Wow, blogs...are these things still around?

Not going to lie, I have been terribly busy.  The festival, photography, work, and my new hobby sailing.  The festival was one of the most successful festivals in it's thirty year history, this makes all of us feel good.  Even the city feels good about it, hell the city manager has given us a green light for anything we want to try to bring in people/money; so in October we're having a Fall Fest/Oktoberfest.

Photography has taken a backseat recently due to my hectic schedule, but I still have a chance to take some photos.  I've met a new gallery owner and he's interested in my stuff. 

Sailing, my one and only true get away from everything.  My phone stays off, I take no electronics and I get to get away from it all.  It's just the wind that carries you.  I'm not going to lie, the first time I went out I was scared out of my mind.  We went on a windy/gusty day where the boat was nearly sideways most of the time, but I loved it. I've been asked to join the race team, but the festival schedule prevented me from doing this, and there's no way in hell I'll be missing the team next year.  It's just pure unadulterated fun on the boat.  I only wish I could do it more.

Life is good and fun at the moment and I'm still flying high on the success of our festival, wait till next year though we plan on bigger and better.  We put this together in 8 weeks, now we have a year to plan it.  You think we did an awesome job this year??? You won't even believe what you'll see next time. So stay tuned for a good time.

I'm just like all the other photographers...

...when we get bored we all take photos of the same things around here.  We call it urban exploration, that is just a nice way of saying we break into abandoned buildings.  It's fun we have to look for cops make a few sweeps around the building to check security and find an entrance point, and then hide bums' weapons.  Yes I did say hide the bums weapons, we only moved the knife under his mattress, we didn't steal it or throw it out, that would have been mean.  Abandoned buildings have the most broken glass you've ever seen, also there's an old high school with the most amount of chemistry labs I have ever seen. Detroit should have been the capital for chemists the way the school was designed.  But back to the broken glass, summers suck for urbex photography, and I normally wear jeans and boots, but wore shorts, and that explains the cut on my leg and arms.  Hopefully all the chemicals from the old chemistry room where it happened have disappeared by now.  I did learn to go with a friend and another photographer, and damn is photography a cut throat business, we don't share secrets or photo spots, and we hate it when others try and take the same photos we have, but the payoff of it is fantastic.  I'm actually happy that I got into photography, now back to the other side of photography the selling portion, and the most important part I learned is to stop caring about trying to sell photos and just take pictures of stuff I like.  Hell it's what got me to where people want photos, and dammit it is what I'm going to keep doing.

Come together right now

About time things finally started to come together.  So this whole photo thing is finally taking off, finally.  Selling photos, working on an exhibit, and there's a store/gallery that wants to put my stuff up and sell them.  Good for me, now comes my biggest headache: pricing.  There are 3 different pricing schemes: friends, strangers, and galleries. The cheapest is for friends, I barely make anything from this, for strangers I make a decent profit, for galleries you get ripped off, but they take a decent cut out of every sale so photos need to cost more.  I'm almost at 32,000 views on Flickr and I'm getting more and more complements for my photos, now who's got an upcoming event that isn't really important and wants photos taken?  I need more work with objects that run away or move.  But I'm feeling good about this. Now to keep trying to figure out pricing.  Well enough of that time to go watch mindless explosions and go see Iron Man 2.

To post or not to post that is the question these days...

I've been having more fun and taking this photography thing slightly more seriously than before, now that has led to the problem of me having pictures that I'm not sure what to do with.  I do enjoy going out as many of you know and most of these places serve alcohol, and seeing that I almost always have a camera around I do manage to get some interesting photos.  Which leads me to the conundrum that the title of this posts asks, do I publish these photos or do I sit here laughing at them?

Ahh pre-social networking days you just showed these photos to your friends, or at parties and go look how stupid so and so was or how drunk he/she was, now within 5 minutes everyone can find out about your idiotic dance moves, or what new and inventive way you've come up to hurt yourself.  Speaking with other photogs I've learned that almost everyone likes the camera guy and yes it does make it easier to approach certain ladies, albeit these ladies are usually attention whores who you would never bother to call back.  But seriously what is one to do with such photos, do you go up to the people and go look hahaha we were so funny and stupid, now can I post these for the world to see? I shall sit here lamenting with my choices and at the same time be thankful that I am the one behind the camera and not in front of it.

I need to refocus my attention

I now see why so many people don't do exhibits, or at least people with my attention span don't do them.  I love taking pictures and I love seeing how they come out, and am beginning to like the post production parts of it too.  My main problem is I want to keep going out to take more pictures of different things and not work on actually getting my photos ready for an exhibit.  I've actually agreed to an exhibit at a library, but I haven't actually taken the time to sit down and go through my photos and decide what I want shown.  I keep going out and taking more photos of new things, and this is complicating the process.  I love taking photos of urban decay and of Detroit in general, but then there's my nature shots that are pretty good too and seem to go over real well. 

