Year in review 2

Kyle has the exact same pose in both pictures. This was taken near a synagogue.

Year In Review 1

So while I was cleaning up my computer this weekend, I came across alot of pictures that I had failed to upload. When I get a film roll back, or download pictures from my memory card, i make a quick run through them and take out and duplicates or badly focused/plain bad shots. Then go ahead and clean up/process the pictures and upload them to flickr.
This workflow suites me well, but sometimes when I don't have time to edit a whole roll/batch, I keep some pictures for editing later. The problem is that I forget to come back to these pictures because ill either have new pictures to work with, or I don't want to upload a ton of pictures from a similar scene.
So, the end of the year seems like a fitting time to upload some of the pictures that didn't get uploaded out of sheer neglect.

The pictures below are from the summer, when Jon and I explored CMU. To see the others from the set, click the tag "CMU" below, genius.

A tired old Lion.

I'm not dead.

Just working.
I havent been able to take many pictures lately, but that said I do have a few that I need to process. My computer is being a little bitch and i'm going to have to do some massive cleaning up before i'm able to use lightroom on RAW pictures again.

The picture below is one of a few i've taken, unfortunately this is only one i've had time to process and I'm afraid it'll be new years before I get the others uploaded.

I have some pretty boring pictures of the snow storm that hit the US east coast last weekend, and ill try to post those pictures soon.
Because everyone LOVES second rate pictures. Shiiit.


Christmas lightzz

Birthday films

Jon has been getting into film lately and these shots are from his new project. Im not going to give anything away except it's about Jeff's (blue track jacket) birthday, and a little story about people surprising him with a cake.

It is actually Jeff's birthday today, happy birthday Jeff. Hope you liked your cake.

Boston Harbour

This picture makes sense large, Promise.

Museum

These shots are from a small trip to the Carnegie museum on Sunday to see a new whale exhibit. I dont really have any pictures of the whale exhibit itself because exhibits on loan cant be photographed.

Museums are wonderful places to photograph if you have the patience and have a good idea of what kind of composition you want. It is very easy to walk around and take wide shots of everything here and there, with a glaring flash like I see a lot of people do (I have been guilty of this myself, but im trying to fix it).



Minerals gallery


Details details

Oh hi, everything is dead.

But I still do love fall.

New Header

I felt like I've had my last header for a while now and wanted to change things up a bit. Last one was all summer-y with nice saturated film colors and I wanted to make this one a little more fall and desaturated/cold and how much more colder can you get than a dead, stuffed bird right?

Source Picture



et voilà

And I would walk drive one-thousand miles

According to some very basic calculations on google maps, I drove over 1500 miles the week before last. I crossed PA, NY, CT to Boston MA, then BACK the same route over a weekend. Then the next Friday I drove across PA and back. I feel like I've just recovered from all the driving (considering I drive 20 miles to and from work every day too).
I drove mainly early morning and late night, and the freakiest thing would be to see huge patches of blood in the middle of the road, especially at night; apparently speeding trucks hit deer so hard that they just get forced under the wheels.

Stats: Like 8 full tanks of gas, a ton of parking quarters, copious amounts of junk food/red bull and, right at the end, a $130 speeding ticket.


The cop was hiding behind a tree or something and caught me doing around 86 in a 65, which would mean a fine of like $300+. The cop was nice enough to bring my speed down to 71 (therefore a reduced fine) and give me a warning.


like the most expensive parking garage ever. It was under a small garden in the middle of Boston and the fees were like $8 for the first half hour, $12 to the 1st hour, $18 for the next hour and like $34 for the whole day. I mean, compare that to the car parks in Oakland, which I remember are like $8 for a whole day. Luckily, we managed to get back before the hour ended.

Boston

Could only spend like a few hours sightseeing in Boston out of one whole weekend. More pictures coming, yo.

Joebama: The college years

This whole post (and shoot) was inspired by this photoshoot of pres. Obama while he was in college.

