READY FOR LUNCH

Shitty Vietnamese Food / Lowell, Ma / July 2015

Nothing really great here. Just a simple soy sauce, salt, pepper & whatever.

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CHANGE OF PLANS

To tell you the truth I sometimes feel like I shouldn't do this anymore. I should've quit and learned how to fish. At least I'll be able to eat.

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I'M WAITING TO LIVE THERE

I Wish It Was That Easy / East Hartford, Ct / July 2015

I love these kinds of days. Cloudy summer days that rain and clean the air. And it's those days that help me drench a lot of my worries. I'm sure many could relate. I miss the views of California. They used to bring me these types of skies on the daily. But I'm here trying to make the most of it.

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42 NIGHTS OF FOG & NO SLEEP

I was ten years old when I started to walk to school in the morning by myself. These mornings I'd wake up early to eat breakfast, watch my morning cartoons and clothed myself for the whole day. And those mornings were the mornings I felt the most excited about.

Because those mornings I was alone. I didn't talk to anybody, I didn't see anybody, I was alone... alone for a couple of hours until school started. Those mornings, I could remember, were foggy which were probably the mornings I cherished the most. They were reminders that I'm a loner with little friends. I made friends, sure, but not the kind of friends I could talk about personal things.

And those foggy mornings I would sit on the bench and look. Feel. Drift away. Thinking about it now I've always had this thought of death. How I would one day pass away with no reasons. These were my thoughts at the age of 10. Perhaps this must be the thing that set me apart from other kids. And maybe away from my family.

I could remember thinking that life wasn't going to be good for me the next few years. Because those next few years would compile a reputation of getting ass beatings, rumors of my troubles, and of white people who have questioned ridiculous asian customs that I wasn't aware of at the time.

I'm 29 and still feel like that 10 year old who walked to school in the morning alone with no one to talk to and no one to share certain things to his friends and family. Because being alone is all I know and I'm sure that will like this for the rest of my life.

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PLACES NEXT TO MY WORK I'M PROBABLY NOT SUPPOSED TO GO TO

When You're Bored You Photograph Nothing / East Hartford, Ct / July 2015

There's this building next the the building I work at that has since been operational. But before the whole area was abandoned which was a good place to practice photographs. When I don't want to drive downtown I usually come here to search for anything interesting. I like how crappy this image came out. So overexposed, but I like it. I usually keep these types of photographs just I could use them later for album covers or book covers. Anyway...

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THIRTY FIVE HUNDRED DAYS

Some have said
That there is a peace found in our dead
But there was a sadness in your face
You loved your God
and now I hate mine just ‘cause
Watching you fall was my fall from grace
And you’ve been gone for thirty five hundred days
And I’ll keep on, though I know it’s not the same
The last time I saw you, my mother held tight to her children's hands and prayed

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YOU'RE LOOKIN' GOOD I GUESS

Homies Flossin / Hartford, Ct / July 2015

Having a pack of 600 film was sort of exciting until the results deemed a bit disappointing. Of course I would still blog about it just because it's still interesting. Well, I've been playing with the idea of using black and white SX-70 type film for strictly portraits. I haven't done black and white film in such a long time and at this point color has been sort of losing my interest. Not to say I'm not going to be shooting color ever again, but as of right now I'm kinda burned out by it.

Since shooting consistent candids and still life I've been wanting to be a little more intimate with people that I photograph. This also gives me a chance to sort of step out of my box and meet new people aside of sticking to the people that I know already. If this takes off I'm probably going to be doing a lot more of this in the next few years.

Hopefully I can stick to it and get shit done. Knowing me it takes a long time for an idea to really come around and lay solid.

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IT ISN'T REAL BUT I END UP DOING IT ANYWAY

For a week and a weekend I had worked on a couple of pictures that needed some care. The photos were of a family friend taken possibly in around the early fifties. And for most of these images taken at that time they weren't properly cared for. Fortunately technology has given the world a chance to reconstruct the damaged images and bring them new life.


Attending a photo program in a city college included learning some of these skill sets. And in fact those skill sets are still among one of my favorite things I've learned to this day. Photoshop has many advantages if used properly. And to bring new life to these images can be amazing.


There are three image sets here that demonstrates even a small portion of what photoshop can do.

1. On this situation part of the image in the center was cut out. As I did some more cleanup I realized that I couldn't just sample a dress on this woman. It would look fake and noticeable. However, I had the idea that I could just shove the individuals from both sides of the picture and do my best to fill in that space. I could've sampled the post that was behind her, but I got too lazy and just left it there.

2. On this situation I had to sample the right side of the girls's hair and flipped it horizontally to get some different texture. I also did my best removing the tag on the bottom right sampling the left side of the skirt and flipping it as well. I did some deep curves set on this (as well as the other pictures I am going to show you next) to get the image to pop out a little more.

3. For this situation I had to sort of make the top of the head for the baby. By doing this I had made a sample on the left side of the head and copied the layer about 6 or 7 times to make the shape and cloned it a bit by sampling the hair of the head and the top of the head with the background.I also added a couple of leaves on the tree to fill in the space from the top left hand corner. I also merged the samples of the head into one layer and used a transform tool to make more of an oval shape. The rest was just cloning and healing the picture.

I don't do these things often. You become a God when you use this program. I can even make people smile in pictures. It's kinda crazy. But I don't use photoshop for those purposes. My way of using it is to enhance an image and cleaning up dust and scratches. I used to work on these types of images for many years and I still have those types of skills. I never intended to use these skills to do any kind of photo restorations, but when something like this comes around I usually try my best to fix it.

Anyway, I wanted to show something different for a change instead of writing boring bullshit I usually write.

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THE LONELY ONES

A little while back I had pre-ordered this book from J & L Books. THE LONELY ONES is the newest release from Gus Powell since his first book "THE COMPANY OF STRANGERS" in June 2007. In this book he was inspired by William Steig's "The Lonely Ones" which was a small book of illustrations followed with captions.

For this book Gus really wanted to use captions to give the images a different direction rather a photo displaying what something looks like. The pages are mostly fold outs which present the caption first and image inside the fold out. Captions such as "Mistakes Were Made" or "I Do This On the Side" either help the image identify what the image may convey or can confuse you or force you to figure out what you're trying to look for.

The idea allows the audience to be a bit more interactive with a book. With the fold out pages and captions you find something in images you probably have not found before. This was the first time I was satisfied with a photographer who thought about the selections of images and the titles that pair together.

And as of late I've been thinking about that same idea myself. To pair fictional titles to an image that had been captured in a real setting seems intriguing to me. I'm currently working on a small book that sort of uses this direction of looking at image. I will be releasing these details later next year.

Please check out this book. You won't be disappointed.

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JUST STAY STILL JUST A BIT LONGER

On Break / Hartford, Ct / July 2015

I'm going to be doing something different these next few weeks as the Polaroid format is going to change for a bit. I was shooting with an SX-70 with 600 film for a bit and wasn't really liking the results. Whatever though.... This self portrait was the night I setup the show with my buds Adrian Martinez, Keith Levesque & Mark Loper. I've been doing a bit of exhibits with them over the last year and this year and have seen the progress they've all made since then

That night when I went in to raise work up it was a bit of a difficulty for me. I was tired, kinda nervous & wasn't really sure if the work that I was going to present wasn't gonna get that much of a reception. However, I was able to raise over a hundred something dollars for CTHumane to help with animal needs for other owners who are currently in a tight budget.

It was a great night and I think that I was happy with the results of it.

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