Steve, Andrea, and I recently went on a day trip out to Davis.  Why?  Well…  There was a Super Street Fighter IV tourney at Drom’s Comics & Cards, so we thought we’d give it a shot.  Seems that we were pretty much the only two people there who didn’t really know anyone else.  So, odd.  Plus, they use PS3s.  Our fightpads are for the 360, because the PS3 fightpads (which Steve also has) are worthless (Damn you, MadCatz!).  Since neither of us are joystick players, we had to throw down on some janky-assed Sega Saturn pads.  Lame.  Despite the competition we faced first round, we both went out in a blaze of fail.  Missing hadokens and air tatsus left and right.  Miserable.

So, on the way back to the car, I randomly snapped this picture of a bike rack at the Amtrak station.  No-look shot, just a one-off.  I didn’t really shoot much there, but perhaps next time.

Once in a while, great ideas are had.  They change the way you think, the way you look at art, and maybe society.  When these ideas spring to life, they can enrich your existence in ways never before thought possible.

This is not that kind of idea.

This is pure unadulterated humor, sprung forth from the sick twisted minds of sick twisted people.  And therefore, it is awesome.  Travis, the duder behind the oh-so-magical Whiskey For Breakfast, has come up with a rather amusing premise for what I’d call a comedic photo essay.  He’s had part one of this series up for a while now, but I’m just now getting to blogging about it.

The shoot happened the weekend of the iPad launch, and instead of standing around with a bunch of geeks and nerds, we drove around town shooting ridiculous photos of Steve in a bodybag.  All in all, good times.

More will be surfacing through the cracks of Travis’ demented frontal lobe as it leaks out.

Check out Whiskey For Breakfast, or follow Travis on Twitter.  Have an idea for a bodybag shoot?  Contact Travis on Twitter with the hashtag #thingstodowithabodybag.

Another photo from the Apple Hill trip.  Again, forgot the farm name, but there was this huge stack of apple bins behind the barn-type building, and I got a few interesting shots.  I don’t shoot enough of patterns and whatnot, so I thought I’d do just that.

I’ve had this shot lying around in Lightroom for a while, and I never got around to doing anything with this day’s shots.  We went up to Apple Hill in October, and this one was a collaboration between Steve and I (mutual idea, his iPhone).  Don’t ask me about the title, I’m tired, and it was the best thing I could come up with (although “One of these things is not like the others / One of these things just doesn’t belong” is still stuck in my head hehe).

Don’t remember which farm this was at, but it’s the one with the pond and fishing area.

I know, I know.  I’m horrible.  I only got Day 1 because it was after midnight during an existing shoot, and I didn’t even bust out the camera on Day 2 or 3.  Wow, talk about fail.  Anyways.  I decided that I really need to do at least as many days as I can.  I’m too flakey when left to my own devices and existing plans/schedules, and rarely feel the desire or inspiration to shoot something.  Tonight I did.

I thought I’d shoot something inanimate, and try lighting it.  Here’s Steve’s Street Fighter IV fight pad, being held up by a black 360 controller and a DualShock 3 controller.  Cause I’m that resourceful.  Apparently I didn’t even bother to clean off the table hehe.

Strobist info: Vivitar 285 @ 1/16th power zoomed all the way in through a handheld white reflector (works well as a shoot-through, I didn’t feel like busting out the stand and brolly), triggered by the Cactus v4 trigger, propped up on the trigger and some random piece of video hookup gear (cause the foot’s busted off of it. urgh).  Phoenix D92-BZS sat on the floor with two full CTBs (one creates too much white light, power isn’t adjustable on this flash) pointed up and to the wall a bit, triggered optically.  Canon 50mm f/1.8 shot at f/5.6 @ ISO 100

So, apparently this little gem of graffiti showed up on Matt’s cube’s nameplate today…  We put up this photo of Matt all over the office with a quote about people on the 4am shift, and the fact that when they call in sick, it screws everyone over.  This was posted because he called in the day after saying that to our boss.  Hah!

