Time To Pretend...

These are a couple of my self portraits so far.

Honestly, I don't particularly like any part of my body.

So I thought I would try to focus on things I like the least.

Then, I will work towards the parts I do like.

As you can probably guess, I don't like my neck.

So I started there.

Leave your thoughts.

In a Photograph, you cannot peel back the shades of gray; below the emulsion is whiteness: the alchemy is in the coating.

So, I have recently fallen in love with the work of Sylvia Plachy.

Her photos are fun and unexpected.  I think she brings a vintage feel to modern times...and I LOVE that.

And, woah dang...She is Adrian Brody's mom!

I had seen her work on an Ovation special before, but I had forgotten about her...

I'm glad I found her again!

I feel like my style related to hers before I had even seen or heard of her.

ATLANTIS!!!!!! Or not...

Supposed evidence of the city of Atlantis has surfaced off the coast of Africa.

In the Google Earth tool recently added to the popular site, people have been speculating that a suspicious grouping of lines under the ocean floor are actually the man-made streets of the fabled Atlantis.  Google denies this claim however, stating that the lines are actually reflections of the boat trails that used sonar to map the sea floor.

I would show you a picture, but I get really mad when photos are made into slideshows using Adobe Flash Player because it is then impossible to copy and paste them.

Alas, I resort to the dreaded posting of a link.

http://news.aol.com/article/google-earth-atlantis/353546

My Random Musings

So I'm copying CG's idea.

Sue me.

