Some pictures, and The Sandpit

Okay, just a quick post for now. I'm still job hunting, but something will come up. I had a couple of interviews, but both places are still evaluating different people--actual hiring won't occur for another week or two, so I'm not sure if I'd even be offered a job at those places. And I try to keep busy working on projects and some photography. Just a couple of pictures below--

Busy, busy, busy -- I messed up taking this picture and didn't blur the ground enough, so the background is really distracting. I decided to have fun with it anyway and ran it through the "Creative - Split Tone 4" preset in Lightroom. I thought the warning label was interesting, seeing as how I didn't even know it was there until I loaded the picture up on my computer screen.

Same park, different swingset. That's about it.

Again, another picture with a busy background. The tree on the left just makes the picture feel crowded to me.

But here's something that is far more interesting. This is a short film called "The Sandpit" by a photographer named Sam O'Hare. It looks like it was all shot with miniatures, but it is just the way it was shot and processed that makes it look that way. He shot it entirely with a still camera, taking pictures at 4 frames per second, and then he edited it together afterwards (I believe he mentioned in an interview that he took around 35,000 pictures just for this project...). To get the full effect, click "Play" and then hit the full-screen button (it looks like square made up of four arrows pointing away from each other)--it should play in HD. Watch until the end--the whole thing is just fascinating.

The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

Hi-res

Hmm, for some reason the other post didn't let you click to see a hi-res image for the two pictures below. Hopefully this post works--

New York --> Utah

Talk about a hectic semester. After looking at my situation there in New York, I came to the decision that I had to move back to Utah once I finished my master's program. I decided this in the last week or so of November...and I finished my classes in December. So the last month was extremely chaotic, trying to balance school, work, and moving. I was also in the middle of applying to Ph.D. programs. On top of that, I started dating someone in the first part of December, and I was trying to find a way to spend time with her with everything else that was going on.

Anyway, I survived. And I hope I never have to pull another all-nighter ever again...Things got so rushed near the end that I had to pull four all-nighters back-to-back (I do NOT recommend this by any means). But it's over and done now. I've moved back to Utah, and I'm just waiting to hear back from the various Ph.D. programs (I'm looking for work in the meantime). At least I have time now to actually take some pictures and update my blog.

A passenger leaving the subway at Columbus Circle. I think it's interesting how this picture came out. I didn't have a tripod with me, so I had my camera propped up on a railing. I wanted to try and isolate a single person right as they were heading up the stairs. Even though this was at the end of the workday, to me it seems as if this man is just getting ready to face the city again.

Columbus Circle again.

Right by my parent's house. I was just testing out my new camera. If I could take the picture again, I would have tried to frame out all of the houses and the fence. But whatever--I didn't want to go tromping through someone's yard just to get closer.

Again, just testing out my new camera. I really like the amount of detail it can pick up (if you zoom in, you can see all of the paint flecks and pits on the hydrant's surface)

This is literally right in front of my new house in Salt Lake City. Sure, there have been countless images of trees silhouetted against a sunset--I just haven't done any myself :)

And yesterday I went up to Red Butte Gardens just above the University of Utah. It was interesting how the garden was still fun to walk around in, even though everything was brown and decaying.

Red Butte Gardens again

Last one from Red Butte Gardens. I'll have to head back in the spring/summer, when everything is in bloom. There was just something appealing about a dead garden--

Anyway, leave a comment and let me know what you think. I should be able to keep this more up to date without an insane amount of deadlines--

Vacation

Okay, so this past week I was able to visit my family and some friends back in Utah. It was a much needed break before school starts up. I've just been working over the summer, but after falling into the frantic routine of subway, work, subway, errands, subway, and so on, I just needed a break from the city.

And I had a blast in Utah. I got to see one of my sisters and her kids, and we ended up taking a trip on the Heber Valley Railroad. We went from Heber all the way down through the Provo Canyon until Vivian Park. Along the way, we got to relax and enjoy the sights in the canyon, the Deer Creek Reservoir, and the train also got stopped by horse-riding "outlaws" (ha, one of my nieces even was taken as a "hostage").

