Hey look, I am on ApartmentTherapy (or more accurately, my photography is). I thought it would be a fun series to participate in.
I wrote a little on slow food, growing up with an organic-veggie-loving Mom, and working at the Co-op at ConversantLife.
Also, I’ve suddenly become very popular on Goodreads, getting several “adds” a day. I’m not sure why. Do I read weird books or something?
Lastly - I started a Redbubble store recently, which appears to be a much better venue than Etsy for photographers looking to offer prints/notecards/framed versions of their work. I like the set-up of the site, too. Designers, artists, photographers - check it out.
With great happiness, we discovered that Tom has today (meaning, late tonight into early tomorrow) off, so we get to actually kind of have a weekend before he has to work at 6pm on Saturday. So we can do things like have meals together (or in my case, meals at all), maybe a little Bourne Ultimatum, and useful things like sleep and relaxation. Ah, bliss.
Our church moves our service outdoors once a year to Washington Square Park. I’ve missed it the past two years, so I’ve never actually been to one, but this year I’m neither getting married nor traveling and it’s looking good. We met last night to plan the logistics, and I somehow volunteered to put together some printed materials. Fun for me, but I should have known when I went that I am a compulsive church volunteer-er. It comes from my years as church staff. In any case, I’m kind of jazzed about it. I like print design. It’s so much more fun than web design; your end product more often actually meets what you had in mind, as opposed to the horrors that operating systems and browsers inflict on web design.
I’m enjoying summer, don’t get me wrong, but I do so love autumn and I’m very excited for it to arrive this year. I was in a very strange place mentally last fall (with Dad’s passing so close to the wedding), but this year I’m a bit more stable and feeling a bit more alive. The weather is so splendid around here in the fall.
You must check out this photographer on Flickr. Love her work.
Did you know we’re over 200 days into 2007? Past the midpoint. Whew.
I led a mostly-uneventful weekend; on Friday night I worked on our thank-yous and watched Friends With Money (great acting, intriguing, but in the end unsatisfactory; still, not a waste of time) and more of Six Feet Under. I ate random things from the refrigerator in an attempt to not buy groceries last week while Tom was working. I eat very strangely when he’s not around, because I don’t really want to cook for myself (a lot of mess and time), so I end up eating a lot of cucumbers, noodles, and sauted canned cannellini beans. Not necessarily a bad thing.
I got to go running on Saturday morning, finally, because the weather was cool and lovely, and after I got home, showered, and worked on more thank-yous, I headed out to DUMBO to take some pictures. Though the trip was unsatisfactory in the way of photos (I took less than 200), I did have several serendipitous discoveries:
• Firstly, I bought an iced coffee at Retreat and was bowled over; it was the best iced coffee I think I’ve ever had, and I drink a lot of iced coffee. Perfect balance between roast-y and sweet without being either bitter or sweetened. Splendid. I’ll be back.
• I stumbled on the Brooklyn Bridge Park, which is funky and lies between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge, two of my favorite places in the city. Grassy and uncrowded, even on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, it’s filled with random installation art, smells like you’re at the ocean because of the salty East River water, and has a lovely view of east Manhattan. I think they do movies there as well all summer.
• I made an attempt to walk the Promenade, but because I’m an idiot I completely missed it and was walking along an ugly street facing some Port Authority buildings, talking to my mom on the phone, when I looked up and saw the Promenade waaaaay overhead, above the BQE, which I’d been walking beneath. Nice.
• But, I happily turned left at the end of the road and found myself at the corner of Joralemon and Willow in Brooklyn Heights, which is really one of the loveliest neighborhoods in all of New York. It’s weirdly isolated, lacking necessities like cafes, or it would top my list of places to live in NYC. But, it does strikingly resemble Beacon Hill in Boston.
Pictures will show up soon, very soon.
I got home Saturday night and went grocery shopping out of desperate need. Over the rest of Six Feet Under and many more thank-yous, I had a dinner of gourmet tortilla chips, fresh salsa, and pan-fried quail (strange, but good), and finished it off with just a couple of spoonfuls of creme brulee ice cream. Delectable.
Tom got home around 5:30am on Sunday (he was driving cast and crew back and forth from set most of the night) and slept a few hours, and after a pit-stop for pumpkin-raspberry-cream-cheese muffins and coffee at our favorite Brooklyn bakery, we went to church, and happily, our dear Angela was there. We had lunch at Philip Marie afterwards with her, our storyboard artist friend Jeaney; our longtime friend, groomsman, and going-off-to-seminary friend Darin; and my former roommate and rockstar architect Katie. A good Sunday brunch, which lasted late into the afternoon. We came home and watched two disks worth of Arrested Development and laughed ourselves silly over smoked mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, and pretzel chips.
