James bond has LEFT the building =(

Gonna keep this short, as I just took melatonin about a half hour ago and don't wanna start sleep talking... or sleep typing.

So here's the latest upload




Went to day 3 of my class today. It was fairly interesting. Teacher was going over stuff about how to import and use camera raw, which I already had it down and spent pretty much all class time editing this amazing picture I got from the weekend. Turns out I actually DID catch the shooting star in my shot. I thought it was too far from my frame, but after looking at it on the computer screen in full resolution that light white line streaking across the picture is no doubt the falling star I saw. And the irony of it all is that the photo I took just before seeing the shooting star was a themed conceptual self portrait in which I "caught a falling star" in my hands. So all in all it was very fitting and no way a coincidence that I went to that beach at that time with that sequence of events. Thank you God for allowing me to have such an experience despite my camera giving me slight frustrations. So yeah, I am a little excited about sharing it with you... as soon as I get to class on thursday and get the pic off the school computer haha. I saved it to computer, edited it, and then forgot to put it on my flash drive to take home, so its still sitting in my assignment file, which luckily will not be touched by anyone but me and teacher until the end of the semester.

So other than that, my weekend was pretty fantastic altogether. Not only did I get amazing photos saturday night, I also got to do projection on sunday and then spent the afternoon and the rest of the night with momo and her family. We watched momma mia... yeah, I'm not gay, but I survived it nonetheless. Then her dad thought to save my huMANity and had us watch two Clint Eastwood movies. "any which way you can" and "every which way but loose." I think those were the films. All I know is that they were very much needed after watching the former 007 in a retro skin tight jump suit singing abba hits and duets in a chick flick musical.... Sorry Brosnan, You have officially been excommunicated from the male species.

=

Not that the movie was all that bad, just that.. I mean come on, its James Bond singing mushy I-miss-you songs along with Abba(Sorry abba fans, nothing against you, I just can't stand it. S-club 7 is where I draw the line)... It hurt to see a hero fall so far. =P

But I have got to ask my dad about the Eastwood movies, as I'm sure he's seen them. The second one was almost offensive considering how poorly they tried to portray a marine boxing. Even with the globe-anchor-eagle tattood on his arm, they managed to make him walk all lanky and fish-like with his arms flailing around and taking punches wide and way outside... and then Clint naturally doused him with a flurry of punches. Given, it's an older movie, so even seeing a very clear distance of 2-3 feet between fist and face despite the 'marine's' attempt to sell the punch falling to the ground in agony, didn't stop me from having a great laugh at almost every turning point of the movie. Except the whole sleeping with your girlfriend with an orangutang in the bed... yeah, I laughed, but still disturbing haha.

So this week's assignment will be 40 pictures of anything within 50 ft of where I sleep... and at first she asked for a narrative, but like half of the students didn't understand what a narrative is, so she said forget it just take pictures. So naturally, I have to come up with a narrative and then some, because I'm not going to take this class lightly. If it's a project that I already know all the criteria for and it's an easy A, then I plan to make it a hard earned A by overdoing it to the point of almost offending the other students still learning the material, because I have no intention of paying money out of my pocket to take a class and not learn anything or try anything new. So I'm gonna ask if I'm allowed to edit the photos or are they due in raw unedited format. If yes to editing, then I'm gonna have a blast turning my house into a haunted mantion or something, since my roomies can easily pass as zombies (the dude hardly sleeps so he looks half dead at best, no offense bro, haha) Ok, the pills finally kickin in an hour and a half later. Time to head out before I knock my head out... on the desk. TTFN!

~sw23

I'm supposed to be in bed...

I promised I'd get some sleep once I finished working with some pictures. But I never promised I wouldn't do other stuff before I started the pictures, muahahaha! But seriously, I couldn't keep all this stuff to myself, since my internet wasn't working the past 2 days. So first and foremost, as I have made it a new tradition. Here is the latest from CTSP:




So from the beginning of interestingness, Thursday was the second day of my new class. We had the chance to introduce ourselves and naturally I got shy and didn't say anything I meant to say and basically made it look like I know NOTHING about photography and have no interest in anything but surrealism and art, which is in fact somewhat true. I am an artist, not a photographer. My camera is nothing but a tool for my artistic outlet, just like my guitar and my pencil or my keyboard. I'm a surrealist and will never see things for what they really are. That's far too boring.

