Yes I'm Still Out Here

Got an email from my most faithful reader (my mother of course) reminding me that I haven't communicated in awhile. This is just a quick note to say that I have not been in my usual self imposed exile. Rather I've been playing around with a little pre-turning-40-time-to-get-into-the game thoughts. I finally got off my ass and hired a lawyer to start my much needed bankruptcy proceedings. Just that simple first step was like getting a giant weight off of my back. That's led me to thinking about the other much needed changes. I've been journaling every day for the past 5 days and I haven't done that since February. I bought a scale and joined one of those online food journaling sites. I've been taking pictures again this month and trying to post as often as I can. Getting back on this site is the next step. I know this is just a mid-life crisis coming into bloom but I'm determined to make this one of the great positive mid-life crisis's of all time. After all I've been going through them since my early teens. I've got more experience than most. I'm going to do this one right. 

Election Day

Before tomorrow dawns and the 2012 presidential campaigns go into full swing I thought it might be time to weigh in on the present political landscape. 

First the easy prediction: Barack Obama will indeed be elected President. How big will the margin be will decided pretty early. If Indiana is close when its polls close then McCain is in for a very short night of remaining a candidate. Personally I think I'm having a hard time seeing Obama winning Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Indiana, North Carolina or Missouri. The problem for McCain is that he has to win every one of those states plus taking Pennsylvania for him to have any chance. The best McCain can hope for without Pennsylvania is a 269-269 tie in which case the House of Representatives would give the election to Obama. This scenario also counts McCain winning New Hampshire, and Nevada as well as all of the above states which is highly unlikely. Far more likely is Obama winning New Hampshire, Nevada and Virginia and cruising to a 291-247 win. Less likely but still possible is more of a blowout with many or all of the swing states going for Obama along with a popular vote of more than 50%. That combined with what will certainly be at least 15 seats in the House and 4 in the Senate will give the new president the first real mandate from the electorate since the Reagan revolution. 

That of course is the segue. Obama is the new Reagan. These are troubled times. We have couple of unpopular wars, who may not be going exactly badly, but show little signs of ever ending. The world economy has found itself in its worst state in decades. The President has proven massively ineffective at dealing with anything and is horribly unpopular at home and even more unpopular around the world. America needs someone that can articulate a populist competent optimism. Shockingly enough it was the Democratic party that ran exactly that campaign. That more than anything else is why they are poised to win big today. 

Milestone

In January when I bought my new camera and started posting to flickr on a more regular basis I made a goal of a thousand total views a week or 50,000 for the year. Yesterday I hit that number. I got there with more than a little help from our Lion friends from the San Francisco Zoo. My first Lion Sex picture also hit a milestone yesterday being my first picture to get to 5,000 views. 

It's a simple truth that having my pictures looked at makes me happy. Though as I've been working on some different photo shoots lately I've been wondering how much of what I do is tailored toward getting a few more views. I contribute to award and rating groups and I'm never sure how much influence their views or lack of response changes what I do to my pictures and what I choose to share. I've been having fun with color lately but this morning I realized that as colorful as the Italian Parade was what I really wanted to do was print these shots in black and white. I guess I'm still trying to figure out what my own palette looks like and sometimes I worry about letting other people's opinions take me away from the directions I want to be. Where does my ego run off to when I start creating?

Feet Week

Blue Angels and Flag, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

I woke up early this morning and started working on yesterday's pictures. I shot over 600 between the Fleet Week Air Show and the Italian Heritage Parade. I may have gotten up too early actually as my first posts included flights by the Blue "Angles" during "Feet" Week. Hopefully I got it all corrected. Anyway the first five are up on my flickr account.

Feeling a Little Purple Tonight

Sailboat at Dawn, Lake Tahoe, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

Well I finally posted my first five pictures from last week's Tahoe Trip. I'm not sure if I like what I've done with them. I've soften them up and they ended up pretty darn purple. That's just the way it went once I started working with them tonight. Tomorrow may be a different story altogether. I promised myself that I would spend my first year taking photography seriously doing some experiments in style. Tonight is no different. Who knows tomorrow I may be putting them up sharp like a tack and in black and white. We'll see. I have inventory tomorrow at work so I really should be in bed now.

