Im not sure I dont want to either, when I look at my alternatives, specifically my alternative and how I am my nature and what I want my future to be and what it will actually be, these are factors I consider to be alternatives in my world.
I thank my parents for the great overwhelming self confidence I do not have. I thank my mother for putting me in boarding school when I was 14 because she was fulfilling an obligation and not interested in raising a child in her 40s. Something I didnt know affected me, but realised it recently.

Accumilation and conspiracy

2007-09-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

Some things have happened in the last week or ten days which are homogenising new possibilities.

I think I am aproaching a crossroads in my life, I can feel a change comming on, a significant one. Certainly significant for the current time, if its not a milestone in my life.

The chances of meeting someone from a time long gone haphazardly, is rare, however it happened. A man walked into my store, and I knew him, from another life, one I left behind a decade ago, and within that I had dispenced with that life and moved on, so the chances of meeting someone from those times, unsolicited are even more rare.
That encounter was electrifiying.

Then a few days later another man walked into my store and I instantly recognised myself in this man and saw a glimps of what I might be like as a human in twenty years from now. Whatever about electrifiying, my encounter with the second man (we shall call him D), and subsequent trip to the pub and a few telephone conversations later, quite lieterally re-plugged me into the wall socket.
It feels as though Ive been pricked with a pin and startled myself out of some kind of slumber. Something magical has happened.

I have an immigration review comming up in a few weeks, it will tell me whether or not I can stay in the US. I have been fearing and dreading this for two years. And just before it happens some amazing things are comming into alignment. Like some magnetic force is drawing my life into its path or my life is drawing collusions and vortices together is some manner I can yet not fathom.
Meeting with D, talking with him and getting his perspective (and his twenty year jump on my life in America), has been fascinating and utterly mind-blowing experience.
I will spend the day with him soon and leave the city for the first time in two years.

I feel as though I might be leaving Seattle, maybe to live in another city or maybe because I have to leave the country. I dont want to leave the country, but if it has to be then it will be, and I will move on and go somewhere else. Otherwise id like to try a bigger city.

I met a girl online accidentally actually, and she has been pervading my thoughts. I will probably never meet her, but our brief conversations are refreshing and fun. Its another facet in the forming of whatever is comming.

Music

2007-05-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

Recently I had to jack the Ipod from the computer for one reason or another, and generally thats fine, until you get used to jacking it and eventually the jack fails and your computer says '...eh hey you just disconnected something and now all your files are gone...' and you check to find that yes they are all now completely inaccessable. So thats how I lost about 75% of my mp3s recenly. I thought Id had all of my music backed up somewhere else as an archived library, but am now two months in on the other side and I just know that Ive lost a whole lot more then I originally thought...
WOOPS
However, like the song says "what you leave behind you dont miss anyway", which is for the most part true. I fond myself tuning in to other sounds now. I picked up a lot of influence travelling which I got really into when travelling but now that Im residing again those musical interestes have faded and new sounds have by some kind of osmosis filtered through and take center stage. I do occasionally notice things missing and forget what it was I was looking for.
I have a subscription to eMusic and have aquired a vast amount of music from then, hundreds of albums and tracks. I am a little lazy with it however as I tend to download music that I once had on various past formats and dont have with me now, thish style of music grazing doesnt lend itself to finding new sounds.
As late teens early twenties kids we didnt have the best of dristribution in Ireland so periodical trips to London to aquire new music were needed. I would spend entire days wandering the streets of London in search for new stuff, from one shop to another discovering the best shops and underground sound holes for the most cutting edge or rare stuff I could imagine. Plus the fact that an Irish pound stretched much further then an English one so stuff appeared cheaper and gnerally it was because demand was higher.

Anyway Im listening to Jetone "Koenigsforst" I can only describe it as German Ambient Rolling Motion music with grandeur and thematic abtracts.

$6.99

2007-04-21T21:36:00.000-07:00

Ulysseys, used hardback.
The inscription
"Happy Birthday, Dad.
Love, Kris
april 14, 1958"

Actually...

