Living in the past

Sometimes I hate holding on to things. I hate having lug books from house to house. I hate having to navigate through hundreds of thousands of photos. I hate having boxes and boxes of clippings for collages taking up half my closet. Sometimes this hatred gets the best of me, and I decide to clean house if you will. But I never really get rid of them. All those books, they've given me so much pleasure, so much insight, they're more like old friends than old books. And although it can be obnoxious, looking at all those photos and clippings can provide me with such pleasure. The nostalgia of my photographic past. And all that joy is worth the suffering.

What up, Seattle.

Living in a major metropolitan area has really moved my focus from the world to the concrete. The sky used to provide me with such pleasures, the naturally low buildings, wide streets and the incredibly beautiful "procession of clouds" used to absorb hours of my time. Now, not only is the sky above cloudy/raining 91.6% of the time (that is an actual average), checking out the architecture of the city is apparently a tourist activity. Today was clear and sunny (although, the ability of my camera to expose correctly with fool you) so I decided to go against the norm and look up. Funny, every time I would look up and shoot, my surrounding pedestrians would look up, as if to witness the miracle I was photographing , however, they seemed disappointed. 5th Avenue Theatere? What's special about that? Ba! It's been there my whole life! What's the big deal? Or, maybe it's the showing of South Pacific, they weren't showing it last week. Hrmm. Oh well. Sorry to disappoint.

The Denium Dilemma.

I hate buying pants. Plain and simple. When I want a suit, I get a short because of my short torso. I turn to the "European" cut of shirts to flatter my hourglass shape and small shoulders. But pants are a constant issue. I'm left with four options; Skinny Jeans, Thug Jeans or having shit tailored. I have huge muscular thighs. And large calves. I live in a city and bike, it's a residential hazard. But apparently, you have to be paralyzed in order to buy attractive pants. For me, my issues are as follows; small waist, large quads, small knee joint followed by large calf and small ankle. Tight fitting pants hug all these curves and make me look like an overweight 14 year old who spent three hours trying to squeeze into her new BDG whatever the fucks from Urban Outfitters. "Relaxed" jeans are my best bet, but I feel really unattractive in fucking balloon pants. The best pair of pants I've ever owned were these incredible Liz Clairborne "straights" from the nineties that I found in some thrift shop back home. Not only were they this great chocolate brown that went with everything, they looked great on me. I wore them for years, until, a couple months ago, the knees finally went out. Today, I had to go out and face the world of pants. After hours of searching, I had to give up and purchase the leftmost pair. Apparently, they are NOT skinny, but "slim." I have no idea what the difference is, however they were slightly better looking on me than those labeled "skinny" or "tight." I still feel really uncomfortable in them. But I need pants, even if I look like some teddy boy with a beyonce rump.

The importance of filters.

The following has no real outline. Stream of conscious blogging and ranting:
Today, I picked up a roll of film I had shot about a week ago. Somehow, I had mistaken it for black and white. However, it was color. I had shot the roll practicing with my homemade color filters. And now I have 36 wasted prints, and I'm $13 poorer. I learned the magic of contrast enhancement via colored filters while under the wing of the great Boise photographer Rick Baker (who sadly passed away during a ski accident). Rick had an incredible assortment of filters that he generously lent out to his students to play with. I'll never forget being fourteen years old and carefully logging each photograph I took in a steno notebook "March 7th, 2006 9:02 pm. Shot 16. Man (sam?) with brick. f 2.6 shutter 30. Poor tungsten lighting. used tripod and blue filter." This is one of the many things I miss about true film photography- the dedication. Every shot was precious, each roll a laborious chore to develop, spending hours hunched over an enlarger, trying to get the perfect exposure, to not waste costly paper on mistakes. Now, with digital, although I have greater control of post processing, I feel so disconnected with the actual capturing. I can easily take a hundred photos for one shoot, choosing maybe one or two to begin a a series of clicks, eventually coming up with something suitable. Although I totally dig digital, I still miss the feeling of pride that would come after a day in darkroom. "I did this. Every step of the way. It is truly a part of me." I have no idea when or why film became synonymous with under exposed, grainy, blurry images, but it disgusts me. It is so simple to pick up a toy camera and shoot a roll of total shit and call it art, because film is so "funky." Film is not "funky." Up until a few short years ago, all the great photos of the world, from Yousuf Karsh's Winston Churchill 1941, to Steve McCurry's Afghan Girl, or Dorthea Lange's Migrant Mother were all taken with film. Film is such a beautiful and magical thing. Now here is how I feel about the ending of production of Polaroid film; Polaroids repulse me. The sooner the film is wasted on a drunken tween photography, the better. And, also, Lomography is hardly a fucking fine art. So, please, don't get me started. I don't like to think of myself as a photographic "snob" but if appreciating good photography is wrong, then, fuck, I don't want to be right. done.

...
This post has gotten waaay off subject. What I really wanted to focus on was, as the title says the importance of filters. To the right, I have created an example of the use of filters to increase contrast (from the digital test shots used to aid in the before mentioned "ruined" roll.) The leftmost image shows a raw, unfiltered b&w. The poor natural light coming through the blinds provides poor contrast. However, applying a red filter, reduces the blue overtones caused by rain outside. Thus, more of the light entering the camera becomes usable, and contrast is increased. This sort of simple trick really adds a lot to a simple low light photo, turning it from a silhouette to a more "mysterious" low lit portrait. The unfortunate grain is the result of using a dodgy three year old camera that has been through quite a lot of abuse. All in all, I'm still pleased with the accident, and will add the photos to my pile of mistake stock photos. :)

Mornings in her room, she would write about men.