So then someone (probably Steve) cut it out and put it underneath Matt’s nameplate…  And then this happened. Heh.

Yeah, I’ve been posting some oddball stuff recently, but as I said last time, it’s more of a way for me to just pump some pretty content into this blog, and keep me in the regular routine of posting.  I’m not shooting every day like I should be, this is another from the 10 minutes or so I spent outside the other day with that borrowed 70-300mm lens.  This is actually just outside my door.  Apparently flowers bloom where my dog pees.  I know, you didn’t want to know that, but too late now.

Please excuse the blotchy colors, as this seems to be a recurring trend with this lens (note the picture of Steve I’ve got floating around on Facebook).  I really didn’t care too much to tone down the saturation, or hue/luminance, but it’s kinda’ artsy, so it works.  Those of you who have looked in on my work over the past few years–in both photography and graphic design–know that I’m not one for crazy standard photoshop fare, such as posterize, oversaturate, negative/inverse, etc, so I guess I’m allowed some “artistic flavor” in this fashion once in a while.

Anyways… I think it’s time for some  food, maybe some South Park, and then head to bed.  Already took a nearly-nap today, so I think I’m good for a little bit more.

Albeit a nicely textured tree, with an interesting anomaly from where a branch impeding my driveway was lopped off, but it’s just a tree nonetheless.  And it’s these kinds of shots that I don’t take very often…  Again, however, this was derived while playing around with that borrowed 70-300mm Sigma lens, and thought it merited a late-night Sunday posting.

Primarily, I’m just trying to keep myself motivated to post content, build up some decent level of photos, so I could actually look like, oh, you know, a real photographer.  I’ve always been looked at as “the photographer” (at least since I started all this nonsense years ago), however I’ve never really had a quality body of work.  Yeah, there’s my Flickr page, which definitely has some interesting stuff, but it also has a large amount of crap and personal stuff.  Not great for showcasing what I do, and what I can do.  And again, not like a picture of an amputated tree does that any better, but I think you get the point.

Anyways…  I need to head to bed soon here, so I’ll cut the rant.  But if there’s one thought that’s on my mind every day it’s that I need to shoot more, geek out over gear less, and get some actual PEOPLE in front of my lens.  For a socially inept nerd like myself, if it doesn’t involve a bass, a stage, and loud rock music coming from me and a few friends, I’m a horrid people person, so this is frightening to me.  Although I know I just need to do it…

But as I said, that’s enough out of me for now…  Good night, internets!

The weekend that my wife and I went backpacking, on our way back down from the Sierras, we stopped in Rocklin/Roseville at the new Sonic Drive-In off of Highway 65.  We got the amazing bacon cheeseburgers on Texas toast, some tater tots, and cherry limeades.  Amazingness!

Well, somehow Eryn’s got left outside after it was finished, and while I was playing around with the 70-300mm Sigma lens one of my supervisors at work loaned me, I got this pic of the cup.  Ahh, fond memories of a drink gone by.  How I wish there was a Sonic that was even remotely near whether I live or work (or both!).

Anyways…  Just a pic of an old styrofoam cup with cigarette ash on it.  Yet one more excuse to play with new gear, and work out some Lightroom kinks on the new laptop, regardless.

This was a random shot at work…  We (Steve, Matt, Shad, and I) have been coming up with what we call 4AM Proverbs, named such since almost everyone in our row works at 4AM.  Our cubes have two little windows, one on either side of the entrance into the cube, and this is where we’ve been writing our Proverbs with Expo markers.  One on Steve’s cube happened to catch the sun in the morning just right, and projected on the cube wall.  Steve found it humorously prophetic, and I got a shot of it.  In case you have difficulty reading the shadow-words, it says:

“Breaks and lunches are for Street Fighter 4.”
– 4AM Proverb #76

This proverb directly states that we are to play Street Fighter IV on our breaks/lunches where possible.  It’s pretty funny to take a conference room for some good ol’ Street Fightin’ during lunch.  Good times indeed.  As usual, I get trounced.