On the Road

Checked into the Firelite Lodge in Tahoe Vista. I have no idea if I'm going to be able to get to sleep without the noise from the Bar around the block, the wail of the Firetrucks, the ringing of the Cable Car bells, taxi whistles, the manic screams of the lost and the never ending construction that comes in through my bedroom window. We're right on the highway so there are cars every so often, but the silence is already kinda weirding me out. Hopefully by tomorrow I can acclimate to a gentler existence. 

Waiting for the Leaves to Change

Fall should be around the corner but so far all I've gotten is our regular Indian Summer. That has been good for business but not necessarily for my mood. I spent more of this week out of the mild conditions of my apartment and my store than I usually do. For example right now I'm killing an hour in the Starbucks next to my store on Union Street. It is as usual pretty warm in here. It was the same for the morning I spent at the Sugar Cafe. The Jury Assembly room at hall of Justice wasn't very well ventilated and Part 21 of the Superior Court was the worst of all. 

Yes I had jury duty this week. I never made it into the jury box for questioning. I spent most of my time catching up with old lightly read New Yorker's (I even found 2 cartoons I had missed) and watching what would have been the most boring episode of Law and Order ever. To tell the truth I don't mind jury duty all that much. With no mandatory military service it is really the only civic duty we have other than paying taxes which is a pretty good deal for living in the most free nation ever conceived. That and the fact that I have an exaggerated appreciation of my judgement and fairness. I think I would make a good juror. Heck if they would pay more than $17.50 a day and have more than a couple of days of work a week I'd be willing to go pro.

Anyway I had very little chance of being picked for this jury as the case was just too close to the same types of crime I and the store's I supervise are often the victims of. So I did a lot of paying attention to what was going on. It was stereotype city, right down to the bow tie on the public defender's neck. I would have sworn that I have seen the judge, attorneys, bailiff, and court clerk playing themselves on television. 

Because of jury duty I only managed a single day off and I spent that on a last minute trip to Muir Woods. I've also had to do some support work for some other stores in the city. I am out of my routine in a time of the year that I like to renew the best parts of my routines. Fall is to me what Spring is to most people. This is mainly because I can't think straight during the warm months and have always felt saver in the cool overcast of winter. It may have to do with an unwarranted fear of spy satellites I don't really know. All I know is that I'm feeling overdue for a creative breakout and it's just not there yet. The good news is that the calendar moves on despite any of our wishes so I do know that it's on its way. 

Mini Vacation

Ladybug Sign, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

Got spirited away on Monday. Karen came to town and picked me up for an afternoon walk in Muir Woods. I have been in desperate need of a good walk in the forest and the day didn't disappoint. On the trail we came up on this sign for a "Vacation Spot for Ladybugs. As you can see even the sign was crawling with ladybugs as was much of the fence, ferns and ground around us. Afterwards we drove to the coast and had some good quality time with the Pacific.

As far as the pictures go, it was getting dark in the forest in the late afternoon so al my shots came out needing a lot of help from the old digital lab. I've put five up but I hope to find some more good ones to add later.

Feeling Good

I'm now on my second straight decent night's sleep and I am feeling
much better for it. Yesterday was a good day off, I got some laundry
done and a few groceries. More importantly I worked on my photography
seriously for the first time in a couple of weeks. My camera set up is
by no means ideal for nighttime high speed sports photography (Nikon
D40 with a kit lens) but I managed to put 15 pictures up on the better
side of not bad.

Last night my dreams were full of adventure, I was a superhero getting
his butt kicked but fully conscious of the fact that I was about to
take my own turn ass kicking. I was a student director/actor in a high
school musical (not my own high school which kept nostaligia to a
minimum), and a squad leader in the Italian campaign in WWII. In the
last one I discovered the most incredible underground deli ever
imagined.

In short things seem to be looking up. Of course the fact that I've
been on the phone the last two nights with the friend that I thought
had abandoned me two weeks ago may have something to do with my mood
change. Maybe.

