coasting

“ Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop. –Ansel Adams

2013 was the year I started taking photography seriously.  I've always dabbled in it, I can remember having a little spy cam in kidergarden that I'd run around my grandmas back yard taking pictures of flowers around corners with, and as a teenager I always liked having disposable cameras in my big tripp pants pockets to document whatever stupid things my friends and I did.  I even kept that habit up a bit once I started touring around 2007, and I have found a few rolls of developed film from those tours.

This last year was different though, this was the first year I stopped just taking snap shots to prove that my friends and I had been trespassing somewhere and started reading up on things like color theory, leading lines, and areas of light and darkness.     I started doing things like shooting in RAW at the recommendation of my roommate Nick Geards or buying a dirt cheap little film camera and finally learning for real the difference between ISO/Aperature/Shutter Speed.  On a film camera you can't fake that, and after shooting just a couple rolls I felt like my understanding of how to take a picture exploded.

So, Nick and I sit around having lots of psudo-philisophical debates on art and other such things you'd expect to be accompanied by radiohead on vinyl and single-origin coffee, and one night I mentioned the Ansel Adams quote I posted at the top.  "Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop".   Both he and I had taken hundreds if not thousands of shots in the last year, but as anyone with a DSLR knows, its easy to take tons of pictures with burst mode and let them rot on your hard drive.  So Nick and I decided we both wanted to at least sift through our 2013 piles and pick out our twelve pictures.  I think it was a huge effort, but totally worth it if only to make me feel like I had learned a ton in the last 12 months.   As someone with no real goals with photography other then to document what I'm up to, little pats on the back serve to remind me how much I like it.

So, in no particular order, my self picked "Twelve Pictures".

Nick at the Griffth Park hiking path.  iPhone 5, VSCOcam.

Just a hot december day that Nick and I made a trek to look out over LA.  Took the shot without thinking much about it and was pretty surprised at how much it looked like a "Real Picture"

Sears Tower, Chicago.  Waiting for a Megabus back to MSP. iPhone5. VSCOcam

Took basically the same photo on my Film SLR as on my iPhone.  Ended up being a classical example of light/dark/light.  I was quite surprised at how much it came out looking like a still from Blade Runner.

Coffee Shop wall in Chicago.  iPhone5, VSCOcam.

As is the story with just about every iPhone photo I take, I just took the shot and couldn't believe how cool the results were.  I took a picture of Cassandra against this wall on Film but it didn't turn out nearly as well as the iPhone shot.

Lake of the Isles during an 89 degree midnight. Canon T2i. 50mm f/1.4.

If you at all know me personally you'll know the last few months I was in Minneapolis were quite a mess for my personal life.  So I ended up taking a lot of solo bike rides and just figuring out more and more about my camera settings.  This picture ended up being one of my favorites.  I used my iPhone flashlight app to help illuminate my bike after a customer at my old job suggested trying it.

Warmoth Guitar Factory drying room.  iPhone5.  VSCOcam. 

Odds are if you're not one of my personal friends, you know me cause I played guitar for a lot of years in a band called Screaming Mechanical Brain.  Odds are if you've ever spoken with me for more then five minutes you also know I'm an obsessive guitar nerd.   So when I was presented with an opportunity to do a tour of Warmoth guitars while visiting my family in Washington this summer I jumped at the chance.  Sandy, the VP of the company, was even kind enough to let me snap a ton of pictures and this was my favorite.  It's still my most liked photo on Instagram to this day. 

Milky Way over Rathdrum ID.  Canon T2i.  Peeling Fisheye. 30" ex. 

Early in August of this year I went out to visit with my fathers side of the family whom I hadn't seen since 2010.  We always end up going out to my Grandmothers cabin on a mountain lake that manages to annihilate any possible cell phone signal.  My Grandmother, having retired in 1980, has also never owned a computer let alone an internet connection.  As a result of this you go into a weird electronic detox and pretty quickly find yourself getting creative for your fun.  Being the night owl of the family I would stay up taking long exposure photos and reading comic books.  I will always be 12 on the inside.

Mikee & Brian.  Canon T2i, 50mm f/1.4.  

