We live in an age of forgetting.
photography
A Short Announcement
Jul 25th
Measuring tape doesn’t tape shit.
That is all.
This post has been brought to you by Siemens USA. “Siemens: Yeah, we know what our name sounds like.”
This post has also been brought to you by Old Tyme Photo-Graphy. “We’ll process your daguerreotypes lickety-split! And by lickety-split, we mean one month.”
This post has also been brought to you by House of Ice-Cream. “Help! Somebody grab a bucket! Our house is made of ice cream!”
Announcement #2: If I had a time machine, I would travel back to 1826, right before French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce was going to take the first photograph ever, and somehow, whether through persuasion, bribery, or force, convince him to take a photo of his dick. Here are my reasons:
1. It would be extremely funny.
2. History books would be forced to talk about it. The first photo ever is a watershed moment in history. You can’t skip over the subject of the photo. And the subject would be Niépce’s wee-wee.
3. It would shut up people who argue that society is more decadent than it used to be. “Counterpoint: first photo, dick photo. And he really wanted to photograph his dick because he had to keep the shutter open for eight hours, and he wasn’t even sure the technique would work.”
4. If an alien visited our planet and asked us to point to one moment in human history that would encapsulate everything he needs to know about males on our planet, we would now have that moment.
Announcement #3: I do have a time machine, I did travel back to 1826, and I did convince Niépce to photograph his dick. I bribed him with a six-pack of Coke Zero and a 30-day supply of Viagra (technically, 29 days. One of the pills was used in the photo.)
What I did not anticipate is that propriety would triumph over truth. History books of the day were too embarrassed to print the true details, so they said that the photo was “accidentally destroyed.” Really? Like used for a coaster or thrown out by the house servant while she was tiding up? IT’S THE FIRST PHOTO IN MOTHERFUCKING HISTORY. That’s BS. We can all read between the lines: phrases like “accidentally destroyed” and “perished in a mysterious fire” is history code for “something to do with dicks.” Not all these cases involve time travel, but 100% of them involve photos of men’s penises. I guarantee it. I know the truth, and now you know too.
Grand Tetons
Jul 19th
I was at the Grand Tetons for a week at the beginning of July. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve visited. I took over a 1000 photos with two different cameras, and it will probably be weeks before I get through all of them. Just deleting some of the duds is taking days.
I’ve only uploaded a few so far, but this is one of my favorites from the trip. It’s of my Mom eating a mystery flavor Jelly Belly.
After we got back, we had a huge week-long Iranian family reunion. At one point, there were 14 people staying my my Mom’s house. She was frazzled and kept calling me Uncle Farzan, but she was also happier than I’ve seen her in a long time.
I haven’t had the time or motivation to write recently, but that’ll change soon. I’m doing well with using the Internet less. I read three books so far this month and watched a few movies: No Country for Old Men (best movie I’ve seen in over a year) and Inception (intellectually engaging and worth seeing, although I’m not passionately in love with it as some people are.) I haven’t read regularly in a long time, and I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I picked up a few books.
June Photo Roundup
Jul 2nd
I reached the halfway point of my Photo a Day project. This is the first month where I’m happy with most of the photos I took. The whole collection is here. Some of the photos:
Self-portrait (6-01-10)
Milk drop (6-05-10)
Higgins (6-11-10)
The Sweep Master (6-24-10)
Moonscape (6-25-10)
Hayden (6-26-10)
Butterfly (6-30-10)
Photos and Stuff
May 31st
I’ve been emotionally flat for the past several weeks but just realized it very recently. I think that’s why I haven’t posted much for a while. I’ll save the only-interesting-to-me introspection for my diary, which is me yelling out the window at 3 a.m., but it helps just to write those few sentences. I’m grateful that I don’t feel seriously depressed, and I know I’ll be able to figure out what’s out of tune with myself.
On another note, here are some photos I took in May:
Gravelly Point HDR Photo
Apr 21st
After many attempts, I finally made a decent HDR photo. It’s of Gravelly Point, the park next to National Airport in DC.