2007-04-15T14:19:00.000-07:00

Its back to moany. Moaning about money.
I wish those people that owe me my money would actually have the common decency to fulfil your obligations. Living on $27.32 for two weeks is no mean feat, and takes some incredable deftiness and creativity with finances. Id rather be a slob with money then a financial frontiersman right now. ...and to Starbucks - it would be so nice if your very innificient accounting staff would have the state of mind to clear credit on the day of purchase rather than two weeks (16 days actually), after the initial purchase. That way, low income people like me could actually afford to have that twenty dollar amount in their accounts and not have to look over their shoulder because the bank might hit them up with three overdraft charges for the pleasure of "loaning" you the money they then penalize you for.
Its a weird economy, you pay on "debit" (which I thought meant direct transfusion from your account to theirs), if you dont have the funds then its taken anyway -a week (or in this case two weeks) afterwards when you dont actually have those funds anymore, and the bank hits you up for the pleasure.....

if there is a revolution, Ill be the first in line for my two petrol bombs (Molotov Coctails), one for Starbucks and one for the nearest bank, hopefully itll be a Washington Mutual; the bank that smiles as they take your money.

Again

2007-04-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

Well I really have nothing to say, or so it seems.
My dad rings me and I think oh no I should have called him twice or thrice sine we last spoke, and then I remember that when I do get those guilty pangs and reach for the skype, I think to myself well I havent got anything to say, but the fact of the matter is that after 45 minutes of nothing to say, I guess I have run out of things to say...

ART "Directors"

2007-03-21T10:50:00.000-07:00

Im sure its an age old wrangle, between the client, the middleman and the creator.
So I moved into a new sphere today, shooting mid grade commercial work with the influence of an art director thrown into the mix for good measure. First up, the shoot was to commence at 9.30 thismorning, after I waited an hour to hear from him as he said hes call and didnt, then when I finally got him after three calls he told me that he woudlnt be there until two pm because thats the only time he could catch a ferry (...erm dont people commute to and from their full time full day of work jobs every day, which suggests that there are ferries to-ing and fro-ing earlier in the day...). He wasnt too happy when I said I didnt have a laptop so that he could not see what I was shooting, 'no I dont have a laptop' -well are you confident enough to shoot perfectly? 'yes, absolutely'.... I dont like to have my work poked at whilst Im doing it, so I dont take a laptop on the job. Regardless of whether Im shooting digitally or not, pre digital, art directors were satisfied with the quality from film and didnt have the availability of "chimping" behind the camera.

I considder myself a modern photographer with the capabilities or wifi, IR, radio remote and instant turn around, but the equipment manufacturers make these tools for situations based in a perfect world, where client, art director and photographer all sing along harmoniously, truth is they dont, all of these modern technological enhancements take away from the skill of the photographer and put it into the hands of someone who actually doesnt know what they are doing.

Time to take stock...

2007-03-13T13:03:00.001-07:00

506|flickr|211, originally uploaded by irq506.

After the move I should have tucked my head under my wing and taken stock for a few days, time to settle in and shrug off that whole chapter, however I didnt and for the last week I have been depressed, and feeling under the weather, which came to a head on Saturday in the form of a nasty cold. F*ck, my body feels like Ive been hit with a fifty ton truck and pulverized. Id like to say there are bruises but there arent, so youll just have to believe me. I did take one day off last week because I was just hammered from all that moving etc my body started to cave in. I should have taken my weeks vacation time back then maybe. However like I say its hitting me two fold now. Here I am in my pyjamas at lunchtime on a lovely bright Tuesday afternoon, but I wont be going anywhere with this cough.
Anyway, a couple of days from now and Ill be back on my feet, with a fresh paycheck and a list of shit I need to get and start doing to this place to turn it from a place to work and sleep to a home. I really like it here, I will post some pictures of it sometime soon.

SatSop

2007-03-04T12:39:00.001-08:00

SatSop, originally uploaded by irq506.

I shot this late last year for a bunch of guys who have possession of it and want to do something creative with it. Its large.
Its basically a badly engineered nuclear powerplant which was killed off mid construction by the backers because of its mis-engineering. The site is called SatSop but is known to the local community as "Woops!".

2007-03-04T11:19:00.000-08:00

Moving is horrible and I hope I never have to do it again, but thats ridiculous, I know that I will, I just hate it.

