new and interesting Frank

about two weeks ago, he started sitting on his own.  it seems backward, but i have not seen him do that since he got here.  i think his hind legs were too weak to sustain that position, and he lacked the confidence to hold that position if he ever got into it.  so one night, we had him out for a walk, and James had to go back to get another bag and the flashlight, when Frank suddenly planted his ass on the ground and sat waiting.  i was surprised, normally, he lays down if he gets tired or bored.  but that night, and fairly regularly now, he will sit rather than lay down.
i figured that was a pretty cool new trick for him, though it's one he has had to relearn and train for, so imagine my surprise when he did a couple of new tricks tonight.  I took him to Bath&Biscuits for a bath, and normally we put him in the back of my car and he immediately lays down.  not tonight.  he stood the whole way, moving with the car and not falling down.  halfway to the bath place, he sat down but then stood up again, nose out the window and tail wagging.  when we got to the bath place, he was still standing, and when i opened the hatch back, he jumped out and didn't fall!  good little boy :-)  he proceeded to walk into the bath place, and with a little coaxing he got into the tub using the stairs.  he stood for his whole bath, something he doesn't do very often, and when we were done, he used the stairs out of the tub.  i gave him duck treats after the bath, let the ladies that run the place fawn over him and give him lots of doggy love, and headed home.  once we got him inside and fed, he let me know he wanted out so i took him for a walk.  he surprised me yet again by actually taking the lead, and keeping a good pace.  and he did all that WITHOUT treats. 

it may not seem like much, but any time he shows this much interest in life, this much resolve to use his legs, this much liveliness, jeez i tell ya it makes me feel so good.  and I know he must be feeling good too, because at this moment he is walking over to me and he has propeller butt.  for the uninitiated, propeller butt refers to his tail wagging in complete circles, like a propeller :-)

technical difficulties

i'll admit it, i love my gadgets and electronics.  who doesn't?  i think i might go far beyond lover of gadgetry, i think i am addicted to and hopelessly bound to my junk.

this past week, i lost my car (temporarily), i'm about to lose my ipod (due to faulty battery), and today my TV crapped out.  the first two things i can deal with, they are both temporary hiccups in my otherwise steady gadget/tool stream.  but the loss of my TV is devastating.  here i sit on my couch, laptop on my lap, and i catch myself looking over at the TV to see what is on (nothing) or reaching for the remote (rendered useless).  it will take a while to get used to having no audio/visual stimulation via picture box, so i've decided to pull all my favorite books out of the garage and reread them, just to keep my eyes busy.

i am a voracious reader in the absence of television, so at least i will be properly entertained, but what to do when i just can't take in anymore information from that particular media?  i probably shouldn't be worried, reading is a whole different kind of stimulation, more imaginary than visual.  and there is real pleasure in shopping for pulp, because in the absence of audio stimulation, tactile sensation becomes more important.  i am the sort of person to run my fingers along the spines of books, to touch the pages with loving caresses.  i dog ear, i write love notes to myself in the margins, heck i even enjoy the smell of paper. 

so what the heck am i doing wasting my time here on blogger?  off i go to find my friends charles bukowski, haruki murakami, piers anthony, gary larsen, christopher moore, vladimir nabokov, perhaps some voltaire, and maybe just maybe i'll dig out one of those smutty books too.

Leaf harvest

Leaf harvest, a photo by vivienne_onymous on Flickr.

i love this time of year. the weather is cooler, which is welcome relief from the sweltering heat of Sacramento valley summers, the leaves are turning varying degrees of amber and topaz, and all the pets are spending more time snuggling with us and getting furry and fat.

the only real downside is the leaf harvest. every day, my tree sheds leaves, and in order to make my yard enjoyable and GREEN, i have to rake it all up and toss it on the compost heap.

but there is a real pleasure in that too. the movement involved in raking gets my blood going, warms me up from the inside. i get to be outside, breathing in fresh clean air, feeling cool wind on my face. and after winter, i'll have lovely fresh mulch.

