orange wednesday

I am such an orange-y kind of girl. but with pink and red thrown in. well, and some turquoise. okay, and some yellow.

leya's color week continues on. pink and red tomorrow. am thinking I would like every week to be color week.

yellow tuesday

hello yellow. for leya's color week.

green monday

leya, you read my mind. I've been thinking of doing this for weeks.



hello, color week! I'm so glad to see you.



I've got some catching up to do. if you want to play along, it's not too late. it's never too late:

monday: green
tuesday: yellow
wednesday: orange
thursday: pink/red
friday: blue

check with miss curious bird for links and such. also, am thinking of continuing on with this into next week. anyone interested? what say you?

hey, another list

liking, probably even loving:

week of the polaroid. which forced me to stop hoarding my humble stash of polaroid film and shoot it already, ultimately resulting in happy, happy times. so wrong not to pimp it here: save polaroid.

all the folks who left kind, encouraging and helpful words regarding me and this business of photographing strangers. thank you so much.

lovely victoria over at sfgirlbybay who featured me this past wednesday. you can read the interview here. like a good meme but more official. because that's how victoria rolls. I am so loving her.

number 28

"hi, I was wondering, would you mind if I took your picture?"

"what?"

"um, I'm sort of doing this thing, taking photographs of strangers and I thought maybe I could take your picture?"

"yeah okay. sure."

he starts to roll the sleeve of his shirt down over the tattoo covering his left forearm.

"you want me to cover this thing up?"

"no, not if you don't want to. I like it."

he puts down his cigarette and sort of smiles, shifts uncomfortably in his seat a bit, readjusts his posture. then he sits up real straight and tall, starts in with a stiff little smile and freezes. like he's back in first grade again, posing for the school photographer. I find this ridiculously cute. though not exactly what I want so I keep shooting until he really relaxes. I'm very nervous about the whole thing, I'm fumbling with the camera, setting it all wrong. I am completely flustered. trying to play it cool, though very unsuccessfully.

"so you're trying to get over your fear of strangers?"

"my fear of taking photographs of strangers, actually."

"just so you know, guys will never care if you take their picture. but girls will. girls care more about the way they look."

"hmm. you're probably right about that. thanks."

then he suddenly gets all excited about this thing I'm doing and gestures towards the coffee house where he works. he tells me about all the guys in the shop who'd love to have their picture taken. girls too, he says, but I'm running late. I thank him and say goodbye.



as I walk to the car, I know this will be my next project. I knew it the moment I saw him sitting there, the moment I ran to the car to grab my camera, the moment I opened my mouth to ask his permission, the moment he relaxed in front of the camera and started to forget I was there. as I drive away, I am somewhere between terrified and giddy. because taking photographs of strangers scares me. a lot. and this is how I know I'm headed in the right direction. out of all the possible projects I listed, this one made me the most uncomfortable. and since I'm looking to be stretched in new and spectacular ways, I'm thinking yes. yes, I'm headed in the right direction. I'm feeling all lit up inside. I'm closing my eyes, I'm jumping in.

thank you to everyone who initially offered their two cents worth, thank you kindly. and now I have more questions for you: how would you feel if a stranger approached you on the street and wanted to take your photograph? would you allow it? would you feel weird if they asked your name? how would you like to be approached? how would you like to be asked? please do tell because I'm in this for reals. currently finding great inspiration over at 100 strangers and the thought project. number 28 off the list, done. er, just beginning. 52 weeks of strangers and I've never been more nervous than I am right now.

photobooth friday

hannah plus saturday morning plus the photobooth at the ace plus a wallet crammed full of dollar bills= good times. best part of this whole blogging gig has to do with the people you meet along the way. strange but true. so true. can I get a witness? also strange: I got the crazy eyes here.



oh, that hannah.



she is a girl after my own booth-loving, camera-crazy heart.

her strip is here. checkit, we're very smiley. except for that last frame which is very fool-like (a somewhat intentional nod to april's theme). also, this is only part one of saturday morning/with hannah/down at the ace. other people are involved. and they are cute. I promise.

more photobooth friday fools here.

number 5

not writing so much lately. but only because I've been busy crossing things off the list. I'm telling you, my head is really in the game. inspiration wires, you are finally hung. look at you, making the dark recesses of the basement shine like a room filled with late afternoon sunlight. late afternoon sun is best. hello, number five. hello, inspiration. hello, happy. maybe I can finally get some work done now.

some of what hangs on the wires:

pages from really old interview magazines

colors that rhyme: ava's drawings of bubbles and rainbows

atlanta graffiti

trisha brown as seen through the eyes of robert rauschenberg on the pages of (the sadly now defunct) dance ink magazine

original collage by friend ryan coleman, artist and graffiti writer extraordinaire

little bit of cy twombly

little bit of margaret kilgallen

dear mati rose's elephant

old placemat from the thrift store

hello monday

pixie sticks for your monday. which you might consider, if you need a lift.

number 13

in the lobby/gallery before my first class

my mind is currently a mess of aperture/shutter speed/ambient light/exposure compensation/depth of field/ISO and probably a hundred other terms. it's a little like learning a foreign language. or math. which I am no good at. I have never been good at math. intellectually, it makes sense to me-- reading through the terms and techniques, I nod my head and think yes okay. yes. I get that. but when asked to explain it, or *ahem* put it into practice, I respond the same way I did in 9th grade algebra-- clumsily and without confidence. and about two minutes later than everyone else.

I am taking my first photography class.

as slow as I have been to understand it, I have not been without the occasional epiphany. and really, I'm making it sound worst than it is. truth is, I'm really getting it. slowly, I'm getting it. I set my camera on manual for the first time and shot something I liked. which is huge for me. so yes. that's something. and it's number 13 on the list, so that's something too.

it's the second day of happiness

which is what ava said to me last week when we had two days of sunshine in a row. something like a tiny sliver of sugar-covered yellow dangled in front of us, good enough to eat. nothing but rain and cold now. rain and cold, rain and cold. I am so desperate for summer that I would almost be okay to skip right over spring.

photobooth friday

shopping malls and silver chandelier earrings and new boyfriends who wear enormous glasses. the early 90s feels like a hundred years ago. yup. me and ward as boyfriend and girlfriend, 1991. a hundred years ago. or something like that.

april is all about fools so this month I am calling all fools to get into the booth and you know, act like fools. fairly straightforward. though it could be interpreted in a million different ways and this is what I'm banking on. this is why photobooths and fridays are so good together.

to summarize, april's photobooth friday theme: fools.

but the biggest fools are here. those boys and their photobooths. constantly exploring. also, bound to be some fools here. the best kind of fools, my kind of fools, these are my people.

but really I just want to see how many times I can say the word fools.

what is the what

next photography project: 52 weeks of... something. 52 weeks of what?

color?
pattern?
people?
self?
strangers?
the brightest thing?
park slides?
found type?
through the viewfinder?
film?
street art?

how about mustaches? fruit? feet? people who wear plaid scarves? um, the possibilities are endless. would appreciate any and all input. ripe and ready to begin. just need to make a decision already. I am a girl who is occasionally prone to wishy-washiness.

mental note

I get so much more done when I have my shoes on. I mean, when I'm at home. if I put my shoes on, then I am clearly not fooling around. if I leave my shoes on during the day, I am like a machine. I'm ridiculously efficient. does anyone else find this to be true? anyone?

this is unfortunate since bare feet pretty much rock the casbah.