1. My favorite color is crimson.
2. I am currently sitting under my friends' bed.
3. Sometimes I wonder what I would have been doing right now if I hadn't have quit band at the end of 10th grade.
4. I am terrified of people I don't know.
5. For lent, I am attempting to give up stress.  (Can you really give up an emotion?  We'll see...)
6. I adore spontaneity.
7. My goal in life is to make a difference.
8. I don't care if I'm ever famous, I just want to be remembered for something. (Other than my laugh.)
9. I hate people touching my feet/making me touch their feet.
10. I may act goofy a lot and say stupid things, but I really invest a lot of thought into my friendships and look for opportunities to better them.
11. I look forward to Saturdays at midnight so I can see the new PostSecrets for the week.
12. I have 2 pet turtles named Vincent and Theo.
13. I also have a cat named Nermal. (The cousin from Garfield.  Anyone who knew that before I specified wins brownie points with me.)
14. Nobody loves Peanuts comics more than I do.
15. Music is the air I breathe.
16. Even though I never feel like I set a good example, I love God with all my heart and hope that I have helped others realize their love for him as well.
17. On that note, at one point in my life, I almost felt lead to be a youth minister.
18. I can only eat one food at a time.  No mixing of tastes!
19. I never do anything with my hair, but I am still obsessed with it.
20. I am ecstatic that Slumdog Millionaire and Kate Winslet got what they deserved at the Oscars.
21. I don't think it's possible for me to name my favorite movie.
22. I want to sneeze with my eyes open one day to prove everyone wrong.
23. A lot of Vaughns' weird outbursts make me feel better because now I know someone else has thought my thoughts.
24. I got 45 stitches when I was in the 3rd grade.
25. I HATE knowing change is coming, but most times, once it has happened, I'm okay with it.
26. My favorite word is conundrum and I get really excited when I find opportunities to use it in everyday conversations.
27. When high school was over, one of my saddest realizations was that I wouldn't really have anymore opportunities to wear fancy dresses.
28. When I am done eating and have leftover food on my plate, I make sculptures out of it so I will be less tempted to eat the rest of it later.
29. I hate Texas.  It's big.  Ugly.  And hot.
30. If I could live in my shower, I probably would.
31. My closet is categorized by type of clothing and then sorted in color order.  (Most of the time.)
32. I came to Commerce because of my 10th grade photo teacher Mr. Hale.  (I didn't even apply anywhere else.)
33. If I hadn't have come here, I would have loved to go to SCAD or CalArts or FIDM.  Dream big, right?
34. I went to Mexico for an hour and bought a lamp.
35. My family and I walked out to Ellis Island to find that the last ferry had left just minutes before.  I then threw a snowball at my dad's head and he yelled at me.  My mom and I laughed.
36. When I was 15, I was driving around Memphis and was about 8 seconds from being plowed over by a train.  We ate an entire bag of Reese's Pieces in celebration of our continuance of life.
37. I could probably hang out with Demetri Martin for the rest of my life and be okay with it.
38. When I am driving around listening to music, I pretend like whatever I see out of the window is the music video.  Sometimes it's amazing how well they go together.
39. I eat peanut butter with a spoon.
40. I suffer from a severe case of dry-wit/ sarcasm.
41. I think it's weird that I am at the age when my friends are starting to get married and have kids.
42. There is something about the number 42.  I'm pretty sure it follows me around.
43. I like playing games like soccer and racquetball but if I am exercising for the pure sake of exercising, I would rather shoot myself.
44. I wish I was born in the late 40's or 50's so I could have my prime years during the hippie movement.
45. I want to be friends with people I think look interesting.  I never have the courage to talk to them though.
46. I love chocolate and bread in a bad way.  You can't tell, can you?
47. After seeing Across the Universe with my friend, we attempted to steel a shopping cart but didn't succeed because it wouldn't fit in the back seat of my car.
48. My favorite food in the world is quiche.
49. I can't decide if I am like everyone else or if I am just so different that I blend in with everyone else who is 'different'.
50. I was a crayon for halloween one year.  (Purple or blue...I don't remember.)
51. I have absolutely no arch whatsoever. 
52. My favorite show in the world is Boy Meets World.
53. Now that I think about it, most of the shows I like to watch were on in the 90's.
54. A lot of people think I do drugs.  This is a falsehood. 
55. Before I die, I WILL attend an indie film festival.  Preferably Sundance.
56. My dreams are either super realistic or super out there.
57. Any time someone says a number, you can bet I am trying to divide it by 2 as many times as I can in my head.  It's a tick.
58. I love the 4th of July because of the fireworks.
59. I'm accident prone/ attractive to bad luck.
60. I only want to go to France to visit the Louvre and the catacombs.
61. It wouldn't hurt my feelings to study abroad in Italy or England for a semester.
62. My current favorite bands are tied between Bishop Allen, Idlewild, The Strokes, Eisley, and every song on the Spring Awakening soundtrack.
63. Oh, speaking of that, I hate musicals with the exception of musicals about musicals with the exception of High School Musicals.
64. I like to think that I have a pretty broad vocabulary.
65. If I wasn't going to be a photographer, I would either like to have been a model builder for movies or an English teacher.
66. I am attracted to crazy people i.e. Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson, etc...
67. I have a deep-seated love for trees.  I don't think God made much else more beautiful.
68. The only sport I ever really played was soccer.  I wasn't very good, but I liked it anyway.
69. At my first home game, I was marching backwards and fell flat on my butt.  Fantastic!
70. I'm not short.  I'm fun size.
71. I'm a totally different person once you get to know me.
72. I'm proud to be from Mississippi, but you couldn't pay me to move back there.  Everything has just gone way down hill.
73. My birthday is 9/11, and I get really tired of people feeling sorry for me about it.  I feel terrible for what happened and all the families that lost loved ones, but I can't ever have a normal birthday again because people are always feeling down in the dumps on that day.
74. My grandpa's birthday is the day after mine.
75. I am a firm believer that God gives us road signs to direct us where we need to go in life.
76. As a family tradition, my mom and I always watch Sleepless in Seattle while wrapping Christmas presents.  My dad and I always watch The Grinch and Charlie Brown Christmas.  It's probably one of my favorite past-times.
77. I wish I was more interesting.
78. I had a lisp until like 2nd or 3rd grade.  I still have to think about how I say stuff sometimes.  (I should probably never read this sentence out loud.)
79. I hate disappointing people.
80. I barely ever paint my finger nails but my toe nails are almost always colorful.
81. My legs remind me of a short, inverted Mrs. Bellum from the Power Puff Girls.
82. For most of my high school career, I grew my hair out long in an effort to look more like Topanga on Boy Meets World.
83. I have double jointed toes and fingers.
84. I can't whistle.
85. I am never tan.  I go from liquid paper to red back to liquid paper with more freckles.
86. It makes me really mad when people don't follow through on their promises/ obligations.
87. I am terrified that I am going to be an old cat lady.
88. I'm all for saving the planet, but I hate that it has become a fad that people are only profiting from the merchandise sales with. 
89. I used to be convinced that Chester the Cheetah was a tiger and called Cheetos Tiger Chips.
90. When I was young, I would go into my back yard and gather all the empty terra cotta pots and put berries and leaves in them and mush them together to pretend I was Pocahontas. 
91. Both of my parents are teachers.
92. I'm pretty sure my dad came out of the womb reading a book.
93. I love saying inside jokes around people so they wonder about what is going on.
94. When I was a junior, I was tackled at a football game in front of both teams bands, cheerleaders, drill teams, and our school rowdy crowd.  It was the talk of the school for the next week.
95. I was runner up for Most Humorous.  I lost to a girl who apparently was neither funny nor popular.  Her mom was a teacher in charge of the polling.
96. I had a scottish terrier when I was young.  I named her Pertie because I thought she was a dalmatian.  She barked at water and our next door neighbor was a gardener.  There was much cussing.
97. My parents let me name our first beta fish.  I called it Soda.  In later years, we would come to have an aquarium of fish named after the cast of Star Trek.
98. I try to find God in most of my pictures.
99. One day I will compile a soundtrack to my life.
100. I have cute pinky fingers.

Tadah!

Tight.

Police in Kansas City, Missouri were astounded when they arrived on the scene of a shooting to find the victim strangely unharmed.

After her boyfriend went on an angry rampage, Briana Bonds was found by police in her car with an attempted murder on her hands.  Due to her incredibly tight weave, the bullet that had been careening toward her head was deflected and therefore saved her life.

