I’ve been busy following my objectives, clearly and passionately. One of them was to take more photos, so below are some results of my work. Infrared film – Ilford SFX 200, camera is Holga. I added a little poem for each shot. Full set here.
there will be fragrant life when earth awakes.
the quiet chirping of the creek
will be replaced
by vulgar shrieks of birds
apres:
sharp, angsty spears of winter
replaced by a standing ovation
of eager reeds
* * *
you can wait for an angel
or you can make one yourself
by imbibing the snow into shape
* * *
attempting to forever possess a bird
- a noble, blue gray white flutter, -
i managed to imprison the light
blinding self and
disgusting the game
* * *
it is not a black forest
but really a negative of the blanched, clear sky
the birch trees of my motherland
sprout endless crowns to heaven
Before the New Year, secretly, in November I thought about what I wanted to accomplish (from the creative perspective) in 2010. I’ve got my career goals outlined all right, and I’ve a plan, and, in fact, tonight after leaving the office I plan to attack said goals with vigor inspired by the new Starbucks VIA instant coffee (oh what a nice plug, can I get a pack of it for free now?). Or the espresso machine that got installed in our office.
Sp. Creative side. I dusted off my Holga. I’ve had it since 2005 and I have been taking photographs with it, but not many. I’ve thoroughly researched various Ilford films and found places where I can buy a fun variety of film rolls:
Ilford SFX 200 120: medium speed black and white camera film for creative photography. It has extended red sensitivity and is especially suited for use with a filter to create special effects. By using a deep red filter skies can be rendered almost black and most green vegetation almost white. Its unusual tonal rendition ensures interesting results for a range of subjects, including portraits, landscapes, townscapes and architecture.
Ilford XP2 400 120: a sharp, fast, fine grain black and white film. It can be used for any photographic subject, but ensures excellent results when there is a wide subject brightness range. The film yields high contrast negatives and has an extremely wide exposure latitude making it suitable for use in varied lighting conditions.
Ilford Delta 3200 120: an ultra-speed black and white film, ideal for fast action and low light photography such as night time, sport, or indoor architectural applications where flash photography is ‘forbidden’. This is a genuine high speed film with an ability to record highlight detail that sets it apart from other films.
Ilford H5 400 120: a high speed, medium contrast film making it especially suitable for action and press photography and also an excellent choice for general purpose photography. Nominally rated at ISO 400, it yields negatives of outstanding sharpness and fine grain under all lighting conditions.
I used to take pictures like this. And I even had them printed, but prints have disappeared into a storage abyss:
Update: Last weekend the wonderful Colleen and I went uptown to relax and hey, I used the Holga. I’ve got 12 shots that are being developed as we sit here in front of our computers. I also have 24 b&w exposures and 24 color exposures from last year. It’s happening.
What a great find on Etsy! A Portland, OR illustrator Ryan Berkeley of Berkeley Illustration captures various members of the animal kingdom (some as obscure as caterpillars and chiroptera, that is, bats) with humorous and creative mini-descriptions. I personally love imagining personalities and traits of not only various people, but objects and sometimes animals, just by looking at them. Glad Ryan took the extra steps and captured the mammals in dashing suits. Check out some of the work, and go buy some Christmas prints for your loved ones in 5×7, 8×10 and 11×14 sizes here!
With his winning smile, this giraffe is a natural catalog model. As you might suspect, most of his jobs are booked for neckware but he also does good business with men’s slippers and bathrobes.
After cataract surgery ten years ago, this cheetah realized that an eyepatch can be a real conversation starter with the ladies. His eye has long since healed but his social calendar remains quite full.
This bat is a lover of the nightlife, especially 80s Karaoke night. He always gets the crowd going with his falsetto rendition of “Dancing In The Dark”.
Tragically this squirrel has a vicious peanut allergy. Luckily he lives in an area that has an abundance of berries.
Once a popular jazz pianist, this shark has most recently become a song and dance showman. His voice has been described as “a cross between Louis Armstrong and Kenny Rogers”. Unfortunately his fierce temper has limited his gigs to biker bars and convict picnics.
I had the privilege of laughing my butt and brain off whilst reading this superb analysis of Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance video by my Italian sci-fi-obsessed, Harvard-throttling friend of friends, Ainge. Her livejournal (holy crap, old school!) is friends-only, so you are missing on a lot of entertainment and a drastic increase in sci-fi writing compared to her political science days. Nevertheless! See below, a minute-by-minute commentary.
can i just fucking talk about how fucking sweet lady gaga’s BAD ROMANCE video is? 0:10 – that coat = coatgasm. the fucking glasses! she is on some klaus nomi shit right here.