cats and dogs living together

and walking together too.  lately, one of the local stray cats has been coming on walks with us, keeping Frank company and keeping other dogs at bay.  she is an acrobat, a hunter, a protector.  she checks in on local litters, she seems to know just about all the other local cats, she can jump about five feet high, and i've seen her climb telephone poles to about 8 feet.  she's chased off small dogs that have the nerve to come after Frank, and she's never wanted anything from us but attention.  since she came to hang out at our house, she's kept the old homestead free of rats, mice and cockroaches.  she's hunted and killed squirrels, i catch her snuggling up with injured cats, i've seen her teach orphaned kittens how to hunt.  in short, she's just a really cool cat.

tonight, on our walk, she did this funny thing.  she jumped up onto a brick post, and was checking out the stone lion on top of it.  it was cute, just had to share.

Lazy Saturday night

This is what I'm up to tonight. From the top, I am looking through images on my hard drive, listening to Esbjorn Svensson Trio on Spotify, keeping an eye on FB and G+, and editing inside Aviary. Also, I have a horror flick playing streaming on my TV from Netflix. Sigh, now this is what I call relaxation!

ghost in the (green) machine

James brought this to my attention- cat feet and dirt made a weird pattern on my windshield, and from a certain perspective in the right light, it appears there is a ghost driver in my car :-)

A simple request

Post a recent photo that best describes who you are as a photographer.

Just like me as a person, that is constantly changing. Some days I am a long exposure kind of gal, other days I am a macro girl, and sometimes I am a happy snap shot shooter.  Sometimes I am portraits, other times I am stealthy street photographer, other times I shoot for cash. I'm all over the map.

So I'm sitting here, considering the photos I have, and I figure that an easy category to narrow down the field is to choose the ones I am most proud of. But there are varying degrees of pride, seeing as my "eye" has evolved. From the earliest digital images to the present, the photos are different in terms of mood, composition and skill.

I'll probably end up posting a photo of Frank, since he is the very center of my life right now.  Everything revolves around his comfort and happiness. So naturally, the bulk of my most current images are of him. It's a good thing he is such a handsome and expressive dog :-)

so what do you do?

the first thing that people ask me when i meet them is "what do you do?"

i don't do anything.  at least nothing extraordinary.  everything i do is ordinary, normal, somewhere in the range of average.  i don't really mind the idea that i fit into that particular grouping, but i do like to add the note that i am average in a lot of things.  never mind that though.  standards for excellence are arbitrary; what i find ordinary or "beige" might be considered poorly done or truly excellent by someone else.  it all depends on our individual experiences. 

but back to the question.  usually, i answer that i do nothing.  but since i travel with a camera attached to my hip, i'll mention that i like to take photos, that one might refer to me as a photographer.  so the next question is "what kind of photographer are you?"

now that is the question i have a hard time answering.  i feel like this art form is continually evolving.  what used to count as exceptional is achievable by just about anyone with the right kind of software.  i strive to capture things as i see them, how my eye perceives the scene, and if there is any adjustment made, it is to saturation because my camera can't quite capture colors the way my eye sees them.  but i've seen photos taken by iphones and various point-and-shoots that rival professional photos in clarity and composition, in the power to evoke emotion.

so i've kinda hit a stall.  while i continue to sharpen my technical skill with a camera and flash, i feel like i don't have a particular niche.  i have a few basic categories of photos, but i am still working on moving away from taking snapshots (which is something i do with my phone) to creating shots.  so much is done from behind the lens, from getting the right settings to moving my feet to get the desired composition.  that's appropriate in the field when taking landscapes, but not so in smaller settings with a model. 

anyway, the point i wanted to make is that nothing else should matter when it's just me and a camera.  the urge to collect photos for geographical purposes, for proof that i was somewhere has to take a back seat.  and trying to compare my efforts to those of photographers that i admire is foolish.  it's my camera, my eye, my choice of subject and composition.  the only person i have to please is myself, and that happens when i trip the shutter and i know before even seeing the preview that i caught something cool.

all about a dog

he will never admit it, but he thinks my photos are boring.  and in truth, i think they are too. so last night as i was scrolling through photos i've taken in the last week, i was surprised when he stopped me on this photo.  it is one of those photos that i take for technical practice, a study in selective focus.  for him, it sparked a memory, sort of an inside joke he shares with my dog.  something i'll never know about.
anyway, i ordered a couple of prints.  who knows how long we'll have Frank around in the flesh? at least now he will be immortalized in print to grace my home for the rest of my life.

