nisaa

Last night I told more friends at a party about my project and they said they'd love to be in it (3 more people).

I also took some better pictures of my dog.

Today: Nada, zip, zero, zilch. I have three minutes left to today. I'll try to at least download the Blurb software so I can start the layout.

Tomorrow: I'll bring my camera to a Memorial Day get together and maybe take some photos of people.

Today was pretty productive in terms of taking photos. I met up with deyo and mactavish to take photos of them and their dogs. When I got home, I took photos of stevefava and harpydisplayed and a few of our pets.

One thing I found difficult today was taking photos of two people at a time, especially if one or both of them are laughing. Ultimately, I'll be happy with slightly blurry photos if the people in them look genuinely happy.

Photographing dogs if they're not napping is an entirely different story. Well, maybe it isn't. It's difficult enough to take photos of dogs because they don't often sit still. On top of that, deyo and mactavish have dogs that are mostly black. My dog is black too. It's a lot more challenging to get a photo of them that's not blurry, if they're awake.

I will have to flaunt the imperfection then, embrace negative clarity and have a few blurry photos. I'm ok with that.

After today's photos, I'm less worried about coming up with 35 photos for the project. I think I've got at least five so far. And, I might have more subjects to shoot soon too!

This isn't strictly a Sofobomo post but the events of this morning affected some photos I took for sure. I'll start by saying I went to sleep at 11pm last night and set my iPhone alarm to go off at 4:45am for our sunrise shoot. It wasn't going to be a lot of sleep but I had the promise of a nap after going to photograph sunrise.

I woke up when the iPhone crickets chirped me awake. I got dressed, I cut and buttered and ate half a bagel. I was about to go and meet up with my friends when I looked at the clock in the hotel room and it said it was 3am. I opened my laptop to double check. It said 3am. My iPhone said 5am. I very nearly texted joedecker to triple check but then realized I should let him sleep.

I went back to sleep for another hour and a half and got up again for the real sunrise. I was quite grumpy by then.

Ever see the movie "Amelie"? Remember the scene where she tricks the grocer by playing practical jokes and sets his alarm ahead so he wakes up too early, swaps his toothpaste for foot cream, cuts his shoelaces too short and puts his doorknobs on backwards? I kinda felt like that only I was glad my toothpaste was real toothpaste and it was only the iPhone playing tricks on me with the time. (BTW, I looked and could not find the scene from Amelie on Youtube).

As a result, my portraits this morning at sunrise were not so great (read: really blurry and not useable). So rather than giving up entirely, my Sofobomo contribution today was to start writing the introduction for the book.

Tomorrow is the day I start my Solo Photo Book Month. No matter what happens, I'm committed to at least trying to see it through. The theme ("My chosen poly family") may change depending on the course of events in my biological family over the next few weeks, but I'm still gonna give it a try.

When I wasn't able to sleep this morning, I started thinking of the text for the book. I can pretty much write that anytime when I'm not taking photos.

Today the photos will start at Mono Lake.

I cut my left thumb this morning but I suppose it's better than cutting my right index finger which I use to I press the shutter on the camera.

joedecker is having a 72 hour sale on a bunch of his beautiful photographs. Go on over and take a look and buy some!!

In case you haven't heard about this already, joedecker is in Colorado (and next week in Montana) for two performances of music inspired by some of his Signatures of the Sun photographs. The details of the performances are here.

And you can see his Signatures of the Sun photos here.

It's not too late to order some of joedecker's beautiful holiday cards.

Also, gift certificates for acupuncture make great holiday gifts. Special holiday bonus: if you buy someone a treatment, you get a complimentary one for yourself (offer good til the end of the year).

And hey, you can give someone a gift certificate inside of one of Joe's holiday cards!

joedecker is auctioning his limited edition Above the Arctic Circle portfolio here. You've got only 19 hours left! Go bid!

Also, you DO know about his Iceland book don't you? Buy a copy here.

What happens when I check my yahoo email addy, which I check very infrequently, is that I often find out about neat stuff going on like an exhibit sponsored by Kids with Cameras:

February 1 – April 30, 2008
Jerusalem Exhibit
Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
Katz Snyder Gallery
3200 California Street
San Francisco, CA

Here's an article about the exhibit:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/10/PKVOUP0MT.DTL

For those of you who don't know, Kids with Cameras was started by Zana Briski who did the documentary "Born into Brothels". Their mission is:
Kids with Cameras is a non-profit organization that teaches the art of photography to marginalized children in communities around the world. We use photography to capture the imaginations of children, to empower them, building confidence, self-esteem and hope.

Who wants to go to the exhibit with me?

joedecker is giving a photography workshop January 12th and 13th along the San Mateo Coast. While you're thinking of holiday gifts, consider giving someone a gift certificate for this workshop. You can find more info at:
http://rockslidephoto.com/blog/?p=428