I recently went on vacation with Abbey and friends. An annual trek to a lakefront house in the wilds of Virginia, for a long weekend of swimming and cooking, music and drinking, talking and sleeping. The weather held up this year; so much of the days were spent on the lakefront. And evenings were spent consuming some truly wonderful dinners.
It’s a pleasant, little reminder to me, of growing up in quieter places with an abundance of trees, wildlife, and rednecks.
It comes at the end of most of my client’s busiest seasons, so it’s also a nice break, to keep me from saying something inappropriate that would surly jeopardize my relationship with the client. A chance to step back and remind myself that work is work, and nothing personal.
And to be able to climb into bed, at the end of the day, tired from doing absolutely nothing of importance… that is really wonderful.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
Another year, another dragon*con. The closest thing I have to an annual vacation. 5 days in Atlanta with friends and 50,000 additional crazy people. Less dancing on my part, this year, for various reasons. It’s a strange time… always seems to include fun, friends, tragedy, illness, food, lust, costumes, and more. There’s the old and cranky people, and the young and crazy. The obsessive, and the laid back. But you know… despite being 4 days full of often intoxicated, sleepless, hyped up people, everyone I have ever met there — in the halls, in the events, in the rooms, in the elevators — they have all been friendly and happy. That’s kinda weird.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
What was new this year, for me? New people, as always. (Tiny, drunk lesbians. Impossibly sweet, little, Indian woman. The lady with the most awesome job ever. “Don’t panic” girl.) And dancing each night until 6am. (Well… white guy “dancing”). Hearing Bruce Schneier, Alice Cooper, James Randi, Anthony Michael Hall, Billy West, and David Prowse speak. Nothing really special from the vendors this year… a couple pins and some pieces of art. Though there was an awesome gift for a friend, found in the artists’ alley.
As always, the real enjoyment for me is relaxing with friends and taking pictures.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
The family reunion was at the bass club in San Angelo again this year. Same old everything, but that’s kind of the point. Took Heidi. Family likes her better than they like me. But they’re quite disappointed to learn i’m not gay.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
So one of my dream locations to photograph would be the shipbreaking beaches in India or Pakistan. When oceanliners, tankers, and cargo ships get too old to operate any more, they beach them in these places, and workers chop them to bits.
This isn’t clean, or safe, or tidy. These are people with no safety gear, in one of the most polluted places on earth, doing dangerous work. It’s the tail end of the commercial world. It’s the stuff every cyberpunk story is built upon.
Speaking of which, I missed a dream shot on Friday, in a decidedly less hostile environment. On the way home from seeing a movie — fittingly Bill Cunningham New York — I saw it. It must have been about 11:30 at night, when we walked past the H&M store in downtown DC. The business core of DC tends to turn into a ghost town around 6pm. So by that time of night — on a Friday no less — it should have been empty. But in the store, right near the doors, was a lone worker. She was sitting on the floor next to a white platform, and a little zone of light in an otherwise dark salesfloor. She was pulling white fluffy … things… out of a box. She’d puff them up, and place them on the platform. It was surreal and monotonous at the same time. And the sparse color palette and dramatic range of light made it all the more interesting to me.
Of course, for like the first time in forever, I had left the house without a camera. Poo.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!
But those are some of the points that floated to the surface, when I consider the whirlwind stew of crowds, panels, badges, Diet Cokes, swishy skirts, feathery hairpieces, earplugs, DragonCon TV, people-watching, masquerades, escalators, fountains, cheers, novelty tee shirts, kilts, stompy boots, steampunks, goths, fairies, mostly naked people, Krispy Kreme donuts, squinting at small print, shouting to nab the attention of friends, hanging off balconies, photobombing by accident, photobombing on purpose, nachos at Moe’s, the Hyatt bar, the smokers’ pavilion, the tracks, the joys, the trials, the confusions, the rewards, the unfortunate costumes, the brilliant costumes, the friends and the foes and the people who become your new best friends in the elevators, the mundanes who had NO IDEA wtf was going on they were just here for a football game OH GOD, air mattresses, corsets, hairspray, rum, devil babies, angel babies, running out of time, shopping for goodies, trolling for schwag, handing out handbills, trying to stash all the business cards and CDs and postcards that people handed me while I wasn’t carrying a bag, and trying to sound intelligent for hours at a time against all odds.