Perhaps I should take it more seriously

Last weekend, I participated in a photo walk, and I thought that it would be far more casual than it was.  I got there just on time, got out of my car and felt like I showed up to the party in just a bra and underwear. Almost everyone that was there was set up on a tripod, several had a prime lens and an all in one zoom lens, these people were seriously outfitted! I had thought of bringing a monopod, but I figured it was light  enough to hand hold my shots. It is kinda funny to note also that I saw a lady with the expensive model of my tripod with a tiny point and shoot attached. I chuckled, but hey, she was serious about her shots.
I was by myself for most of the walk, made my way around the building before the rest, and it occurred to me that maybe these people were a step above photo enthusiasts, but I still could not believe how much gear these people brought along!
Anyway, later on this month I am going to a photo meet up close to Stockton. It's at a nature preserve, we'll be shooting the sunset and the roosting cranes.  I'm looking forward to that, and this time I'll put more thought into my gear, take this shoot a little more seriously.

cautious optimism

tongue, a photo by vivienne_onymous on Flickr.

it's now been 5 months that Frank has been with us, and i am a little ashamed to say that i didn't think he was going to last this long. the start of this year was hard for him, and i really think he was ready to move on even if i wasn't ready to let him go.
before he came to live with us, he had turned a corner. he had started showing interest in life again, started being more present for my sister. i kinda feel like i robbed her of time with him, but i'm still glad he's here.
every day, i do a head to toe inspection. it usually entails a rub down, so i can check his skin for rash or crusty bacterial infections. then a quick look and sniff in his ears, a little cleaning to make sure his ears aren't clogged. i give his hips a massage, check his face for signs of pain or discomfort as i do it, and then it's play time.
for his part, he suffers through the inspection, and usually i see only positive things, which leads me to feel optimistic about his longevity. sometimes, though, i find troubling things, like that weird growth on the outer hind foot pads, the patch of hair that refuses to grow back, the hitch in his step when he first wakes up etc.
he is an old dog, i know he won't last forever, and it will be the hardest day of my life when he does decide to leave me. but that knowledge is what helps me to give him the love and attention he needs and deserves on a daily basis.
and for my part, i feel lucky to have such a cool dog.

a day in my life

after a three hour nap, i woke up and went to work.  today was the release date for Missoni for Target, and thought i've been looking at this stuff for a week and find nothing particularly trendy or even fashion forward about the design, there were 15 people waiting outside.  i chatted with a few of them and found out that the online store had started selling Missoni at midnight, and in half an hour the site crashed.  what?  yeah. everything sold out online before i got up this morning.

i talked to a few other people, and found out about the design house, an old Italian couple who have been designing luxury goods and clothing for over half a century.  it's interesting, and terribly bright, almost a visual assault really, and some of the clothes are well cut and made with materials that are soft and durable, but really?  i looked deeper, shopped through high end retailers for the name Missoni, and found clothing, housewares, luggage, office supplies... the clothing is upwards of $1000 per piece, same with luggage and housewares and household textiles (sheets and comforters) and Target was selling them for just 10% of that price.  holy crap, no wonder people were going crazy about it.

i was put out by the competitive shopping nature of these people who stormed the store.  and i had to stand in line behind these women who were fighting over the last pillow, the last dress, the last vase.  i even saw a woman take a dress out of the cart of another lady when she wasn't looking.  people are insane.

and tiresome.  after that long day, i came home and immediately passed out.  i woke up long enough to go nose to nose with Frankie, and play squeakies with him, but then passed out again.  while i was out, kelly came by, and normally that is enough to get me out off the couch, but not today.