My housemate Joe was dressing up as Obama in his college years for a pre-halloween party and we were entertaining the idea of doing a similar shoot for a while now. So the day of his party we set a simple lighting scheme; with strong harsh light from two sources into the wall behind him (that would also bounce off the ceiling) and one low power fill light (normal light in the living room).

I tried shooting it in film; Firstly, so I could emulate the grain in the original Obama shoot and secondly, so I could use my ever handy FD 50mm f/1.8 lens. This failed when my tripod mount broke in two. Seriously.
Nevertheless, we continued with my DSLR, handheld with the kit lens.

At first I tried keeping it really strict to the original Obama shoot; same pose, same lighting, same expressions etc (this being my first such shoot, I assumed it would be easy). This didnt work out well and while I was trying to figure out what to do, Joe picked up his computer to change music or something. At that point I took this shot:



It was then that we realised that we I was going about this whole shoot completely wrong. I mean it would be impossible duplicate an impromptu photohoot from the 80's, however hard we try. SO we kinda just winged it and tried to keep things simple, in theme and spirit to the original shoot. Im pretty happy with how everything turned out.

Here is the first batch of pictures




In the original obama shoot, you can see him happily puffing away at his cig, and we wanted to do that. But, for some reason, I didnt let Joe light this one. I really dont know why.It looks lame if its not lit, I know.

And one in colour: Just because I prefer this one that way.

Pictures of people taking pictures.

Plane Spotting.

Embraer ERJ-145XR
Expressair


Bombardier Dash-8 Q400
Expressair


Embraer E-170
US Airways Express




Funny thing about engineers are that most of them seem to be into photography too. I mean look at Jon Kyle Laura Navin Dhanu Kasun.

These pictures are from a little outing during a lunch hour with some engineers I work with for. We went up to this spot outside the airport and directly facing the end of the runway. The planes would take off and fly direct over us, with some considerable altitude though. One of the engineers had one of those EF 70-300mm lenses that have almost infinite zoom (I mean with the APS-C 1.6x crop factor I think I was getting more than 450mm at full zoom!)I managed to get a few shots, but I really wish I shot these taking off the runway.

What India and Pakistan want

GET IT?! Oh ha ha.no?
This shot is actually from around this time last year. This truck is close to the chemistry building and you can get a great meal for around $5, which is cheap.
The guy who works in the truck is really nice to me. I think he respects me becuase i ask for my food extra spicy.

Brutal CMU

These pictures are from the depth of an extremely brutalist CMU building known as Wean hall. It really celebrates raw studded concrete like this building and also this building.

Brutalist architecture is strangely appealing to me; in a dystopian, 'Ministry of Truth' kind of way. I do have a strange fetish for angular geometry and modernist architecture, though.

Please sound off in the comments if i'm getting my architectural styles wrong; Somehow, im not too confident in my ability to separate certain aspects of Modernism, Post-Modernism, international style etc.

Oh, so pictures..

Work Place.

Kyle

Quick shot of Kyle, Donegal PA.

Donegal

Fall is my favourite season by far. The colors, the cooler weather and im not allergic to everything all the time. So much to love, right?
Donnington Donegal is glorious during the fall and I spent a whole day walking around on the fields, making fires, boating and eating vast amounts of food donated by the wonderful Witter family. They also had a pear tree! im not too fussed about pears but these were fantastic! so crispy and flavourful, and not a sticker with 'imported from jamaica' in sight!! Its so weird how I took eating fresh fruits for granted in SL that the whole act of plucking a pear from a tree and eating it is liberating!

I really have to thank my friend Grace for driving us out there and showing us such a good time! She's a fantastic cook to boot.
Here are a few landscapes; I have others to process and a film roll to get too. So moar picturez soonz plz?

p.s can you tell that im really liking that medium format?




Jon is in this picture can you tell? these medium sized pics suck


I almost flipped a small row boat full of cameras trying to get this picture. I dont even like it that much




it was sunny most of the time, but when i took this it wasnt. Clearly.