The halcyon days

I was bed-ridden today with a cold. I decided to miss work and recuperate. Around noon, I was regretting this decision. "What am I gonna do the rest of the day?" I mumbled to myself. "Feel ill?" I stayed in bed until 1 in the afternoon. I even felt a little better. Enough to go out and have a smoke. But, I realized then why a cold is called "A cold." It makes one feel cold from the inside. So, when I was outside trying to steal a smoke, I was pancaked with this inner coldness and the frigid weather outside. Every time the wind hit my skin, it stung straight to my bones. This made the I-am-gonna-smoke-even-though-it-taste-funny-because-I-have-a-cold party a brief one. But, having a cold is kind of like being hung-over. I have limited sensory abilities and seemingly covered in a perpetual cloud of feverishness. My skin is warm but my innards are cold. It's a strange delirium to find one self in. If, lucky, it can be such that the cold is not so severe that it is just causing enough side-effects to put one in a trance-like halcyon state. This early or whatever duration of the cold meets what I call this perfect condition of like being drugged. Of course, being drugged makes me want to be creative for some reason so I decided to sit down and work on some old footage from 10 years or so ago and make a trailer out of it because trailers are fun, even if the film doesn't exist.



So, about ten years ago in college, I used to live with roommates and as a film student - I was always filming them. I even filmed skies, trees, leaves and whatever I found compelling. The goal was to eventually cut a documentary of some sort, which I did and which got a very limited screening in our living room. The documentary was called "R.A.D." after Renee, Andrea and Danielle, the 3 roommates whom I lived with for a year. In this version, I wanted to cut a trailer for a nonexistent film using the same footage. I don't know how successful of a trailer it is. But, I kind like the gritty, amatuerish quality of it.

Camera and booze

My week in pictures. First up was an art party at Leo Kesting in the meatpacking district. I have been to a few of their parties before and always had a good time.



It's a party when there are people spilling out into the sidewalk.



An art balloon? Is that color pink or light red?... And one of my favorite kind of art is art on walls, otherwise known as, permanent art.



I enjoy art a lot. So, much so that I take pleasure of taking pictures of art. In my head, if I take a picture of an artwork or take pictures in an art gallery, then my picture will automatically, as if, art-by-association become a piece of artwork, too.



I tried many times to take a good picture of this lady with the heart-shaped glasses but could never get her in focus. Of course, I was taking these picture incognito-style. But, I still like how the low-angle view of the picture makes it seem like I am a 5 yr old paparazzi.



Here is another form of permanent art - a tattoo. And, by permanent, I guess I mean, temporary because nothing is really permanent. Not walls, or human skin, or even permanent... is permanent... if that makes any sense.



Another thing that isn't permanent are photographs and booze. About halfway into the evening, I decided that I would meld the two together and take pictures of people holding their drinks.



I like this picture. I like how the plant is just sitting there; and the two women are also just sitting there; and then the piles of blue plastic cups are also just sitting on the table, too.



Well, hello there. I was so blatantly perverted when I took this picture. She was a sport for even posing. I told her I wanted to take a picture of her holding her drink and proceeded to hold the camera above my head and then pointed it downwards. This was my most dangerous shot of the night. Dangerous because of the angle but also dangerous because of its honesty, I thought. You can tell exactly what was on my mind.



And then, it was time to pee. Of course, nothing completes the night like a bathroom picture of my drunk and tired self.



But wait... the night wasn't over. For our night cap, J, who was also at the art party invited us for drinks at his work place across the street.



And then, more drinking followed the next night at this kitschy-esque bar in Hell's Kitchen.



Fellow coworkers, C and M wondering why I am holding the camera above my head. It's a technique I have been practicing called "arming it," which is basically using your arm to raise the camera to get a better vantage point or angle.



A couple of activities at the bar were beer pong and apparently, sex in the bathroom. Long story short, a couple were heard totally doing it in the tiny stall of the men's bathroom. Conveniently, our table was right in front of the stairs leading to the bathroom so it was easy for us to play this little game of who is the horny couple? "Will they be glowing?" was one I remember being spoken aloud. Interestingly, when the two did finally exit after being down there for quite some time - the couple didn't look particularly skeevy or desperate or even exhibiting any post-coital glow. The woman came up first, followed shortly by the man and the two went straight for the exit under a bit of urgency and that was all.

Lost with a camera

"It's better to be lost with a camera, than without," I mumbled to myself. This was after finding out that my friends were in a different bar than I thought they were in.



A couple of things resulted to this misinformation. One, is text messaging itself. People text message in slangs.

So, when my friend texted, "bbar" he didn't mean B-Bar at the Bowery, but B's Bar where our friend, "B" worked and was celebrating her birthday. This is a case of me taking things too literally. Or, is it "Letter-ally?" Get it? Letter?....

Nevermind.

All this misinformation and misdirection afforded me the opportunity to take some interesting pictures along the way, though.



Like letters, pictures can make a thousand words.



This picture for example, with those yellow-colored trees again, is a great example of how a tree can look like urine. Or, urine can look like trees.



It was a cold freezing night that night. So cold in fact that trash were bundled in synthetic polymers and the streets were suffering from severe goose-bumps.



These are jelly-fish trees.



And this is me, finally making it to B's bar, instead, of B-Bar, where I mistakenly ended up in earlier that night.

35 is the new 50

I have been very busy the past few weeks as you can tell from how frequent my posts are. In fact, I am stealing precious lunch time hours right now to type these very words. Speaking of which, I have been eating soft food for the last couple of weeks because my wisdom teeth on both sides are acting up. So, my diet can only be those that babies and the elderly alike can eat, like mash potatoes and cream of spinach and soup and oatmeal and the like. I am dreading the dentist because I can't afford it.

Instead, I bought a new prime lens to supplement my 50mm. This one is a 35mm and best fits your "normal field of vision" in DX format cameras like the one I have. As everyone knows, taking pictures is a mathematical chore. The camera, of course, makes these tasks simpler. And, in my opinion, a prime lens makes it even simpler. So, I sold the 18-55 zoom lens in favor this new lens. It's great. I love it. 35 is the new 50. It's a 'walkaround' lens and I love to walk around. Taking pictures is my exercise.

Here are first pictures from my new Nikon 35mm F2D lens:



I like how this dude's hair is semi-silhoutted from the sun. As if it's like a lit cigarette.



This woman with an ipod was totally immersed into whatever she was listenning to.



And, me, my camera and my yellow towel when I returned home last night. The dentist will have to wait, while I immerse myself into the world of pictures.