Saturday 31 October 2009

End of October - State of Affairs

It has been a long couple of weeks.

As of right now, my exhibit has been taken down because Café Procopio is remodelling their interior. This is a prime opportunity for you to buy my prints without me having to go immediately to get more. :) Contact information is all over - drop me a line sometime.

I'll post the currently available pictures soon, be patient.

As far as non-photography-related stuff is concerned, I'm very busy. At the moment I'm writing a front-page article for the newspaper and polishing the essay I'll be submitting to Dickinson College in a matter of days. I'm almost finished remodelling my room and once that's done I'll glean some sort of great self-satisfaction from the task that will hopefully help me do just about everything else. :P

I was accepted to the University of Pittsburgh in the beginning of October - didn't mention it but then again wasn't really surprised. If I end up having to go there I'l be perfectly happy - they have a great Chinese program. I love Dickinson though, and it's only two and a half hours away (which is even better).

In fact, I drove out to visit on Monday the 26th. That was fun - I woke up at 5 AM and was on the highway by 5:40, 24oz of coffee in the cupholder and a PowerBar to keep me going. The sun didn't rise until I was out of Berks County and the rest of my family left for school when I was driving through Harrisburg. I felt special because I arrived at 8:15, 45 minutes before they told me to. I then found out that I didn't actually have to do anything until 9:30. Earliness - it's a great impression to make!

Road trips are awesome, but so are the experiences you'll have in your destination. I found it really hard to get back in my car and leave Dickinson's campus that afternoon. You know that's a good thing.

Not only that, but Pennsylvania's subpar road system threw me off and brought me into north Philly at about 7:30 PM when I should, in fact, have gotten off at Willow Grove at 7. The exit numbers were both 343, and both roads were called 76. Apparently, though, they aren't the same thing. So as for that random big EZ-pass charge...well, it's not an anomaly...

I haven't submitted anything new in weeks. I've been so busy with other things that I haven't even been taking pictures, let alone editing/uploading them. If I have a camera, it's for the Yearbook. If I'm in the multimedia lab, it's because I work better in there. I'm actually quite productive and proud of my 4.3 GPA. It's worth it in the end.

My plans for the near future involve finishing my college apps and finally buying a car. Closer to home, I do have a lot of schoolwork and that will take up a considerable amount of time. I also have a bunch of photos I took at Dickinson I'll be sure to upload. And just when you thought I might be getting some free time, it's close to production week for A Midsummer Night's Dream here, and I'm staying til 6 PM every day to work on the set. It's a badass set though. 9-foot-tall, 24-foot-long bridge made of 2x and reinforced with steel beams. I've always wanted to build a set with big steel beams. And there's a rock on wheels. And it takes place in Central Park.

Our coffee grinder broke earlier today. My dad informed me that he had opened it up and cleaned it out best he could and it still didn't work. My mom came home and cleaned it out best she could, finding roughly 3 tablespoons of coffee packed into the area between the grounds exit and the receiving can. Lulz were had. So was coffee...but not until 2:30 PM. It's going to be an interesting day/evening (and if necessary, night).

On that note, I don't know what I'm doing tonight. It's Halloween, and in the past I haven't been much for it. Honestly, the last time I actually went trick or treating was eighth grade, and that was just with some friends for fun. I did dress up yesterday, though, because seniors are allowed to. I told people I was a weaboo. Two people in the school understood it. One liked it. I then went to hang out with gay people at the café. Everyone liked the costume and 90% understood it. Hmmmm. I have to post a picture...

If I do go out somewhere tonight, I'll have a picture taken. I may just dress up again for a pic just because, even if I do just end up sitting home handing out candy to all three kids who will come to our house. See, we live on top of a hill in the quiet part of our neighborhood. The quiet, hilly part, where all the houses have long driveways. As opposed to the populated, flat part of the neighborhood where all the families live. We do have neighbors with kids, but they're probably at the age where they'd rather go be with their friends on Halloween. That's cool by me. I'm certainly trying to do that...

I feel as though my blogging habits are a bit erratic. That, and no other contributors to this blog have posted (at all) lately. This merits an explanation. Nate is busy as well, mainly with school stuff, and has told me that his artistic stuff is all but on hold (whatever that means!). Scott will not be posting because he's going through some personal issues, and I haven't talked with him in a long time so can't/won't say more. Tom probably forgot the blog exists. And Jimmy, if you hadn't figured out, is me...