Anyway I moved into my new place, which is a gorgeous house in a lovely neighbourhood with a very nice creative and busy lady. Im currently sorting through my stuff and putting it into places out of the way, and starting on the beginnings of what I hope will become my den.

Id Like

2007-02-21T22:44:00.000-08:00

Id like to meet with you, Id like to talk with you, Id like to see with you, Id like to walk with you, Id like to shop with you, Id like to sit with you, Id like to play with you, Id like to eat with you, Id like to dance with you, Id like to laugh with you, Id like to move with you, Id like to listen with you, Id like to create with you, Id like to move with you, Id like to sleep with you, Id like to be with you. I like you.

Figures

2007-02-15T01:43:00.001-08:00

506|flickr|180, originally uploaded by irq506.

Y'know I think I might have figured out my street shooting style today.
So I have a day full of errands and no time to do any of them. However I did have an hour downtown between two of them which I was going to wwander around the streets and do a bit of window shopping. During a coffee I decided to sharten my camera strat by about an additional 25% (I like a short strap -good for running), as I got one of those great Domke straps which you can clip off the ends and join them together as a hand strap. Anyway, affter I left, I was feeling pretty bouyant and set off on a quick march around a few downtown city blocks.
Holding the camera in one hand only, I set focus to 5m f5.6 and 250th on the Nokton. I acted fast shooting from the hip and also extending my arm over peoples heads and held the camera out in front of me to grab peoples attention as I aqured them. Before I knew it Id burned through a roll and by teh time I got on the bus I was 36 shots into a third roll. I just know these images are fantastic. Ive been rating Neopan at 800 during the winter and now that its getting bright again Ill start to rate it at 400 again.
Maybe Ill take one of those M3 Leica's we have in work, out for a spin.

Flickr

2007-02-15T01:39:00.001-08:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Firgures

2007-02-14T23:40:00.000-08:00

Air Superiority

2007-02-13T20:26:00.000-08:00

Sure.
So I eventually found a place to live. After getting pretty close to desperate, I eventually happened accross a place. It might be a good location, I wont know until I have lived there for a little while. Summer is comming also which makes the whole transfer and new begining that bit more smooth.
I am cautious a little, about this though. The house is just lovely in a seemingly unbelievably lovely haven that seems quite hidden away from everything else, and it backs out onto Lake Union, so the view is just OUTSTANDING, like face to the glass views of the city. It was the most expensive place I looked at, and I found out that its probably going to be even more expensive then Id originally thought, however, good energy is good energy and that what this place seems to ooze. My roommate is a Miliner (hat designer), nicely rounded and creative, and has a business so its good to be around that kind of buzz. Immediately I got the feeling that I could be myself infront of this woman, and the same with the two people whos house I went to last week, -both houses struck me as being just the 'right' places to live. I had a hard time picking up that phone to call the first house and say that I was going to live somewhere else, so I want to go have dinner somewhere with them, because they were good souls and I want to maintain them as friends. The new house it just too good to pass up, but like I say, I am cautious, and just hope that we gel together well. Our first meeting went extremely well, and I felt very good whilst in the house, and on the way back from going there. I felt a considerable weight being lifted off my shoulders.
Im listening to Cat Power alot lately, that and Niel Young, and everyone knows I have never been a fan of either, isnt it amazing how a change chain reacts and causes something else to occur?
I think Id like to start painting again. Maybe writing and looking for other avenues of creativity. I feel a strange new sensation like breathing new air, and a growing sense of power.

Life moves fast

2007-02-04T19:20:00.000-08:00

Well its sure as fluck hell on wheels right now. My wife has given notice that we will all be out by the end of the month, and yet none of us has found a place yet. She recons that she has a place lined up and thats that.

