xmas list

it's all i want.

I've watched this movie so many times over the past few days. it's super inspiring visually, and really provoking emotionally. I kind of want to put it in the same category of american beauty, even though it isn't very much the same. yeah, it's funny, yeah it's sad, and yeah its deep. I kind of think the point of the movie is that money doesn't always mean everything. it's super good and i'm watching it again for the however manyith time right now. go watch it.

So another weekend was spent in eau claire. More like a night. I worked friday from 10-2, took off from there, got to eau claire, did the shoot w/ the new science and then hung out with some friends. next morning, wake up, get a deposit for a wedding and then head out to do the our judgment shoot.

that one was a toughy. we went to a really cool location, but it was FREEZING outside. I set up, shoot about 8 frames and then we call it a location. From there we go inside this "mall" thing that is mostly wood workers and other stuff like that, and I don't bring lights because we don't have clearance for that. After we walk around I decide I need to ask permission because this place is sweet, it's like an old warehouse or something. the guy who's "shop" we shot right outside of was totally cool with it. I have a feeling these people don't see much business on saturdays. I plug in my Alien Bee (lighting) into my Vagabond (portable power) and it started setting off the flash rapidly. My guess is the vagabond was too cold and just started freaking out, so I plugged the light into the wall and no problem, we have a photo shoot. wham, bam, thank you mam we are done. and then I drive home and work from 5-915. sweet weekend!

this is an intersection I go through basically on a daily basis. it's about a mile away from my house and about 90% of the time I'm at this intersection I take a left.

EPIC update

wow it's been way too long. many pictures have accrued, and many stories to follow as well.

hmmm where to start!

well, "tis the season" has officially begun in our great tundra of Minnesota. Here, it snows late, but it snows hard. As I drive to work on county roads, I see cars going 25 miles an hour in a 55 mph zone, all while lines of cars who are eager and ready to get to work think it's my fault. Then there are always these bad boys



ahh the great side dump'r. spitting rocks up left and right, these menaces are all over these county roads, but we've become accustomed to them. We coexist.

on tuesday, the 18th of november, I left for eau claire to visit with some friends and then take a little road trip out to milwaukee.



ahh a good two and a half hours after I leave, I am welcomed to eau claire. traffic was horrible, but music always has been a cure for long drives. there is this little bus station in eau claire near where I had plans to meet some friends that has always fascinated me, it's got a very calm aura to it, while it still feels gritty.




from there, I met with some friends at a cafe in downtown eau claire to work on homework/hang out. little did we know there was an apple orchard in the acoustic cafe!



after this i stay over at phils, the kid i'm sitting next to on the left, and we watch some conan o brien and kick it for a bit. I wake up at 6 the next morning, shower, and hit the road over to my friend kyle's house. it took me awhile to get there because google maps was a little out dated on some of eau claire's roads or something but got there and figured it out. from there we hit the road, and about 40 minutes into the trip was our first pit stop. PEE BREAK!




so basically here is how that night went.

kyle and savanna were playing a show at the rave in milwaukee, on a side stage, opening for Secondhand Serenade. We get to the venue just fine, and get checked into the hotel fine too. Everything is peachy. It took me awhile to figure out where I was staying but his parents invited me to stay with them at their hotel, which was super super nice, and I was very appreciative of that. So everything is good, right? yep. Now we get to the juicy part of the story. we're at the show, I've got house pass on my right thigh (very very bad sticker, starts peeling off very easily,) and I'm standing outside, on my phone. As I'm about to walk in, I notice it is gone. After a few minutes of searching I conclude that it must have blown off when I was running across Wisconsin Ave, which is a really busy road and not exactly an easy spot to find anything. From there I text Kyle and ask him to see what he can do, along with texting my friend David who was at another show that was being held at the Rave. After about a half hour David comes down and we may have, what you call, "snuck in." This is great, but I got into the wrong show. After about 25 minutes of sitting there, David and I wander around back stage and I find myself in the right show. Kind of hectic, but it works, right?

from there random "you had to be there" moments happened, and lots of good times were had.

the next morning instead of our intentional waking up time of 6, we wake at 930. a little bit crappy but oh well, it still works. from there we drive down to lake michigan and take some photos and I took some video too, I miss that great lake. get it? it was a good time, and for the first time I honestly missed living in Wisconsin.



from here we head to madison and it takes forever to find the street we're looking for but we saw some pretty interesting things along the way. the thing I love about madison is how everyone rides around on scooters, it's really funny.





from there we locked the keys in the car, made a couple extra stops, and did a lot of hanging out. I arrived home at 9:10pm, instead of the attended 12pm, but that's okay with me.

don't you just

love the feeling of not getting any hours at work, getting paid a little more than half of what you made at your last job, and the drama the ensues?

