Sometimes

Sometimes I wish life were a mentos commercial where everyone speaks english.

cause in mentos commercials anything you do wrong can all be solved with a thumbs up and a quick flash of your mentos... and no one speaks english except the announcer guy (hence the request to live in an english version of a mentos commercial).

y'ever?

y'ever wonder, what the hell am I doing with myself? I do. Almost all the time. I rationalize my current state of affairs as, "it's could be worse" but I always think, it could be better to.

this week is the Italian saint fair in Ft. Lee. Not sure what saint it is, but it's a full 4 days of Italian food and carnival rides right there on Martha Washington way... Just off of main st. It's a fun atmosphere. I usually take a stroll through the area for a few minutes, but it's been so hot lately. I've had to avoid it in fear that I may die of heat stroke or some other terrible heat related accident...
I did manage to get some shots of the rides before they were set up. kinda has an eerie graveyard of carnival rides feel to it... don't ya think?

Sometime I Feel...

like this.

Blah...

I have nothing to say. Just wanted to share this picture with you.

Another Friday

My Grandma went in for a massive surgery Wednesday. That's her. This was taken last Monday before the surgery. The doctors took a tumor the size of a quarter out of the upper lobe of her left lung. Tested it and found it to be cancerous. They removed the entire upper lobe (which luckily is the smallest lobe of the lungs) and tested other parts of her for cancer. Everything came back negative... which is GREAT. I spoke to "Granny" yesterday and she says she is feeling fine. The day after surgery she was already out of her bed and pacing the room looking to get home to her cucumbers, basil, garlic and beloved flowers... Doctors say it will be at least a week before she can leave. I'm so happy everything went well.

I'm finally out of my funk... thanks to granny's recovery. This weekend I have no big plans. My grandma said not to come and see her, so except for doing some laundry and staying cool indoors I'm doing nothing. We are supposed to have a heat wave with HIGH humidity. So I plan on staying indoors in the air condition ALL weekend.

I'll probably take out my camera and try and get creative. Because of the humidity the clarity of the air will be zero, so I probably wont be able to get many city shots from my window. no biggie... I'll just shoot things around the house and spend some time on ebay looking for things I don't need... things to just add to the clutter that I call my life.

so I hope y'all have a good weekend and if you live in the tri-state area, stay cool.

Friday Ramblings

It's Friday. I have plans to go to the Jersey Shore this weekend. Haven't decided if I'm leaving tonight or tomorrow morning... Honestly? I'll probably leave tomorrow morning. I'm thinking about leaving at like 4 am so I can be there for sunrise... Get some shots, and then head over to my grandma house for breakfast... Now, I know I probably wont do that. I know I'll probably just leave tomorrow around 8 and get there and go to granny's house... but I have good intentions... and we all know where that leads, that leads to pavement on THE road that leads to H-E-L-L. But they probably aren't working on it this weekend, cause y'know the government is shut down so they can't work... (see, I'm eluding to the fact the New Jersey is very much like Hell.)

Anyway... While driving homee from work yesterday I noticed the clarity of the atmosphere (or sky) and I noticed the basically half moon... and I noticed the lack of clouds... and I thought, when I get home the 2nd thing I'm doing is setting up the camera with the monster lens and taking shots of the moon... the first thing I'm doing is going to the bathroom... so I did those things, in that order, and here's the best pic I could get of the moon... as soon as I had everything set up, wouldn't y'know it... clouds rolled across the moon and I couldn't get the clear shot I was going for... but whatever. it looks good... enough.

I then switched to my kit lens... 18-70mm, and took some shots of the city. I wasn't 100% satisfied with any of the shots, but I chalk that one up to my Funk. Everything looked a little too grainy, or a little too blurry, or a little too dark, or a little too not perfect... and the view was absolutely amazing too.



But the purpose of this post was to discuss my daydreams whilst taking the shots of the moon... I couldn't help but think about space and the time continuum... well just space... and other planets... and how cool it would be if man kind could just make it through these terrible days we are going through now, and somehow manage to start settling other planets... after the cure disease and hunger,and poverty, etc... its a long way off but I have faith that it is possible... IF WE CAN JUST STOP KILLING OURSELVES - both in wars and at home...

I can't understand where all this intolerance and hatred comes from. I mean yeah I have anger and hatred but I don't let it affect my respectfulness of other people, complete strangers... the only time I'm disrespectful, is when someone disrespect me. If we all lived by the golden rule, we'd all be a lot happier and healthier... and a lot closer to the utopian dream I have in my head.

Funk

I've been in one of my "funks" lately. Brought on by thinking to much, working too hard, and not playing hard enough. But mostly because of thinking too much. I bought all these new toys for my camera and then suddenly I'm all "camera'd out".

I'm going away this weekend to see my grandma, hopefully that will lift my spirits. Plus to top it all off I'm taking Monday off of work. So that will definitely help... AND the boss will be off next week, so again, more helpful things... What all that really boils down to is this: I'll have a four day week and I'll feel some sort of "worth" at the office. Which should translate into a much easier time playing with all my new toys.

The new toys I got are:
1) a fisheye lens - which I fell in love with and have asked it for it's hand in marriage. I'm still waiting for a response.