That's all for now. Contact me somehow, however you want, about whatever. The best way is by email (nullcoding@gmail.com), but I am occasionally on Adium (so that's AIM, MSN, GTalk, and ICQ taken care of) and I do respond to Facebook messages. :)

J.B.

Wednesday 14 October 2009

Mystic Invasion

Time is passing by whether I want it to or not.

Lately, I haven't been doing too much work as far as photography and related stuff is concerned. I lent out my spare camera and so now don't have one to carry around with me, and my SLR is sitting at home getting little to no use - too much school work.

So, in the meantime, I've been doing more stuff with silly digital manips.

But there's a backstory.

Sunday the 11th was OutFest in Philadelphia - National Coming Out Day. It was a lot of fun, although I had to leave early. I've never been surrounded by more gays, and it was awesome. I got a button and a bumper sticker ^_^

But as we were trying to find the Gayborhood (roughly 12th and Spruce) we got a bit lost. So, from Market East, we wound up at Suburban Station and the area surrounding City Hall. For all the 13 years I've lived here, I don't know the city itself well enough to say exactly where we were, but I do know we circumnavigated City Hall (twice).

My camera was in Photojournalism mode - as point-and-shoot as an SLR can get. I set it to no-flash mode and that was it. I got some good shots of the festival itself (wish I took more) but also got some interesting shots of the city itself. I need to go back, just because I didn't quite have enough time for actual photography of the city. I do have some good ones, but only like...3.

So, back to what I mentioned about digital manips.


"Mystic Invasion" - you tell me. I don't quite know what was going through my head when I edited in some kind of planetary supernova...


...then made it BW...


...and infrared.

Not sure what exactly to do with that.

Um...

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I'm Jimmy and I can't blog for my life :)

Tuesday 6 October 2009

The Mind Dynamic, College, and Cars

This is a rather long post because I have to make up for simply not being able to make consistent updates lately. After working 18 hours this past weekend I feel as though I just never left school (as I work at school). Anyway, rewind to last Friday the 2nd.

My exhibit is totally set up! :)

It took awhile, but I got 11 of my photos printed (at Costco) and framed (by me) and hung at the café. It's great. If I could remember AA batteries (or my D60) one of these days I'll post photos of the setup. I do have a car...sometimes. When next I can get over there, I'll be hanging some more 8x10s up and photographing the exhibit itself. Below is the poster for my exhibit; click it for the full size.



The exhibit will actually be there for several months, I hope. :) I can print nearly unlimited 8x10s on laser paper (great quality) and, time allowing, frame them as well. That all depends on demand. I'll be rotating the photos out and hopefully selling some. If you are in the Philadelphia area or know a photography appreciator who is, please come check it out. The prints are for sale. Details are in the guestbook (the image below is the cover). E-mailing is the best way to reach me.



The café is located at 1 West Avenue, Wayne Pennsylvania. It is across the street from the SEPTA R5 Wayne station and the Great American Pub. The café closes at 3 PM weekdays except Friday, when it's open 'til 11. They're great people; I know them and that's how I got this all set up. Food's good and so's the coffee...

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Dickinson college visited my school yesterday. It was great. The meeting turned into a one-on-one conversation between the admissions representative and me. I love the school. I gave her a flyer for my exhibit and a copy of the school paper (I wrote the front page article) to add to the "portfolio" I'm building with the school. I've all but finished my essays, filled out 90% of the Common App online, and only need to submit my essay to Pitt and supplement to Haverford to be done with this whole college thing! Yippee...

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Also, as part of an ongoing story, I still do not have a car. No one will e-mail me back. If you know someone who's selling an 80's-era Mercedes diesel let me know. If you even know someone who has one, let me know. Mercedes is ideal, but I can do Volvo if necessary. My price range is not relevant because of my somewhat narrow stipulations (at least, compared to most first-time buyers). The car needs to at least run...and have working windows. There's a pet peeve of mine. At any rate, I really want an old diesel sedan/wagon and I guess I'll have to explain THAT one in the future...