i finally got up, made dinner and fed Frankie, and sure enough he got up and let us know it was time to go for a walk.  he does this by walking into James' office, rubbing his face on James' leg, then getting himself stuck in the corner next to the desk where there is no room to turn around.  James has to get up from the desk, move the chair, and help him turn around.  seems a little demented on Frank's part, but it's genius!  James needs a reason to get out of his chair, and Frank knows that once he's up, there is a good chance he'll get a treat or go for a walk.

if he's looking for me to take him out, he will sit in front of me.  but he sits down REAL slow.  and looks at me the whole time he is in the process of sitting down.  almost like he's looking for a sign that i might get up before his ass hits the ground, and we can go for a walk.  i'll mostly oblige him, but sometimes i just take him out to the front yard.  when this happens, if he really wants to go, he will start walking down the street without me.  he knows i'll follow him.  if he wants to go to the park, he will wait behind my car, peeping around the bumper of my car to see if i'm coming to lift him up into the car for a ride.  such a smart dog!

but back to walks.  these evening walks are not just Frankie time, it's time that James and i catch up on what happened during our day.  walks with Frank are leisurely, and just as in SF, people know Frank's name but not ours.  We don't use a leash on him, just keep an ear on him.  if i can hear his toenails on the cement, i know he is right behind us.  once those nails go quiet, i stop walking, and so does James. Occasionally, people will be shy around him, so we have his leash collar on him for those instances.  it's a handy contraption to have.  and if we happen to see children, Frank LOVES kids, and will go right up to them and let them pet him. 


tonight, while we were on our way around the block, i heard his toenails stop clicking so i turned around to see where he was.  he had started walking on the lawn of one of our neighbors, so i continued my conversation with James.  eventually, Frank walked off the lawn, and i saw he had something in his mouth.  James saw it too, so he bent down to get it out, and when he stood back up, he opened his hand to reveal a chunk of dried rice.  Frank had carried it in his mouth, not chewing, not swallowing, not eating...just...carrying :-)  That's when i knew for sure that Frank was asian at heart heheheeee

and that was my day.

Natural Bridges State Park, one of the few in CA that isn't facing a shut down.  In addition to the natural beauty of this beach, there is a resting place for Monarch butterflies, a grove of eucalyptus trees where they rest on their way down south.  None were there when I was, so I didn't bother taking photos, but it's still a really peaceful place.

I love coastal formations like these.  They are like gateways to some unknown place, the kind of place you swim through at dusk in search of the entrance to some fairytale place, or the underworld. 

wanderlust

every once in a while, i come across an old photo.  each one is a touchstone, something that brings back all the feelings and emotions from the moment the scene was captured.

i really can't tell if that is me or if it's Flo, but the point is that when this photo was taken, we were on a road trip in the middle of Spain.  It was summer time, hot as hell, and our rental (which you can see on the left) was TINY!  That is a dirt road we are on, one of many side trips we took, and i remember thinking to myself, "Spain looks a lot like SoCal, did I really spend $1000 to see scenery that I could see at home?  Oh hell yeah, I'm in Spain!"

in less than six months, i turn 40, and more than anything in the world I want to travel.  I don't care where, I just want to feel the same wonder and awe I felt in all those countries I've visited with Flo.  And nothing less than a 10 hour plane ride will suffice.  there is no better feeling than the freedom that comes with being far from home with only yourself and your sister to care about.  nothing compares to that sense of "anything could happen, amazing sights will be seen, cool photos will be taken, delicious food and wine will be consumed, and memories will be made". 

how in the world will i save up $1000 to take a dream trip to celebrate my birthday and indulge my wanderlust?

ok ok, i've had my fun

yes, i was a very bad example of a human this past week.  i made other people laugh at the expense of someone else.  generally speaking i don't participate in this kind of character assassination, but i just could not help myself.  i could say she made it easier, or her actions make it alright for me to be an asshole, but the truth is i could have taken the high road and i didn't.
she comes back to work next week, so today is the last day i will make her the butt of any jokes.  technically, i stopped the jokes this morning.  i had some really good ones today, some i should write down for posterity.  now there's a thought!  but i don't think i'll need to save them somewhere, they'll circulate for a while.

