25 days of joy, constraint, & my holiday brain: Day five.

When the light and the architecture is really good: Columbus, Indiana…

Spent the last two hours of daylight on one of the shortest days of the year wandering around Columbus, Indiana. I had planned to take my “real” camera, but I forgot. I actually think I like zipping around with the iPhone better. Fiddling with the lens and doing complicated math really saps my enjoyment. I ran around following the long shadows of church steeples. I ducked in an out of alleys. I stood in the middle of the street calculating the odds that a car would hit me. You can’t do those things when you’re trying to remembering if you recharged the f-stops.

I’d rather compose some pleasing geometry and light, then snap, then run around to the next one.

And, as my boss when I worked for an outfit that made TV movies for the USA Network back in the early 90s was fond of saying when it was time to give up on shot because of fading light and attitudes:

“We’ll fix it in post.”

Columbus, Indiana is the home of many modernist buildings that are on the National Register of Historic Places. Architecture geeks love it.

Find out about some of the architecture here…

Names! Names! Names!

Lines! Lines! Lines!

Angles! Angles! Angles!

All the filters, but sometimes none.

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T-Shirts for Christmas

I am currently in my pre-Christmas scramble to complete my list…

The cat: check. Wigs: check. Monkey: check. Disco cats: check. Giant tree burned in 1988: check. The G Train: check. 19th century folk art advertising sign of a pig: check. Skyline of Columbus –canted and slightly blurred: check. Graffiti jellyfish: not check. Soviet meerkats: not check. The cat, yet again: not check. A precarious fire escape: not check.

Of course I will not be wrapping any Soviet meerkats. The vast majority of meerkats who lived under the Soviet system are either long dead or have become oligarchs. And I dare anyone to who tries to put the cat in a box for wrapping to staunch their wounds in time before they bleed out. At least try to wear a green turtleneck before attempting to do so; the blood and the turtleneck will look festive together.

The reader, unless Christo is reading this blog for some reason (In that case, I loved The Gates.), has figured out that I’m probably talking about photographs here. This is a collection of found photos and photos of found objects (and the cat, always the cat). The vast majority is my own work, but when you find great disco cats, you’ve got to grab them. Continue reading

Bits and Bobs of Ft. Greene, Brooklyn

Photo walk of a sliver of the Clintonville section of Columbus of Ohio

Last Saturday, I participated in my first organized photography event, a Photo Walk of Historic Clintonville, the neighborhood in which I live in Columbus. We were helped along by the Clintonville Historical Society and the good folks at Midwest Photo Exchange. Hopefully one or more of my photos will be included in an upcoming gallery show.

And yes, Beechwold is part of Clintonville. Continue reading

Photo 101, Day Eighteen: Edge & Alignment

…in which our hero doesn’t bring his book to the bar and is shown some nice edges in the neighborhood.

Last night I ventured down to the All-Request 70s/80s/90s Bear Happy Hour at Exile. I requested and heard both “My Kind Of Lover” by Billy Squier and “Gemini Dream” by The Moody Blues. In the past I have brought a book to this event. But my friend Damian in NYC said not to anymore because it was kind of off-putting. He should know as he is a well-regarded DJ and, therefore, see much human interaction. So, I swallowed hard and went to the bar without a book.

Amazingly, I managed to strike up a conversation with someone local. He said he had seen me for several weeks but didn’t feel safe approaching me until I actually smiled in his direction. I mentioned that before I headed home, I was going to wander around the neighborhood to snap some pics of things with edges.

He volunteered to take me and show me some nice, edgeful stuff.

Moral: Smile, get edges.

Route traversed: route copySongs mentioned:

Billy Squier: My Kind of Lover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETFbV3zbjjU

The Moody Blues: Gemini Dream
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3QLFFVFpp0

Photo 101, Extra Credit: Lakeview Cemetery, Cleveland (EVERYTHING ON MANUAL)

I took a basic photography class last Thursday from Midwest Photo Exchange here in Columbus. I learned about my ISOs, apertures, and shutter speeds. It was a revelation and relieved me of my reliance on AUTO.

Yesterday, I reconnected with my friend Beth after a thirty year absence. And what better way to reconnect than to stroll around a historic cemetery? I have a thing for cemeteries and have posted about Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn in the past.

I like a nice memento mori.

So, the pics in this gallery are all taken in the “M” mode and manually focused. There are literally a hundred photos that don’t look like anything. I have not altered these in any way, not even cropping.

Photo 101, Day Ten: Mystery & Lighting Effects

Last night I attended my first Pride event in Columbus. Last time I lived in Columbus, I was a frightened high school kid who couldn’t even possibly imagine that someday he would be walking around being gay, gay, gay without threat of being shoved in locker.

I happened to attend the Pride Festival in Goodale Park at Magic Hour. Unfortunately I didn’t have my new Sony A5000 because I thought I’d be going to the bar afterwards. So, all of these pics are taken with my iPhone 6 (a little to a lot of tweaking afterwards on some)…

Photo 101, Day Seven: Big & Point of View

¡GIANT TWO HEADED T-REX ATTACKS MASSIVE BELLINI GLASS WITH BALLS!

I live in Columbus, Ohio. Other than the campus of OSU, there is nothing “big” in Columbus, Ohio. And I don’t have the necessary zeppelin to capture its size. Everything else is a respectable average. That’s what Columbus, Ohio is most famous for: it’s impressively above-average averageness. We have a nice skyline, but not one that shouts Columbus, Ohio, Manhattan of the Corn! Our highways are big enough to handle the necessary traffic, but this ain’t LA, Atlanta, or Dallas. Our zoo is famous, but the animals are all normally sized for their species.

I lay awake in my bed. Tossing. Turning. Little hamster spinning on its wheel. Big. Big. Big. What’s big around here?

I slept fitfully. I woke up early. Called in the back-up hamster. What’s big?

Then I noticed the water in the glass by my bed. The surface was rippling. The cat looked at me, said “Hell no!” and bolted under the bed. I went to the window.

Dear God, I thought. The prophesy has been fufilled!

Giant two-headed T-Rex spies his (and/or) her nemesis, the massive bellini glass with balls…

DSC00492

Continue reading

Photo 101, Day Six: Connect & Tags

Roots and Runners: Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars…

I chose today’s subjects because today –June 15, 2015 –marks the first anniversary of a great man’s passing. There have been very few public personalities for whom, upon hearing of their death, I wept. Casey Kasem was one of them. He made me the music fan I am today. He taught me that all music was equal and deserved at least one listen. He taught me not to judge other peoples tastes [Well, not too harshly. But, c’mon gays, you can do a lot better. I know you can.] He taught me that no one doesn’t like having chart trivia spewed at them for no good reason. Each Saturday morning I listen to a re-broadcast of an AT40 from the 80s and one from the 70s on Sundays. I am a complete chart nerd!

I wrote many words about him last year when his crazy wife Jean stole his body.

So I felt the best way to honor the man was to feature things that keep their feet on the ground and some other things that keep reaching for the stars. Yeah, it’s totally contrived and hokey, but it’s my Long Distance Dedication.