Turkey and Ribs

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know Scott and I did. I also ate way too much, but I suppose that's a good part in its own way. Scott and I flew to Arkansas on Wednesday, and when we got to our gate they announced that our flight was late, and called us up to the desk. Apparently it would be too late for us to be able to make our connecting flight, so the agent nicely arranged for us to get on a flight with a different carrier. It was an hour later, but a direct flight so we still got in around the same time. By the time we reclaimed our baggage re-checked it and got back through security we were just in time to hop on the plane. We were visiting my good friend Hannah and their new baby boy Oliver and his daddy Ryan. I was soooo excited to meet Oliver, and we soon discovered one of his little quirks, which was that he does not like riding in the car when it's dark. I managed to keep him occupied most of the way home. It was just so funny once we finally got there and took him out of the seat how his cries stopped abruptly. I can see why people would want to just forget about safety and hold their little ones, it's so tough to see him giving you a look that says "I know you can fix this so why don't you?" After that we got to know Oliver better and aside from that first instance of fussing he was one of the happiest most sweet babies I've ever known. He is just sooo handsome. He could definitely be a baby model, I got to use him as my model for Christmas pictures. We made an impromptu photo studio in the living room and he was very patient with alllll our pictures. The family cat even decided to pose in the background.

I'm getting ahead of myself a little. Hannah and I made Thanksgiving dinner, giving the boys fair warning that those who don't cook, clean. Hannah had an excellent spread with Turkey and stuffing and homemade cranberry sauce and green bean casserole and mashed potatoes, and more! Scott pronounced the turkey some of the most moist and tender he'd ever tasted and everyone loved the green bean casserole so much that we had to make more the next day to go with the other left overs.
The day after Thanksgiving we avoided the stores and decorated the house for Christmas. Everyone helped "fluff" the fake tree. Those things are great when they come pre-lit. No worries that little babies will try to eat fallen needles. Hannah had a fun photo project where she took pictures chronicling her day with Oliver. I'll have to post a link to it on her blog when she puts it up. For now I stole a few of the pictures for my blog.
Saturday night, Ryan and Hannah took us out for some Arkansas barbeque. It was very tasty and Oliver was a good restaurant eater. He sat there very patiently until the very end when he let us know he didn't want to sit still anymore. Hannah picked him up and held him, which gave him the opportunity that I think he'd been waiting for the entire meal. His little arm reached back behind his head to Hannah's plate where she had some rib bones. He grabbed a bone bigger than his little head and got it to his mouth before anyone could stop him. LOL, it was so funny to see his little face smeared in barbeque sauce and of course his hands were covered too so everything got sauce on it. He seemed very pleased with himself.
We had a wonderful little trip and are now home safe. We can't thank Hannah, Ryan and Oliver enough for such a happy time. I can't wait to see Oliver again soon! I hope everyone else had a lovely Thanksgiving.

First and Last

So today I woke up and saw that it was snowing outside! I love snow. It wasn't sticking to the ground but that was ok with me. I'm not a big fan of cold. So it was the first snow and the last photography class. The teacher didn't seem too thrilled with my latest crop of photos. Literally, he didn't like the way I cropped them. Oh well, I tried. I'll try some more too, I'm sure. I've been plotting and planning my Oliver Picture taking sessions. Today I got to go shopping for baby clothes. I was so overwhelmed that I finally just had to call Hannah and have her tell me what to buy. It won't be a surprise, but hopefully they will be the right size this way. I've been trying to think of a way to set up a mini photo studio maybe with a sheet and some lights. Or maybe we'll just go outside. Do they have Christmas tree farms in Arkansas? That would be a great place to visit and take pictures. Though I'm not sure Oliver would agree. Oh I can't wait to see that baby and hold him in my arms! I've been telling people for months about him and now I'll get to see for myself. I'm off to bed, this week is just too short.

Altercations

I know time is flying when I look at the last Blog post and that was Tuesday, and I'm already almost to Sunday before I even start to think about writing the next one. Well I've thought about writing another but haven't had a moment to get any further than that....