Very excited; tomorrow night we’re seeing our favoritest band ever - Nickel Creek - with Fiona Apple(!) in a Central Park venue! Tom’s shooting nights this week, but he took tomorrow off so we could go together. Who would miss the farewell tour?
Ah, the good life.
I suppose I should mention that I’m testing the waters and offering a handful of my fine art prints on Etsy for a modest price, suitable for framing and hanging (or really for anything else you want to do; I’m not fussy). If there’s any interest, I’m thinking of looking into printing notecards and other goodies at some point.
If you have suggestions, ideas, or particularly like any of my photos and think I should add them to the store (hint hint), let me know.
Tornadoes apparently touched down in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, which is south of us. (Read about it here and here on Gothamist.) I woke up around 5:00 am and saw the rain and lightning, but by the time I got up a few hours later, it wasn’t raining at all. It is unbearably muggy, but I still went running. Everything looked fine in my neighborhood.
Took me an hour and a half on the train to get to work, though, because of the flooding on the tracks (see above). Glad I got in an air-conditioned car. A co-worker apparently ended up on a bus early this morning, wherein he saw a tree uprooted that subsequently hit the bus, and then moved on to hit an apartment complex. Lovely!
In other news, Tom got to come home last night, though he promptly had to go out and exchange cars with another production assistant because - well, let’s just say, Tom runs a tight, efficient, organized ship when he’s an assistant director, but not everyone does.
He finally got to bed around 1am and was back up at the crack of dawn to pick up actors and bring them out to the set in NJ. Last I heard from him, he was looking for directions that didn’t involve the congested BQE, but I had no internet (Verizon DSL is completely useless when the sky is cloudy, so imagine it during a tornado) and couldn’t help him. We’re glad this job isn’t for much longer.
I’ve nearly finished White Teeth, by Zadie Smith. And I’m actually rather enjoying it. I think it would make much more philosophical sense if I were a) British and b) older, but it’s a thoroughly entertaining book. I really like her style of writing.
I’m planning to take a copyediting class (non-credit) at NYU this fall. Work pays for it because it’s directly related to my job. I’m actually really looking forward to it. I’ve been out of college for more than two years now, and the last class I took at NYU was in spring 2006, and, well, I’m a geek and I love classrooms. And I’m trying to stop doing any more web development (much too stressful of a freelance job when you have a full-time job) and perhaps work on short-term copyediting projects instead. So if you have a project, contact me! ;)
Two luscious food blogs I’ve enjoyed for a while: La Tartine Gourmande and Food & Paper.
And lastly, some recent Flickr favorites.
1. orange, 2. pink toes + rosé, 3. Untitled, 4. new love, 5. thirsty for rain, 6. where the purple thistle grows, 7. going crazy, 8. Julie, 9. Attente du Tour de France, 10. #02 stand in a row, 11. #03 until the small hours, 12. cherry blossom / cerisier, 13. Time for fresh juice, 14. Untitled, 15. Untitled, 16. Tomato Salad, 17. Agapanthus africanus, 18. Untitled, 19. gutter, 20. on the street, 21. far, 22. #03 in cycles, 23. lingering, 24. towards the sky, 25. flores
Renee’s Grandfather told me I’m the hardest working wedding photographer he’d ever seen and at his age I’m sure he’s been to a lot of weddings. So here’s the count:
436 photos of the rehearsal
124 photos of the rehearsal dinner
602 photos of the girls getting ready (by my lovely wife)
1193 photos of the wedding
114 group shots
and 2356 photos of the reception
Grand Total: 4825
Now all I have to do is look at each of them!
Though the Wednesday holiday threw me off, I’m glad tomorrow is Friday.
On Tuesday night, we went to Midsummer Night’s Swing and danced the night away, quite literally. It was great fun. We’re not great dancers, but we’re not shabby, either. I did wear the wrong shoes, though, and subsequently have had the great pleasure of having blisters on both the top AND bottom of my feet. Still, we’ll return. That has to be one of the most fun events in the NYC summer.
Yesterday my mom was in town to see Les Miserables with some friends, so we had lunch with her beforehand, then came home. I had an article to write (which I did, successfully, and not badly). And we weren’t sure if the rain would hold off, but it did, so we went to a rooftop party in Brooklyn Heights and watched the fireworks - which were spectacular, and directly in our view, as the rooftop was just off the Promenade and the fireworks were over the East River.
Back to the grindstone today; haircut and then an art show tonight, and possibly more swing tomorrow, then out to Jersey on Saturday. I have to go to Chicago next week for work (Tuesday night through Thursday night). So we’re busy, as usual.