I spent the day going to and fro on three places (its extremely frustrating not having a car), and the first two places I saw just blew me out of the water in terms of how entirely fetid and tenement liek they were. I will NOT be looking under the $400 price bracket again. It just amazes me what some people are prepared to consider a home. The on place I went to this morning was owned by a very quiet speaking 50 year old man who sounded very nice and reassuring, but when he gave me skewy address details it made bells ring in my head. Then when I actually saw the place, although on a nice quiet street in a nice part of this neighbourhood, the house itself stood out because it was painted white and built of brick and mortar, the roof sagged in the middle, the 'garden' was a bomb site, and the house looked as though it had been sinking into the ground -I kid you not. I didnt knock as he was waiting for me, and let me in to a livingroom stacked shoulder hight with filth. Filth. Dirty clothes, junk, smashed houshold wares, broken furniture etc, other stuff I couldnt see underneath... I didnt notice a smell though. so he leadeth me round dark narrow coridors like a maze to a wooden plank which was a door to the basement lead me down the stairs to the only clean looking room in the house, an L shaped fifteen foot long room five foot wide and two windows one covered with garden refuse and the other with a small dirty curtain which looked as though it was regularly used as emergency toilet paper. The strange whirring sound loud enough to keep us bellowing at each other was the furnace which took up most of the protrusion of that L shape I was telling you about. Outta there and the kitchen was a pit stop as I saw the blast-on furnaced shift all over the top of the stove and thought ok I want to leave now ASAP. his warm soft limp sloppy handshake churned my stomach and I had imaginings of vomiting.
The next place which was at the opposite end of the street, had just appeared on the radar just hours before, sounded fantastic "big house with quiet respectful tennants, no smoking in the house" so I phoned spoke with a jewish lady and I thought oh great, if they are Jews then they are probably a whole lot more civilzed then that last crater scar I just scanned. Well when I got there, it was a shop for a start, and the back was a wreckers yard, peeling paint and no one to answer the door, so I called her again and she said "oh it was Monday I said monday, and I remember saying I only have Sundays and Wednesdays, but I didnt want to start anything so I just said oh well sorry blah blah etc, so she said one of the other tennants might be able to show me around, and as she said that this guy came out on the porch and I approached him made my self clear and hung up with the lady.
As soon as he opened the door, the immediate look of inside was much more attractive. Appearances can be decieving. As soon as I walked in and went past the pretty part, I was for all the world walking into a hostel in some dingy regularly frequented surf spot or backpackers location in arse hole nowhere. The guy introduced himsself and said that he was also moving out onthe tenth as he was a truck driver, very nice down to earth character, but the fact that he was as stable as a buckaroo made me considerably nervous that I was walking into not a regular house but more a bording house. He proceeded to show me a brown kitchen with sagging counters and a sink full of dishes, with two huge refrigerators, a bathroom complete with naked darts-player showering, and that old familiar feeling of being led down dark narrow corridors dotted with huger refrigerators, and spiraling claustrophobic creaky carpetless staircase into a basement with concrete flooring, wheeled partitions for walls, cardboard boxes and supplies stacked from floor to ceiling and bare lightbulbs fighting for airspace with moths (this is winter so in the summer are the moths replaced by flies?), a heavy duty plastic curtain which covered some kind of a room, Im not sure what. My room was still inhabited and getting to guy to stir was quite an ordeal, eventually when the door opened a silouette appered and grunted leaned his arm up exposing a gratuitous armpit and the only opportunity I would be afforded to see the room, another L shaped room albiet with a slightly higher ceiling, though no lighting, navy blue walls, a high small slit window with a wall maybe a foot away which was the only visible light, a mattress, small television clothes strewen everywhere and a severly bare carpet, the heat in that room which stank of semen, sweat and beer, was un-bearable -this house currently is insanely cold as we have no heating but if heat comes at that cost Id rather sleep in my raingear thanks.
I saw one other place, a studio aka a Bedsit, which was actually very nice on the ground floor of a ten unit building, the space was well cared for warm, (smell free), had a great bathroom and the bed area was also great, like living in a huge livingroom. however, upon application there was a $35 non refundable credit check fee which I didnt have on me, and so i went looking for an ATM, every bloody one in the local area was either out of service or broken and the one Pizza joint I found who would do a transaction came out as denied. So im pretty frustrated, pift off, and feeling rather caught right now, and am fearing that in the next two weeks I might not find anything at all, well anything worth actually living in.

I feel as though the last year of my life has possibly been one of the most stressful times of my life and quite possibly one of those years I would chalk up as being the worst.

