I'll miss the Razboinitzi

Colin is dropping off Tiger and Bubbles in a ranch this evening and will pick them up next week when he returns to Seattle. I won't see them for 2+ weeks. I'll miss them so much :-(.

I'm working from home today and they're snoozing on the couch: how adorable are they?!

Hofmauer 2006

One of my assignments this week was to photograph a response to Martina Sauter's Hofmauer. I had to go all the way to Ballard to visit a gallery where the piece was exhibited. I hadn't done any research on the artist before going, so I had no expectations, and when I got there I couldn't believe I'd taken 2 hours off my busy day to go see *that*. I really didn't care for it. More than anything, I was angry at the waste of time.

Below is Sauter's image (real size is 39" x 53"). What was even more daunting was that I had to photograph a response to something that I found obscure and uninspiring. That, and I had no time because of work, a big release this week (was in the office until 3 am two nights this week) and prepping for my biz trip in London. Anyway, I did "my best", given what I had. Second image is my response. You have to click to enlarge and really see what's going on. It turns out that the original image is a composite of Martina's backyard and Hitchcock's footage. I took a similar approach - photographed several brick buildings right outside the gallery and found an image from Rear Window (love that movie!), which I cropped and put in the middle. I purposefully didn't line up the bricks to point to the same vanishing point - I wanted the whole thing to look awkward because I think her work looks awkward and I really was quite angry at this assignment.

BTW, I decided to use a panorama format (4:1 ratio) because that's what I need to shoot for my other class (for the bus shelters public art). It's a pretty challenging format to work in, so I wanted to get some practice. FWIW, this image is suited for a panorama format.

Phil's and Karen's 40th

To celebrate Phil and Karen both turning 4-0, we spent a great weekend with them down in California. We drove to the coast and stayed at Half Moon Bay. I didn't end up taking lots of pictures from the coast, but here are a few from the weekend:

Seattle public art

For one of my photo classes, I've had to observe, document and analyze a number of public art installations around Seattle. Yesterday, for example, I took the brand new light rail from the International District to the airport and documented what I saw along the way. I got off at the Tukwila station and explored the art in more depth.

Overall observation: There's a fair bit of public art in Seattle (much more than I'd ever noticed) but most of it is not particularly good. I don't know why that is. Public art, unlike other forms of art, really has to be pretty accessible to most and has to have a time-less quality. In fact, much of the art I've seen feels dated.

As I embark on my project to provide images for the bus shelters in Seattle, I'm learning more and more what not to do and have very few examples of art that actually works. Daunting.

Here's one of the better pieces I saw yesterday (A Drop of Sustenance, Tad Savinar):

Portugal - part 1

OK ok, i know... it has been a while.
contrary to my sister, i am not a blogoholic, so updates on this side of the continent have lately been sparse, to say the list.
it is therefore not surprising that my better half and i have returned from our 2-week trip to portugal 3 weeks ago, and it is only now that i decide to post some pics.

we went backpacking in portugal, with a Lonely Planet book in our bags and no itinerary (and clearly no wish for one).

we arrived in lisabon, a gorgeous city filled with diverse cultures (Portugal has the highest immigration rates in the EU) and yet with a unified feel of beauty, coziness and human warmth.



the highlight of lisabon was a visit to the local aquarium, the Oceanario, which included, well, an aquarium filled with fish of all sorts. However, the size of the fish tank was somewhat imposing, with a water capacity equivalent to 4 Olympic pools.



Then, a daytrip to Sintra (30km west of Lisabon) allowed us to discover some of the beautiful castles scattered around the portugese capital. We spent the day looking for a summerhouse, and it seems we ended up finding one to our humble liking. we're currently working on getting our mortgage approved, but I feel it's a done deal.



The house seems indeed to have been destined to us, given that we clearly have some common interests with the previous owners, who also happened to like Razboinitsi:



After Sintra, we headed to Nazare, a quiet fishing village where we had the chance to catch up a day of celebrations in honor of the local Saint/Patron. The streets were covered with carpets of fresh flowers and laurel leaves where the entire village (all 300 of them it seemed) walked into a noisy, happy and chattering procession.