i've had an entire week free from her tyranny and i've had my fun at her expense, but i've also found out a lot more about her.  i found out that when she got married, she wore a black dress and black make up, practically covering her entire face.  her house is decorated only in black.  she has been married for five years, and when she moved in with her husband, he forced her to get rid of her cats.  she complied like a good wife, but she fell gravely ill, barely recovered.  given those little gems about her, others have concluded that she is a witch, but the truth is she is a very scared, very lonely, very superstitious young lady.  she's also made the claim that if someone gets sick, she gets the same illness.  i'm not sure who she knew that had this particular illness, but this tells me she is a serious hypochondriac. 

ok, so now that i've figured that all out, and i know i may be way off base, i really can't justify being mean to her even though she is mean and uncompromising to me. 

i'm a bad girl

i've had this job now for 2.5 years, and for that entire time, a particular person has hated my guts.  i don't take it personally, nor do i think its personal because she is this way with everyone.  the first time she complained about me, i became "official".

so for the last 2.5 years, i learned to avoid her, learned to never ask her for anything, learned to ignore the scowls and evil eyes she directed at me and various other people.  and for my part, it was never malicious, never mean spirited.  i was happy to go my merry way and let her bear the burden of her hatred.

last week, that burden took its toll.  she had a minor stroke (i think), and she developed Bell's Palsy, which affects the left half of her face.  it was sudden, it happened literally in less than five minutes.  one minute, she was sitting at lunch talking to her sister's mother in law, the next minute her face fell apart.  and the weird thing is she didn't feel it.  she had no idea that anything was wrong with her face.

and this is a real shame.  she is a beautiful girl, by all appearances. 

for the record, she has done this to herself.  she isolated herself, made enemies all over the store, refused to be part of this team.  she moved further away from the store, and when she asked for a transfer, they refused to grant it because she is difficult to work with.  so now she is stuck in a store with people she hates, stuck in a marriage with a man who is here illegally and wants to stay here (she is here on a work visa, but she wants to move back home), stuck in an apartment where she can't get any sleep.  her life is complicated and high stress, but it is all because she can't get along with anyone.  how terrible to be trapped by your own anger and hatred.

so now about the title.  when she made the first complaint about me, it was because i was completely oblivious to her issues with me.  i put a little bit of garbage in her trash bag, and then put some product that was going into her section on the shelf where it was going to go after the reset.  in response to this aggressive action, she threw my garbage on the ground, literally spent 15 minutes separating out the labels that came from my section, and then scattered the product i put on her shelves on the floor around my feet.  then she made a face at me.  at that point, i said the words, "you shouldn't make faces; the wind might blow the wrong way, and you'll be stuck that way".  it was a joke, but she didn't think it was funny.

and who knew that it would one day come true?

Two elderly ladies

People watching is a favorite pastime. I tend to blend into the background of most situations, so its rather easy to satisfy my curiosity without changing the dynamics of a situation.

Today at lunch in the sterile cafe at work (this place is so ugly, I really don't like eating there but the most self involved people never see the somewhat juvenile decor, so the sterility of this place never bothers them), these two ladies took a seat in front of me. At first, I pegged them as friends, wasn't really looking at them but rather passively listening to their banter. One came in first, to order food for two, and the other showed up and sat down with 6 packages of newly developed film, negatives and all.  It was the sound of her opening that first package that caught my full attention, and I hate to admit that from my seat I spied on their photos.

Their food was ready, so the first lady came to sit at the table, and that's when I noticed they were sisters, confirmed by further conversation of daughters and nieces.  And then, on closer inspection, I discovered they were twins. Suddenly all these questions exploded in my head. I wanted to break into their conversation, ask them millions of questions, interrupt their meal and ogle their photos. 