I used my shoe as a make-shift tripod. My shoe was nervous having to take on a duty that completely supplanted everything it knew how to do (i.e. being a shoe) and quavered a little. So the photo’s a little blurry, especially at larger sizes, but that’s easy to fix next time.
If you are wondering what HDR is, this is a good explanation.
Photo-a-Day Still Occuring Daily
Apr 16th
My Photo-a-Day project passed the hundred day mark a week ago. The hardest part has been letting myself take an uninspired photo, or a week’s worth of uninspired photos, and not beat myself up for it. Where does the instinct to improve through self-criticism come from? “Maybe if I keep calling myself a crapster photographer, I’ll turn into a master photographer!”
What’s sick is that I know berating myself is mentally unhealthy…which sometimes results in me beating myself up for beating myself up. My neuroses are self-aware and like to fight with each other.
On the plus side, taking a photo a day has helped me see patterns in how I view the world that I wasn’t conscious of before. The project has also been good motivation to work on my Photoshop skills. I enjoy learning the program and knowing I can turn a bland photos into something half-decent keeps me from getting too frustrated.
As for photos, there’s not much recently I’ve taken that I’ve been proud of, but I do like this one from the field by National Airport. I also tried a new Photoshop technique on an old photo that turned out pretty well (before | after).
Photos
Mar 29th
The 37.5 Day Project
Jan 31st
Over a month ago, I started a “365 Day” project where you take a photo every day for a year.
I quickly realized that would never come to fruition, so I changed it to a “30 Day” project. Then a 32 day project. Then 34 days.
The current name is the “37.5 Day” project. I am on day 37.5. I will either change the name to the “40 Day” project or the “Increasingly Innacurrate 37.5 Day” project.
I’ve lost some motivation in the project since deciding to write a sketch every day. It’s hard to split my mental energies between the two. Comedy comes first, and most days, the daily photo seems like an afterthought, or even a chore. As a result, I’m barely growing as a photographer, and that was the whole point. It might be better for me to stop and restart it when I have more time. I’ll keep it going for a few more days and see how I feel.
No Thanks, Flickr
Jan 9th
After Flickr finished processing my photos, a “Thanks” button popped up that I had to click. Maybe I don’t want to thank you, Flickr. Have you ever thought of that? You’re just doing your job. Processing photos is what I pay you for. It would have been nice if I sent you a holiday card, I admit. But that’s no excuse for being passive-aggressive. What’s next, a “Thanks a lot” button? With “thanks” in quotes?
Icicles
Dec 24th
I took a few photos of icicles in our back yard. Click the photo to view the rest. I removed a stray icicle from one of the photos. It was a quick-n-dirty job, but I don’t think it’s noticeable unless you are looking for it. So…I guess I shouldn’t have mentioned it.
China Photos
Dec 21st
I finally finished editing and uploading the photos I took in China. If you are interested, you can view them here. I put them it bite-sized chunks to trick you into looking at all of them. Mwha ha ha ha ha! Go ahead, try to ignore a one-photo set. Oh, wait, you’ll be forced to see it once you click the link. Might as well look at a two-photo set while you are at it…
A Short Post
Dec 16th
I’m Giving Up Photography
Dec 4th
There’s no point taking pictures any more after seeing a photo like this.
Photographing Dogs
Dec 3rd
Here’s something you may not know if you don’t have dogs: they’re camera shy.
Most dogs hate looking at the camera. They’ll glance away quickly if you point one at them. They don’t like eye contact in general, and I think a camera lens is like a large eye to them, only creepier.
It was a rare, warm and sunny day today, so I took my camera out and snapped some photos of the dogs I walk. I had a treat bag and would take out a treat and hold it next to the lens to get them to look into it. I rewarded them regularly to keep their interest up. Even then, most of them could only hold their attention for a few seconds. Nugget, a Jack Russell terrier, would start trembling after a few seconds of what is dog torture: seeing a treat and not being able to eat it. Cubby, her brother, would frantically paw in the air. He knows “shake” and was taking a guess at what I wanted him to do.
I took over 300 shots, and about 10 of them are what I consider “good” shots. Take a look at five of them.
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