And that completes week 1 in Portugal! Stay tuned for Part 2, which will be coming soon... Perhaps in 3-4 weeks :)

My new studio

I'm very proud to report that for less than $100 and 3 hours of work, I set up a new studio last night. A quick trip to Home Depot for some basics + lights, a 90% discounted black fabric and a bit of help from Colin and voila. I've got a backdrop system, which allows me to switch the fabric depending on my needs, a fluorescent light on a tripod, a smaller halogen lamp and I even crafted a box for one of the lights to make it more focused. I dragged a full-size mirror in the room too, which I can use to redirect light.

The setup is nothing to write home about, though perfectly respectable for blogging purposes. Now I just need models - I think I've depleted Colin's patience (a monumental task), doing self-portaits gets old very quickly and the dogs are too hard to keep still. Time to ask for favors of my friends :-)

Sorry for the crappy pictures, but this gives you an idea:

Untitled #30

What do you think this is? Hint: I haven't used any post-processing. Email me your guess; correct answers win nothing :-). I don't know, maybe it's really obvious, maybe it's not. Because I know what it is, I can't imagine whether one could figure it out from the image alone. Anyway, click on the image to enlarge and let me know what your guess is.

10.10.10 @ 10:10pm

This evening we had Lynn and Fred over for dinner for a France-planning trip. After they left I did my assignment for my Design class. I was supposed to photograph a "response" or "reaction" to the Saint Ignatius chapel, which I visited last week. I posted a few of my shots from the chapel here, but they were mostly from the outside. The first three images below are from the inside of the chapel. The last image is my response. I wanted to go with something a bit more abstract, as religion itself is abstract, and the chapel is certainly much more conceptual and stylized than a bunch of crosses and crucified Christ images all over the place. Also, being an atheist, I didn't connect with the chapel at a religious or spiritual level - I just found it a very peaceful, modern, serene and clean place. The architect chose "gathering of different lights" as the guiding concept for his design and I was hoping to play on that a bit. The colors in the chapel change based on the time of day. When I went, there were a bunch of reds and blues. There was lots of light seeping through various openings in the walls and ceiling.

I may play around with the idea a bit more before I submit the assignment on Thursday.

My response:

Juror in the house!

This past week, Colin was on jury duty, for the first time. Now that he's an American citizen, he's got new duties to oblige to :-). He was assigned to a civil case, involving a financial dispute around medical expenses related to a car crash on I-5. The defendant and plaintiff survived the accident without any major damage (to themselves, not to their cars), but several years later, the plaintiff claimed additional medical charges related to the accident.

During the trial, Colin wasn't allowed to say anything about the case, so we were both impatient for it to end, so we could discuss the process, the case, the verdict, etc. All things considered, he (and me, based on his comments) were impressed with how fair the system is, though of course, a big factor is who ends up on the jury. With Colin there, I'm sure they had a fair trial ;-)

Colin even got a certificate of recognition:

(The small print says: This certificate is awarded in recognition of this valuable service in the Administration of Justice to the people of the State of Washington.)

Razboinitzi

Razboinitzi = trouble makers

I caught Bubbles and Tiger in their crime: they just broke a branch off of the magnolia tree. The floppy ears indicate that they know they are in trouble (and guilty!). Bubbles was definitely the ring leader of the operation, as is always the case whenever they cause trouble.

Pike Place Market

Where are Colin's shoes?

Colin was missing 3 shoes. We quickly found them in Tiger's "condo", where Bubbles had dragged them and where he was hiding himself. He just put on his cute and innocent puppy face, which is very difficult to get mad at.

x

Chapel of Saint Ignacius

My first assignment for my Design class this Fall was to visit the Chapel of Saint Ignacius (in Seattle, built in 1997) and photograph it. Here are my shots: