Month One

The first month of The Daily Shoot is over, and I could not be more pleased. It has been an absolute pleasure to be preoccupied everyday by looking at the world more deliberately. It goes without saying how satisfying it is to now have a growing body of work. I have taken two or three images of which I am very proud. You can take a look at the entire set on Flickr. I am curious which ones move you and why?

Plucked

I've mentioned how lucky I am to basically be working at a Chinese museum. Our school is littered with beautiful Chinese artifacts, works of arts, and musical instruments. So choosing subjects while at work is not a difficult task.

Below you will find a Chinese musical instrument; unfortunately I cannot tell you much more than that.

Make a photograph that features repetition.

Frozen Lion Dance

Black. White. Light. Shadows. A Lion. Nothing more to add.

Make a photograph using hard light today. Feature the crisp and strong shadows as a major element of your photograph.

Communication

The camera was the first thing I thought of when I saw today's prompt. After all isn't that we are all doing here with The Daily Shoot- communicating with our images?

Make a photograph that illustrates an aspect of communication.

Red Chucks

Call them iconic, trendy or lame, but I have had a pair of chucks since I was twelve years old. This pair of shoes was the first thing I thought of when I saw the red prompt. I don't often wear red, so these shoes always add an element of "bad-ass-i-ness" to any outfit.

Today's theme is red. Red hot? Red paint? Or something else? You decide. Make your photo and then reply with a link!

Curved Pagoda

This is one of my favorite spots on campus. It is looking out from the Chinese Garden out into Peace Park. Yes there is a reflecting pond and yes that is a half ton bell. How lucky am I to work on such a stunning campus? Photo-ops everywhere!

I knew that my curved line would be found from this vantage point. I contemplated if a circle could be considered a curved line, but really a circle is the curviest of lines right? Not crazy about the picture, but I like the contrast of the white, the clouds, and the pagoda itself. All in all not bad. What do you think?

Make a photograph that features a very distinct curved line or surface today.

Ice Crusher

Not much to say here. I like the textures and the vibrancy of the red steel. This is a machine we use at school to shave ice for a South Asian desert that consists of shaved ice, rose syrup, corn, beans, and weird Indian jellies. All good stuff. I like the stability of the machine. In this age of disposable machines, this one will most likely make it through the apocalypse.  

Make a photograph today with a central point of interest in it.

Symbiotic

What can I say? Yesterday was a dud, but I nailed it today. I love this shot. I had the idea as soon as I saw the prompt and had actually taken the shot a few days ago, but decided not to "cheat" so I took it again today for this project.

I love the balance of violet and purple on the flowers and the bee, the yellow buds that appear so inquisitive, and the sheer majesty of the flowers. This will be a nice complement to Gonner from a few days ago. 

Make a photograph today that illustrates attraction. Pick whatever definition of the word you'd like.

Baby God

They can't all be winners right? This one was difficult. I waited all day for some great sunlight, but the gray overcast day thought otherwise. The entire day was covered in a blanket of drab shadowless light. So I came home and put together contrived piece.

It is an African fertility doll my friend Jason gave me, which I actually think helped us conceive our second daughter. It sits near my bed and reminds me of him and Africa. The light was all wrong, so I went black and white. Let me know if you find anything worthwhile, but no need to make things up. This one is a dud. They can't all be wine glasses full of tangerines.

Use hard light that casts sharp distinct shadows in a photograph today.

Celebrate the Pretty

Guess I didn't see too many pretty things today. It was a gray, bleak Monday where I kind of trudged through work. After our staff meeting, I snapped a shot of a lantern in our HS building. Our campus is truly amazing and never lets me down for a great shot. Not that this is a great shot, but it will do.

Celebrate the pretty things in life. Make a photograph of the most beautiful thing you see today.

oj

I am in love with this shot. I got the idea the day after the converging line prompt, but knew I had to hold on to it for another fit. Then when I saw strips, I made it happen. I love the lighting, the warm orange glow, the sharp white sunlight and striped tangerines. My favorite so far:

Make a photo that features stripes of some sort today.

Wings

I saw that a lot of people simply chose black and white photos for this weeks prompt. But that is not how I understood monochromatic:

describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues.