My Cousin Brian's youngest son Mikee ended up being quite the star on the family trip.  He was always running around and generally seeming a bit overwhelmed by the whole experience of being on a lake surrounded by mountains.   So since I tend to go where the action does I got a ton of pictures of him running around like a maniac and ended up with this one that accidentally seems like a stock photo shot you'd see used for an advertisement about parenting. 

Seattle Fishmarket.  Canon T2i, 50mm f/1.4

When I flew out to visit my family I ended up with an entire day in Seattle all to myself.  Although I was totally exhausted from an early morning flight, I still managed to hit up all the landmarks while waiting for my cousin Julie to finish up her high school reunion.  Ended up with this shot that screamed "Post card".

Jordan Carr & The Boys.  Canon T2i.  Peeling Fisheye.

After ten months of incarceration my friend Jordan Carr managed to get himself back into the swing of life without bars by releasing an album (That yours truly mixed) and throwing a pretty wild CD release show and even wilder after-party.  (That rumors have indicated may have resulted in $700+ in damages to the rented hotel suite)  I got this great shot while they were jamming their last song.

Path of the storm.  Canon T2i. Peeling Fisheye. 30" exposure.

In late June Minneapolis got hit by a hell of a summer thunderstorm that knocked out power in Uptown for three days.  Being at home with nothing to do and no power, my old roommate Charlie (you can see his ghostly form to the left of the car) and I went running around the city till 3AM taking pictures and just generally chatting with people.  My deep desire to be a conflict photographer really came out that night. 

Kill Hannah @ The Roxy.  iPhone5, VSCOcam.

My second most liked photo on Instagram this year.  I'm not a huge fan of Kill Hannah, but my other roommate Adam is such a die hard fan that when he found out they were playing in LA in December he more or less dragged me to the show.  I was surprised how well their frontman managed to actually sell the songs, although I personally thought the band was lacking a bit in personality.  During their song "New Heart for christmas" they set off some "snow" cannons and I couldn't help but try and get a shot.  I'm somewhat luke warm on this photo, but everyone loves it so I conceded and put it in. 

Echo Park, Los Angeles.  Canon 5D Mark ii, 85mm F/1.8

(Last night in Minneapolis at Lake Calhoun. One of my favorite places in the city)

Holy shit, in two days it will be one month since I moved to Los Angeles from Minneapolis.  A move of 1900 miles to the second largest city in the country, and certainly the one with the worst reputation amongst most folks.  My last days in Minneapolis ended up being a very fun but stressful ordeal, trying to coordinate my very fun going away party along with loading up my moving truck ended up resulting in a mad dash up until the morning I left.  That morning ended up being more emotional then I thought it would be and the thought of taking off my keys and leaving them behind after having been there for four years hit an odd note with me.

It's strange to leave a place you're happy with, where you know people, and when you don't really know what exactly you're doing on the other side.  I was discussing my fear with my cousin Julie who had moved to NYC in 2008 about a month before I moved to Minneapolis and she really gave me the best advice about the whole thing.

"You're in the air, and you've got your parachute on. All that's left is the jump" 

(MSP Airport at 6AM on Sept 30th. as I left for LAX)

So I flew out September 30th at 7AM on Southwest.  My friend and former roommate Ashley just so happened to have been on the same flight (Ashley having unrelatedly moved to LA in July) and so with that bit of serendipity being quite welcome, we split a cab from LAX to Koreatown where my new apartment was (and where she ironically also lived three blocks up the street).    Man, that first day.  I was beyond exhausted and overwhelmed, but I went up to Hollywood with my friend Gena who had moved here years before and had put me up on my various trips to visit LA before.  She took me out to grab a Breakfast burrito and I then went home to a totally empty house with a bag of belongings. All of my possessions were due to show up later that week, so for the first five days of Los Angeles I had a laptop, two sets of clothing and not much else.  So my new roommate Adam helped set me up with his air mattress and the few spare blankets at the house for the first few days. 