Don't get me wrong, the people I work with are awesome, but it's not paying the bills. I need another job, and that totally sucks because in case you haven't heard, the job market is horrible.

Just trying to keep my chin up and my camera focused.

whew

Aaron's senior pictures are finally wrapped up and I'm loving the track shots. Totally what I was going for. Today I'm off to meet with a bride who's wedding is next Saturday to work out the details. After that? All kinds of awesome.

what a day

Gotta love hanging out with old friends.

sigh

"Shake it off.
Pick yourself up, they say.
Your life fell apart in your hands, and you've got the scars to prove it.
It's not the first time, and they're getting deeper.
Pull it together.
Button up your shirt.
Roll down those sleeves.
Don't let them see how you've coped.
More and more your demeanor looks like quicksand.
It seems like your giving up on everything you worked for.
It's pulling you under.
It's gripping around your throat.
Life can be overwhelming, but don't turn your back on the strongest crutch you've ever had.
They have always been there to brace your fall.
Wave goodbye to the past.
You've got your whole life to lead.
It's time to gain some ground."

august burns red- composure

i'm posting this because of the lyric
"more and more your demeanor looks like quicksand"

it's fitting.

puppy time!

Haven't had a dog since last october, and now I've finally got one. He's a 10 week old Labradoodle who has yet to be named. This past friday my mom, Eva and I drove an hour and a half away to go pick him up at a breeder. So far there have been a few accidents, some biting and a lot of cute puppy moments. this dog rocks.

so it's ben, again. his yearbook is doing a page on him and his music stuff and I got to do the shoot for it. Editorial shoot, right? haha.

tomorrow I have a play date with my friends Kill Your Ex, we're shooting right before their show at the skatepark in Rogers, MN.

Make sure to check out Dustin Snipes. If you don't know this guy, know him. His photography is absolutely breathtaking. Normally I find sports photography quite dull and bland, but this guy is so talented, he was definitely born to do this. plus he has an awesome blog.

so theres the self portrait.

yargh.....

so lately i have not been happy with my photography. the last band shoot i did i was very meh about, and i just got an email from the record label saying that they want a re shoot. i just need to take some time and really work with the lighting i'm using and post production and spend more time lining up shots/scouting locations. i am going to sit down tomorrow and spend a lot of time on a self portrait until it is lit perfectly, exactly how i want it.

wish me luck.

"Just take it in stride.
One breath and I think I feel free.
All we can do is strive for the best thoughts,
the best feelings, the "warm fuzzy" feeling.
As a child, I believed these all came to me due to the process of living.
Grab the wheel right now, and make this life yours.
Walk with me.
Leave your disgusting fever.
Take this life - make it yours.
Forgotten are the days of wandering pointlessly in my dreams.
Carry me with your wings."

August burns red lyrics to Endorphins.

Today/yesterday took a pretty stressful turn because I found out I needed two new tires for my car, which is never cheap. It ended up being cheaper than expected, but i was still left with a $266 dollar bill just waiting for me to sign. Fortunately I got back a senior that I had thought I lost to a lame portrait photography company, so I'm doing that on tuesday (weather willingly) and yeah. Hopefully things with money will start turning around a little bit here. Working at levi's is fun and all....... but I gotta get that money somehow.

Grab the wheel right now, make this life yours

ugh

this is a shot from a set I did for this couple Kyle and Ciera. I've known kyle for a long time and ciera is a photographer, so it was a good time.

So I want to fill you in on something that I find extremely frustrating.

People who flake on photo shoots. I have had this shoot booked, and rescheduled 4 times, and now he decides to go with David Banks Studio. www.davidbankstudios.com. one of the most generic, boring and lame photography studios in this area. I'm not saying I'm a great photographer or building my ego, but honestly this is a tad ridiculous.

Seniors, bands, portraits, everything falls through. Maybe I need to just take it to heart and up the game with my photography, which I'm already working on, or I need to try and start dealing with other people.

How frustrating.