I just decided to go with one hue and what easier hue in our house. I simply went upstairs to Kaia's room and was bathed in it. Here are a pair of her fairy wings.  Not sure if I did it "right" but then again that isn't the point of this project anyway. What can you tell me about monochrome?

Take color out of the equation and make a monochromatic photograph today.

I Need You. You See. To See Me

I spend a lot of time online. Anyone reading this post who knows me, and is on the receiving end of my firehose of content is probably shaking his or her head and saying no shit Jabiz! This is a confession of sorts, and attempt to curate what I  have been thinking. I have been thinking  a lot about my time, my needs, my connections, my networks, my friends, and so on ad infinitum. Let’s just say that I have been thinking. A lot.

I have never in my life been more “connected” than right now. I could riddle this post with a barrage of hyperlinks denoting the many pies into which my fingers are currently poked. I could send you, dear reader, on a scavenger hunt of content that I have created or am in the process of creating. Links to  posts, tweets, applications exalting the wonder of technology and connection, but as I sit here on my sofa with the nasally seductive voice of Colin Meloy crooning me into a state of comfortable obscurity, I'm left with one question- why do I feel so empty and alone? Isn't this global connectivity supposed to alleviate my solitude? Shouldn't my sharing bring me closer to you?

Is all of this narrating, curating, and sharing of my ideas, my mind, and my identity worthwhile? Is it making me happy? Is it having any effect on anything or anyone? This is not a post fishing for encouragement. Trust me I am okay in that department. I just wanted to breath some life into my doubts and see if they will swim.

There isn’t a single impetus for this sudden bout with languor; my life has always been a roller coaster of euphoria and ennui, and after a pretty steady run this train is now coasting through a low dark tunnel right now and demanding some attention. Fear not, I am used to this pendualm and am becomeing adept and dealing with it. Just watch, I bet I will be elated by the end of this post.

I cannot ignore the effects however of two documents that came into my life today. The first was this extraordinary article called, Five Emotions Invented By The Internet. This dark, I think satirical, but incredibly well-written treatise on Internet addiction jarred my thinking by holding a mirror up to some of my most obvious but best concealed anxieties about the effects of the digital age on my psyche. To read the post is to think that someone gathered my most embarrassing pettiness and pathetic need for connection and regurgitated it in perfect form for all to see. I should be thrilled to know that I am not alone in my pathetic isolation, but somehow realizing that others behave this way and that perhaps we are communally dealing with this issue of loneliness, because what other word could there be for it, saddened me even more.

Before I continue let me quote at length:

The state of being ‘installed’ at a computer or laptop for an extended period of time without purpose, characterized by a blurry, formless anxiety undercut with something hard like desperation. During this time the individual will have several windows open, generally several browser ‘tabs,’ a Microsoft Word document in some state of incompletion, the individual’s own Facebook page as well as that of another randomly-selected individual who may or may not be on the ‘friends’ list, 2-5 Gchat conversations that are no longer immediately active, possibly iTunes and a ‘client’ for Twitter. The individual will switch between the open applications/tabs in a fashion that appears organized but is functionally aimless, will return to reading some kind of ‘blog post’ in one browser tab and become distracted at the third paragraph for the third time before switching to the Gmail inbox and refreshing it again.

The behavior equates to mindlessly refreshing and ‘lozenging’ the same sources of information repeatedly. While performing this behavior the individual feels a sense of numb depersonalization, being calmly and pragmatically aware that they have no identifiable need to be at the computer nor are they gleaning any practical use from it at that moment, and the individual may feel vaguely uncomfortable or ashamed about this awareness in concert with the fact that they continue to perform the idle ‘refreshing’ behavior. They may feel increasingly anxious and needful, similar to the sensation of having an itch that needs scratching or a thirst that needs quenching, all while feeling as though they are calm or slightly bored.

I sadly now admit that I end nearly every night in this state. Sure I can justify my behavior by highlighting the mountains of meaningful content I create, but inevitably before I go to bed every night I install myself one last time to see what is shakin’ out there. I need you. You see. To see me. And I don't want that feeling anymore. I feel terrible about it every night, and after reading the article above,  I feel worse. I am a grown adult, so I have some control over this feeling of scouring an empty web looking for nourishment, but what of our students?