San Francisco Twilight Criterium

Twilight Criterium 5, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

Saturday they closed Union Street for most of the afternoon and evening for the first Twilight Criterium Bicycle Races. It was not all that great for business but turned out to be a lot of fun to watch. My store was actually on two blocks away from the race itself so I did not get to see any of the Kids or Amateur races. I did however bring my camera to work so that I could shoot the Women and Men's Pro events. The Women's event started in light at 6:40 and ran for an hour into the twilight. The Men's event didn't start until eight and took place in under the lights.

For the women I was on the top of the uphill for the last turn. For the men I moved to the bottom of Filmore for the fast downhill turn. Fast may actually be an understatement. Much of the action I didn't get a chance to see until I looked at the pictures I was taking almost blind. I had to turn off the auto-focus because there was no time for my camera to lock on. It took most of the race to get my settings right but by the last few laps I was getting some shots I was happy with.

It was quite a rush standing right where they took that corner. You could feel the air as the bikes sped by. The only drawback was you can't be at an event in the Marina on a the weekend without a high percentage of drunken douche-bags, including the 6'3" guy that insisted on leaning out over the bikers for half of the race. I have to admit that I would have gotten some great pictures of the carnage if this moron had fallen on the pack of bikes.

A Comment on My Mood of Late

I think it's a comment on my mood of late that I think this is the goddamn funniest thing I've ever read. 

Feeling A Little Alone

Had a pretty lousy day off. Was supposed to go out with a friend and didn't hear from her at all. Nor in response to two messages, a text and an email. My iPhone took a header too. Twice. Wouldn't accept the back-ups I had either so I pretty much had to rebuild the environment from scratch. It was damn hot today too so I ended up holed up in my apartment. I did manage to get the laundry done though. I also read an article on People Who Live Without television. For the most part the article was nothing I wouldn't expect, mainly that people on the far left and the far right pretty much give up TV for the same reasons. No, what through me for a loop was the percentage of people in this country that don't watch TV. It's one to two percent. It's true that I don't really consider myself mainstream but I had no idea I was that out there. I haven't had cable since I moved to the city three years ago. I have a TV but it's hooked up to a computer that I watch movies and a few TV shows through Netflix. One percent! I thought for sure it was going to be at least five. I feel so out there. 

An Odd Sort of Nostalgia

Photos on the Bed, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

Today was the last day off that I have for quite a while. I'm working the next twelve days straight actually. And to tell you the truth it was kind of a weird day off. I slept very poorly last night, maybe three hours all told. I wasn't even sure what it was that was keeping me up. Troubles of the heart maybe. I have some women on my mind. I've seen Karen a couple of times in the past two weeks, including lunch on Friday. She called me today after seeing the new Woody Allen movie with it's crazy ex-wife in it. A birthday phone call with an expired love interest in the mid-west touched on her status return to single. The Unmentionable-EX, deleted her entire blog in another sign of upheaval in the universe and the woman I really want to call me hasn't. Like all month. No wonder I can't sleep.

Pouge in The Times wrote a story about a firm in Irvine that will scan a thousand photos onto a dvd for fifty bucks. So i spent part of my day emptying albums and making piles of pictures on my bed. More memories were trapped in that box than I remembered. Strange nostalgia gripping me today. God, I hope I can sleep tonight.

Hooked by Phonics

I'm sitting on the bus watching a young father work some phonics flash
cards with his daughter. I'm reminded of just how much I hated the
phonics portion of reading in early primary school. I'm sure this has
led to my god awful spelling and pronunciation. I was just in such a
hurry to read to understand. I wonder how much my rush to learn only
what I was in a rush to learn has left me with an incomplete education.

Got to Give the People What they Want

Lion Sex Too, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

So this morning I broke down from my artsy photography expressions and just nakedly grabbed for page views on flickr. To do so I broke out the last of my lions having sex stash and threw it up and onto my favorite ratings groups. The reaction was swift and impressive. I've never had a picture make a hundred view in it's first day. By the time I left for work this one had. Right now eleven hours after I posted it is my 11th all time most popular. I have no idea what this means about society or flickr. I do know that I'm considering having business cards drawn up to reflect my personal expertise in "Big Cat Mating Photography"

Beautiful Day Off in San Francisco

Enjoying the Day, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

I stayed up way too late last night cleaning up my Facebook profile. Woke up too early to keep at it. I did manage to get out of the house for a couple of hours and take some pictures. It was a bright, shiny yet mild summer day in San Francisco, exactly the kind of day I love the city for.

