Roadies waiting out behind the Sunshine Theater. I didn’t have time to check and see what groups were playing tonight.
Category: Lighting
Wild Ride
Taxi 127 was driving pretty wild tonight — maybe the passenger was in labor or something. Continuing my new, scenic routes to and from my new parking spot, I wanted to photograph this door for the past couple of nights, but there were some rough looking characters hanging around in front of the door, and I didn’t want to see what their reactions would be to me either asking them to move, or be in the photo since I couldn’t really see what they were involved in. The installation of sheets on the wall in the pocket park I photographed last night turned out to be quite colorful in the daylight.
Art Along The Way
Even though we are creatures of habit, our intelligence, ability to learn and adapt quickly are a few aspects of human nature than help us to survive and advance, so after 15 years of leaving by the back door every day, I should be able to simply change that habit and remember to leave by the front door, because going out the front door is now the shortest route to my car. I walked out the back door twice today, and instead of unlocking the back door and walking through the building, I walked around the block both times. Yet it wasn’t all for naught, because between 1:30 this afternoon and 7:30 this evening some new art was installed in the pocket park on the end of the block at 2nd and Gold.
Mirror, Mirror
The last phase of Laurie’s hair style experiment was to put her hair up in a bun. She tried a couple of different styles of buns, and I used our mirrored wall for the background, and a single studio flash with an umbrella for the lighting. I’ve noticed that high key exposures seem to be all the rage in Laurie’s fashion magazines, so I pushed up the exposure to where the highlights are beginning to washout, which allowed me to get fairly good exposures in the mirror.
Fashion Snaps
Laurie tried a suggestion for wavy hair from one of her fashion magazines. She wanted me to do some quick photos without me taking the time to set up flashes and backdrops. I wanted to at least have a backdrop, but since I have my backdrop system at the office for a video project on Monday, I pulled out my old canvas backdrop, used a combination of light from the window and a small, shoe mount flash unit on the camera, then started to quickly work through some poses, but the flash was taking several seconds to recycle (batteries were low from the Q~Lesque shoot o Wednesday), so I got a a few stern looks from Laurie for taking too long between shots. Our quickie fashion shoot turned out pretty well, even with the uncooperative flash.
Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh My!
Laurie and I volunteered for Family Promise at Central United Methodist Church this afternoon. Family Promise is a ministry where various churches take turns hosting homeless families for a week at a time while the families are getting housing. Church members volunteer to help by bringing food, or staying and doing things with the families, or staying overnight or driving family members who don’t have cars to work and school. The local denominations participating in Family Promise include the mainline Protestant churches — United Methodist, Lutheran and Presbyterian — Catholic churches and Synagogues.
If you are asking “What’s with the lions, tigers and bears then if we helped with family promise this afternoon?” We took the families to the zoo. Besides the obvious photo ops, we had a great time, the Albuquerque Zoo is in good shape, the animals are healthy and they seem to be as happy as they can be for being in a zoo.
Dry Iceberg
Today I ended up with a mix of flowers, a sparrow, and a couple of experimental shots with pearls. The dried iceberg looked like a painting in the late afternoon light, and the flowers on the table were vibrant in the afternoon sun shining through the bay windows. While I was out walking around the yard before sundown, a sparrow kept flying around behind me and landing in a nearby tree. At one point I was standing in the shadow of the black bamboo, and the sparrow flew out of the tree, made a U-turn, and flew right back towards me, and almost flew into me, swerving around me at the last moment. I was dressed in black, standing in the shadow of the black bamboo, so I think it actually didn’t see me until it almost flew into me. After that, it sat in the tree across from where I was standing and gave me mad dogs.
Lights, Action, Birds
We went in to see how Tristan organized her study space when we dropped her off after school late this afternoon, and I noticed the lights in their stairwell made a very nice design. Sophia always does the same pose whenever she sees a camera — a kind of pensive, sultry look — and René, the Eclectus parrot former known as Joey, is looking really good these days. Tristan said she noticed that René is not the brightest bird on the block, but then she is comparing him to her African Greys. Most parrots have intellects comparable to 2 to 3 year old children; whereas African Greys have intellects comparable to 5 year old children. So while most parrots are very interactive, inquisitive, and can often mimic people very well, African Greys can actually reason with you.