I am making a vow, that after my “work” online is finished, I will sign out and do something else. This could be time I could be reading or mediating. I could play some guitar, draw, perhaps bake a cake, anything but clicking through tabs like a hypnotized autistic chimp looking for...?  Don’t get me wrong I am not bothered by the amount of time I spend on the computer when I am writing blog posts, working on my book, listening to music, photography, or even engaged in valuable networking on Twitter and other online spaces. I enjoy sifting through my RSS and commenting on blogs etc…it is that last thirty minutes or so before I go to bed when all is said and done and I am still installed.

I am rambling now, but once again my textual confession has helped me cleanse. I will write more about the second reason I have been flying at half-mast today in subsequent posts. (Hint great new book.)

In an effort to end on a positive note, let me share this little gem as well:

The internet is at least partly us; we write it as well as read it, perform for it as well as watch it, create it as well as consume it. Watching TV is a solitary activity that feels like a communal one, while the Internet is a communal experience masquerading as solitude.

Maybe everything I said is wrong. Who knows? All I know is that issues of solitude, community connections, and identity are all confusing in the digital age.  We are all figuring it out together. I know that personally I must be aware of who I am and how I deal with my own reality and then, and only then can I deal with how it orbits around yours.

What do you think? How do you deal with you Internet Emotional issues? When is it all too much? I know balance is the key, but that cannot be the only answer to our every problem, if it were you think we would have solved our neuroses years ago.

Gonner

Kind of hit my "low" mark yesterday, but I strolled through campus today nonetheless, looking at the ground and found this. Not the best shot, but I like how the stones look more alive than the flower. There is something here about life and death and renewal and impermanence.

How low can you go? Make a photograph today from a low point of view.

The Path

Headed out on a quick bike ride with Kaia to look for a path around our neighborhood, but nothing jumped out.Which got me thinking that, perhaps the subject of the photo may just be the least important aspect of a good shot. I found a simple road in our complex and tried to give it life. I thought of the angle, the light and the framing of the image.

I wish I had a macro lens so I could get the foreground in better focus, but as it turned I like the effect of the fuzzy green moss. There is a weird sense of detail and haziness both with the moss (natural) and concrete (man made) elements.

The funny thing I noticed as I was uploading this shot is that tomorrow's prompt is to get low and take a shot from a low angle.

Make a photograph featuring a path, road, or trail that leads the eye through the photograph.

Scalene Melon

This eighteenth shot happened so fast. I usually take about a day to ruminate on my shots, but as soon as I posted the last one, this melon shot popped up. I was cutting watermelon thinking about triangles, when I saw them everywhere in front of me.

I moved the pieces about a bit so I wasn't merely taking pictures of triangles; that would be too obvious.  I tried to create triangles in the negative spaces as well. I did very little cropping as I tried to frame the triangles I saw with my camera. I love how many show up. How many do you see?

Make a photograph with a triangular composition.

Creamcicle

Thought about this one all day, and then walking across campus to pick up Kaia I saw these amazing Frangi Pani flowers and I knew it was my soft shot. Love the texture and softness of the blended colors.

Make a photograph with a soft look today.

Blue You

Our school uniform is a great shade of what I think is Cobalt Blue. It is the first thing I thought of, so I had my students gather together in a globby-mob and I snapped a few shots. There might be a bit more depth here about uniformity, privacy, (no heads in images) etc...but I will let you sort that out.

Today's theme is blue. Make a photograph dominated by the color or that otherwise illustrates the theme.

Ben and Jerry

Not much to say on this one. First thought, best thought. Mediocre execution.

Make a photograph of two complementary objects arranged to show their relationship to each other.

One Little Monkey

This one was pretty straight forward. Formula- blast the Beastie Boys and tell Kaia she could jump on the couch for as long and as high as she wants. Snap about 50 shots and find one that works. 

Let's play with movement today. Get a shot of something in motion. Freeze it or let it blur. It's up to you!

Would have been nice if I knew how to keep her face in focus, so if you know how please share.

Hear Me Sing

I've never been shy about singing poorly, or the fact that I have been strumming my guitar for years and can barely piece together a song without awkwardly stumbling through a tab. I like the idea of singing and recording and sharing, if for no other reason than because I can. So often as teachers we ask our students to express themselves or present information or create something, as if all students are somehow fearless artists who are dying to expose themselves. The truth is that they are not. Neither are we. It takes time and courage and the ability to take risks and chances before we can upload random vidoes of ourselves singing songs to the Internet. People can argue that this deluge of mediocre content is clogging up the Internet, but I disagree. The web is begin enough for us all to stake our claim and make our mark.