Thank God for hairdressers. 

Head Fake

The other day I was cleaning my room.

I desperately needed to.

It was driving me crazy.

But as I was organizing my desk drawer, I looked up at my alphabetized books.  

The one on the end is my favorite...The Last Lecture.

I started thinking about what that book meant to me. 

It took me forever to read it.

I get distracted easily.

But I finally finished it this summer.  

I was on the bus coming back from my last church camp ever.

I wasn't really sitting with any of my friends, so I thought it was the opportune moment to finally finish the book.

When I got back to the church, my mom was waiting for me.

She took me out to lunch in Denton and we drove around town to spend time with each other.

She asked how camp was, and how the drive back was.

When I told her that I had finally finished my book that morning, she looked at me with grave eyes.

She told me that Randy Pausch, the author and pancreatic cancer victim, had passed away just that morning.

I didn't really know what to say.

Obviously, I had no personal ties with the man, but by reading his book about living out your childhood dreams, I felt like I had gotten to know him quite well.

It made me think about how we need to appreciate what we have right now.

Don't keep making plans for tomorrow and the day after that.

It might not be there.

Then I realized I couldn't really remember any of my childhood dreams.

Like every kid, I wanted to be a vet at some point, but I honestly can't remember any deep-seated passion within me.

The only thing I vividly remember is that one Easter Sunday, my family and I went to a park to take pictures.

While we were walking around, I found a camera that had been lost in a field of grass.

We walked around asking people if the camera belonged to them, but no one would claim it.

I think it was a sign.

And ever since that day, I've become more and more involved with photography.

I think God puts little road signs in our lives to direct us where to go.

Even if we don't realize they are there, we can look back in hindsight and realize...

This was meant to be.

Please watch his lecture.  

It is an hour and sixteen minutes, but well worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Roll, Roll, Roll In Ze Hay!

How early is too early to start sleeping around?

This is a heated topic amongst religious and family groups, but I don't think they were ready for the curve ball being hurled at them in the form of a 12 year old boy named Alfie Patten.  Along with his 15 year old girlfriend, Chantelle Steadman, Alfie welcomed a daughter into the world last Monday.  

I find this ridiculous.  When I read that the two children plan to stay in school and raise the baby to have a good future just to prove everybody wrong, I actually laughed out loud.  This is absurd.  The British police are refraining from pressing charges against the children because it is in nobody's best interest.  

What's more, England has had the highest rate of teen pregnancy out of all of western Europe.  385 girls under the age of 14 became pregnant between 1998 and 2007.

What is this world coming to?

Rootbeer Floats Make Him Cry.

Disclaimer: Please scroll to the bottom of this post and view upwards.

This is the facial reaction to the first sips of one of Mabel's rootbeer floats.

Priceless...

Picturing....

These are some of my better portraits from our venture to Cooper.

Please critique, I'd surely appreciate it!

All of us were and are lost, and know it, and we simply try to settle into our lost-ness as comfortably as we can.

 

Philip-Lorca diCorcia

Eddie Anderson...

http://artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Archive/Articles1997/Articles1097/PdiCorciaA.html

Barbara Morgan

Martha Graham, Letter to the World, (The Kick)

http://www.marquette.edu/haggerty/exhibitions/past/morgan2004.html

Glenn Brown

Poilichinelle

http://artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Archive/Articles1997/Articles1097/PdiCorciaA.html

Jeremy & Claire Weiss

Untitled

http://www.day19.com/v6/

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Place de l'Europe

http://www.henricartierbresson.org/hcb/HCB_bio00_en.htm

Phillipe Halsman

Dali Atomicus

http://www.fotoart.gr/photography/articles/phillipehalsman/index.htm

Some other people I wanted to draw inspiration from:

Haluk Akakce

Francis Alys

Merlin Carpenter

The Irwin Group

Sean Landers

Marcherita Manzelli

Lucy McKenzie

Muntean/Rosenblum

Elizabeth Peyton

Jeff Corwin

Chuck Close

Geoff Graham

Edward Matalon

Michael Northrup

Enea Bottaro

Shelby Lee-Adams

Diane Arbus

Jane Evelyn Atwood

Renee Burri

Bernard Falcun

Robert Frank

Teun Hacks

Ernst Hass

Chris Johns

Sirrka Liisa Conttinen

George Krause

O. Winston Link

Man Ray

Sarah Moon

Frederico Patellani

Arnulf Rainer

Eugene Richards

Willy Ronis

Ben Shahn

Jeanloup Sieff

Frederick Sommer

John Vink

Placement.

What is product placement?

Why is it so important?

In my opinion, it is a ridiculous ploy that businesses invest in to put more money in their pockets.  If you really think about it, could it be possible that companies invest more in subliminal advertising than the actual cost of production of their products or having tangible ads in magazines and newspapers?

This video, courtesy of the brilliant 'Zefrank', puts a satirical but well thought out spin on the topic.  

http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2007/01/010406.html

Enjoy.