Ben came over for a little myspace shoot yesterday because I got my alien bee, and here's my favorite shot from it. to me it's got kind of a sarcastic funnyness to it. today i've got a shoot with a band called meridene out of eau claire wisconsin, so it'll be a good ol' drive out to wisconsin.

i haven't been to wisconsin since I moved back, so it'll be interesting to go back there. at least it's just to eau claire and not milwaukee.

so i got an alien bee yesterday, and i'm pretty excited to start using it. tomorrow i have a senior shoot, and hopefully i'll be able to use it. otherwise, I've got a shoot on sunday that I'll use it for. I've got to interview/do a portrait shoot with a teacher at ARCC in the next two weeks, some guy emailed me about shooting at his restaurant, aaaaaand yeah. hopefully all this pulls through.

This is the guitar player of Sky Eats Airplane, thought it was a pretty good laugh.

Now I'm watching something about the chupucabra on discovery channel, pretty crazy stuff.

off to a senior shoot now, photos will be up later hopefully.

haha

i don't know if you can read this but this is Portia de Rossi's IMDB page, and her "STARmeter" went up 19,333% last week after her and Ellen DeGeneres got married. Sadly, it is down 98% this week. Much love to www.imdb.com

oh and a disclaimer, in my iChat window, someone was saying "i didn't know she was gay," not saying it in a negative sense!

photography 1

this is what happens when you know about aperture and take photography 1

class is starting to speed up a little bit. we got our first photo assignment, and it's to go shoot a building that looks very ordinary, but shoot in in a very unordinary way. not sure where i'm going to shoot this yet but i'm excited about it.

i'm pretty sure there are two people who have touched cameras in my photography 1 course. it was pretty ridiculous, but our teacher seems to be very thorough and hopefully i'll learn a thing or two.

tomorrow i'm going downtown to the RNC to catch some photos of the protesters there and hopefully not get maced, wish me luck!

Day 3.
This is my dad's old saw that is collecting dust in our back room. It's probably been around just as long as I have, if not longer. Still works great, and gets used every now and then, but for the most part just sits in the back closet, building it's character.



Day 4.
I was in the target parking lot, driving my mom's car, waiting to trade guitars with a friend. This was the day my mom had her surgery, and I would have taken a picture in the hospital, but it just didn't feel right bringing my camera in and taking photos when everyone is so distressed. everything went fine, and now she's doing great.



Day 5.
first apple computer. second workspace. the end



Day 6.
took some pictures up in clearwater, and there was a chair in this tree. where i shot was a total little fishing community, and it was amazing. i love the rural lifestyle almost as much as i love the urban lifestyle, if not more.

Day 1

Day 2


I decided that I wanted to challenge myself and do a 365 day project. I don't want to have 365 pictures of myself, so I'm going to do different themes every week. My first week is black and white, and I've got a few other ideas for down the line.

Day 1.
At my friend Ben's. His mom runs a day care, so they have tons of toys and kid's books sitting in their basement, and this was in the closet there.

Day 2.
The Ramsey Municipal Parking lot. I was driving home from my good friend Mike's after we did an NFL fantasy draft, when I saw the amazing parking garage to my right. At first I was a little hesitant because I've heard horror stories of people walking around with tripods, someone calling the cops, getting yelled to get on the ground at gunpoint, but I thought it could be an adventure. To be honest, it wasn't exciting at all. Probably 10 cars passed me in 45 minutes of walking/shooting, and the one police officer I saw noticed I had a camera so he kept moving.

Today I work at Levi's again, and I'm enjoying my job. It's fun to finally be around more people that are relatively my age. Plus there are a bunch of awesome pants!

Tomorrow my mom is getting some pretty serious surgery done to her neck, and it's a little nerve racking. The surgery has an amazing success rate, but you can't help but sit uneasy. I'm sure everything will be fine.

so it's been quite awhile since i've updated this thing, so here we go.

in the past week i have registered for school, gone to the mall of america, gone to uptown, and started working my job at levi's.  

today i folded clothes for a good 5 hours or so, and it was quite the party if i do say so myself.

a few days i was at the mall of america with my friends phil and amber, and it was a good time.  it included, and was not limited to: underwater world, best buy, walking across the mall a few times, and urban outfitters.  


this was us on the conveyer belt tour of underwater world.  this is the biggest indoor aquarium in the world, and it's really amazing.  even for someone who is afraid of water, I can really appreciate this.