Hmmm what to do, what to do? Do I keep postponing my exhibit, like I've been doing for months? Do I actually sit down and decide what the hell I have to do, or do I cop out and do a contrast of urban living in Detroit, and the serene peaceful nature of northern Michigan.  The beauty of destruction vs. the beauty of nature.  Well I'll figure something out and let everyone know, but most likely I'll cop out and do a split exhibit of my work, it's my show and I can do what I want!

My banter about myself again

St. Patty's Day weekend in Detroit is always fun, first it starts on Sunday for the St. Patty's Day Parade and absolute insanity in Corktown; and yes I do mean absolute insanity.  It was a fun time with some fun people and I took a few good photos.  The place was packed with people, maybe not so much along the parade route but definitely in the bars, at Nemo's you could not move unless of course you just pushed your way through and everyone else just started to follow you.

But here are some of the highlights of the parade:



















and the one I call "Help me Obi-wan Kenobi you're our only...holy hell what happened to you?"


After the parade I ended up at a friends bar and late night we decided to go venturing out and see the abandoned beauty of Detroit, first to an old mechanic shop and then up the 14 stories of Michigan Central Station.  That was an interesting trip I was told to do it without a flashlight at night, then to only use the flashlight when absolutely necessary.  This might explain why someone needed stitches but never got them.  I slipped on the roof over the grand hall and that explains the bruised knee in the morning and scraped elbow, it took a second to figure out where the blood on my jeans and coat came from but I was ok, so it was my friend's blood.

And then on Wed. St. Patrick's Day, had breakfast and then spent too much money at the Old Shillelagh in Detroit, then had lunch at the Detroit Beer Co.  Some friends went to take a nap and I headed back to Donovan's Pub for  a few more and to hang out with some interesting people.  I learned that Howard's nickname is Mandingo...I will end the story there.  Then up to meet up with some more friends for a night cap and TOTS!!!!

In other news I got published in the Metro Times for my photo "Before the North wall Fell." Here is a link to the article: Metro Times
and here's a link to the photo:


Well that's all I'm going to say for now, I do have other stories but some just aren't meant to be told on here.

The last post needs some explanation

So the search warrant was at work not for me, some sheriff's deputies came to get some information on a patron and I said we can't and won't give anything without a search warrant. I told them they can make a request for information but it won't necessarily be honored, so two days later they came back with a court ordered search warrant. Lovely. I get to deal with two deputies about technology who have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, so I have to dumb everything down and explain how things on computers work. The other tech was trying to do the same thing to them but alas if a person does not understand technology you cannot really explain it to them in a few minutes.

In other news I'm hopefully going to get published in the Metro Times. I sent some photos in and the Arts & Culture editor wants to use mine along with some other photographers photos in an upcoming issue. HELL YEAH! Now if only I could figure out a way of making some steady income from this photography thing it would be even better. I have a friend who's helping me meet and talk with different photographers so recently I have met a Free Press photographer, a really cool combat photographer who got back to the states not too long ago, and a bunch of local photographers. By the way Detroit has many interesting/weird things to photograph with our art crowd here, and once you get to know them you keep getting invited to weirder and weirder things. I love this city.

Also so much to look forward to the Blowout, the Muse Concert, St. Patty's Parade in Corktown, St. Patty's day all over metro Detroit and after all that hopefully some sleep, rest and relaxation...but who am I kidding, I won't get any of the latter.

Anger is my motivation

To the guy who looked at my photos a few months ago and told me in not so many words they sucked F*CK You, and thank you. It was you who made me go out and hone my "skills," it was you who led me to go take pictures of anything and everything. It was your stupid little words that were in the back of my head every time I took a photo. I realized I needed to improve and your damn "talk" did it for me. Failure is not an option for me, and because of who I am I will make damn sure to prove you wrong if you tell me I can't do something. I will do everything humanly possible to prove you wrong if you tell me I will fail. There is no real reason for this post other than to vent and remember me going through my photos with a prick who told me I'll never get anywhere with my photography. Now I have two offers for exhibits an invitation to join an art collective and having a hell of a time doing what I'm doing. So to you good sir who said I would fail thank you for the motivation I needed to prove you wrong.

This blog has changed

So this blog is completely different than when it first started, I mean I just used to post random useless crap about things I found online that made me laugh. Now I post random useless crap about myself that no one reads (not really since I started these random postings my site views have gone up and from different places, go figure).