2) a Lens Baby (http://www.lensbabies.com) - super cool little lens. totally manual, down to actually physically having to change the aperture. the only in camera change you can make is the shutter speed. It's going to take some time to learn how to use this properly. Every shot I've taken with it has been okay at best. I plan on doing a little photo shoot of my granny this weekend with it.

3) circular polarizing filters for my two "normal" lenseseseseses.... and that totally rocks my socks and all that junk.

I hope you all had a fantabulous 4th of July... mine was nice and relaxing.... just took pictures of all the fireworks...

this is just one. I used the fisheye for it, but I also have some non-fisheye shots. which I posted in one of my buzznet galleries.

Barnegat Lighthouse

it rained for the last 4 days. Except on sunday. sunday there was a brief moment of sunshine and blue skies. i was at the lightouse, and got some pics.

The Barnegat Lighthouse

It's on the northern tip of Long Beach Island. Whenever i go to visit my Grandma, i always make a trip to the lighthouse. it brings back memories of my childhood summers spent at the shore. It's also happens to be a peaceful quiet place to soak in the sun and the salt air and to get a that nautical feeling i often times find myself missing.

i tweaked the colors a bit, nothing major... did do some major distortion correction... i hope you like it. well, actually i really don't care with this one cause i like it, and well... y'know.

the only thing i couldn't figure out is if i liked it better in color or B&W... what do you think?

It's Raining... FOREVER!

The weathermen and women... said it was going to rain, last friday until this thursday cause of a stalled front... or something. so far they are right. I went down to the Jersey Shore, Long Beach Island (actually Manahawkin, to be exact) this passed weekend to visit my grandmother. It rained saturday, and half of sunday.


I took some pics in the rain. Stood out in the yard with my camera on a tripod and an umbrella in one arm. Got some cool shots. so far only worked with three of them. But i have a lot more to go through still.

Once the rain finally stopped i took my grandmother to the Lighthouse for a walk along the beach. it was nice, and i think she liked getting out... if only for a short time.

The Results

The results are in, and i'm pretty happy with what i got from my recording studio shoot. Let me know what you think... if you think. ;-) I took a bunch of photots, a crap load to be exact... nearly 1,000 to be vague. Most of them came out ok, some blurry backgrounds, some had blurry subjects, but some were good enough to use. about 10 so far. i havne't finished going through them all yet, but y'know... don't ya?

The picture above is of Pat, the guitar player, playing "air bass" while laying down some vocal tracks. below is Gavin at the microphone, doing the vocals for another song. And the other is Pat during "play time"... or during a break. I guess he caught me... i like to get candid shots, but this one just looked so good... Like i said before there are a ton more pics, but I'll only post the ones that i like if there are anymore.

The Challenge

Here's what I've been upto this week... My neck in photographic challenges... well not really... but really. My brother runs a recording studio, and a friend of his flew in from Oregon to record a few songs... or an entire album, whatever they can get done in 7 days.

in the mean time I volunteered to photograph them. They can use the pics however they want, if they want. And I get a chance to practice taking pics in low light, and a different setting the my usual outdoors setting. So I thought, gee this will be cool.

Well don't get me wrong, it is cool... but it's difficult... very very. I had to pull out all the tricks I knew, and then get more tricks from some experts I've met. either "online" or "inreal" (as in - in real life). Using those extra tips and hints I managed to get a few good shots.

This one is probably the best so far. but there are still 4 more nights of opportunities. I'll post more when I get them edited...

In Black & White

against better judgement, i've been thinking.
Sometimes life is too Saturated.
and Sometimes its too Desaturated.
And Sometimes,
well... Sometimes, its just right.

Thunder & Lightning

The Other Day... Thursday Night to be exact... I think...
there was a super-duper-ultra-crazy lightning show, courtesy of Zeus...
I say lightning storm, cause there was hardly any rain... it was wet, but not a torrential down pour...

Most of the lightning was off to the left of my building, but I did manage to catch about 7 strikes near Manhattan.

I tooled around in Photoshop for awhile on all the shots to make them look their best... I even tried merging them ALL into one shot... but the lightning wasn't as clear as the single shots...

I just love lightning... I find I love a lot of things that scare the crap out of me. Must be something bout the power behind lightning... I mean it just appears and in a flash its gone. And there's nothing like hearing that Crackling-sizzling-Pop when it hits something nearby... I love it... and fear it... and respect it...

ESB - Empire State Building

Over the memorial day weekend i took a day trip to New York City. Walked around the Battery Park area, and then taxi'd it to Midtown were a friend and I had lunch and a few beers in a pricey midtown bar...

From there we headed for The Empire State Building. When we got there we noticed a sign that said, "2 hour wait for Observation Deck" We walked in to the shop area and snuck to the top in under 30 mins... I'd give you the details, but then "they" would know how we did it and they'd stop us next time... sorry.

So we get to the top and there are like a bajillion people there... and it was next to impossible to get a spot near the railing so i could jump... er... i mean take some nice tourist free pictures. But eventually I got up to the railing and took a few ok shots and even fewer good shots. By that time the sun was setting and camera shake was a major factor... it was fun. but a little annoying, seeing as i don't really like crowds.

"looking down"

On Second Thought

wow, that was easier then i thought.

so here's another one.