0:12 – why didn’t i think of having fucking metallic mesh just hanging on my nails like that? i love you, woman. watching the video in real time, that device she hits looked like some security business. pausing it, i see it’s some kind of stereo control. eh. maybe she is trying to be deep by likening a stereo to a doomsday device. you go, gaga.
0:17 – nemiroff vodka. this is why i decide the dude in this is russian. omg, i could totally spoiler you about him right now but i won’t.
0:23 – cyborg coffin pods, omg. if i ever get a thule ski rack (lol what am i gonna be, some kind of suv-drivin vermonter) i am going to spray paint it to look like one of these.
0:29 – bath haus. hot.
0:40 – spiky latex people. do want. i honestly did not know this about myself until seeing this badass lady gaga video.
0:48 – i do believe she just gave herself anime eyes. lady gaga, you are a vision in soft peaches and cool greys. i do not know whether to find you cute or repulsive. i like this about you.
0:52 – that spazzy fingertapping. hot.
0:59ish – the spiky latex people are amazing dancers. it’s like a creepy german new wave broadway musical.
1:05 – first crotchgrab. lady gaga, you are so naughty!
1:23 – rape chic motif begins. i wonder whether i could possibly be critical of lady gaga.
1:32 – see what i mean, latex and jazz hands.
1:50 – lady gaga is being forcibly drugged with what i am assuming is nemiroff vodka, out of a glass that looks lucite. she looks italian in her close-ups.
1:59 – oh, androgyny, you get me every time.
2:03 – lady gaga is wearing the most amazing shit i’ve seen since morrigan in dragon age. she is covered in a diamond chainmail of sorts. it is equal parts baroque and outer space and i am quite taken with it. it is the living dream of every girl who looked up at a chandelier in some italian house and was all “i want a dress and coordinating mask made out of that shit.”
2:15 – lady gaga is emaciated and in prison.
2:17 – but look at that glittering rose epaulet right there.
2:20 – i think this is nemiroff. i wish viggo mortensen was playing his role, but sadly he would never be in a lady gaga video.
2:22 – work it, gaga.
2:26 – i believe she just tugged some air wang, also known as the beataff gesture.
2:33 – seriously, someone’s nonna has her entire headpiece as a fruit bowl somewhere in burnaby, st-leonard, woodbridge, etc.
2:37 – holy fuck it’s not nemiroff, it’s darth malak! and gaga is going to get on his junk.
2:40 – gaga apparently also shakes it in prison.
2:42 – HAIRLESS CAT WITH METAL TEETH. cute and horrifying, much like la gaga. the best villain pet, ever.
2:45 – oh shit he just turned on LOTS OF LAPTOPS. which look a lot like my shitty hp. lady gaga has been sold, presumably on the russian internet.
2:58 – i am not going to shit up this glorious dance sequence with pithy commentary.
3:04 – lady gaga is being presented in an ethereal cage of fishing line and lucite diamonds to the gayest, hottest-looking russian mafia ever. note rosary shoutout at 3:03.
3:06 – PRESS PAUSE AND LOOK AT THOSE SWEET SHOES. all the villain ladies in the next major sci fi series must be issued these shoes.
3:15 – oh, hey there cross. and hello sign of the cross inspired dance move at 3:18. yes, she went to catholic school. she appears to be picking up where madonna left off on that front.
3:21 – that is the most badass lingerie ever in the most badass lingerie fabric ever: metal.
3:25 – don’t you just wanna bronze her for posterity? also, shoes.
3:32 – and now gaga is on some vivienne westwood maria-from-metropolis shit. she is positively encrusted in rhinestones and those shoes are so absurd-hot. i think this is the point where the haters get all “lady gaga looks like a drag queen” because they can’t deal with the fact lady gaga likes to deal in gender superlatives.
3:45 – bearskin train. with head. i have a good feeling about this. this gaga is going to avenge all the alternate futuristic implied sexual slavery gagas.
3:50 – looks like darth malak nemiroff (a hunting man) is ready to play. his vodka on the rocks is like 90% rocks. douche. oh ho ho, gaga’s gonna get him.
4:03 – the dance sequence is as slick as the glossy parkade it’s being filmed in. i like the part where she pounds the ground with her fists.