Lastly, some of my pictures from our trip are slowly going up on Flickr. Click below to see them.
I chuckled at Josh’s description of my mad editorial skillz when I saw it last night. I didn’t think I was that brutal, but on the other hand, man, you asked for it. Anyone else want to have their book torn to pieces? I am especially good at lambasting excessive use of the infinitive.
I went to the dentist on Friday; no cavities and my gums are healthy (which I feared), but I will need to have my wisdom teeth out. Only on top, as I have no bottom wisdom teeth and probably never will. Also, either dental technology has gotten very good lately, or Albany is way behind the times; the hygienist took X-rays that were sent directly to the computer. I feel it is hickish of me to be as impressed as I am.
I took some work calls and headed northward to the Cloisters - the photos are now labeled and tagged - and spent most of the remaining sunlight there. Came back down to the Village and met Tom on set to go to dinner at what I thought was the Spotted Pig but turned out to be the Little Owl. Pricey, but oh so tasty.
Tom worked through the weekend and I spent Saturday mostly at home, editing photos, cleaning, trying to stay cool, then headed out to the Bowery Poetry Club to shoot the first installment of the Zoae Series which was fabulous and drew an audience of nearly one hundred. Pictures will probably show up on the Zoae site soon (as in, when I finish editing them).
After church on Sunday, I had lunch with Annie and Carey, then went to Joe to work on a feature I’m writing and struggling with.
People talk to me randomly much more when I’m alone; at Joe, several people just struck up conversations, including one of the baristas who was pretty sure he knew me from someplace I work (not bloody likely), Chicago (I’ve been there twice, see previous comment), or maybe Portland (a place I’d like to visit, but haven’t). Another guy wanted to know what camera I use. People at the Cloisters kept coming up to me and asking me random questions. I think I’m not imposing, maybe.
Anyhow, on Monday morning we had brunch at our favorite finer diner in Park Slope, then stopped into Barnes & Noble on the way home, which was a mistake. We bought three books and came home and ordered eight more, but some are necessary and the rest should keep us busy through the summer. And last night Tom shot portraits of friends with a new baby in Prospect Park and we had dinner with them and watched a very old and very slapsticky Woody Allen movie.
I finished All the Pretty Horses on the way to work today. Oh, wow. I have much respect for this Cormac McCarthy fellow.
There’s a lot going on that I can’t even keep track of; this is one of those times when life swirls about my ears and I can only really watch helplessly and keep my fingers crossed.
I spent the day at the Cloisters yesterday.
Besides my seasonal allergies, who staged a fierce and unexpected comeback, I had a lovely time.
I think it was Tala who was asking about photographers’ portfolios & sites; it’s not a portfolio, but I found this site today which has some great basic photography how-tos and such.
The fun part (from the article about street photography):
The Artist Pursuing Inspiration
Props: Black clothes, rings under eyes, long hair, intense look.
Camera: Anything black. Medium-format or vintage equipment for extra credit. Big is preferable to small, unless it’s a Leica or a Voigtländer.Location: Anywhere s/he won’t get thrown out of.
Mannerisms: Stare enrapturedly at utterly commonplace things. Photograph things from odd angles (camera held overhead or tilted at a wild angle is good). Crawl under objects, climb on them, glower at people who get in your way, otherwise pretend they don’t exist.
Advantages: You might make interesting friends.Disadvantages: You might make interesting enemies.
It was pretty lovely here this weekend, lots of warmth and a fair amount of sun . . .
On Friday night, after work, we had dinner at Risotteria and then to Film Forum for Goldfinger - I kid you not, on the big screen - which was appropriately followed by a Goldfinger sing-a-long. Yep. Gotta love New York. Everyone was very into it. And we passed Dominic West on the way down 7th Ave.
We got home and discovered that our landlord had gotten a new window put into our shower (checking my voicemail later, I found out that the date had been unexpectedly rescheduled, and he apologized profusely and said he’d stay there the whole time). There is a window directly at the head of the shower, and it was so old that the wooden frame had practically rotted out. Plus, since the window started at waist height, extended to the ceiling, and looked directly into the kitchen of the dude across the airshaft, there was a mildewy curtain over it that skeeved me out tremendously. But now! A beautiful, modern, frosted window that lets the lovely light in but keeps us hidden, with a metal frame so as not to be susceptible to the moisture and steam. It makes me happy just to look at it.
Tom had a job on Saturday, so I got up mid-morning, cleaned up the apartment, showered (squee), then grabbed the camera and headed to Central Park to take pictures. The light was bad, but the blossoming trees were pretty, and there were cute small children running around with balloons and kites. I don’t get uninterrupted camera time often. It was just lovely, and very zen. I used to go out and take pictures all over town when I first moved here, but my time has decreased substantially since then. So it was therapeutic.