I suddenly pictured a future similar situation, one where I sat down with my own sister, the one who got me interested in photography, and we laughed about the exploits of our family and cackled over photos from our last trip together. I could see me and Flo, thirty years from now acting out this very scene in front of some stranger that was taking place in front of me in this cafe. And I even pictured that stranger having his or her own flash forward to some future meeting with a sibling.

Then my alarm went off and the spell was broken. Once again, these to ladies were just a couple of gals having lunch together.

 Three hours after a meal, Frankie gets this look in his eye.  It looks like "I want something", so James and I run through the list of possibilities.  Walk? Food? Play?  When one of those things gets a reaction, we go into specifics. Pee? Poo? Pineapple? Buffalo? Blueberry? Beaver? Hyena? Ball?
Usually, he wants a treat, and the way we know what he wants is his ears will flick backward when we say the thing he wants.  Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of this...yet.  I've been taking so many photos, it is only a matter of time.

Today, he wanted a treat.  And who could resist such a cute face?  Here you go, buddy!

DSC_0120

DSC_0120, a photo by vivienne_onymous on Flickr.

the tree i wanted to photograph the whole time we were running around northern NM. It is a great photo in color, but I really love it this way.

i caught you looking at my ass

call me an instigator...

a couple of entries ago, i complained about people who smell my chicken.  now i'm making the statement-i just caught you looking at my ass.

yes, i realize that if you look at anything within range of my butt, it will reach out and try to shake your hand.  and i realize that sometimes, the lanyard on my keys hangs out of my back pocket, and swings around like tassels on stripper nipples.  i am largely unaware of what my ass is doing until i catch people trying to start a conversation with it.

anyway, to the title of this post.  i was out in Folsom a month ago, driving through rolling foothills and checking out farm animals along the way.  i found this very cute donkey, i think she was pregnant, and she was very sweet natured.  i stood at her fence just looking at her, and she walked over and put her head against the fence.  instinctively, i reached out and stroked her long ears, scratched her nose.  her giant brown eyes were looking into my slightly slanted ones, and i gave her a piece of apple.  as she nibbled at my fingers, her owner came out, chuckled and said, "i caught you looking at my ass".

What's it to you?!?

A long time ago, when I was involved with MySpace, I asked the question- why should I bother being friends online if I am already friends in real life? What conversation is more important, the one you have in private, face to face, or in public online? I wondered if adding friends there and even on Facebook was like having a collection of useless objects.

Friends and friendships are supposed to be about the mutual benefit, mutual good feelings, mutual everything. An imbalance leads to bad feelings, and eventually a parting of ways. Those same rules apply to love relationships too. 

In short, what is the value of having friends online if you don't talk to them personally?  What is the point of maintaining a friendship that brings you no insight, no creative spark, no comfort?

Today I am cleaning out my friends list on Facebook, and then I am going on hiatus. I find I just get bored by the ridiculous postings that offer no insight, or that make no sense because they lack context for me. My time isn't that important, but I don't like to waste it either.

stop smelling my chicken!

human behavior baffles me.  people do weird things, and it makes me uncomfortable to witness it or worse yet be the victim of it.  so let's start with part one, pertaining to the title of this post.

i was sitting in the cafe at work, enjoying a meal of chicken tenders and a diet coke.  i'm the only one in the whole place, sitting in a corner far far away from the meal counter.  my earphones are plugged in, i'm enjoying a steady stream of sonic love from the cure, and i'm just watching people walk by.  i'm not intruding in any way, just observing, something i do.  what can i say?

a couple, or actually an elderly lady and her son, walk into the cafe and order lunch.  to the soda fountain for their beverages, and then they look around for a place to sit.  where do they decide to park it?  at the table next to mine.  they could sit....anywhere!...and they had to sit next to me.

fine and good, no problem.  except the way the seating is set up is for really close interaction.  the table next to me is less than a foot away, and the two decide they want to both sit on the same side.  but this means they have to turn sideways to slide between tables, which puts his junk and her butt by turns right into my face.  they could have chosen...any other seat!...but they chose to sit next to me.

