Life Feels So Simple

I've been neglecting his blog lately, but I think the holiday season is a fair excuse. First, let's pick up where I left off.

On December 8th, Dan and I traveled up to Dudley, MA to photograph and record an MC Lars/K.Flay show at Nichols College. The drive up was relatively peaceful, aside from some NYC traffic. We jammed to lots of nerdy hip hop, Weird Al, and Christmas music the whole way up. We got to the show early and were treated like important people. We were supplied with passes to go backstage and the Lars dressing room, where we were able to snag some grub.

Shooting the show was honestly my favorite photography experience thus far (the Cudzoo show coming in second). I was able to move freely on and around the stage, which really helped my photos. They're not perfect, I would've liked less grain -- but that won't get better until I upgrade to a D90 with its higher ISO. Other than that, though, these were my favorite show photos taken to date. It was a relatively short set, and the excitement made the whole thing fly by, but I soaked up every second of it.

After their set, we relaxed and watched the headliner, Pitbull, perform. There was more pelvic energy in that gym than I could handle, at that point.

We were able to stay at the hotel with Lars, Flay and the gang (Thank you, Mike). Driving four hours back to Jersey wasn't an option. We stayed up late, giggling about silly things and telling secrets. The next morning we struggled to consciousness under a blanket of fresh snow, ate at a Friendly's, and parted ways. It was definitely an experience I won't soon forget, and hope to repeat again.

Since then, life's been trucking along, business as usual. Dan and I go to work everyday, do the damn thing, then come home. I've eaten an immeasurable amount of chili, drank a bunch of beer, watched a lot of UFC and other silly shows. I've hung out with some friends quite a bit, others hopefully more now that it's winter break.

Last night was my sixth annual X-mas Eve Eve party. I can't believe I've been having this thing for six years... time sure does fly. It makes me so happy to see everybody, and as always, the gag gifts were a hit. Tom got a lot of great photos of the gift opening ceremony. I didn't take too many, but we captured the night on HD video a la Dan, so that should be entertaining.

I definitely love the holidays. I'm so cheap when it comes to most things, but I'll spend a good amount of money to give gifts and host my party. As cheesy as it sounds, giving really is much more rewarding than any gift I've received. (But my Nikon is a close second, gotta admit!)

As 2009 draws to a close, I'm happy to say I'm in a really good point in my life. Despite the day to day redundancy and setbacks, I think I'm happier than I've ever been. I hope 2010 brings more of that feeling.

Adventures Begin

It has becoming more and more obvious that I can't spend my life working in a cubicle. It works for me right now, because the pay is decent, the atmosphere is (usually) pleasant, and I couldn't ask for much more from a first job. I can't do this for too long, though. I feel it might be soul-crushing.

Ultimately, I'd love to travel and photograph the world. I'm certainly not the best photographer. I'm working on improving every day. But I'm positive I would live a more fulfilled life. That's why I'm pushing for Jagazine to work out; I want to be my own boss and do something worthwhile with the greater portion of my life.

Tomorrow, I get a taste of the future I one day want to have. Dan and I will be driving up to Massachusetts, where we will be covering another MC Lars show. I've photographed these guys plenty of times, but this time we're driving considerably further, and staying overnight. The exciting part isn't so much the performance, but the journey. I will take what I learn from this trip, and (hopefully) apply it to covering all sorts of events. Or it will just be a lesson in making exploration into something worth sharing.

I want to sharpen my eye as a photographer, but not only in the aesthetic sense. I want to create the kind of photos that tell stories. I want to revisit all the great documentary photographers I studied in school, and apply aspects of their techniques to my work. Brassai, Walker Evans, Paul Strand, Garry Winogrand... I could list photographers all day.

Among other things, I want to change the world. Artists have always captured history, even before written language did. I know that art is my best chance to communicate something memorable. I need to keep pushing myself.

Here goes nothing, and everything.

Frackville in Flames

Last weekend we took a spontaneous road trip around the NJ/PA border. We had no particular destination in mind, and overall it was a pretty boring "adventure". The only thing that made the day worthwhile was taking shots of a burning building.

It was extremely lucky (unlucky?) for us to find this sight. We had been driving for a few hours, and decided to exit the highway at a town called "Frackville". We were hungry, and there was hope of finding a Cracker Barrel or some other corny chain restaurant.

We drove through little Frackville and passed the above building. We saw the "Apartment for Rent" sign, and joked about moving in. After a few minutes, we realized we had left the town, and turned around. There was more commotion than when we had first drove through, and in a matter of minutes the building we had just seen was burning.

Luckily, there was no one inside and the firefighters had it extinguished relatively quickly. I had never seen a building burn right in front of my eyes before, so I'm glad we made our random stop in Frackville. And yes, we did end up filling our bellies at a nearby Cracker Barrel.

Almost One Month

It has been almost a month since my last entry, which is depressing. My life has picked up speed, or so it seems. I started working in the Beach Camera office a few weeks ago, as opposed to working from home. It didn't take too long for me to settle in. I already knew almost everyone from working with them remotely.

It's hard to believe now that I was once apprehensive about taking this job. Nine hour days can be tough, but getting out at 2 or 3 PM on Fridays makes it all worth it. Plus the atmosphere is very laid-back. As long as your work gets done, nobody really makes too much of a stink. Then again, I'm still new to the office, so I guess we'll see.

Dan got hired a week after I started in the office, which is another perk. He also moved in with Rob and me... so the whole Jagazine team is together again. Hopefully it will make things easier on all of us.

I have so many blog topics floating around my mind, but they all seem to disappear when I sit down to type. So I'm left with these flat entries about my day-to-date life. I swear, I'm going to force myself to be more interesting.

On that note, I'll end this post with a list of things I don't really like, but everyone else seems to love -- and I can't understand why:

• The Office
• Harry Potter
• American Football
• Malls
• Most beer
• Twilight/New Moon/Anything to do with vampire teenagers

Over and out.

Our Time Broken Down

Hey friends. I'm feeling philosophical, so try and bear with me. I actually thought about this last night, thanks to an eruption of coffee-educed energy, but we'll see what I can remember.

Rob and I were on the topic of capitalism. I have a pretty big gripe with it. We spend such a huge portion of our life working so that we can afford to live comfortably. But what is living comfortably? In our society, living "happily" translates into a decent house, being able to pay all your bills, take two weeks of vacation every year (!!), and perhaps buy a few fancy gadgets every once in awhile.

This doesn't work for me. Not because I want a ton of wealth. And not because I don't want to work. It's kind of the opposite. I rather have very little as far as money or possessions go, but do what I love for a living. Doesn't that make more sense?

Going back to my last post, Lanark presents this issue in an interesting way. In the novel, characters can obtain things by giving up time in their future. At first this sounded like pure fantasy -- but it couldn't be further from the truth. That's how capitalism works.

If you get your money by working 40 hours a week, like most people, it's really just a physical representation of your time. For example, my time each week translates to around $600. With that, I can pay my bills, buy camera equipment, or take a train into New York. But I lose 40 hours of my life each week in order to earn these luxuries. [Don't get me wrong, I definitely don't hate my job, nor do I have it tough. I just would rather be exploring the world and taking pictures. You know, the "dream job" scenario.]

Wouldn't it be nice to spend the majority of our lives doing things that make us the happiest? But I guess that's just not how America works. [At least, for most of the middle to lower classes.]

I guess the moral of this story is simple. Time is all we really have. It's our truest possession. Spend it wisely. I wish I had the cushion of a religion to comfort me with thoughts of an afterlife or reincarnation. But that's another story.