So to keep the tradition of updating everyone of my so called interesting life, a girl threw a plate at my head and that was the last time I talked to and saw her, the sale of the Minido falls photo fell through because the woman wanted me to put a $200-250 frame on a photo she only wanted to pay $200 for (I'm beginning to think the world is running out of sane people), and I sort of kinda quit my local paper photographer gig. Do I have to write an official letter of resignation when you tell your so called boss to kiss your ass and find a different idiot photographer? I do have something else lined up to take photos of local bands at one of the biggest local band concerts in the world...hint hint figure out what that could be.

Also I'm taking the photography more seriously and my style has improved, I'm not sure if I like nature photography or urban/architecture photography more, it's a toss up. But I do enjoy the weekend getaways to take pictures around Michigan, it really is a beautiful state the entire year. Where else can you find everything you find in this state, I can go to the same place in different times of the year and get completely different shots. Now I just need to find more buyers for my photos, so I'm having my first faux-exhibit at the library in February. My boss wants me to use the photos from my last trip up north, I have to come up for a name of my exhibit and any help is greatly appreciated. Well that's it for now, I'm off to go drive around Detroit to figure out what to take photos of, but first I need SBC to finish fixing my damn internet.

Being a photographer is fun...

sometimes, that is. I love taking the pics, and recently began to love selling them too! Haha, that's right selling them now too, so far I've sold 1 photo, with one photo in the process of being sold. I needed my friend's advice on pricing, he told me to start high and work down, so I did. She wanted a framed 16x20 I told her a price of $400, she said how about $350, I told her sold! Yay for me, hell I would have been happy for $100, so anything else is a bonus. But getting up at 4:30AM after getting home at 2:00AM is not that much fun, although the payoff is great. Today I went out to go get photos of the Dequindre cut, and realized I need a new pair of gloves that gives me access to the camera buttons and dials. Why do I need new gloves, because my fingers turned purple and started to tingle, you know that small sensation like small needles, yeah that's what it was. I take my gloves off to take the pictures, and I don't realize my fingers are freezing until after I get the photo I want.

Now I can't keep a cohesive thought together, so back to the other photo, It's a 30x20 photo of the Minido falls, I have said that I will only print 25 of these large photos, and I have one hanging on my wall. Fun thing is the 30x20 will probably be sold for less than the 16x20 photo,but like my friend also told me sell to your audience. The photos for the local papers is beginning to get annoying, annoying as in you're giving me crap pay to go to crappy venues to see empty bars and not get my photos published. Also I really have no intentions to keep being sent to see a band that plays at 1:00AM on a weekday, I might jokingly say I can sleep when I die, but it is starting to catch up to me. To make matters worse I need to watch my mouth at these bars, especially when I make fun of my so-called employer's magazine in front of one of their writers...oops!

Oh yeah Happy New Year everyone, may this be the best year ever!

All I want to do is talk about me

It was a fantastic weekend, A great weekend, a spectacular weekend. It was so good I can now check off one of the things I wanted to do before I die list. And if you do hear the story, my life is not a walking talking sitcom, although I do have similar characteristics with them.

So I spend a crap load of money in photography equipment the past week, and went out and took pics with the new camera. They came out great, and I'm inching more and more at trying to have my own exhibit. Crap, I actually started to think my photos are good...that is a weird feeling. So I'm taking the advice find what you love to do, and then try to figure out how to get paid for it. So I'm taking a break from school to follow my photography dream. Hell I tried to resign, but I was considered to important and my resignation was refused, I will pick up school again some time in the future, I'll give it a year or less or more, who knows. I've joined some Detroit photographer groups and I'll see how that goes, at least they can tell me where to get some cool shots, and they are liking some of my work already. Well that's all for now, stay tuned for more updates on my crazy/exciting/hectic/fun-filled/never a dull moment life.

Two completely different reactions

So, today I was called a dick a douchebag and a trooper. The person who called me a dick and a douchebag was the same person, and it was actually funny. This was not a bad thing really, he just called me this because he finally saw my photos online and thought I was holding out on him. He wants me to teach him my tricks to photography, he went on the rant for quite some time, but all in fun. Apparently people do like my photography and that has been making me feel good, hell I'm over 9,000 views on Flickr already...WOO-HOO! Still kinda freaked out about having my photos on exhibit on a wall for people to see and critique.

Which then leads me to being called a trooper and sort of in awe of my quick rebound from long nights. So I've been going out a lot more recently and it's been fun meeting some interesting people, and then seeing them again. One person who expected me to be dead by night three and they asked my boss how I was doing, and lo and behold I'm doing just fine and they could not believe it. Some of you know I have a very short recovery period and I'm good on just a couple of hours of sleep, or if I have to not sleeping at all. I'm young I need to have fun, no regrets later, so I keep doing it. That's it.