But then it was time for everyone else to introduce themselves and boy there is an interesting bunch I get to work with this semester. The guy across from me, not to judge, but is probably mid 30's, long black hair, rugged facial hair, muscular and tight-fitting jeans just high enough to let every know that it doesn't matter who's signing for it, he's got a package for you. And not much to our surprise he stood up and confessed that he was raised around photography... pornography to be exact. And then we have two or three "pro" photographers who bought really cool cameras, paid for a website, and started charging people up the butt to shoot their events. I know I'm not a pro and I don't advertise or charge anything close to what I should, but that's because I know I have a full time job and I'm still learning photography every day I shoot. But after seeing some of their sites I finally get what John was saying about people who think that a camera takes good pictures. Cameras, as the teacher explained, do nothing more than store information on light and color, just millions of 1's and 0's. Only the person holding the camera can make what he'she sees into something worth calling a photo. We then discussed the difference between Cameras and artists. Blah blah blah, stuff I knew long before I started shooting, and then finally we got to the good stuff; Photoshop! I actually got in trouble. Not even done with my second day of school and I get humiliated in front of the whole class. And it was so awesome haha. We were editing a photo that was on the community network. What the teacher didn't mention was that if I clicked 'done' in camera-Raw, it automatically saves it to its original location and replaces the old one. So suddenly after I clicked "done" everyone in the room started saying 'hey, my picture just changed and I didnt touch it." Finally the teacher asked "who keeps changing the picture? Now it's desaturated and we can't work with it." I raised my hand and said 'my bad' and everyone just laughed and we tried a different picture while I put my hands in my pockets... Hah! Okay, enough about thursday, gotta save some space for the rest of the week(end).

Yesterday (Friday, so day before yesterday technically since it's now 1 am sunday morning) I believe was fairly okay, with the exception of a few internal struggles. But Momo came to the rescue and came  to spend some time with me after work. We watched James and the Giant Peach, Master of Disguise and about half of Hook before she had to get goin back home. I very much enjoyed the innocent childish humor to relieve me from the stresses of adult life. Thanks Momo!

Then Today (or yesterday for you technicalitarians) I had a half day at work. That's right, a REAL half day, where I was GONE by 1:45 or so. I went straight home, showered and shaved and got something to run around in and headed over to pick up Momo for some sunset photography madness at the beach shown above, El Matador State Beach. The pic above was taken new years eve, but the shots we got tonight were amazing. I got some goofy self portraits while jumping like a maniac off the rocks on the cliff face, as well as some pics of Momo and then another Selfie of a fallen star. (You'll see it soon enough) Then, after shooting a fake falling star, we went to the staircase and shot a long exposure of the stairs under the light of the moon and stars, and just as I started taking the picture a REAL shooting star streaked right across the sky, but it was just centimeters out of view of my frame! But I don't mind it not being in the shot, I still got to see it and that was enough for me. I have to admitt, I've never seen a shooting star turn that bright red before. Usually they are just white and tiny, but this one was orange-ish red and just ever-so slightly slower than most. I can only assume that this indicates that it was a very large body of mass and was large enough and slow enough to fully ignite and still make it close enough to the atmosphere for the human eye to distinct its color before it disintegrated. But I could just be a rambling idiot after all, but it makes sense to me.

So then after shooting we went back to her town and played with fishies and birdies and a puppy that she is house-sitting for, So cute!

Then we went over to my town and enjoyed some Souplantation. THEY FINALLY STARTED SERVING CHOCOLATE LAVA CAKE AGAIN!!!!! Yes, it is so epic it deserves all caps, end of discussion. The entire meal was incredible. 4 kinds of salad leaves with olives, shredded carrots, kidney beans, hardboiled eggs, cheese, noodles and chicken, broccoli and some slices of pickles for no reason at all, smothered in ranch and then downed with my soon-to-be world famous Froot Beer. (Just ask Momo, I have officially taken root beer to the next level. Maybe even over 9000!!!!!!!) Then we headed for the bread n' pasta buffet table and scrummed up some pizza bread, cheesey alfredo pasta, mac n' cheese, and of course some LAVA CAKE! I can officially say now that I ate way too much, and after spending all day at work doing sets of 50-100 push ups and sit ups between trucks, I have now defeated the very purpose of working out and will probably have to work thrice as hard for the next few weeks to undo the damage I caused tonight at dinner... And it was so worth it! :)

So now it's 1:27 a.m. and I'm chillin' out listening to some of my mom's favorite music from the 70's and 80's Amy Grant albums, and I gotta get up in 4 and a half hours to get everything set up at church. I get the feeling I am going to be tiiiiiiiiiiired tomorrow (or later today, for you technicalitorianites) but oh well, I'll live, and if I don't, I'll still live. :)

Goodnight internet! (or morning for you technica.....forget it. goodnight)

~sw23

Operation is a GO

Photo from last night's flickr post:





So last night was my first class for photography. I met the teacher, and we talked about the stuff we'll be going over. Basically it's stuff I'm already trying to learn, but at least this way I will be taught by an official brooks masters degree holder, and I will be able to use the latest software... In fact, I'll actually be able to use my student discount and get Photoshop CS5 AND Lightroom 3 for a total of $275... thats a $900 value without the pirated versions! SWEET!