Thursday I had Big Brothers Big Sisters, and I took my camera so that I could get pictures since we went to the "little's" school. I even had a mini photoshoot with my little, and she took my current facebook profile picture. It was great to share that with her, since usually we're concentrating on other things. After that I had to run to my rescheduled photo class.

Friday night I went with Scott to a first year grad school student party. The school gives them money to throw a party for the incoming students. We had a good time teaching these East Coast kids how to play King's Cup. Scott nearly got into an altercation with the police when we were walking to the subway, they asked him to step aside so he did, but not as far as they wanted him to. I dragged him far far away from them, not wanting to have anything bad happen. It's been in the news lately that the cops shot a teen boy armed only with a hairbrush. Understandable if the kid was threatening to shoot them, but they did fire 20 times. I certainly didn't want to take any chances.

From 2007.11.17

Saturday I got up and headed into the city for my last Saturday photography workshop. I sat at the front of the Path train to get some pictures of the tracks. I was looking out the window taking pictures when a lady conductor came up to me and told me that I was going to have to delete my pictures of the train. I tried to just put the camera away hoping that she'd see I wasn't trying to do anything bad, and she insisted that I delete them. I tried confuse her with a little bit of technical jargon about formatting cards and fragmentation and how I didn't want to lose my other pictures, but she was having none of it and went to call security. So I took my card out and stuck it in my camera bag, she came back and still insisted that I hadn't deleted anything and I couldn't delete things with my card out, so I reached into my bag and pulled out my other card that didn't have anything on it, and acted like I was going to delete stuff. It ended when I finally told her that I had "the utmost respect for her and her position" and that I certianly wasn't trying to do anything malicious. She finally seemed satisfied and walked away without ever seeing me delete anything. I think she must have just been on a crazy power trip, but I was shaking like a leaf. I am not a fan of confrontation. It was definitely more the principle of the thing. Taking a picture is harmless, the MTA subway system lets you take pictures all you want. I know, I looked up the rule and memorized that it is Article 1050 section C. Ha, it made me laugh that the lady was giving me this whole speech about how I couldn't take pictures because they wanted to preserve what little security they had. That didn't make sense to me at all, especially since the part of the tracks we were on could clearly be seen by walking alongside the tracks from a public sidewalk. I may have to write to the Path train people about getting that rule changed. It's really ridiculous and not worth me or anyone else having to be harrased over it. People who want to do harm won't get any more info from pictures they can take from a car since it's obvious that anyone can see everything that would be in that picture anyways.

From 2007.11.17

If that wasn't enough, I left the Path train and hopped on the subway, I saw an open door that I thought looked interesting and I took a picture. A maintenance man came up to me and asked if I was taking a picture. I said yes. He said I wasn't allowed to! I promptly recited the article and section where it said I could and he started yelling at me telling me that he didn't care that I couldn't take a picture back there etc. and to get on the train. Which I was happy to do since it pulled up just then. A sympathetic bystander asked if the guy was yelling at me for taking pictures and shook his head. That made me feel tons better since I was starting to feel really accosted.

From 2007.11.17

I mentioned my experience to my professor who has consistently told us that we are within our rights to do these kinds of things, which is true since we're in public spaces. A perfect teaching example came about when we were walking with him taking pictures and he stopped in the street to take a picture of the back of a hotdog vendor cooking at his cart. When the guy turned around and noticed he got crazy angry and got right in the teacher's face yelling and screaming that he was going to call the cops. So my teacher said ok, call the cops. So the man gets on his cell phone and finally out of my teacher's face and so my teacher took some more pictures of him! I think it was to prove a point, but it was a little antagonistic. By that time we were done there so we decided to move on and the guy kept walking with us for 5 or 6 blocks, staying on the phone with the cops who I assume were telling him that we were doing something perfectly legal. We finally ducked down into the subway to ditch the guy.