so i had just a quiet moment of misery, stopped eating while they sat down, got up, sat down again, got up again, junk and ass in my face and  on my table, and then they finally settled in.  in my ears, the song screw is playing, and i have to force myself to not screw up my eyes each time they pass oh so close.

my lunch was ruined, not even the sweet wailing sounds of robert smith could save it, and i complained a little bit to my friend Tara.  being the girl she is, she started riffing on what the reasoning must have been for this unnecessarily close encounter.  "they wanted to be friendly; they thought you were cute and mom was trying to set you up with son; they wanted to smell your chicken".

as soon as she said it, i laughed out loud.  really. it is a ridiculous reason, but i am convinced that it is the one that fits best.  and from now on, when someone is uncomfortably inside my buffer zone, i will lean in close enough to clean their ear with my tongue and whisper "stop smelling my chicken".

Watchful

He is so cute when he sleeps!

Cranky Frank

Here he is, my favorite dog doing his least favorite activity- having a bath. He's an old dude, so he has trouble staying standing in a tub, and because I have to use special shampoo on him, bath time takes longer than you'd expect.

I know he hates baths, but they are necessary because he is such a STINKY dog. I am his mom, but I'm also a shutterbug, so I can never resist the urge to take his photo. It's gotten to the point where he gives me this look any time he sees me holding a camera.  The look on his face? A very clear "put that thing AWAY!"

Just one more, Frank! If you weren't the best dog in the world, I wouldn't be taking so many photos! Even when you are cranky, you are ADORABLE!

can't decide

which one i like better.  the color version has such pretty greens, reds and blues, but the B&W makes it feel cold and lonely, and old school.

praying puppy

praying puppy, a photo by vivienne_onymous on Flickr.

this is my beautiful dog Frank. He is the world's best dog, in every sense of the word.

Broken globe in a rubbish heap

Broken globe in a rubbish heap, a photo by vivienne_onymous on Flickr.

seems this is how the world must look from the heavens. at least it's resting on fresh cut leaves and twigs, not shit.

Welcome to Sacramento

picplz_upload, a photo by vivienne_onymous on Flickr.

I went for a ride today, a veritable three hour tour. Normally I opt for a ride along the river, but today I headed south toward Elk Grove using side streets instead of riding down Stockton, the major thoroughfare. After chatting for the 45 minutes with my sister, I started riding seriously. Down past the Campbell's Soup factory, past Executive Airport, east toward Stockton along Florin, then back west toward I5 south along Mack Rd. Then, back to 24th St at Fruitridge, then north into downtown Sac. All told, it was about 18 miles, meandering through manicured neighborhoods, slogging through piles of human detritus, standing on my pedals on overgrown bike paths, bumping my way along unpaved roadways. There's lots to see, most of it uninspiring, but hey, it's my city. I was feeling mostly ambivalent about my ride, hadn't even taken my camera out when I saw this sign over by Sac City College. It seems to just sum up the whole experience...do not enter, hazardous existence area :-P

baby blues and greens

teary goodbye, a photo by vivienne_onymous on Flickr.
This is my little buddy Joaquin.  His mom tells me he is a shy little thing, but that is not my experience with him.  For as long as I've known him, he's always been in my face, in my shots, and now in my head.  This sweet little boy actually makes me want to have a kid of my own.  Scary, right?  Well don't worry, it simply is not in the cards for the likes of me.  Since I've made the conscious choice to not have kids, I have to get my baby fix from wherever I can, but the biological imperative to procreate is still there.  but enough about baby blues, let me get to the greens part of the title.


I've long been envious of the iPhone hipstamatic and instagram photo applications.  I've researched all the comparable android apps, experimented with these cumbersome and slow shutters, and I actually hate all of them now.  They take a long time to load, and by the time you're ready, the moment is gone. 