Then a jaunt over to a surprise birthday party, and then I came home and roasted some cod and potatoes for dinner (salt and pepper and olive oil; so simple, and yet scrumptious) and made a salad. And after Tom came home, we met friends at the Chocolate Room. A late night, but a lovely one.
After church on Sunday, we went to SmorgasChef and had a bunch of celebrity sightings (or, some of us did). Good meatballs. And then we came home and finished Season 2 of the Office, including all the special features, and I had to talk Tom down from going on iTunes to buy Season 3. I did realize I’d actually watched the season finale (”Casino Night”) about a year ago when I was stuck in a hotel room in Chicago that inexplicably did not have cable.
I am excited; tomorrow night we’re going to see Michael Chabon read at the 92nd Street Y. He has a new book coming out - The Yiddish Policemen’s Union - and I suspect we’ll be buying it tomorrow night. Chabon’s books currently number among favorites for both of us (Tom loves The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which won a Pullitzer, and I adore Wonder Boys, which was made into one of the most perfectly-cast movies I’ve ever seen). We bought these tickets back in February, I think.
Also, by way of breaking my weird book-related ennui, I started not one, not two, but three books this weekend. I never do anything by halves. So far, What the Dead Know is gripping (I only haven’t finished it because it was too big to fit in my bag), In Cold Blood is amazing, and I’m finally finishing On Writing (by Stephen King) because Josh (of the celebrity non-sightings above) is continually referencing it, because I need some help starting this new season of my life (hey, it occurred to me recently that if I sold more than just a handful of articles I might not have to stay in this godforsaken industry, and I can’t do that if I’m not writing anything of consequence), and because it’s actually quite good. I haven’t read a single thing Stephen King’s written or seen any of the movies that are based on his books, but I might have to because he seems like the sort of down-to-earth, no-nonsense, I-stumbled-into-success-inadvertently guy that would be good to know.
Did you know? My mom’s birthday is this weekend. We’ll go home the following weekend, though. (Mother’s day, and my brother’s 18th birthday.)
Looking for Christians in the fashion/beauty industry (design, modeling, publishing, anything like that). Anyone out there? It’s for an article I’m working on. You need to actually be working in the industry to be useful. :)
We had a very busy weekend. We had planned to go to Sam’s surprise birthday party, but Tom was not feeling well at all and we opted to stay in and watch Batman and Batman Begins and eat pizza in the comfort of our own little apartment. Good times.
On Saturday night we went to the FOUNT of Mercy benefit concert at Stain Bar in East Williamsburg (truly - it’s technically in Bushwick, but just barely). Several of our friends (including Sarah Lentz, Kevin Gosa, Carey Wallace, and Josh Cacopardo) were among the dozen-or-so musicians performing, and the place was packed. I think a lot of money was raised for FOUNT, an organization looking to partner with African grassroots organizations who focus on helping the incredible numbers of orphans in sub-Saharan Africa. Several of the FOUNT leaders go to my church.
After braving the rain to get to church Sunday morning, we took off for the AIPAD fine art photography show at the Armory. It was impressively big and chic and there were many excellent pieces of inspiration (all for sale, all for a lot). I think both of us came away with some interesting inspirations and ideas for our own work, and Tom took copious notes.
And then we headed downtown for Sara’s birthday party, winding up at the Upright Citizens Brigade for a hysterical improv show. I don’t know the last time I just saw some good funny straight-up comedy.
We are busy this week (work, article research, Fassbinder), and it’s going to rain until like Thursday. I think this weekend will be very welcome when it shows up!
Gitelson manages in a somewhat tight frame to still integrate the environment into the picture. I think these portraits and the concept behind them is great! Click on each of them to read what they marked as their dream job.
I get more and more excited about the new possibilities our DSLR will enable us to pursue. I was reading up on street photography again (I used to do a lot of it in college) and was reminded of how many of the best photographers simply shoot more pictures than anyone else.
Garry Winogrand is famous for having exposed three rolls of Kodak TRI-X black and white film on the streets of New York City every day for his entire adult life. That’s 100 pictures a day, 36,500 a year, a million every 30 years. Winogrand died in 1984 leaving more than 2500 rolls of film exposed but undeveloped, 6500 rolls developed but not proofed, and 3000 rolls proofed but not examined (a total of a third of a million unedited exposures).
Amazing! In reality, you might only get one great picture out of 1000, which makes large volumes of shooting all the more important. Thank goodness I’m using digital!