From 2007.11.17

Phew, I won't need any more confrontation for at least a year. I don't know what's so intimidating about a camera. I can understand someone asking nicely that you don't take a picture, like some construction workers did, then my professor talked to them and the guy that was waving us away started posing and getting his buddies to pose too. I'm more than happy to respect people's wishes, I just don't want to get yelled and screamed at. I think New York makes people a little crazy.

Trivia for the day: (I learned this in college) You have a greater chance of being killed by lightning than a terrorist.... which means people should stop freaking out about me taking pictures!

Totally Tisch

I had a lovely Monday evening at the Tisch Gala, honoring: Joan Tisch, Billy Crudup '94, Richard Vague, David Liu '87 & Carley Roney. Joan Tisch did a lot of fundraising for the NYU Tisch school of the arts and her family even went on stage and sang the start of a broadway song, then the professionals joined in. David Liu and Carley Roney are the founders of www.theknot.com and Billy Crudup was in movies like Big Fish and Almost Famous. I also saw a few other famous folks, like Jesse L. Martin '91, part of the original Rent cast, he was also in the movie version, Ethan Hawke, and Alec Baldwin. We said hello to Jesse, and I took a picture with a couple of my co-workers standing with him. When my friend Erin went to say hello to Mr. Martin, I of course went to grab my camera and they were already posing and ready, so being flustered I must have turned the camera to the wrong setting and it wouldn't take the picture! Then I figured it out, but for a second there I was worried that I didn't have a memory card in the camera or something silly like that. I'd only taken my little point and shoot camera, which I haven't been using as much lately, and of course all my photography class knowledge went out of my head. Oh well, a snapshot was good enough. The reason I got to go was because Sony had donated money so we got a table with all kinds of good food and drinks, and tickets to the show. Even with the Broadway strike the cast of Spring Awakening performed a couple numbers for us.
Afterward since I was already in Times Square, I went to retake some pictures that I somehow lost from last Saturday. It was a very nice evening.

From Veteran's Day...

Tonight was a volleyball game and we had a lot of the team show up, so I made everyone pose for a team picture. We lost all three games, but i thought we did pretty well considering that we were playing the number 1 team in our league.

Uncove(red)

I had a nice quiet weekend hanging out with Scott. I had class on Saturday, and I somehow managed to lose a whole group of pictures. For some reason the pictures that I took in RAW format decided to dissapear. Of course all the other pictures showed up so I thought they were all on my computer and I formatted the memory card. I guess I'll just have to go re-shoot some things. Some of the pictures that I'll miss the most are of a group of firemen who were putting out a fire/ fixing something down in a manhole. They chatted with me and let me get real close and take all kinds of pictures. The guy down in the manhole even showed me his root canal and explained that he was down there in order to pay it off. At least I've got the story if not the images. The professor had us all draw a subject out of a hat and mine was "Red" which worked out well since I came upon an Elmo and of course many other red things, some of which are gone forever.

From 2007.11.10

I still hold out faint hope that I will find them hidden somewhere on my computer. We watched The Shining over at Sky and Anna's place on Saturday night. I think my recent theme made me really recognize the use of red in that film. Very freaky, and interesting. I'd never seen the whole thing. Today Scott was a good sport and went out on a walk with me to take some more pictures. I was trying to replace some of the ones that I'd lost. I'll have to make another trip to Times Square before I can really do that, which is a pain since daylight hours on the weeknights are tough to come by.
Trivia for the day: Central Park is 51 block or 843 acres, bigger than the country of Monaco.