I also hung around in Provo for a day, and it was kind of surreal. It made me miss going to school there, and it made me appreciate more the good times I had there. New York is fun and all, but it's different in that everyone is so spread out--you can't just rely on the apartment complex circle-of-friends in Provo. It was fun catching up with some people that I hadn't seen in years, and just walking around the campus and the bookstore.

I'll try and post some more tomorrow, but I'm pretty tired right now--it was a long day rushing home from work just in time to catch the last half of the BYU football game...

Here's a few pictures from the trip (mainly of some of my nieces and nephews)--

Yeah, the framing is just like the famous "American Gothic" painting, but this picture still made me laugh

Julia -- we were in a cemetery so my sister could look up some of her husband's ancestors, and I got to watch the baby. Which meant I just put her on the ground and let her play in the pinecones and dirt

Debbie--she looks really sad in this picture, but she was actually really enjoying the train ride. I think she was a little tired, as this was after being on the train for nearly two hours

Sara

Eve being taken "hostage" by the train robbers

And the train itself -- yes, the sky really was that blue, and you can see the mountains and stuff in the background.

I'll keep digging through my pictures and see what else I can post tomorrow--

Tilt-shift

Okay, I've had a crazy couple of weeks, but I'm finally getting caught back up with everything. I took the comprehensive exam that is required for my master's program, and that was a bit of a nightmare. I was given one week to write two ten-page papers, but my dad was in town for the first couple of days, and then I had work. I started working on the papers on a Monday evening, and they were due Friday afternoon. Between Monday and Friday, I was getting maybe two hours of sleep a night, and then I pulled an all-nighter from Thursday to Friday to get everything done (don't forget, I still had work while all this was going on). But I was able to get everything turned in on time, and I feel pretty good about it. Ha, and to show you where my priorities are, immediately after turning in my paper, my second thought was that I should go home and sleep. I mean, on the subway ride down, I nodded off three different times for a few brief seconds, but I was paranoid that I was going to miss my stop and end up in Brooklyn. But my FIRST thought after turning in the exam was, "Hey, I'm just a few blocks away from the bookstore."

So I went to the bookstore. It was one of those good idea/bad idea situations. It was good in that I was able to just relax for a bit and not worry about anything, but it was a bad idea because I almost passed out at the bookstore (trust me, I know the feeling---thanks Pere. And for those of you that don't know, the count is currently in double digits for how many times I've been knocked out, with about half of them involving incidents with my brother).

And I had my birthday this past week. It was a lot of fun. Some friends and I went to the Shake Shack, and it was a joint event because another friend was moving to Utah the next day. We ended up having around thirty-five people show up. After ordering all of our food and stuff, we decided to eat outside, and it was one of those perfect evenings: mid-70s, slight breeze, and and we were sitting right next to a fountain just outside of the Museum of Natural History.

This past week, another friend took off, so a group of us went walking around down in the Financial District. I kept getting left behind because I was trying to take pictures. At one point, I saw a giant American flag hung across the front of a building, and I thought that was pretty cool. About an hour or so later, we went walking past the same building and I realized that it was the New York Stock Exchange. I tried not to let everyone know that I was completely clueless about the various historical sites around us, but it was still a lot of fun. Things eventually led to one of those awkward moments. My friend Molly was leaving the city the very next day, so she was trying to finish getting rid of various things. She asked if I wanted some rolling storage drawers, and I figured I could probably use them. So she said, "I guess that means you're going to have to come home with me tonight." .... Yeah, everyone was laughing pretty hard with that one. Oh, and I also I got to try out my birthday present as we were all walking around--it's a tilt-shift lens that I have been having entirely way too much fun with. Some pictures below--

Just outside the Shake Shack

While we were eating dinner -- kind of random, but whatever

Molly --

Neesha -- this lens makes for some interesting portraits because of the way it blurs parts of the image

Also outside of the Shake Shack, waiting for everyone to show up

Anyway, don't forget to leave some comments--

Piano on the Pier

Things have been going pretty well this past week or so. I started training at my new job, and I'm really enjoying it. Even if I don't know what I'm supposed to do yet, I'm trying to learn as quickly as possible. A large part of my day yesterday involved answering the phones, stating the company name, and then asking the person how I could help them. I just kept writing down everything they talked about, and at a good opportunity I'd politely ask them to wait while I put them on hold. As soon as I put the phone down, I'd just explain to the closest manager what the person needed, and they'd tell me what to do after that. It seemed to work well enough, and the customers didn't seem to know that their customer service rep (me) was completely clueless.