Changes

2007-01-25T01:35:00.000-08:00

Well its the season for changes. Yesterday we had the State of the Union address and for anyone who doesnt know what that is, its basically the president telling us everything we already know, and gets a standing ovation for it. Now that Mr Bush is on the backfoot it will be very interesting to see how many ovations he gets...

Anyway, like I said, changes. Changes for me also. I recntly had an upgrade.
So, come the end of the year I 'put it out there' that Id like to be getting some kind of monitary increase for my year of efforts in the workplace, and so, that came to pass as something of a, lets say, wet fart. Needless to say, I got wind of a possible opening elsewhere and dove straight in for the kill on it. Probably the first time in my life where I have so done. I recieved a call from the company and arranged an interview "we would like to see you for an interview if thats possible?", "absolutely. Tomorrow morning first thing?", I wanted the job and with that kind of response I assume they knew it.
With the rest of my current working day ahead, I mentioned it to one of my coworkers, who with a puzzled look on his face shook his head and not quite said; oh shift, if you leave were flucked.. Being who I am and where Im from, when things like that are said, it usually means the boss gets angy and threatens your job or just kicks you out the door, and with that mindset I thought ok well Im done here, so this interview better fucking fly.
The interview came and went and went extremely well, I liked the people and the ethos "ok this is exploritory -we will let you know it a week". They knew my boss well and that made me feel a little uneasy, for reasons I wont go into now. Two days went by and my boss came to me and said to me "rumour has it that you arent happy with the raise", '-eh...no. Im not.' So I got an breakdown of how he came to that conclusion and how the company is a small one etc etc, then I told him Id interviewed and they were offering more money, quite a bit more. On top of what my wet fart had been. So he told me that if I were him I would go to them and take up that offer because he couldnt afford that. -NEXT DAY, he comes in and says, "ok you get more autonomy, you get the same money as the offer and the same benefits, and you get the same time off, I still cant afford it but if you leave now we face the possibility of losing on other fronts." Wow. Nice to feel a little appreciated, also makes me think, do I have to be pushy for upgrades here in the US?
I still havent heard from the place I interviewed in, two weeks ago.

I

2007-01-15T20:58:00.000-08:00

Y'know I love comments on my blog.. thats what creates that special twinkle in my eye. Just so that you know.

I have to thank Chuckycheese from weareOKOK.com for giving me the Clark cd, Im a little slow on the pick up of new music -especially other peoples music, Ive always been snobbish like that. I believe that In infallable and that my choice in music is indestructable (I like avantgarde and experimental music, dub, and electronic etc).
I usesd to be the king of finding out the new shit and having it two or three years ahead of everyone else, and I still do to a point except that Ive gone way off down a path of sound that no one else is interested in what I like to bug out to. Plus the fact that NPR doesnt really play music, and I dont have the same kind of access to BBC Radio 4 like I once did and KEXP -though a youth oriented station is utterly fucking shite; commercial radio for a different kind of commerciality.
So with that, all I have left is podcasts and I dont even get the chance to hear those anymore, because Im ebedded in my books and my tech manuals, and writing in forums about how much I hate new digital cameras, or Im developing rolls of film, drinking with friends, shooting with other friends, fighting with my wife who hates me, teching people things, browsing porn on the web, or looking for a new place to live...

Big Changes ahead

2007-01-12T00:04:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow -well actually later today- is a big day for me.

I had my very first, in fifteen years of shooting professionally, re-shoot. Man, it pissed me off no end I can tell you. Fifteen years of unsullied work, high quality image making is killing me. I have recently gone from shooting digital back to shooting film because I started to mistrust the digital concept as a whole. Now after the re-shoot, I am on the verge of completely detesting digital as well.
Its gone from novelty to scurge. The fact that 90% of my clients now dictate what they want the image to "be" before I have even taken my camera out of the bag, I find to be extremely bad circumstance for the work I am about to take on. Pressure from the outset equals distrust, mistakes and most of all unprofessionality. Having told one client that I shoot only film they were immediately in a more relaxed stance, "I shoot the film, give it to the lab, they process it and then we go through the contacts together, you tell me which prints you want I get them done and you pay me the money". And thats that, end of story. Job done on to the next one. The old ways meant that the crativity was left to the photographer and the machinations left to the labs. There are some jobs Im telling the clients I shoot film, then Ill shoot it digitally, create a disk and send that to the lab and have them produce a couple of nice C-prints from my digital files, at the end of the day they get proper prints even though it took a 'white lie' to get to that point.
Needless to say, that right now, Im faced with a choice, of whether or not to take on a new fulltime job and drop my freelance photography work altogether (well for a while anyway), just so that I can get some kind of financial stability and get my feet on the ground.