Dawn is my absolute favorite time of day. I would gladly give up all the midnight twinkling of city lights that I love for a million sunrises. No matter where I have been, all around the world, dawn has always been the same; sleepy, blissful. A time when it feels that all my worldly troubles are gone, and I have been- forgiven. The early sun pouring through my window blinds fills me with so much love and happiness. It's kind of silly. But it really means so much to me. And since my blog is titled "in the morning time" I decided to share my morning routine.

Wake up.
Check my phone for text messages/missed calls
Check my email in bed.
Check facebook
Catchup on my daily blogs.
Pee.
Make coffee.
Drink before mentioned coffee and listen to music.
Do a few stretches and light exercises.
Bathe.
Find something to wear.
Seize the fucking day.

So there is my sappy post about mornings. Done. haha

Six months of shit.

The following are excerpted from my diary over the past months. They fall in no particular order and should not require commentary. I find them amusing in hindsight. I also find many of them surprisingly lyrical and poetic.

"I believe I found him. But the night was dark and the wind was harsh, and I all I knew of him was the taste of his lips."

"A bigger city does not equal a bigger life."

"An odd neurosis that emerges before you go on a journey? Picking Perfect Socks."

"We spent all night, arguing over maslow's hierarchy of needs. Needless to say, we got nowhere."

"Again he was "too tired." Does working a mind numbing job forty hours a week really prevent him from keeping it up for ten minutes?"

"Interesting couples ( ) are always invited. ( ) cover the planet. (X) last."

"I arose today, after troubled dreams and changed the world."

"Do children like you? Yes. Do you like children? No."

"I can no longer stand by this costly cover up."

"Today, I am a slave, tomorrow I am free."

"I went a journey to smash imperialism and found myself victim of international fraud."

"Despite everything, there is someone who always knows what's right. Who is it? He is a man who I will turn to for the rest of my life. Even if he is not there, I will seek out his wisdom."

"We're falling apart. And all I can do is watch. I will hate myself for letting this happen, but I can longer allow it to control me. I love him."

"She's got a pretty look, with a bad creation story."

"I'm just a washing machine- convenience based. No one visits their washing machine in the hospital. No one mourns over it's death. They move on, and the machine becomes something new."

"What is your biggest handicap? My childhood. When will I ever grow up? Who will I be?"

"A current blessing you fear may only be temporary. Being single."

"He has found himself another. Am I jealous? Yes. Would I want to be him? Absolutely not. I just want to be loved, not wrung through a Satre novel."

"Who will hoe the earth? Who will harvest the grain? Not I, said the lazy dog. Not I, said the sleepy cat. And the little red hen did it all by herself."

A walk in the woods

Yesterday we had incredible weather. I spent a good part of the day catching up on my gastronomical reading; M.F.K. Fisher's How to Cook a Wolf (first edition copy of my grandmother's ca: 1942) and Phineas Beck's Clémentine in the Kitchen (a wedding gift to my grandmother from 1944) both from my mother and both part essay and part recipe. Fisher's masterpiece deals with surviving depression after spending three years in Dijon France, with such chapter titles as; How to Keep Alive, How to Be Cheerful Though Starving and How to Practice True Economy. However, Phineas Beck (a nom de plume of Samuel Chamberlain) is of a completly diffrent tone. The Beck Family were a group of expatriates who, unlike Fisher, escaped the depression by moving to France. Upon their emigration the Becks came in contact with a woman who swiftly changed their life, their dear cordon bleu Clémentine showed them the world of de la cuisine française, who, upon the outbreak of war, they brought to their new home outside of Boston where, after an initial culture shock began to thrive and share her love of French cuisine to mid-century traditional east coasters. The book, although a very cheery can be quite overwhelming in it's optimism. Beck's dramatic writing style and over use of the prefix gastro- (which in English has few true possibilities, however Beck seems uninhibited and creates his own; gastrotronic, gastroic, gastonomical etc.) The juxtaposition is defiantly a nice change, Fisher's volume can often be very bleak, making even my poverty seem luxurious. Both texts contain fantastic recipes, however due to my economic position attempting any of Beck/Clémentine's gay recipes would put me in even a worse situation than I already reside. Clémentine's Truffes Et Marrons En Cocotte is transcribed bellow:

Take equal quantities of well formed truffles of Burgundy and massive, handsome chestnuts from Luc. Simmer the truffles for fifteen minutes in white Meursault, butter, salt and spices. Grill the chestnuts slightly in the oven and peel them. Prepare a good concentrated juice with lean beef, chicken wings and a knuckle of veal. Chop up some truffle peelings, foie gras and chicken livers into a fine dice and add them to the juice when it has been reduced and strained. Moisten the truffles and chestnuts wwith this juice and cook them gently in a cocotte for about 45 minutes, adding a bordeaus glass of brandy, two tablespoons of thick cream and six tablespoons of old Maderia wine. Serve in the cocotte.

...

After a few hours, the unusually warm weather and calm spring like breeze (it's a whopping 32 degrees in my home town) called me out into the woods that surround my apartment complex (one of the few pros about living outside of the city). I explored the near by Lyon Creek and was amazed at how soft the earth was and how many birds there were! My whole life has been spent in the mountains, where you more often then not are still getting snow at the end of April. The rain started again today, which used to really bother me, but over time, I think you really just get used to it, and forget a world where it doesn't rain at least twice a week. I've become completely immune to being soaked on a daily basis. I think leaving this place (which, due to unfortunate circumstances, I'll be forced to do in late February) will be more difficult then coming. Anyway, I hope your day was as joyous as mine. :)

The New Year

I spent New Years eve with Alexandra and Dylan. What a bizarre night. :)