So naturally, I've turned to PSE to duplicate the effects I want.  For this particular photo, I boosted local contrast to get the reflection of the tree limbs on the window, moved the temperature toward the green part of the spectrum, and cropped it way down to just Joaquin in his window curtain shroud.  There are a couple of other adjustments I would like to make, but I like the aged feel it has in this version.  I reminds me of old photos from the late 70s and early 80s that have faded over the years, giving them a yellow-y green cast.

microcosm

every once in a while, i catch something like this. it's a close up of a rain drop, and you can see a very vague reflection of me and my camera in the droplet.
as soon as my other laptop fires up and i can open PSE, i'm going to put the San Diego skyline inside the droplet, with the appropriate amount of fisheye distortion :-)

coming soon to my flickr page!

Dramatic clouds

on my drive home. I know I shouldn't be using my phone while driving, but it was such an exceptional sky with HDR type clouds.

sitting and watching it all pass me by

i went for a walk in on the border between Roseville and Citrus Heights, an affluent city and it's less than lustrous sister city divided by a stretch of parkland devoted to hikers, bikers, runners and dog lovers. while i was there, i saw only a few humans, but that's because i strayed far off the path in search of something i can't really name.

i found myself sort of wandering, no real eye on time or environment, head in the clouds.  when my head finally rejoined my body, i found my eyes resting on this creek.  the recent rains and the local thaw turned it into a mini rapids, made it strain at and then flood its banks.  the sound of it was a roar in my ears, and at some spots i could feel its mist on my face.

it was a full fifteen minutes of serendipitous rapture- all my senses engaged, my mind grounded.  i snapped the photo, a full second exposure at the smallest possible aperture, slipped my camera bag into my bag and readied myself for the walk back to the path.  that's when i discovered i was standing in a particularly tall patch of poison oak.  and of course, this is the point in time where the mosquitoes began to make a meal of me.

i tell ya, there is no discipline harder to enforce on yourself than the will to keep yourself from scratching an itch.  when i got home, all my clothes went into the wash with extra soap, my shoes went in the trash, and i went into a very hot shower with multiple soapings to get the itchy oils off my arms and hands.  i did my best with alcohol wipes to eliminate the poison oak oils off my camera, keys, steering wheel, and just about anything else i might have touched or brushed up against.

and after all that, i found exactly what i was looking for.  something to focus on other than the troubles in my head, a temporary break from the stress of being me.

Waiting

With so many hopes about what I'll get to do while I'm here. At the very least, I send some time with my sisters, which is a singular joy these days since we all live so far from each other. But coming in over Manhattan and seeing the city traced in lights...I want to explore. I thought about possibly renting a helicopter to take aerial shit, but that will have to wait until I have cash to throw away.

Is It April Yet?

Is It April Yet?

This girl makes me very sad. She represents the future generation- illiterate, self important, an enormous sense of entitlement, rock bottom intelligence. Suddenly I welcome the end of the world in 2012.

going home

usually, I am in a hurry to go home. but not so today, I really wish I could stay longer. having all this time with Flo, and a little time with mom and dad, I realize how much I miss them and how much I miss by not being here. I loved all the laughs, loved joking around with them, loved getting them dressed up to take photos, loved being here for mom. I know how much she misses me, and it is so easy to just hug her and really love her. I am like her in so many ways, I like to think I understand her complexities.

flight

who doesn't dream of flight? i do, with all its various meanings and mechanics, physics and physicality.

i love water birds, particularly the long legged ones. i caught this one at Berkeley Marina, watched it in serene flight in the cool afternoon air and awkward backward knee gait in the water. of course, i wasn't the only one watching- you can see the legs of another bird watcher in the upper right hand corner.

coming and going

taken from the overpass to Berkeley Marina through a chicken wire fence. that's the weird shadow right in the middle of the photo.
Emery Bay Towers on the left, a commercial space on the bottom of high rise apartments. When I was working in Berkeley, I considered moving to this apartment building and going to school at Expression School of Digital Arts. But then I got transferred back into San Francisco, and in all honesty, the apartments in that building were really run down, cracks in the walls and foundation from earthquake activity, and the parking garage under the building smelled like pee.
On the right is the hotel circle of Emeryville, with chain sit down restaurants and access to the Eville and Berzerkely marinas. I didn't spend much time in the hotels, but I did spend my lunch breaks out by the water.