From 2007.11.10

Appreciating the Small Things

My sister Lauren got a job. It's at Hobby Lobby part time. If you've ever been to Hobby Lobby you know it's a crafter's dream. Similar to a Michael's store only twice as good. I hope she gets good discounts so I can craft more things.
Hmm I'm trying to think about things that I did today that would be interesting. Not too much happened. The only thing that came to mind when I was thinking about my day was the coordination of lunch plans. That's one thing I like about the group I work with, there are about 8 of us who will typically ask each other what we're doing for lunch, and depending on who's busy and who wants what we'll order something together or just grab food and go eat in one of the tables in our bay area overlooking the public atrium. So we sit and chat and people watch. It's a nice little lunchtime thing, that when I start thinking about it, I realize that probably most places you work things like that don't happen. Everyone just goes their own way.
Another happy thing, Scott got home early from work so he was here when I got home. It's nice not to come home to an empty house every once in awhile.
That's three things. I've tried to adopt the habit of naming three good things that happened to me every day before I go to bed. Sometimes Scott and I will share ours with eachother. It really is a good habit to get into. It helps you appreciate the small things and big things in life. It can also help when you think you've had a bad day, because there always seems to be at least three good things, no matter how miniscule.

Trivia about today: It is National X-Ray Day! Happy X-Rays everyone.

Beavers in the Subway

I visited the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) education department today. It was very nice. Every time I go to a place like that I promise myself that I'll go to museums more often and take advantage of my proximity to cultural things while I live in the city. I just need a museum buddy, then it would be easier to convince myself to go. I'm definitely more motivated to go see photography exhibits at least. I did go out to dinner with a friend and a couple of her friends joined us. It was a place called Cafe Orlin, and it had some very good food. I hear they are an excellent place to go for brunch to get pumpkin pancakes with cinnamon yogurt. The whole New York City brunch scene is great, I should just have a brunch fund so I can go. Maybe I'll choose one place a month to treat myself to brunch and then I get to try different places, but it's not too much.

From 2007.11.07

I got to the place where I was supposed to meet Jaclyn for dinner a little early and so I had some time to take a few pictures. It was good practice for low light situations. The subway stations sometimes have some funny decor. This one had beavers all around.

From 2007.11.07

Anyone want to come visit me in NYC? We can go tour cultural sites and check out the art of the subway systems. I'm glad Scott gets back tonight from San Diego. It's a little lonely without my Man.

From 2007.11.07

Trivia for the day: Plaques of beavers are located on the walls of the Astor subway stop in honor of John Jacob Astor's fortune derived from the beaver-pelt trade. The plaques, as well as name tablets, were made by the Grueby Faience Company in 1904.

Perspective on Perfection

Just a quick update, I had class Monday night which went ok. The professor didn’t care for anyone in class’s disposable camera shots. Oh well, I tried. He also didn’t like my picture of sleeping in public with the guy lying in the train. He said it should be cropped closer. I argued that I liked being able to see that it was outside the train looking in and he said to get more train in the shot if that’s what I was going for. Oh well, he keeps saying we’re not “looking” and “seeing” I’m trying my darndest, but I guess I have to look harder. I must admit that I do occasionally make the mistake of centering my subject, which I should know better than to do. Of course he showed us a whole bunch of shots where his subject was in the center, and when I asked he said that we could do that when it looked right. Hah, it’s all so subjective anyway sometimes it’s hard to know when it’s a point where it’s a matter of perception and a matter of just plain needs to be better. With the guy on the train I can definitely see what he’s saying, and I’ll try more next time. I get to the point where I’m ready to just go take flower and tree pictures since he seems to like those, but it seems too easy. I know I can get a shot of something that just sits there. I want to try and perfect something more challenging. Maybe I should just throw in a few flower pics so he can see that I’m trying to move past them. He did like this shot,

From 11.3.07

which I knew he would, but I don’t really care for it that much. It’s tough when I’m editing my pictures to decide between looking with what I know is more to his taste or mine. Maybe I’ll try to stop being so stubborn and do things his way for awhile. I don’t want my “taste” to get in the way of learning.
Tonight we had a volleyball game, on the way there we saw a bake sale on the street by a school so myself and two teammates bought a pumpkin pie and ate it before the game. It must have worked as good fuel since we actually won all three sets! I wasn't at the top of my game, but it turned out all right, ending in a nail biter at the last set as the serve kept getting turned over at 14-14 (games go to 15). Phew, I tried taking a few shots but nothing turned out, I wasn't really concentrating on pictures as much as the game.