I do it because I love singing and I like to monitor my progress. I have never seen singing on my blogs or my online life as a whole as anything more than a rough draft, a map of my journey through life. Nothing will never been done as I don't believe in final products. Sure it would be nice to be more talented and craft better songs, but being a singer is not the path I have chosen. I do plenty of others things, fairly well, that I allow my mediocre singing be the time to experiment and try to improve my skills.

I think I have. Improved that is. When I started out, I was really bad, but since that day I have performed several times in front of crowds and this latest song, in my humble opinion, sounds pretty good.

From the first second I heard the song Sacred Vision by Iron and Wine, I knew I wanted to sing it. One afternoon I fumbled about with the chords and came up with this version. After the success of recording Nothing Man with Leslie, I asked her to sing a few back up lines as well. I loved the way she echoes some of the parts. Wish her part could be louder, but maybe next time.

Anyway, without further ado I suck at singing but I want you to hear me sing:



I have a few songs off the latest Decemberist album that I want to try. Let me know if you want to collaborate. Oh and of course I have vowed to write at least three original songs this year too. 

Labor

A few years ago in NYC, I got it in my head to do this weird art project/political statement. I can't remember now where the idea originated, but the following is a brief explanation of how this T-shirt came to be. At the time and ever since my friend Ari told me and has always told me that I don't give my art and in turn my viewers enough credit, because I always want to explain my intentions, so I will not do that here in this post or with this photograph. I will simply tell you how I created the piece.

I needed labels or tags from clothing that was made overseas. Easy right? Almost all of our clothes are made overseas, but I wanted to see how many I could get, so I created an ad on Craigslist asking for people's tags. Funny now in the age of social networks to think that Craigslist was my space of choice. I was just curious to see who would find the add, take the time to cut the tags from the clothes, and actually mail them to a compete stranger for no real reason at all.

Within a few days the tags began to pour in. I must have received 100 tags by ten to twenty different people. Envelopes full of them kept showing up. Next I took an old t-shirt and had the word Labor printed across the chest. I wanted to sew each label on myself, but irony of all ironies I didn't have the time or the skill set to do so. I took them to a local tailor near West 108th street. He and his entourage thought I was crazy, but followed my instructions to the tee.

I have only worn the shirt a few times, but receive curious looks every time. Here it is on my dining room table:

Illustrate one of the various meanings of the word tag today in a photograph.

So you tell me, what do you think it means?

Peace

Not much to say on this one. We have a peace wall on campus; this is the lettering. I like that it looks like a font or some graphic design, even though it is a photograph.

Make a photograph of something shiny or glossy, but not transparent. Emphasize the effect of the surface.

State of Matter

I thought about this one a lot. First thought was something to do with olive oil, but ours was too light to do my idea justice. The next obvious idea was water in its various modes of movement- flowing, dropping, rippling etc...The thing is, it is hard to take a proper image of something that naturally moves. Water, even at its most still, is a thing in motion.

Despite knowing that photographing water is difficult,  I walked around our campus after school looking for it;  I should have been looking for liquids. Then I saw it. Beautiful, dense, thick buckets of mud. A blend of earth and water and gas and everything mushed together. I have always loved mud, so with great pleasure I snapped a round of shots. I am glad I didn't go with a more traditional glistening form of liquid, and I tried something a bit different.

Make a photograph today that features or uses a liquid as a subject.

Collective Strike

I have never been a huge fan of Gamelan music. According to Wikipedia:

A gamelan is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, typically from the islands of Bali or Java, featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings. Vocalists may also be included.
The term refers more to the set of instruments than to the players of those instruments. A gamelan is a set of instruments as a distinct entity, built and tuned to stay together — instruments from different gamelan are generally not interchangeable.
The word gamelan comes from the Javanese word gamels, meaning "to strike or hammer", and the suffix an, which makes the root a collective noun.

