Trees through the Car Window
First Snow
Photo by Claudia Ruff
I haven't been writing lately. In the past two weeks, somehow it felt like I didn't deserve to say anything. I am ashamed to say that I have been embarrassed about my work and I've been questioning my personal perspective. It isn't because I think I'm doing something incredibly different but somehow what I do does not translate well enough for people to respond to. I saw my first snowfall today and although it was cold, it somehow warmed this creeping numbness in my mind. It was one of those rare moments where I wasn't challenging myself to see something in a new way but I was actually seeing something that I've never seen before. Sometimes this is all it takes to be invigorated again. Incredibly I couldn't stop shooting. I took pictures that might have been ordinary to someone who's seen snow all his life, but to me, everything was a wow moment. It wasn't a matter of searching for special things to shoot because snow was everywhere--on the ground, on the leaves, on the roofs...everywhere. It was glorious to add another facet to my experience of water: to be lightness and weight at the same time with no struggle between the two. Snowflakes. I didn't know it could fall so softly. It's form lends itself to falling. I could barely feel it on my face when this picture was taken.
Read more »
Labels:
snow
On Location Shoot
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Watching Hiesler and DT teach was a real treat. We were challenged to create alternate realities by using 1 strobe to allow us to expose for the subject and to be able to stop down and underexpose the background. Shaun, Dakota and I teamed up and headed for the corn fields.
The sky was so bright that it made Dakota cry. I caught a tear falling but it's only really visible when you zoom in.
Read more »
The sky was so bright that it made Dakota cry. I caught a tear falling but it's only really visible when you zoom in.
Labels:
airport,
on location shoots,
portraits
Defying gravity for a moment
December 2, 2009
It was thrilling to fly today and see things from that perspective where everything transformed itself into shapes. Buildings surrendered their scale to me, although I didn't feel much taller than I actually was. I was just farther from the world. But from up there, it gave me a sense of things, how minuscule my problems were and how ordinary. In those 15 minutes, worrying was farthest from my mind while it was being muffled by the whirring of an engine suspended in air.
Read more »
It was thrilling to fly today and see things from that perspective where everything transformed itself into shapes. Buildings surrendered their scale to me, although I didn't feel much taller than I actually was. I was just farther from the world. But from up there, it gave me a sense of things, how minuscule my problems were and how ordinary. In those 15 minutes, worrying was farthest from my mind while it was being muffled by the whirring of an engine suspended in air.
from Enough by Eric Gamalinda
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Someday I will send everyone a card
with nothing on it, only
the calligraphy
of a river, and in the back
with invisible ink I will say:
Forgive my happiness
I have betrayed you all.
Read more »
with nothing on it, only
the calligraphy
of a river, and in the back
with invisible ink I will say:
Forgive my happiness
I have betrayed you all.
And when at last I find you, your song would fill the air
Friday, November 27, 2009
Blackbird I Will - The Swingle Singers
(song courtesy of J.H.! Thanks man)
Chatted with you yesterday... wedding march?? nudge nudge. hahahaha!!!
Thanksgiving
Thursday, November 26, 2009
I usually catch myself apologizing for things that aren't 'wrong.' Sometimes it's a lack of gumption, a missing thread of empowerment. Sometimes it's simply what it is, a terrible habit.
"I'm sorry for living."
"I'm sorry for being unclear."
"I'm sorry for not saying."
"I'm sorry for not being brave."
"I'm sorry for being un-able to [insert word]."
Whatever it is, my apologies for not being fair to You.
Today IS thanksgiving, however. And the only apology I can think of is...I'm sorry for not being able to appreciate these things all the time.
Thank you for those who know when to continue hoping and for those who know when it's time to give up. It's still a continuous struggle for me to decide when enough is enough.
Thank you for those who remember the past so clearly and for the few who can forget. Fiction and history are not too different, I think. Memory gaps make stories more interesting. What happened again? You tell me. I am grateful to have the strength to change and re-member myself...if only to survive and live with the person I've become.
Thank you for those who are brave, I want to be like you. Thank you for the things that I fear, for allowing me the strength to surpass the odds when I need to. It always surprises me, to rediscover these hidden forces of pure will.
I am grateful for my family who have shown me how it is to love with no limits. But also for strangers who have been kind to me for no reason. I hope to figure out how I can give back in my own way to anyone who needs me. There's a place for every sort of kindness and for every talent, I suppose.
