I was better when I was with you, even if I wasn’t good enough.

(07/365)

My new boots arrived. The last of my Christmas presents. The first day of new adventures. OKOK, that managed to sound both generic and pretentious at the same time.

The nice thing about the Nikon system is that you can toss lenses manufactured back in the late 60s onto a 21st century digital slr. In this case, we’re talking a 55mm Micro-Nikkor on extended loan from my friend Dave. On the D50, no, there’s no metering with this particular lens, but that isn’t too big of a deal when what you’re shooting doesn’t move, and you’ve got a screen sitting there showing exactly how the photo came out.

I chose the first shot for project365 because, narratively, it represented progress. New boots. But the other pics from my little product shoot do better to show off the coolness of a macro lens. With the clarity and magnification of this glass you can really see sharply the texture of my old boots: the fraying laces and tiny stitching, the worn black leather and the glinting metal eyelets.

As an aside, the key to getting hits on Flickr (besides, you know, being good at photography, and developing a social network) is tagging, tagging, tagging. And especially tagging for subcultures or interests or maybe sometimes you could say fetishes. I think these photos were up for 15 seconds before I was invited to join the Dr. Martens group. And though no one has ever left a comment, this pic of Tickle Me Elmo is one of my all time most viewed. Just because he’s wearing a ball gag…

(6/365)

One of the interesting things about digital photography is the artistic experimentation it affords, both because of the lack of processing cost, and because of the instant feedback digital cameras provide.

In this instance, I wanted to make an image that could only exist on a digital image sensor. Pure binary light, as it were, and something I wouldn’t do with film. These are actually Christmas lights in the backyard. Decorative lights around the new pool that we’ve decided to leave there year round.

The photo in no way conveys it, but it was dark and freezing cold when I went out to shoot this. I defocused on purpose, and exposed to blow out the image sensor. The resulting images looked, to me, like astronomical phenomena, exploding frictionless nebulae, or like strange microbes swimming through luminescent medium.

(5/365)

Sharp exposure and wonky angle thanks to the Gorillapod I got for Christmas.

This photo was taken the first day (or night) that I returned to college. Winter intersession at Mt. SAC. And though I’m sure I had a lot to say when I first shot it, that moment has now receded into the past.

What I can say now is that I’ve felt very different since I went back to school. I’m optimistic, and–this hard to explain and will sound vague–I have a rekindled interest in things I haven’t thought about in years. These updates, taking photos, fixing the site, these are all small examples.

Partly it is perhaps the mental stimulation, the reactivation of brain centers that have lain dormant too long. I think it is also, though, the sense of actively building towards a future again. As opposed to the terrified scramble back to normality that was last year.

I got As in both my classes, Logic and Microeconomics. That’s two down, 15 or so to go. And then transfer. It’s a plan, and I feel good about it.

(3/365)

Bonus shot:

(2/365)

I can’t count the number of times I’ve stood here, waiting for a bus to downtown LA, staring at that neon arrow.

On on side of the store is a couple exiting the brightly lit door, drinks in hand, smiling and laughing. Circling around each other and flirting. The other side has a door, too, dark and barred. Overflowing the dumpster, rotting and soggy cardboard forms a talus of trash. The two sides of this building aren’t even in the same universe. But that laughing couple will pass from one to other on the way to their car.

How many times have we all walked through this kind of parking lot to or from a bar, a club, a show? You see the dumpster and boxes and let them slide out of your mind. I can smell it, the mold, the spilled booze, the faint scene of urine, just looking at this picture. A thousand interstitial moments from a thousand late nights. We let those moments slide away. They’re not part of the pictures we’re making in our mind.