I have also never thought of the disorderly clanging and chaotic banging as rhythmic, but when today's prompt came up, I knew where I would find my image. I work at a school in Indonesia, so we actually have a Gamelan in our music room. I was pleasantly surprised to stroll into the room alone after school and find these beautiful metal instruments just begging to be banged.

I love the light and the muted gold tones it created. Who knows maybe after spending some time with these instruments, I will listen more carefully next time I am in Bali.

Create a photograph today that illustrates or shows rhythm.

What do you think? Have you heard a Gamelan before? Did you like it? Is it rhythmic?

Shadow of a Shadow

What is the body? That shadow of a shadow
of your love, that somehow contains
the entire universe.

Rumi

Embrace the shadows today and make a photograph dominated by dark tones, also known as a low-key image.

Philosophy Rethink

“You are biting off more than you can chew.”

That was my wife today in the car as I was explaining my latest email exchange with Spectrum Culture. They are a music, book, food website and I want to write for them. Why you may ask? Don't I have enough on my plate? It is simple, because they want writers and I want some structure. I want a deadline. I want to be forced to write about things that are outside of my comfort zone. Because I think I can and I should. Because I love music and the editor isn’t turned off by my new philosophy.

Think you can and you will. Act as if you have nothing to lose and you will lose nothing.

In short, I don’t want to over think things and lose myself in anxiety or stress of  outcomes. This awakening began before the holiday when I noticed that a conference in Hong Kong was asking for presenters. With the deadline the next day, I quickly typed up an idea for a session, and within twenty four hours I was approved and now I am on my way to Hong Kong next month.

Spectrum Culture was very similar. I saw a Tweet that asked for writers, and so I sent the following email:

I would like to write for you. Please send me the details. See my blog for body of my work.

I was shocked when he asked me to send in a sample after I answered some of the application questions like this:

What sets you apart from the other writers?

I have been told that I can capture what others are feeling but cannot articulate in a simple and easy to absorb style. I ramble and roll and sometimes land on authentic emotions. What separates me from other writers is probably the fact that I cannot answer this question. I do not take it all so seriously, so I will not take the time to manufacture some banal account of what makes me special. Perhaps I am like the protagonist from Singles, where he is caught admitting that not having a game is his game.

I wrote this review for Shogu Tokumaru and waited. I tried to remain anxiety free, but I really wanted this at this point. I am not sure why writing for a third party website seems more authentic to me than writing for my own blog, but I just feel I need to branch out my writing  a bit and see where the roots will anchor me.  I was a bit set back when I received this email today:

Hi Jabiz:

Thanks for this! We really liked your writing a lot. However, there were two things that gave us pause. First, you turned this around in less than 24hrs. That makes us worry you really didn't give the album the proper time to "marinate" and that your reaction is based only on one or two listens. We like our reviews to be well-thought out, with time given to reflection. Second, there seemed to be a lot of hyperbole and superlatives here, but not a lot of analysis.

Since we think you're a great writer we would like to give you another opportunity with a different disc. Let me know if you are amenable to that, taking what I wrote above into consideration. Thanks!

Bam! Wake up call! Philosophy rethink. Maybe I do need to slow down a bit and focus on a few things instead of thinking I can do everything. I am currently about to begin a new semester at work, I hope to reach 50,000 words on my book by summer at the latest, I have enrolled in a MOOC class called ds106, I am involved with a Daily Shoot photo project, I actively maintain two blogs, I am leading our school’s charge to use blogs as e-portfolios, I am presenting in Hong Kong, and about to start my ADE video application this week. Maybe there is a bit too much in my mouth at the moment.

But it all feels so right. I really think I can do it. Oh and did I mention that I am raising two kids under five? It’s a lot I know, but I feel most alive when I am active and producing. I still find time to consume TV, read, and spend time with my wife, so what else is there? There is nothing I feel I am missing, by filling my life with so much activity.

I know the answer, downtime. Meditation time. I think if I slow down a bit and allot the appropriate time for each task, I can do them all better. It’s like I told Spectrum Culture:

Let me start by saying you are right. I am living by this new philosophy you see, and it may have hit a snag. The idea is that one acts with nothing to lose, fast, furious, open and raw. If things work out, so be it! If they don't it wasn't meant to be. This is how I have approached your site from day one, but now I see that it may behoove me to slow down. I like the challenge of making this work, and since you have not yet told me to go fuck myself, yes I would love to give it another go. Please send me another disc.