And seeing the criteria we are going over, I can't wait to get into the homework! I mean... I will be graded on creativity and technique... I'm seriously not worried about the grade at this point, all I want is a challenge. I'm thinking about asking the teacher to give me extra technical challenges to each assignment to help push myself to  achieve what I need: motivation to do what I already love to do! Our first assignment, ironic as it is to me, is actually the only assignment I've been doing on a near daily basis for almost 2 years... Self Portraits! Oh boy, this is going to be interesting. Especially since the first part of the assignment is shooting, the second is learning editing software, or at least for me, learning new techniques. So I plan to go all out with every assignment and use this advantage to its fullest and most likely freak some of my collegues out with my whacky self portraits.

Anyways... I'm just really excited as you can tell, and I have no intention of hiding or denying it. The second I stepped into that room and asked if I was in the right place, I had already decided that whether she said i had the wrong classroom or not, this was where I belonged. =D

And since that's really all that's happened in the last 24 hours since my last post... or however long it's been, less than a day and a half I'm sure, I'll go ahead and cut it off here, but not before I share with you one last thing!

This just makes me want to go find an old SNES and have at it again. Oh 90's nostalgia, what would I do without you. =P

GO TIME!!!!

Almost!

-but first-
Here's the latest and greatest from my website:




So in 18 hours I will be happily sitting in class... the first classroom I have actually been in as a real student in about 5 years! SO EXCITED. And it's a class that I am already confident that I know 99% of the material, but like I said in previous posts, it is an opportunity to get an official degree and thus earn more respect and credibility as a phhotographer as well as have a social life and motivation to use my camera more!

So other than that, nothing too incredible going on right now. I got the car window closed on my head, but only slight bleeding in the mouth, nothing serious. But it was totally worth it because I got to go to lunch with MOMO and feast on Subway. Sweet Onion Teriaki Chicken with avocado... MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. And that's pretty much all that happened today. Got off work early, came home and played around with photos and photoshop brushes and presets from my old harddrive, and now about half hour into melatonin dose and happily admitting that eyes are heavy and ready for a 7 hour nap. OH BEFORE I FORGET my camera is totally scratched on the sensor I think. Can't be too sure, but the dust removal attempts failed and I'm convinced it's hardware problems. But I'm considering upgrading to a D700 anyways... I need better low-light and full-frame capabilities for the 3 weddings I have coming this fall. Ok, wish me luck with all that!

Ja ne!

Where has my heart gone? An uneven trade for the real world...?

Well, It's not much of a surprise to me, but I may as well just admitt it for those of you, whoever you are, who don't know. I'm a bit of a flake. Not like I had a specific daily word count quota or anything, but I do tend to not manage my updating priorites very well. But better late than never right? So what's been goin on lately? Oh boy, too much.

So I'll just throw it all out there randomly for the sake of not pretending to be any more organized than I really have been. Last week was decent. Went to work, did my thing, went home and eventually got over being sick. Saturday I went to Momo's house and spent the day with her family playing Farkle and Apples to Apples, then we watched a movie called House of D. The movie was good, very touching story and all, but hit a little too close to home at some points and I had to turn my head from Momo before she noticed my eyes watering. (Yes I get sucked into good stories, but stuff that is still fresh in my memory can only be pushed so far down before the right movie or song baits it back to the surface again) But then we went to see the new installment of the Harry Potter series. It was pretty good, though I'm not sure how 2 hours passed without me even realizing. Then we went to her house for an ALMOST midnight snack with pumkin pie and plenty of cool wHip then made my way to my car, only to run back and knock on her door to make her come out and see the HUGE moon.

Sunday was very nice indeed. Momo came over and we watched some more movies and spent more time getting to know eachother talking and quoting more random movies. That is, of course, until I fell asleep. I didn't sleep much the night before, so I kind of ruined the "go out and play" plans as she decided to forego waking me up to instead sit and stare at the adorable wonder which was my sleeping face. Yeah...women. Since I was so out of it, I can't 100% recall the events of the evening after Momo went home, all I know is I went to bed early because Monday was a day I would not soon look back on with fondness.