Thank you for the stars, for slowly passing clouds, and for the darkest of nights.
Thoughts are clearest to me then. Although I would appreciate it if I could get more sleep.
Thank you for the rain, for the sea, and for every wave that carries me back home. We witness destruction and rebirth over and over again. And yet we return to what draws us: gravity.
Most especially, I am grateful for the little things, the little things that redeem their scale in the long run.
All of this, for your greater glory. [Amen.]
Read more »
"I'm sorry for living."
"I'm sorry for being unclear."
"I'm sorry for not saying."
"I'm sorry for not being brave."
"I'm sorry for being un-able to [insert word]."
Whatever it is, my apologies for not being fair to You.
Today IS thanksgiving, however. And the only apology I can think of is...I'm sorry for not being able to appreciate these things all the time.
Thank you for those who know when to continue hoping and for those who know when it's time to give up. It's still a continuous struggle for me to decide when enough is enough.
Thank you for those who remember the past so clearly and for the few who can forget. Fiction and history are not too different, I think. Memory gaps make stories more interesting. What happened again? You tell me. I am grateful to have the strength to change and re-member myself...if only to survive and live with the person I've become.
Thank you for those who are brave, I want to be like you. Thank you for the things that I fear, for allowing me the strength to surpass the odds when I need to. It always surprises me, to rediscover these hidden forces of pure will.
I am grateful for my family who have shown me how it is to love with no limits. But also for strangers who have been kind to me for no reason. I hope to figure out how I can give back in my own way to anyone who needs me. There's a place for every sort of kindness and for every talent, I suppose.
Thank you for the stars, for slowly passing clouds, and for the darkest of nights.
Thoughts are clearest to me then. Although I would appreciate it if I could get more sleep.
Thank you for the rain, for the sea, and for every wave that carries me back home. We witness destruction and rebirth over and over again. And yet we return to what draws us: gravity.
Most especially, I am grateful for the little things, the little things that redeem their scale in the long run.
All of this, for your greater glory. [Amen.]
Final Promo Piece
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Part of the reason why I chose Hallmark was because of it's business track. Right now, we've just finished submitting a pseudo-draft of a self-promotion card that we can hand out to potential clients. I ended up using an old image prior to Hallmark, only because it showed the kind of work that I want to do in the future. That seems kind of sad in a way--What am I waiting for? Sometimes it's so frustrating to deal with myself and these doubts that continue to poison my mind.
Art is by Sasha Descartes
Here it is:
Read more »
Art is by Sasha Descartes
Here it is:
The key to happiness is to eliminate [insert word]
Friday, November 20, 2009
Sometimes I wonder what the past meant for us to be reincarnated like this--traveling in parallel paths, hoping for intersection. There is no need for fences or walls now that we exist on the same plane. I suppose we were destined to seek comfort in the periphery. Did it take centuries to learn how to live apart, disciplined and unable to remember what it is to curve, to lean over--to touch the small of someone's back? This constant attempt to search for you is like an old habit of loss. I probably lost you so many times: to someone, to something somewhere. So many times, that sometimes, I don't even remember what it was like to find you.
Read more »
Lights will guide you home
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
This is the perfect fog-blinking-lights-song. "You could be happy" by Snow Patrol.
November 16, 2009: On the way home from school it was so foggy. All I could see were colorful lights glowing from a distance. Here's the street where I live, viewed from the parking lot.
<
Read more »
November 16, 2009: On the way home from school it was so foggy. All I could see were colorful lights glowing from a distance. Here's the street where I live, viewed from the parking lot.
<
The Beauty of Sorrow by Eric Gamalinda
Saturday, November 14, 2009
The Beauty of Sorrow, after Pauline Oliveros
The best time to look at sorrow
is a quarter before midnight.
It looks dead from the ground up,
a single withered stick.
Then opens gently,
like the luna flower.
It bursts with all the radiant loneliness
of the desert,
a shock of moonlight that pulses
only once a year,
when you least expect it,
when you've forgotten
the intoxication,
the pungent scent of grief.
.......
Reina de la noche
covers the arid valley
from here to the moon.
They open their mouths
like fish in water,
sucking in the dry air.
Their small tongues
are smeared with silver.