Just so you know I have listened to little else and Port Entropy has marinated quite well. You are right however I tried to get the review out while it was fresh, but it definitely could have used more analysis and less hyperbole. It was just that I thought about it all day and I wanted to get it down in one take.

I can totally appreciate a slower more reflective process, so send me the next disc and I will give it another go. Thanks for the kinds words and not giving up on me. I think once we feel our groove we could have something special here.

So the answer I seem to have gleaned at least for me right now is a blend of lose, fast, furious, open and raw and a slower more reflective process. Like everything in life I need to find that balance. This is the closest I have been in years to truly being happy and it is because I feel like a well-oiled machine. I'm peaking so to speak. Let’s see how long and far I can make this thing go!

image by supercake

How do you balance your life? What is too much?

Sonic Kaleidoscope

Knowledge of music is often used as a currency of coolness in some circles. And the more obscure or eclectic a band or a genre the more value it has in some circles. Nothing worse than a band hitting it big and losing all value, because there is nothing worse than your favorite band being labeled mainstream to force you to foreclose your hipster residence in some circles.

Imagine the worth of say, a Japanese singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who creates every aspect of his music, including the lyrics, music, arrangements, recording and mixing, through a variety of instruments, using over 100 different traditional and non-traditional instruments in his recordings.

“Me? I have been listening a lot to Shugo Tokumaru. He is a Japanese multi-instrumentalist who translates his dream journal into sounds, I mean music.”

Sounds good? Right?  But we must be careful not to judge Tokumaru by his obscurity or eclecticism. Sure it would do wonders for one’s indie-music-street-cred to introduce a friend to a Japanese songwriter who considers some of his influences to be The Beach Boys, older Japanese musicians such as Hachidai Nakamura, and traditional Japanese music styles, such as gagaku, but really the real value of Tokumaru is his music. One listen to his latest Port Entropy is enough to have any person serious about music digging through his back catalog looking for every last jewel he has ever produced.

Port Entropy is sonic kaleidoscope that transcends every dialectic split.  A blend of East meets West, each song is a whimsical tapestry that refuses to take itself seriously, but never becomes silly. At times sounding like a children’s story, it suddenly transforms into a spiraling composition dressed in a beautifully simple yet intricate gown. Tokumaru conducts a one-man orchestra of noise-makers, percussions, and stringed instruments, which gracefully float above the pounding bass and drum section like ethereal clouds leaving the listener unsure of whether they will pass or crash down like a storm.

Each song marches with a confident but not cocky masculinity, yet is carefully tempered by an equally graceful and natural femininity. Songs like Rum Hee at home both in spring joy or autumn reverie transcend season or mood. While Laminate breaks down into a Pepperland noise disintegration, it is quickly rebuilt into a haunting ballad created for wide open fields and wildflowers.

Songs like Drive Thru will leave the listener catching his/her breath. Built around a contagious chorus hook, a wild circus of sounds ensues forcing the listener to never completely let his/her guard down. Just as it seems like the album could not become any wilder, Suisha floats down with its subtle finger snapping percussion bridge. These are songs constructed for a journey. Where to? That is up to you.


Port Entropy is the Flaming Lips album Wayne Coyne has been trying to write for years, but unlike the most layered Lips song, Port Entropy never becomes weighed down by its own complexity. The myriad of sounds, rather than become too heavy by their own density, translate into catchy pop songs sung in a language that sounds foreign and familiar at the same time.  This is the music of dreams in so that it doesn’t make sense, but is comfortable in its chaotic unpredictability.

Tokumaru is a painter of sounds and Port Entropy is his collection of sonic masterpieces. This will quickly become one of your favorite albums. The music is simple enough to dance to, yet complex enough to invite hours of exploration.  Unlike other music tagged as experimental, this collection of songs will force your foot to tap and make you want to learn Japanese so you can sing along, or better still you will sing along in your brand of gibberish, your voice becoming just one more sound in the tapestry waving in the breeze.

Peace and Beauty

All morning I have been glued to Twitter and the Internet reading about the shooting in Arizona. I am both angered and saddened by the violence that our political system not only tolerates, but seems to encourage. Rather than rant about or dissect the political ramifications an event like this will have on the already damaged American psyche, I wanted to do something kind and loving and simple.