New York City Marathon

I went to NYC today to send an e-mail that I'd forgotten to send out on Friday, then while I was in the area, I decided to walk over to the bottom of Central Park in order to see some of the runners from The New York City Marathon. I was happy at the way some of the shots I took turned out today. I didn't think there'd be that many good shots to get, but it was a really good place to practice my technique. The same thing happened over and over, so I could just stand there and practice. It was nice that there was still something different about each runner. Looking back through the shots was neat. I was standing at about the 23/24th mile out of 25. It was interesting to see how people who had all run the same race and were at the same place, were still so individual. Some people were bounding, some were limping, some were smiling some were grimacing some people ran with stiff arms some people swung their arms back and forth etc.

From NYC Marathon

There were hundreds of people there lined up to cheer the runners on. These weren't people they knew, but people who just wanted to be supportive. Some people had their names written on their shirt so you could call out encouragement to them specifically. It was kind of a rush to see people at the end of their endurance and to shout out postive encouragement with the crowd. Some people even had phrases written that they wanted you to yell at them, and everyone did. it was a lot neater than I thought it would be. I'm glad I went.

From NYC Marathon

I also tried to take a picture from the platform of a bag lady who was surrounded by bags, gathering them up in an empty subway car. So as I had my back to her to set up the shot and turn around to take it, I saw a guy sleeping. Unfortunately he was waking up and the train was about to leave so I got a little flustered and it came out blurry, but it's definitely one of my favorite sleeping in public shots so far except for the blurriness. I was proud of the composition, I didn't have to crop it at all in the computer, at least I got that right.

From Sleeping in P...

Wandering Photographer

Friday morning I woke up early to go on my "photo walk." For class we were given disposable cameras and told to take pictures facing toward, away and on either side of the sun. Sine the time I see daylight is so sparse I got up and walked over to the graveyard at the end of the street. I must say, I should have used the flash more once I saw the developed film. Oh well, I enjoy digital much more. Instant feedback is great! I was boring on Friday evening and just came home. I was ready to fall asleep on the train. Now that I've been taking pictures of sleeping people I get the strange feeling that someone would do the same to me.

From 11.3.07

From 11.3.07

Saturday I had class and I ran out of the house without my homework, (the pictures from the disposable camera.) Then it took me so long to find parking that I ended up being 10 minutes late for class. I should have taken the train. We went over to Bryant Park with the objective of re-shooting some trees and getting the right exposure. Then we wandered over to Times Square for some general shooting.

From 11.3.07

From 11.3.07

From 11.3.07

Greenwich Village Halloween Parade

Any adventurous people who like Halloween should definitely come visit me in New York at the end of October next year. I will show you a good time. Marching in the Village Halloween parade is an experience not to be missed. I tried to convince many friends here that they should join me, but they all either watch from the sidelines or pass altogether. When you're watching from the side, you really don't get to see everything, and you're so crammed in with other people that the only costume you'll probably see is the tip of some Wizard's hat. Of course there are the stiltwalkers and the amazing animatronic statues that tower over everyone's head, you'll see all twelve of those. But you won't see and experience the thousands of costumed people walking in the parade, and get people to clap for you, scream at the sight of you, cheer you on, laugh at you all while you have actual elbow room. Last night I headed down to Scott's lab and we got dressed and walked over to the start of the parade. That is the worst part, where you are standing in a large crowd of people who suddenly take up more room than they usually do, due to extra appendages and props. But once the cops let you out of the starting gate, it's smooth sailing. You can walk at your own pace and choose which band or musical float you want to walk by and dance with. You get to see everyone's costume, and everyone gets to see you. I had many small children tell me that I won, that I was the best costume they saw that night, which was a pretty great accomplishment considering the creativity that was on display. Of course, for all I know they could have said that to ten people that night, but I still felt proud. Two separate girls called me "cute" which I thought was a funny way to describe my costume, and many people did double takes as we walked by. A mime and a headless person, in love. That's an interesting plot line. Anyway, enjoy the pictures for now, and make plans to visit next year!