This Vegas trip served three purposes: celebrating Ryan’s quarter-century birthday, checking out the gadgets at CES, and meeting partners at the Affiliate Summit. Without further ado, here’s a recap in pictures: view more →
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Personal Matters
I truly enjoyed New York the last time I visited, but this trip was as stressful as getting to Times Square on New Year’s Eve in heels. We had to walk all the way up to Central Park and enter 7th Ave from there because all the horizontal streets were blocked off. Not to mention, we also paid exhorbitant amounts for hotels in Times Square, where everyday, I had to fend off the stand-up comedy club flyers and walk away from the smell of roasted peanuts and halal carts (mixed with trash bags piled on sidewalks — a post snowstorm nuisance). view more →
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I just spent the last few hours of 2008 and first few of 2009 with hundreds of architecture students from all parts of the nation—in one grand ballroom in Denver. Of course, we had to showcase our creativity through the “recycle” theme, so girls came in thoughtfully designed plastic/paper dresses while guys…just wore dad’s ugly sweater (or nothing at all) with the conference slacks from earlier today. view more →
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I admit, I will miss this class. It meant so much more to me than say, the Cournot-equilibrium—I mean, please. Real life application? Photography, on the other hand, is actually a viable (though difficult) hobby that I can further pursue and refine. For those interested in VS181, Janet Delaney is…the hip Berkeley mom with a JOBAMA poster in front of her house. The humble, lovable, yet extraordinarily talented professor who prefers to be called by her first name. The typical Wurster inhabitant decked out in black—who still comes to class with a genuine smile (despite pulling half an all-nighter putting together PPT slides for us). And the students? Talented. All talented. And inspiring. And constructive. view more →
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In the beginning…there was film. And film reels and developer tanks. And chemical concoctions named “developer” and “fix” (with odors no more pleasant than curd milk). And darkrooms with anxious shadows. And light-sensitive paper and enlargers. And physical burning and dodging tools (not icons that you click on in Photoshop). AND INFINITE OPPORTUNTIES FOR ERRORS (you can’t just “Photoshop that shit” and ctrl+z, naw mean). view more →
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Developing film isn’t rocket science but it sure isn’t an iPhoto plug-n-chug either. In total darkness (no orange lights, no floating eye balls, no night vision goggles), I had to pry open the film cassette with a can opener, trim the film leader off without cutting myself, load the curly roll of film onto a plastic reel without jamming it, and then place the film reel securely in the tank before I could see my own hands again.
The next steps were pretty much the fluff-art equivalent of doing a dangerous chem lab experiment. The water had to be exactly 68 degrees (which was inconveniently colder than the faucet water so off to the water fountain we went), the developer/water mix had to be 1:1, I had to agitate the mix with a gentle twisty motion for 10 minutes total (time varied based on the type of film + ISO) but for 30 seconds first and then five seconds for every 30 seconds until time was up… to shorten the rest of the steps, it went something like: pour out pour in stop bath and agitate, pour out and pour in fixer and agitate for 90 seconds, pour out and dunk in running water bath for two minutes, mix around in hypo clear for 30 seconds, wash, dunk in photo-flo for another 30 seconds, hang and dry for 30 minutes… and then cut up my film into strips of five to slip into a film sleeve to create a contact sheet for tomorrow. (This is just the film; I have no actual photos yet.)
If I had messed up somewhere, I would’ve lost those shots forever—no memory recovery, no disc repair. view more →
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