The prompt for today's photoshoot was to make a photograph to serve as a special memory of somebody or something. I wanted to honor the people who were killed in Arizona. I found an old art project that Kaia had done and took this picture in honor of the nine year old girl who was killed. I think she may become the symbol of the innocence that has been lost in American politics. 

The photo may not be much and was done in haste, but I wanted to send something simple and tender into the universe. I cannot imagine what her parents are going through right now, but knowing the anger I feel, I am sure they could do with a dose of peace and beauty.

There is so much more that could be and should be done to heal a wounded nation, but at the moment this photograph is all I can muster. 

Make a photograph today to serve as a special memory of somebody or something.

Vanishing Point

I hate that I had to double dip on the guitar so early in the year, but it was the first thing I thought of when I heard converging lines. I am very pleased with the lack of focus for most of the image. Just saw Tron, so my mind is fixated on The Grid.

Use strong converging lines in a photograph today. It's your choice whether or not to show the vanishing point.

The Pile

I have a stack of books near my bed, which I affectionately call "The Pile." Random titles get added, while others are forgotten when a new book comes out. I am not sure how books get mired in "The Pile," but it is my goal to get rid of it all together.

Getting access to new books is proving more difficult than I had expected in Jakarta, so I had to make a dent in the pile. I was not excited about the prospect of reading Palm Sunday by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, but I saw it as a way to knock a book off "The Pile."

 I will keep this short and sweet. The book was dull, boring, and often times meaningless. Parts were unreadable, but like any dedicated reader, I powered through and found a few gems about writing. I was going to type them out, but really they were nothing you can't find on a page of Vonnegut quotes.

I am glad I read the book, because it gave me a few ideas on how to structure a memoir and it made me want to read Cat's Cradle which will be my next read. I need to have Vonnegut redeem himself.

Dangle

It was weird. Today, when I saw the prompt for the Daily Shoot, there was a bright sun shower spilling into my kitchen. I immediately grabbed by camera and started snapping shots of the light and the shadows.  Sharp angles on door knobs, window sills, on the table and on the floor. Everywhere I looked there was contrast, but still nothing stood out.

My daughter was lingering around asking questions. I took a couple of posed photos of her hand in the light etcetera, but soon gave up. Then, suddenly, she was playing with a bucket of shells when I saw her foot dangling in the light. I did very little work in iPhoto as the prompt indicated.

Go high contrast today and make a photograph with tons of pop. Do as much in-camera as possible.

There is something very tender and feminine about this shot. I love the orange nail polish and the fuzzy orange light in the shadows. Reminds me of a ballerina's foot bathed in a spot light.

Feels Like a Sunset.

Today's image was difficult for me again, because it made me question what it is exactly that makes a photograph interesting. A few people on Twitter said things like, "framing, color, details one doesn't ordinarily notice but the photo forces one to notice."While I agree with all of those things, it proved difficult to create an interesting photograph when put on the spot.

I took several shots around the house: a sponge, razors, the stove, glasses, and these spoons. I played with color, cropping, etc... and finally settled on this shot because my daughter said it was the one of the top three she liked best. When I asked why, she said, "because it is silver and I like silver. " Fair enough.

There is something about the silver, golden, copper tones that I do like. Feels like a sunset. Reminds me of some evenings in NYC. Weird that you can create that on a rainy day in Jakarta in your utensils drawer. Not thirlled with it, but I have 360 more chances to get it right.

Make an interesting photograph of something mundane and ordinary today.

So what makes a photograph interesting for you?

Verticies

The reason I like these daily prompts is that it forces me to look at the world  around me more carefully. I spent the last 24 hours looking closely at everything that passed my eye trying to notice natural diagonals. Finding diagonal lines is harder than it looks. Unfortunately I was only able to find a trite shot, but the act of looking closely at the world is what photography is all about, so I really enjoyed this prompt although I am not too happy with the final image. 

Make a photograph today with a diagonal line leading the viewer's eye through the composition.

It seems that while we are surrounded by vertical and horizontal lines, which make all sorts of angles, the diagonals are not so obvious.  Even after this prompt has passed, I am sure I will continue to look for all sorts of lines and angles. For the record there were several diagonal lines in nature, especially in trees, but they did not translate well into my photos.