As for the pictures, just when I think I'm getting a style down I start playing with each picture so I can't even post 5 pictures that look like they have anything in common. Well, I'm still learning the art.

Like I said, I updated my facebook profile to better reflect where I am at both in the world and on the internet. I got friended yesterday by an old high school buddy. It was nice to catch up. I'm sure that's one reason why I've got Joe Walsh playing after listening to The Cure all night long. Days gone by, you know.

While I was poking around the old internet tubes I came upon yet another of those web 2.0 aggregators called FriendFeed. I like it, it's very easy to use and you can set it up for yourself or anyone else, whether or not they use the service.

Anyway enjoy the pictures. Back soon.

Testing the Prime

Gripman on Brake, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

I took my camera with me when I headed down to the Embarcadero to get a haircut. I spent part of the morning trying to decipher what the moderators were looking for in a flickr group dedicated to my favorite photographer Henri Cartier Brenson. The name of the group is Decisive Moments after HBC's collection of photographs covering 1930 to 1957. There was much debate about what exactly a decisive moment was. Some people took it as the moment when something signficant happens in the subjects life. Other's saw it more as a play of time and alignment between photographer, subject and environment. HBC wrote about the term like this, "...the decisive moment, it is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression."

After having 3 of the 4 pictures I submitted rejected I thought I would try to think more like Henri and only took out my 50mm "Prime" lens. No hiding behind a long lens today. No being lazy and using the zoom instead of my feet to frame the picture. It was tough but I did manage this capture which I like very much. I was sitting on the California line waiting for this guy and the conductor to finish their breaks for the ride home. I like this shot but I'm not going to send it to the Decisive Moment group. The one thing I think I have learned is that those guys are elitist jerks.

Stella!

This is a Berry Stella. It is my favorite baked good from Starbucks.
Ever. I have had one every work day since they started carrying them.
They seem to violate Starbucks rule against any moistness in any
breakfast bread. But they come with an bonus. Whenever the cashier
calls out to have it pulled I get treated to a personal audition for
"Streetcar Named Desire" Stellaaaa!

Vacation Almost at an End

Rincon Tower, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

Well tomorrow, scratch that, today is my last day off. I didn't take a lot of pictures, I didn't write on my blog very much. Still I'm not unhappy. I taught myself a new workflow using Capture NX and I'm sure that I'm going to be putting out better and better pictures because of it. I also managed to get all my image files into one place on Aperture and that was no small feat. But the most important thing I did was to finally get some pictures printed. I had 20 8x10 and 8x12's printed on Kodak ENDURA Metallic Paper. I love the way they turned out. I spent Monday mounting and framing 10 of them.

Anyway there are five new architecture pictures up on flickr. This one of Rincon Tower through a chain link fence is my favorite.

Theives!!!

Dykes on Bikes, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

Yesterday's column by San Francisco Chronicle muckrakers Maiter and Ross featured this photo I took during this year's Pride Parade. It is not one of the ones I submitted to the SFGate this week. I'm also not the person that forwarded it to the both the Chronicle as well as the Fire Department. Maiter and Ross are stirring up a controversy based on whether or not that is San Francisco FireFighter Sabine Balden's badge on her bustier. I've looked at the full size picture uncropped and blown up and I can't tell although it sure is in the right shape on top.

As the article was the #1 emailed on the Gate last night I guess I'm happy that one of my pictures got so much exposure. On the other hand I'm annoyed that it's up without my credit and that emails requesting my credit be applied to the picture have gone unresponded by both Matier and Ross and the Chronicle's photo editor. And I sure as heck don't want to get someone in trouble with at their job based on a picture I took.

Anyway here is a link to the Column.