in the true fashion of blogging

i shall lead you else where.  

i read this article today about how to catch a potential boss' attention by doing things out of the ordinary and in a more interesting fashion.  It's a pretty cool concept, and I really like it.  Doing something different to stand out among the crowd of people who all have resume's, who all have cover letters, and all want a job.  So what should I do?  Go to my next interview in a banana suit?  maybe..

here's the link to the article.

i really need to finish working on my camera bag....

national geographic

national geopgraphic is the best. hands down. their cinematorgraphy is absolutely gorgeous and their content is the some of the most entertaining stuff ever. I'm watching a show about a 10 mile bridge that connects denmark and sweden together on a budget of 3 billion dollars. It's partially a bridge, partially a tunnel, how epic is that? they had to build their own ISLAND to accommodate to the air traffic.

anyway, yesterday I did a little photo shoot for my friend's solo project and it's pretty much exactly how I wanted it to turn out. I could have used a little more light in the eyes and on the legs, but other than that, i'm really happy with it. my flickr's turning into something I'm very happy with.

10 years ago

10 years ago was the worst day of my life. it was the day that my dad moved on to a better place. I can still feel how empty i felt sitting down on the couch and knowing i just lost my best friend. my dad was the most important thing in my life, as dad's usually are to their 10 year old kids.

I never felt mad at him, never felt mad at God, just kind of felt like it was something that happened and there's nothing I can do about it, so why get mad.

Honestly, I never address how I feel about it. I've always pushed my feelings away because whenever I even say the words "my dad" I start choking up. It's not something that sits well with me.

I get a little jealous of other people's dads and their relationship. In the past 10 years, I haven't had a dad to celebrate father's day with. I haven't been able to buy my dad a "world's best dad" coffee mug for. I have to look at things that he owned and remember how amazing he was and how half of my life I don't remember when he was alive because I was so young. I miss him more than anything I've ever felt.

Since that day, it's been hard to find a male figure that I really trust. Whenever I seem to find one, they seem to become greedy or something else happens, and it's really frustrating.

Today I didn't go to the cemetery. I can't take the site of my father's grave. Carved into the stone is a race car, a few carpenter tools, the dates august 31st, 1948-august 5th 1998, and families names. I can't stand being near it and all the sorrow that flows through me each time I'm even near the church at which he is buried.

This isn't the right way to deal with it, but I'm dealing with it.

warped tour. sighh

i woke up this morning at phil's house and got ready for a day at warped tour.  luckily he decided to come with me, but it was not an easy decision.  hit up target, starbucks, and then the road.  about 30 minutes into our drive we hit heeeeeavy traffic, which was caused by warped tour.  it was only a symbol of what the rest of the day would bring.

all day it was overcast (which I'm actually glad about,) and a little bit boring.  When we first got there, we thought we were being forced to park 2 miles away, so we parked and started walking.  In the walking process we missed norma jean :(.  2 miles later, we get to the front gates where I go to the press/guest list, on which my name is nowhere to be found.  Luckily the lady was totally awesome and helped me out by giving me one anyway.  that's when the music started and the day all kind of runs together in a blur.  there were a few good bands that I saw, including:

family force 5, angels and airwaves, the devil wears prada, 3oh3.  not quite as eventful as I'd hoped, but still a decent time.

to me, this festival is kind of a lost cause.  it's okay for a little while, but really gets old quick.  After you've been to bamboozle, cornerstone, and sonshine, warped tour is really no big deal.  I get really sick of seeing all the "free hugs" shirts, but that's a given at any music festival.  It's more so the attitude that comes with the majority of warped tour-goers.  The booths with pot leaf necklaces and bandanas and the "I heart SLUTS." Maybe it was the seemingly unavoidable four letter word/attention grabber t shirt that is now the status quo. When I sat down for a rest, I lowered my head and said a prayer because i was getting so frustrated.

but, tomorrow's another day.

wow

a week, to say the least, it has been.  

tuesday consisted of two dozen cows, lots of profoto moving around (lighting equipment,) and good times.  I assisted a photographer, Gregg Segal, on a photo shoot for Runner's World magazine, who was showcasing a local runner being sponsored by a farm in Castle Rock, MN.  The lady had something around a 1239871 pack (abs, people,) and got 14th in the world for 1500m during the olympics in athens. 

post photo shoot, i head over to my friend phil's house, where we end up playing an AMAZING game called SOCOM.  We play online for a few hours.  And let me tell you, I love using a sniper rifle haha.  Got to bed around 330, and didn't wake up until 130pm, which REALLY messed me up.  The rest of the day was filled with my body spiking in temperatures both warm and cold, and my head feeling about as dense as cement.

i woke up the next morning to find relief from the frigid/desert like temperatures my body was going through.  still a little bit of a headache, but that, I was willing to deal with.  