Enormity of Entirety

It’s been a while old friend, since I have stared at your beautiful vacant screen. Since I have allowed the words to stop swirling long enough to rain down on a page. The music is loud and pregnant with hope; the tender lights illuminate the room with a dull optimism, and so I write…

The year is new, and the voice in my head like an old friend has agreed to help me jettison the anchor of cynicism to see where this ship could sail. My good friend Ari over at We Buy Balloons has asked me to ponder this:

decide for yourself what X is, and then write me your thoughts on it:

there's something about X that helps to justify your entire existence.

I have been juggling these thoughts for a few weeks now, and the various drafts of what I could write have been written and re-written in invisible ink. I have shuffled the deck of X’s, but none seem to matter enough to document, because I cannot seem to convince myself of the need to justify even the smallest part of my existence, let alone the enormity of its entirety.

I don’t need the complexity of creating meaning when none is needed. The insignificance of my existence is all the justification I can muster. I am here, and soon I won’t be anymore, what else is there really. I will do my best to make use of my time while I can. I will do my best to shed light and ignite and inspire. Sometimes I will succeed, others I will not.

This is the year that will be about idealism and optimism. It will be about light and openness and sharing and joy and laughter. I am losing patience with brooding, angst, and anger. The world like my heart will not be changed with facts, politics or reason. Our only hope is in our laughter and ability to take it all less seriously. This will be the year where we love ourselves till we shine bright enough to blind. This will be the year for us to be children. A time to finally believe all we have been told: it is this simple. We are this perfect.

I have no need for justifications, and even less so even for my existence. I will teach as many people as I can what I know. I will love my children, my wife, my family, and my friends. I will be open and positive. I will be a source of knowledge and inspiration. I will lose myself in music. I will find myself in a sea of words. I will create beautiful things. I will continue to walk the path that I have learned to walk so well. I will enjoy the time I have on earth. I will cherish the seed of loneliness I have battled for so long, and finally lay it in the ground so I can help it grow.

But none of this is new. We have been singing this song since we were fifteen. You want justification? All I got is this photo and my new anthem below...

let the yoke fall from our shoulders,

don’t carry it all don’t carry it all,

we are all our hands in holders,

beneath this bold and brilliant sun,

this I swear to all, this I swear to all

Corpus

Make a photograph with a symbol or an icon in it today.

The first thing that came to my mind when I heard symbol was Apple. Could be because we have four different Apple computers at our house and are still wanting an iPhone, iPad, you know anything with an little i in front of it. I have a love hate relationship with Apple. On the one hand I love their products and find that they allow me the type of sleek, seamless access I need to do the things I love to do: Access the web, edit photos, basically do all things tech. On the other hand, I hate the obvious corporate control they have over not only an entire industry, but also my wants and needs.They are very good and making me want what they are selling, even if I can see the control they have. Their marketing is genius.

There are few other companies that saturate the media with this iconic symbol and make us all want to...well they just make us want don't they?

Anyway, I could write much more than this, but I will let the picture do the talking. This is a shot of the old pod iMac that we have in our daughter's play room. I wanted to do something gritty. We so often see the shiny apple in a digitaly white world, so I wanted to bring some contrast and grit to the image. What do you think?

Woven

365/2- My second picture is a close up of one our carpets. I wish I had a better lens to really get a macro shot that showed the texture, but I think this one does a decent job of giving the viewer a tatse.  I love how the center is in focus, but the rest is blurry.

Find an interesting texture today and make a photograph.

First Steps

My new year's resolution/ goals post is going to be quick and dirty. There will be no philosophical ramblings about the endless path to enlightenment and being kinder to strangers or more thoughtful to my wife, or caring to my kids, no there will be none of that here.

Just three very achievable goals I have for this year:

1. Finish a readable first draft of my manuscript of at least 50,000 words by summer. 
2. Rekindle my photography bug by taking a photo a day through Daily Shoot.  
3. Write/record/ perform at least three original songs by year's end.

 Here is my first shot for Daily Shoot (all photos can be seen at this set on Flickr or here on my blog)

Make a photo illustrating a fresh start, a new beginning, or the first step to a goal.

 

 

 

 

 

The journal says, "I cannot be hurt because I am always in pain."