(First visit to the beach with my former roommate Ashley) 

So, luckily on my third full day in LA I had my job interview at MelroseMac, another Apple specialist store in Los Angeles that mostly felt with high end video and audio stuff.  I had to drive up to Burbank for the interview with a gentleman by the name of Jesse who was the head of their service devison.  So Jesse and I hit it off pretty well and he actually offered me the follow up interview on the spot.  The trick was that it was at the Hollywood location (the one I was applying for) and I was driving Ashleys car she had loaned me. So we set up the interview for that Friday.

The drive back from Burbank to Koreatown ended up being my first real experience with the insanity of LA traffic.  Every legend you've heard about it is not only true, but is watered down.  This was at 1PM on a Wednesday.  Total parking lot for as far as the eye could see.  Pulling out google maps informed me that I was in the BLACK-WITH-RED-STRIPES level of traffic.  After some daft maneuvering I got off the highway and took the side streets back to K-town to drop off Ashleys car and continue with my sauntering about LA.

(Hollywood 101 Traffic after my first job interview)

So at the end of my first week I was offered the job at MelroseMac and I even opted to start the job the next Monday.  I left FirstTech on Thursday September 26th and had my first day at MelroseMac on October 7th.  "You had to have set some sort of record for employment in Los Angeles" was what I heard from my friends and roommates out here.  Although part of me wanted to continue bumming around and just taking LA in, I also felt that I'm not here to be a tourist.  I moved to LA to work, and the first step towards getting the jobs I wanted, was getting the one that paid me.  So I sacrificed another week of fun to start bringing home paychecks and speed up my search for music industry employment.   In the few weeks since starting at MelroseMac I've mostly been holed up at home trying to practice guitar more and not a ton else.

That first Saturday I went and grabbed a snack with my friend Rob Kleiner too.  Rob was the guy who really gave me the big speech I needed to make me move to LA back in January, so I was excited to go grab dinner and just chat music gear.  Although Rob and I have very different musical approaches, I absolutely respect his chops as a songwriter and especially his ability to navigate the music biz.   Rob ended up giving me another speech that night I needed to hear.  Pro-Tools.  Yep, the recording program I'd been avoiding for years.  "Yep. Whole city runs on Pro-Tools and if you wanna get a job working for anyone you're going to need to know it inside and out"  My first major Los Angeles Project has become "Become a Pro-Tools Badass™" so I need to record a solo album here soon or something just to make myself learn the damn program.   Rob and I ended up going over to his friend Mikes house that night and just having a silly time discussing the joys & sorrow of living in Los Angeles and the breakup of SMB. 

Now as I write this its a Monday night before I begin my fourth full week of employment at MelroseMac.  After one month in Los Angeles I've already started to make a few friends thanks to Ashley dragging me around.  Her friends do a weekly Sunday night bowling event, so I've made it out to that a couple times and also went to a big Halloween party thrown by two of them the night before.  Normalcy is still quite far, but after getting all of my belongings in my home and having nearly everything I own out of boxes at this point I feel a certain level of comfort with my room.  I've got all my guitars, my posters, and my computer set up.  My first real task in Los Angeles as far as music is now coming into focus, and thats finishing up the material that Alex and I recorded back in June to make sure we can get it out before the end of the year.   

Past that Los Angeles isn't nearly as scary or obnoxious as people make it out to be.  Sure, there are a few more self-important assholes here, but everyone treats them as a joke just like you would anywhere else.  I'm sure per-captia you'd find its not much worse then any other city on earth. The only real issue I've got with LA so far is that you can't really saunter anywhere.  Nope, no walking, no sauntering, no galavanting.  It truly is a post-war city that was built as a shrine to cheap gas and the automobile. Koreatown is ranked as good for walking, but there still really isn't anything that great to walk too in my opinion.  Sure, there are some neat asian places here, but I do miss Uptown in that regard.  This weekend while biking around though I found out that getting to Sunset blvd in Silverlake is only a bit over a mile away from where I'm at.   So I'm only a ten minute bike ride from being in LA's version of Uptown, and going there for coffee seems like something that will quickly become a weekend ritual.

Alright,  so I'm planning on trying to post more often.  Hopefully with less time going by from the cool stuff that happens till when I post about it.