Such beauty can never last.
.......
The best time to listen to sorrow
is anytime if you are
in the desert.
You can listen to it
in the just intonation
of summer, when everything
is one music, seamless and slow.
I like to place my ear against
your sternum, I like to hear life
being pumped all over you.
I like the way the sage
is always silent
and full of healing,
if we only knew.
It's not like here,
in this shitty apartment,
where sorrow yells in your ear
and all you hear
is your heart opening and closing,
and only because
it's supposed to.
.......
I can live with sorrow
all day without you.
I've gotten good
at making it feel at home.
I think I will get even better
tomorrow, and the day
after tomorrow.
I will be so good I will have
rivals, I will evoke such envy.
I will wear it around my neck,
the way those pimps
wear a viper sometimes,
just to show they're somebody,
just to show they're special and mean.
I can live without you
sometimes, I can feel your name
scratched into my heart
like graffiti.
Someone must have left it there
in the dead of night,
when no one was looking.
I swear it wasn't me.
.......
If there's a best time to eat sorrow
it must be now,
when your hunger gnaws so deep
it feels like having a soul.
You can let it take over you
like the spirit
the shaman wakes
with a single drum.
You can turn it into poetry
or religion, whatever
is easier to swallow.
Either way it remains
what it is,
a slow, elusive bloom
that opens your body up,
and you can't help staring
at the dead light streaming
towards you,
the dead waking the living
with these small revelations.
Read more »
The best time to look at sorrow
is a quarter before midnight.
It looks dead from the ground up,
a single withered stick.
Then opens gently,
like the luna flower.
It bursts with all the radiant loneliness
of the desert,
a shock of moonlight that pulses
only once a year,
when you least expect it,
when you've forgotten
the intoxication,
the pungent scent of grief.
.......
Reina de la noche
covers the arid valley
from here to the moon.
They open their mouths
like fish in water,
sucking in the dry air.
Their small tongues
are smeared with silver.
Such beauty can never last.
.......
The best time to listen to sorrow
is anytime if you are
in the desert.
You can listen to it
in the just intonation
of summer, when everything
is one music, seamless and slow.
I like to place my ear against
your sternum, I like to hear life
being pumped all over you.
I like the way the sage
is always silent
and full of healing,
if we only knew.
It's not like here,
in this shitty apartment,
where sorrow yells in your ear
and all you hear
is your heart opening and closing,
and only because
it's supposed to.
.......
I can live with sorrow
all day without you.
I've gotten good
at making it feel at home.
I think I will get even better
tomorrow, and the day
after tomorrow.
I will be so good I will have
rivals, I will evoke such envy.
I will wear it around my neck,
the way those pimps
wear a viper sometimes,
just to show they're somebody,
just to show they're special and mean.
I can live without you
sometimes, I can feel your name
scratched into my heart
like graffiti.
Someone must have left it there
in the dead of night,
when no one was looking.
I swear it wasn't me.
.......
If there's a best time to eat sorrow
it must be now,
when your hunger gnaws so deep
it feels like having a soul.
You can let it take over you
like the spirit
the shaman wakes
with a single drum.
You can turn it into poetry
or religion, whatever
is easier to swallow.
Either way it remains
what it is,
a slow, elusive bloom
that opens your body up,
and you can't help staring
at the dead light streaming
towards you,
the dead waking the living
with these small revelations.
Gamalinda
La Ruinas del Corazon
(Continue...)
But before she did, she asked the poets to record these moments
in song, and the architects to carve the song in marble,
and the marble to be extracted from the most secret veins
of the earth and placed where no man could see it,
because that is the nature of love, because one walks alone
through the ruins of the heart, because the young must sleep
with their eyes open, because the angels tremble
from so much beauty, because memory moves in orbits
of absence, because she holds her hands out in the rain,
and rain remembers nothing, not even how it became itself.
Read more »
(Continue...)
But before she did, she asked the poets to record these moments
in song, and the architects to carve the song in marble,
and the marble to be extracted from the most secret veins
of the earth and placed where no man could see it,
because that is the nature of love, because one walks alone
through the ruins of the heart, because the young must sleep
with their eyes open, because the angels tremble
from so much beauty, because memory moves in orbits
of absence, because she holds her hands out in the rain,
and rain remembers nothing, not even how it became itself.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