Ive been here in the US for two years now, and in that time have gone through the gamut of financial ups and downs, the banks here are appaling, over draft charges were absolutely killing me up until about six months ago. No credit company out there wants to have anything to do with me right now, so i cant use a credit check as a security check making moving into a new place extremely difficult, I cant finance a cheap used car, and everything that I need or want means that I have to save my pennies, which undoutedly get swallowed up in the next cellphone or utilities bills.
So yes, the option of having a fulltime job takes on a new meaning, and is looking extremely attractive right at this very moment of my life.

I hate Breakups

2007-01-09T21:31:00.000-08:00

I think the last few months of my life have been both the most humiliating and yet the most liberating times of my life. Im not one for dramatics, and change really does scare me, and the two were leveled on in spades. however within that, strangely enough, within the chaos of it all, I feel a remote sence of maturity and growth as a person. I know that sounds terribly pompous, and maybe it is, but within that I really believe that something good has come from being squeezed like a grape.

Its unfortunate that the breakup had to be so badly managed, both by me and my other half. She is aware of her emotions and relied on them for these times, and thats the way she needed to function, and for me, if she hadnt have broken us up I probably would have stuck my head in the sand just a bit longer and then eventually done the same thing. I knew it was a bad trip, but whilst your in the car, you just want to keep going...

At the end of the day, its been an emotional minfield for me, she thinks I have no emotions -or atleast I have no emotions that she can empathize with because she recons Im too sensitive and too emotional and than I have no emotions etc.. Truth is, Im probably just like any other male, I get angry and stuff that emotion somewhere where I can hide it, and then I get frustrated, cynical and depressed, generally in that order. The worst part of it is that we are still in the same house, and the same space, and she is extremely hurtful in so many ways. Everyday there is something new to dump out that we shared.

I am looking for a new place to live, but am really nervous about it because I found it reasonably tough to survive in this place which was cheap, now Ive to move all my shift and find something with an infantecimal level of dignity for similar rent which is reasonably close to work. She moves accrross the street because she knows someone who knows someone who is leaving her a nice cheap place in the same block. THAT alone angers me.

Workin it too hard...

2007-01-06T22:13:00.000-08:00

So I started getting sticky shutters on my Cosina Voigtlander Bessa R3a the other day. Lost ten possible shots, scared the shift outta me, and now I find it hard to trust the camera again. So sad because its a great concept having a budget version of the Leica out there for anyone to have and use.
Im at the point now, that I will either send it back to CA to have Gandy ship it to Japan and take five weeks doing so, or just trade it and save for a Leica M something so I can get some kind of a foothold in the Leica game, though I would much prefer to just keep shooting with the Bessa, its cheap and is supposed to do the same job for a fraction of the cost. Anyway id feel like a dweeb with a leica body and CV lenses. Personally Im all about the glass, so Id prefer it the other way around, nice glass cheap body....
Bah!

Ive never

2007-01-01T01:31:00.000-08:00

Had a cold like this one. The vridge of my nose feels like someone hit me in the face with a hammer. You only realize when you have a hurty that you use it more then you thought. In winter my Konk is always cold, indoors with dry heating its gets dry and cranky, outdoors cold and obnoxious. So when I touch it, rub it or pick it (sorry), its an ouch! Weird because to actually touch it on the bridge, it really feels like I broke something...
ANYway... So this guy phoned the store where I work the other day asking about a Pentax K-mount 100mm lens for use on his digital SLR. He came in we chatted and checked out some gear and in passing mentioned something about it not being optimal for his street shooting... -hello? You street shoot?
So check him out bongolia.com his names bongo. he reminds me of a modern day Garry Winogrand just because he seems prolific.