Monday was hell. Not going to sugar coat it. The last three days have been hell actually. I got moved to a new facility and no longer have my old job. My manager is also taking over management for another company and told me I would get a small pay raise, health benefits and PLENTY of hours. The only thing he didn't mention was that the work is near-impossible for someone with a short mental capasity like me. Oh that and the "plenty" of hours actually means a schedule that will suck the life out of me. Not to complain about having too many hours during a recession, but lets be honest here, I'll be working from 9a.m. to 7 or 9p.m. from Monday through Saturday, year round. Sounds great for a hard working man right? Well guess what, I work at the church on Sundays and that means I dont get a single day off... all year. Yeah, yeah, boo-hoo no more social life no more hopes of spending time with friends let alone finding someone who might marry me. And that's just it. If I was married with a house and family to provide for, this job would be perfect because I know when I get home from work I have my beloved wife and kids to keep me company and share in their happiness and such. But I'm not married, I don't have anyone but myself to provide for, and I am trying to put myself through school so I might be able to rise above 10 bucks an hour. That's a pretty nice wage, but here in southern California, 10 bucks and hour for 60 hours a week won't even get you an apartment, and I know I'm not going to rent rooms in a stranger's house for the rest of my life. I need to get to school, but my boss said very specifically: No days off. if you're too sick, he want's a doctor's note releasing me from work. There is no other reciever to cover me if I take classes.

So basically, I just got stuck in a position that I can't keep up with. With the recent amount of stress I've been under, I reached a near breaking point today and asked one of the other managers what my options are if I could go back to my old position and find someone more suited for this one. I am perfectly fine with 30-40 hour work weeks with weekends off and a little more flexibility, even if there are no health benefits or awesome paychecks. I'd sooner get fired from my new position for all the mistakes I'm making anyways. And the best part is...It's not hard work at all. It's not like I don't understand it all, It's just too much at once and my brain literally can't process all of the things I have to do without getting nervous and making stupid mistakes. And if you know anything about shipping business, once you make a mistake in recieving, that mistake continues to go through the system all the way until we ship the wrong product, get billed for it and rejected, then my boss has to call the corperate and explain to HIS boss that he hired a reciever who is making tiny mistakes here and there that are costing the business thousands...And guess what; My boss called me into his office today to tell me just that! He said I'm only 3 days into the new position and I'm already getting worse with every day. He sees that I'm visibly nervous, and wants to know if I will show improvement. I wanted to say no please let me back to my old job, but another manager at the company was the one who referred me to that position (I didn't know that until today) and if I bail on this job, then that manager who stuck his neck out for me gets in trouble too. So I'm at a loss here. not sure what to do. If I keep this job, I will have to sacrifice social life, me-time, friends and family, school, and probably the biggest slam in the face, photography. That's right. If I'm stuck at work from the time I wake up 'til long after the sun is gone, every day of the year, I'll have to give up any hopes of booking clients or going out just to shoot pictures like this one:



I for one do not believe in the 'american dream'. I'd much rather work my butt off to piece together my rent, then spend all my free time chasing my two passions: photography and people. Without my artistic expression and the people close to me whom I share it with, my life would amount to nothing more than a weekly paycheck and reciepts for all the food I wasted it on, as I would do nothing more than work and eat and sleep simply to sustain my lifeforce while my soul deteriorates...That is NOT what I plan to let happen.


But wait! There may be hope! Although I'm not 100% sure on the details, I went ahead and enrolled for spring 2011 classes in the evenings anyways! If I lose my job, then I'm fine because I'm ready for change and if this is the way to bring it about then bring it on! But hopefully I can sit and talk with the boss and explain that I'm young and trying to put myself through school, so I signed up for classes that start at 6p.m. two days a week, so for those two days i can come in 9-5 and go to classes, then take saturdays for projects / field trips as required by the class. That way maybe, JUST MAYBE I'll be able to even out my schedule to include some free time and life-progression as I go to school. But this is all just hopeful thinking for now. I'm hoping I can take the classes I want, and hoping the boss doesn't let me go when he finds out I'm taking control of my schedule. and I'm also hoping that if I can balance school and work and continue my position, perhaps those health benefits and pay raise might help me put some money in the bank while I get my teeth fixed and finally start wearing glasses after more than 13 years without them. So since I know only one person who reads this blog; Momo, whoever else is out there, along with Momo, if you are people of prayer, I would appreciate all the help I can get. Both for my situation at hand, as well as my anxiety problems as I have come to realize my fuse is much shorter than I imagined and lately every little thing has caused intolerable amounts of pain even though I know everything's not all that bad. I think I need a break from life.