4:13 – i wish they got a hotter guy for this.
4:15 – yeah, press pause. gaga, pg-13 naked, and those two taxidermies.
4:17 – lights on. lady gaga is the closest thing i’m ever going to get to hot sci fi porn.
4:18 – YES SHE’S SETTING HIS PLACE ON FIRE. guess what my favourite part of waiting to exhale was?
4:25 – how fabulous is that red thing?
4:26 – enjoy your moment, gaga. revel in it.
4:29 – my point about the german new wave broadway musical stands.
4:41 – saint gaga, posing with her handiwork. press pause, print this out, and just worship it.
4:50 – the mood seems more festive now that malak has been defeated.
5:00 – post coital, except she gets her kicks setting the dude on fire. she then enjoys a cigarette and the sparks emitted by her nipples.
5 years ago, when I was 17 and about to finish high school – first let me tell you, it was an exciting time because I was a genius in History 12, secured two hot career preparation program placements, got into the university of my choice, had a rockstar boyfriend, grand plans, read the some of the most influential books and was just so happy to reach the peak of my teenage days, – I wrote a collection of prose poetry a la Dreamtigers (you can read parts right here!).
Called From A Dreamtiger, with its mantelpiece is My Baby Krishna (the pictured object on the left), the collection centers on my perceptions of colors, relationships between numbers, memories of friends of the past, and travels. I was really proud of it because it was my first non-childish collection of pieces that really channeled . My writing instructors liked them, as well as MFA writing candidates that I used to talk to a lot. Back then I used to say that every five years I feel like writing about things from the past, and I will probably write about 2004 five years down the road.
In the past month I started to recall more and more little and big things from roughly 5 years ago – events, details, light, people, words exchanged. I remember the walks to the theatre in the falling snow, picnics in the forest, writing papers on the horrors of The Satyricon, frantically trying to comprehend the stock market in a race to win, Spanish visitors, multiple bars in Vancouver with equally multiple sins and vices, music and music and music, the film and modeling, bright future, eternal union, new member of the family, utter confusion borne out of fear of loss and changes, and more and more, expressed in frail and sensitive terms.
I feel the coming of the second chapter of my recollections, which I will add to the first and start looking for publishing opportunities.
Here it is again! While reading Sean Moffitt‘s SlideShare Presentation: Word of Mouth – A Prescription for the Bad Economy, I saw a slide which was yet another miracle from the BBDO NY’s office for UK-based The Economist. I understand it’s last year’s, but I don’t get to see many billboards, especially The Economist billboards here in Canada. “Think outside the dodecahedron.” First of all, dodecahedron is any polyhedron with twelve faces, but usually a regular dodecahedron is meant: a Platonic solid composed of twelve regular pentagonal faces, with three meeting at each vertex. Second, ’tis brilliant. I’ve seen the blogosphere really take on the expression. Thirdly, I personally think that the ad is not “telling you to think outside the dodecahedron”, as if you can do it just like that. This is more about the power you will attain by reading The Economist (damn it, I missed the last two issues myself, they’re in Toronto, and I’m in Vancouver until the 2nd). This is thinking about the thinking outside of the box. Squared, cubed. It’s about innovation2.
By the way, while we are on the topic, check out the rest of the amazing advertising slogans (following the cut) created for The Economist and selected by Chand Arora. My favorites are highlighted:
I bought this in November via the Show and Tell gallery. First, I saw this We Kill You WKY print at The Embassy in Kensington Market and I just loved it. Look at it! So much positive energy. Also, these creatures – they exude friendliness, and yet, you see that if you get too close, they won’t be shy to use their sharp fangs. Perhaps, I am reading into this too much. But this print is definitely a mood-lifter. I like the seeming three-dimensionality and the oncoming wave of monster creatures.
I don’t know the creator or his story, unfortunately, but check out their link and see for yourself. Hailing from Toronto, they’ve done a lot of creative stuff here and there. There’s a lot of bright merchandise that you can snatch as the last minute stocking stuffers.
I love The Economist. I love their advertising. BBDO forever!
Look at this smart way of getting their message across:
I simply can’t get enough. These pizza boxes with world food distributions stats appeared in 20 Philadelphia-area pizza shops. They are strategically located around universities and colleges, showing how students’ food consumption affects the rest of the world, and how The Economist is relevant to their lifestyle.
If I wasn’t hooked already, I’d go out and buy an issue immediately.
there will be fragrant life when earth awakes.
it is not a black forest