HAPPY NEW YEAR
-I was developing five rolls of film at the stroke of midnight. Man I coudlnt give a shift about new years or christmas or any of those other manufactured spending spree occasions -granted I spent a bit on myself this year, only because I was afforded the luxury to actually do so.

Xmas presence

2006-12-26T09:39:00.000-08:00

I think I really wasnt around for xmas. It feels as though it came and went and I was just standing here all that time. The only delineation that something happened was that I actually got paid by my clients. So I bought a new lens and the lest expensive printer I could get. I figured that, well I have this little 4x6 printer for actually producing proofs, and my screen is just barely calibrated for Panda Labs in Seattle, so if I want to actually have the three images a year that I would actually have printed anything larger then 4x6, Id just get Panda to do it for me. I mean really, are you going to convince me that buying an eight hundred dollar printer and having to fuel it up with 50% of its actual cost in ink is going to do me any good? Nah. Itll cost me $17 for a nice big print from a lab done on their really nice printers by professionals who actually know what they are doing and work in a controlled environment and ultimately could achieve a much better print then you or I could.
Oh printers... you break my heart.... So I opted for something which would allow me to do all of my text work and some graphics. I spend most of my time now just down-sizing technical documents and printing four pages onto a single sheet of A4 paper, and it only costs $3.79 to have it laminated and bound in Kinkos.
Anyway, Im working class now, so even though its Boxing day, I have to work -fuck knows what Im actually going to be doing today, but we'll see....

Finally!

2006-12-22T01:47:00.000-08:00

So it seems that I am very busy at the moment with all manner of little photography jobs. Its nice and I appreciate it because its usually a slow time of year for so many freelancers, regardless of what they are freelancing in.
Also all of those jobs I did are calling in on their accounts for the close of the year, and Im collecting a little bit here and there. Saving did I hear someone say saving? Me? Save? Save money, Ho! Haha! Wow now theres a novel concept! If only I could. Since breaking up with my wife three (or four) months ago, my mind's a babble, and to keep myself straight, I just buried myself in work. My day work. ..and anything else that came around. Ill take anything on. So much so that I realised only today that I forgot to gety my hair cut in the last few months and figured that the itching sensation on my forhead is in fact my hair almost getting in my eyes. So out with the DaxWax to sort that shit out. its been quite a few years since Ive had hair of any length.
So I have some things to cover with whatever money I currently have; a new lens for my little Voigtlander, which is my baby. For the first time in a decade and a half, Ive gone back to traditional street photograhy, shooting film, and doing it manually. Getting away from digital has been very theraputic. Hey I love my digital stuff, but I can now separate my work tools from my hobby toys. Buying lenses or anything else for it is low low low on the list of necessities, but at the same time high on the list of wants. So i bit the bullet and bought a Nokton 40mm f1.4 SC because since I actually bought the camera I have been borrowing a lens from my good friend Andreas, who has since moved logically on to Leica. Maybe one day I could afford a Leica lens. A 35 and an MP would be nice. Anyway, now Ill be able to shoot and actually see what Im shooting through the viewfinder as it will appear on negative. Next thing I think Ill have to get is some kind of a scanner. Id like a decent one, but ill probably settle on something low end just to get stuff up online, and I generally only print at 4x6 anyway. I have issues with printers, especially since my rep told me it costs $400 to ink up an A3 Epson printer with some fancy "archival: let me ask you, are you or I seriously worthy of having archival prints? No, we are hobbyists. So buying a $1350 printer that costs its own price in three loads of ink -and the fact that --really-- you cannot calibrate your screen to EXACTLY what your printer spits out, ist that just a waste of money? Yes actually it is, and no actually regardless of what you tell me, you cant make those prints look exactly like they are on your screen, they may be close, but not close enough to justify $400 woth of ink and $1350 worth or nuts and bolts. Fuck man thats a new laptop, nice furniture, a downpayment on a car, etc etc etc.
So with that I will retire and read some more of my latest edition of LFI magazine, so I can be another wannabe Leica guy.

New Blog

2006-10-21T09:39:00.000-07:00

Woah this is a first for me.
Ok so what Im all about is underwritten on my website www.devtank.com, and so I want to create a phlog for day to day street photography as I shoot, develop (yes I use film), scan and edit.
I hope this will be something I can work with easily!
J