Monthly Archives: November 2009

JD Hancock

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I am very fortunate that many of my friends share my love for photography. About one-half of the emails I receive are links that we send back and forth. The artist above was shown to me by my friend Pammy. Pammy, Rob and I will be working on a similar series later in the year, and after we had outlined some of the shots, she found Hancock’s work and invited me to check it out.

Hancock is a great example someone who focuses on pure artistic vision. He shoots with only a Nikon D50, a point and shoot camera, or his iPhone (when it isn’t a part of the scene). Nevertheless, his images are creative, fun, and very throught-provoking. If you like the shots below, check out his series online at his Flickr.


Swimming in the iPool

The Anxious Type
The Anxious Type

Missing Mom

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I had an amazing conversation with my mom last night, and it made me really homesick. I can’t wait to visit home and play cards and listen to christmas music with her. In honor of that, I wanted to share some images of places that remind me of her.

Broadway Park in Seattle
This is the fountain at Broadway Park in Seattle.

The streets of Yakima
Our family regularly takes walks together at night after everyone is home. This shot is from Yakima, Washington, where my sister participated in the State Drill Competition. We walked a lot in the four days that we were there and had a lot of time to talk with each other. This shot is on our way to Olive Garden to celebrate the 1st/1st/2nd place victories of the team.

Salem
This is an image I keep coming back to. I snapped it outside of the Starbucks across from the Salem Center. It reminds me of how something as mundane as a stop light can be seen in a more interesting way.

Love you mom!

Today’s workout.

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I heard it again at the gym today.

“Nice shirt, fag!”

It stopped me in my routine, even cutting through the Saosin that was pulsing in my ears, and I almost dropped the bar I was holding. What was it about his shirt that presented itself in relation to homosexual? Was he showing too much skin for your comfort? Were the cutoff sleeves too much for you? Oh, wait… You didn’t mean that he looked homosexual, you mean that he looked like less of a man.

You called him a “fag” because you wanted to undercut his manhood in the testosterone-filled arena of the weight room, where you and your football buddies all donned your football camp shirts and made jokes at the expense of others. His shirt looked almost identical to yours, except it revealed slightly more shoulder. Oh my.

Arrizu

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SISTER!

I realized that I have yet to post about my sister, who is one of the greatest influences to my life and my photography.

Arrizu is a beautiful individual who has been not only a great sister, but a great friend my entire life. We’ve had our ups and downs, but I think it was during my senior year of high school, when I was ASB President and she was VP that we really learned to work together. Since going to college, our relationship has developed a ton, and I have even more respect for her today. While she has journeyed out on her own and learned a lot, all of her facial expressions were learned from me.

More images of her after the jump. Continue reading →

Too much thesis, too little photography

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Since my last post, I’ve been focused almost exclusively on my thesis paper. This has consumed all of my free time, as well as time that was, well, made free for the occasion. Because of this, I’ve been unable to pick up a camera and go shooting, which has not been a pleasant experience. I also purchased a Sigma 24 1.8 lens, but found it to have focusing problems, so Sigma currently has it in NY for calibration.

To reminisce a bit, I began scanning through old images and selecting a handful of significant images to post. The first two are below.

Oregon's First Nation Pow Wow in 2009

This was taken at Oregon’s First Nations Pow Wow at the Salem Fairgrounds earlier this year. I went with my professor, Nacho Cordova, and his family. We walked around the arena a bit and shot, and then moved up to the stage where the Pow Wow was being narrated from to get a different view. This was taken as a number of boys were dancing early on in the day.

This image was taken at one of my sister’s drill competitions, during another school’s hip hop routine. The entire group was extremely talented and I had just gotten back to my camera in time to snap off this image.