I also found a couple of the pianos for the "Play Me, I'm Yours" art project here in the city. I know I mentioned it in my last post, but I still think it's really interesting. There are around sixty pianos scattered throughout the city in parks and plazas, and me and some of my friends came across one on the pier by 72nd Street (towards the Hudson River). It was a lot of fun just listening to different people play in public. Skill level didn't matter. Several elementary school kids wanted to play Chopsticks and Heart & Soul, while another guy performed a 15 minute jazz improv. And yes, I got to play for a little bit too. It was fun, but I wish I could remember my songs better--I completely forgot the last half of two different songs.

Josh -- you can see how close to the river it is, and how random people just stop and listen

And kind of a funny story. I feel bad about it now, but it was still pretty funny (my sarcastic side came out very unexpectedly...). It was a girl's birthday this past Friday, so a group of us went out to this one restaurant for cheesecake. The girl just turned 27, and all of us hung out and talked for awhile. I got home a little after midnight, and when I got on Facebook, I saw that the birthday girl was online. So just being dumb, I was like, "Do you realize now you're closer to turning 54 than you are to your birth?" Immediately after sending the message, I was like, "WHY did I just say that?"

The next day, I was watching the soccer game at a friend's house when the birthday girl walked in. The very first thing she said was "Jon called me old on my birthday." Of course everyone wanted to know what happened, and I put up a very poor defense ("It wasn't her birthday when I said it..."). We were all laughing about it. Well, a little later, I was trying to tell a story, and this girl just said, "I'm sorry, what?" I started the story again, and she stopped me again, saying, "What'd you say?" I tried telling the story a third time, and she was like, "You'll have to speak up, I'm getting a little hard of hearing." ---Yeah, she got me pretty good with that one, and once again everyone was laughing.

Later that night, I had a group of people over to watch a movie, and she came over as well. At one point she made some comment (I can't remember what it was), and then she said, "Oh, I shouldn't say that--I'm being rude." Without missing a beat (and apparently, without thinking), I said, "That's okay, old people have a right to complain." ....Once again, I was just like, "WHY ON EARTH did I just say that?!"

I think it would only make it worse to mention that this is a girl I took out on a date last week...Anyway, I will really be trying to be careful about making sarcastic comments. Sure, people might laugh about it, and they know you're not being serious, but there's a reason you feel bad after making a comment like that.

End of the job hunt

Just a brief post for now. I got a job! A friend of mine mentioned that his company was hiring, so I figured I better submit an application. I thought the interview went okay, but not great. I left thinking, "Well, maybe something else will come through." So imagine my surprise when I got off the subway a little while later to hear a voicemail extending me the job. And yes, I did call them back, and it wasn't a fluke. I have an orientation meeting tomorrow, and it looks like I'll probably start next week. It's for a company called West Elm, which is part of Williams Sonoma Inc. It should help me get through grad school.

To relax/celebrate, I decided to do a random photo-walk through Riverside Park. I was really wanting to get down to the 140th Street area, because of this: http://www.streetpianos.com/nyc2010/ I thought it would make for some fun photo opportunities, and I also thought I might play a song or two. Why not? I almost made it down there, but the walk was a little farther than I was expecting. I wasn't tired or anything, it was more the fact that the sun was going down and it was starting to rain. I'll try again on Thursday. I did manage to find a couple of other things along the way--

I'm still trying to train my eye to look at things tonally. I really love black & white photography, but I'm still trying to get the hang of it. Out of about 30 pictures that were "supposed" to be b&w, only two or three looked right desaturated. And then only one of them felt comfortable as a composition. I need to practice more

It was a pain trying to get this shot. I didn't have a tripod with me, and I was trying to find a happy medium in shutter speeds so that the water had a motion blur while the rest of the image stayed sharp. But it was late in the day and the sky was overcast, which meant that I had to use a slow shutter speed (I think this was around 1/40 or 1/50). Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but I was also shooting at f/2.2. I kept shaking while I took the picture, and the depth of field was so narrow that I kept getting one bad picture after another. This was the best of that set, but it's still a touch soft