Old and Cold
There were a lot of band tour buses parked out behind the office this afternoon, so I looked up on the Sunshine Theater’s schedule to see who was playing tonight. As usual I had never heard of or heard any of the groups listed, so I looked up samples of their music on Youtube. The first group in the list is Emmure and the music video I chose at random was what I would call hyper-grunge with caveman lyrics, although to be fair, cavemen were probably much more clear and articulate. After a few painful seconds on listening to Emmure, I looked up Whitechapel, the next group on the list, and the random song I chose sounded just like the song I listened to by Emmure. I had to do a double take to make sure I hadn’t reloaded Emmure — I hadn’t. Obey The Brave and The Plot In You also sounded the same to me. If I got it right, these bands tour together as Brothers of Brutality and from the snippets of the songs I listened to, they are brutal.
I guess I’m getting too old, because I don’t know why the groups want to subject themselves to themselves, or why anyone else, of any age, would want to subject themselves to the Brothers of Brutality, but there is an appeal that goes beyond both my understanding and sensitivities. I left the office a little after 5:00 pm tonight, a bit later than I had intended since I was supposed to pick up Laurie and Tristan at school at 5:00 pm. When I walked out the door the cold hit me like a stinging slap on my face, and I shivered as I walked to the car. While I was sitting at the light at 2nd and Gold, I got a text from Laurie that read “Hypothermia!” The light turned green and as I drove by the Sunshine theater, I noticed that many of the kids who waiting in line for The Brothers of Brutality concert were wearing short sleeve shirts and shorts, and many of the girls who were wearing jeans had slits all over them and plenty of flesh exposed to the cold air. Maybe being brutalized by the elements is a required to properly experience The Bothers of Brutality? Call me old, call me a prude, but it’s much too brutal and mysterious for me.
Flashed of Flowers
I had fun with flashes and flowers this afternoon.
The digital sensor recorded -2 degrees F this morning, but the analog thermometer was showing -8 degrees F at 8:00 am, but I think it got a lot colder than -8, especially since the pipes were trying to freeze. When I turned on the water in the bathroom sink this morning, the water was a trickle for about 30 seconds, then it started spurting around and blowing out rusty, sandy water for a few seconds before it started running steady and clear again, which seems typical of water running through thawing pipes. The almost frozen pipes is a sign that it go much colder than -8 degrees F, because two years ago when the temperatures got down to -15 degrees F, the pipes didn’t freeze.
Classes begin tomorrow at UNM and it’s going to be more of a family affair this semester. Laurie is starting a graduate program in Linguistics, but she has to take a couple of 300 level classes to make up deficiences. Tristan is starting back to school this semester and taking Linguistics classes with Laurie, and Laurie is thinking about auditing the philosophy class Tristan is taking. Here’s the kicker — I’m taking French 385 with Laurie. That’s right silly moi is taking 300 level French. And to answer your question: No! I have never taken French before. Not officially anyway. Last Spring, the teacher for French 101 allowed me to signup for the on-line French Lab so I could do home work for the class, and I wrote papers that were assigned in class, Laurie turned them in for me, the teacher corrected them and sent them back. Other than being a virtual student last Spring, reading Tintin and watching French movies had been my French studies up until Christmas.
Laure got me a Drive-by French course and a couple of other self study guides for Christmas that I’ve been using to do a bit of cramming. The Drive-by French, which is designed to do while driving, is pretty good, but they hit you with hard stuff pretty quickly, and expect you to be able to 1) hear, and 2) remember things — two things I pretty deficient in. Now the first CD, which they call the “On Ramp to French” is pretty easy, the people speak slowly and clearly, and they have you repeat words and phrases many times over. So I was thinking this will be great! Then lesson one began, and everything changed — the instructors only say a word once, the dialogs are spoken at normal speed, and then they drop the question bomb on you — they ask a question and give you a few short seconds to answer it. Right! I’m still trying to digest the question when the answer is given, which turns out not to be anything I would have answered, so I obviously didn’t have a clue about what the question was in the first place. I felt like I should pull off onto the side of the road and put on a dunce cap. But I go back, start from the beginning, and listen again, and again, and again — each time words, phrases and questions become a little clearer and I understand a little better, but I have to really struggle to with it. I may drive fast, but I’m pretty slow when it comes to learning languages.
Off Center & Not Even 