Later that night I went to a show that I'd likely call the strangest concert I have ever been to, ever.  The Lineup was as follows:

Uncle Monsterface

Math the Band

Harry and the Potters.

Definitely a new style of show to go to, and I way enjoyed it.  All of the bands were as ridiculous as you can imagine, and it was nothing short of awesome.  Probably the biggest highlight of it was at the very beginning when MC Dumbledore came out for a few songs.  Yes, rapping wizards.

good times, good pals.

"the end of the world was yesterday"

Last night was kind of a late night, phil and I decided to go out and take some photos.  We drove around and were having a bit of trouble finding the right kind of place at the time.  We decided this old park we used to go visit actually had a few lights, and a decent sized soccer field with some bleachers.  The park was supposed to close at 11pm, but we ended up going at around 1am.  Close to the end of our little photo session a guy came out of nowhere with his dog, and that was a little frightening. 

After this we hit up the top of the maple grove transit parking garage to check out the cars driving by on the freeway.  

Tomorrow I'm assisting a shoot for Gregg Segal.  Some dairy farm is sponsoring a runner here, and we're doing the cover for Runner's World.  

ummm

I just fell out of my bed and nearly landed on my Macbook Pro.  That would have sucked pretty bad, but we're all safe on the home front now.  

Off to buy a charger for my cell phone!  

I challenge myself to take a cool picture between hear and wal mart.  Wal mart is about....... half a mile away from where I live.  

now, do I take my car or a scooter.....

cute day

yesterday phil and i hit up ikea and mall of america.  both of which are a guaranteed good time.  got some stuff for his house in eau claire at ikea and then headed to the mall.  basically we just walked around for hours looking at graphic design, trying to figure out some stuff for a logo.  The amount of design out there is insane, but we learned a lot of good things for some stuff we've got coming up.

All I ended up buying at MOA were two magazines.  AP magazine (had my first photo in AP, pretty stoked) and National Geographic.  bummer though, NG likes to have multiple covers, so I had already bought this one.  Oh well, some really amazing photography in it.  

Today I applied for a community college, so I'll be able to get in just fine.  I'm going to do a two year transfer program, that way I can transfer out sometime and get a bachelors degree in something.  Then later in the day I hung out and watched Project Runway.  I feel kind of lame admitting that, but it's really entertaining to watch.

For the record, Sigur Ros is the most inspirational group of musicians I have ever heard.  I could seriously just put their cd Takk on my ipod and listen for years.  Tonight I caught part of their DVD over at phil's and wow.. it's really amazing.  Iceland seems to have some of the most beautiful countryside, and it's crazy how few people live there.

Tomorrow = first band practice.  Virtues here we come!

woops.

i just spent a weekend in wilmar, mn, at sonshine music festival.  it's christian based with some of the biggest christian musicians out there.  ranging from august burns red to third day to as i lay dying to newsboys.  it was a great time, and just added a few things to my good memories bank.

so tomorrow i'm applying at college, applying for MORE jobs, coaching another soccer game and hitting up tea garden for a good old smoothie and having a business meeting about a clothing line.  i need to get some more promo shoots in here.  

warped tour is soon and i am far from excited for it.  to be honest, if i don't get a photo pass, i doubt i'll attend.  there are a lot of good acts this year, but after being at cornerstone and sonshine, warped tour is going to be a frustrating experience, but hey maybe it'll be fun.    

alright

new blogspot.  what up.

today I've scheduled:

Job interview

College interview

and I'm trying to set up a meeting to get back into karate.

Tonight my friend phil and I are coaching his little brother's soccer game.  All I know is they're going to win their first game of the season tonight.  

I want to use this blog mainly for photography and everything, but I haven't taken any photos today, and all the old stuff is on my flickr.  I'll work on getting a shot up here tonight, maybe from the soccer game or something.  Catch you cowboys on the flipside!