Filed under: Photography, Travel by ramune

Mark Mothersbaugh – Zissou Society Blue Star Cadet/Ned’s Theme (Take 1) (from The Life Aquatic soundtrack)

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To follow up last week’s postcard, I am posting some diptychs I put together from my visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I absolutely love that place and although it is a bit pricey, it is well worth visiting.

Filed under: Photography, film by ramune

The xx – Intro

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I’ve been watching the winter Olympics quite a bit this year and was reminded of how much I like this track by The xx. You may have heard it in this commercial. I find it amusing that they advertise (what I consider to be) horrible music in the “official” Olympic soundtrack and follow that up with Olympic commercials that actually have good tunes. Strange. Speaking of the Olympics . . . I wonder if it’s too late for me to become an Olympic ski jumper (regular or aerial) . . .

Onto the photos . . . I went to B&H the other weekend while in NYC and picked up a few goodies. That store is like a candy shop for photographers (the sales guy even offered me candy and threw a bunch extra in with my purchase). If you are into photography and have not been, I recommend going the next time you are in NYC. Even if you’re not into photography, it’s fun to see their Willy Wonka-like theft-proof system in action.

While at B&H I picked up a good quality tripod (that I hope will last me a lifetime or more) and a Holga. I’ve wanted to shoot medium (square) format film for a while now and since a Hasselblad is a bit out of my price range right now and I love the photos I’ve seen taken with Holgas, I was pretty excited to buy one and test it out in NYC. Here are three photos from my first roll. I was playing around with multiple exposures and the colored flash. I look forward to playing around with this camera some more in both color and black and white film.

Filed under: Events, Exhibit, Photography by ramune

As I mentioned before, my photo has been selected to be in this year’s DCist Exposed photography show. The opening is Saturday, March 6th, from 6pm-10pm, and it looks like it will be a good time. I designed an e-flier of sorts from my photo (above) and pasted the press release below. I will be at the opening and hope to see you there. If you can’t make it opening night but would like to see the show, it will be up for two weeks until March 21st.

Washington, DC — DCist.com is pleased to announce its fourth annual DCist Exposed Photography Show, at Long View Gallery, running March 6 to 21, 2010. Out of over 1,000 individual entries submitted through Flickr.com, 47 winning images were selected by a panel of judges to be included in this year’s DCist Exposed exhibit. DCist.com prides itself on engaging and promoting emerging local photographers through its daily use of images from the popular, reader-generated DCist Flickr photo pool.  Each day, DCist.com selects photos from the pool for use in its daily coverage of local news, arts and entertainment, food and sports.

This year’s opening reception will be bigger and better than ever, to be held Saturday, March 6, 2010 from 6 to 10 p.m. At the bar, mixologist Scott Palmer from Dino will have a special punch, Leopold Brothers will host a liquor tasting, and Pabst Blue Ribbon will hold down the fort with plenty of beer.  Nage will provide hor’dourves, while DJs v:shal kanwar and Sequoia spin tunes.  Reception is $5 per guest at the door.

Long View Gallery is located at 1234 9th St. NW, just a few blocks from the Mt. Vernon/Convention Center Metro. The 2009 DCist Exposed event welcomed over 1,000 people on opening night, and with this even larger venue, we expect our biggest crowd ever. All photographs selected and displayed at DCist Exposed will be for sale at prices well below traditional gallery shows. Regular gallery hours are Wednesday-Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday, 12 to 5 p.m.

DCist is also bringing back the popular special event for emerging collectors, Emerge Exposed, on Tuesday, March 16 from 7 to 9 p.m. Co-hosted by DCist and the Pink Line Project, a panel of experts — George Hemphill, Leena Jayaswal, and Max Hirshfeld — along with moderator Philippa Hughes, will share tips and ideas on how to begin collecting art. The Emerge Exposed event is $8 in advance, $10 at the door.  RSVP to rsvp@pinklineproject.com.

The 2010 DCist Exposed Photography Show is sponsored by Ten Miles Square, Pink Line Project, and Pabst Blue Ribbon.  The attached logo was designed by Lynne Venart with photography by Angela Kleis.  Images from the show provided upon request.

Filed under: Photography, Travel by ramune

Tipper – California Rolls

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A couple weeks back I went to San Francisco to visit friends for a week and to celebrate my birthday. During my trip I drove down to Santa Cruz and Monterey with a friend. I had a fantastic time and hope to go back again soon (looking for work if anyone out there would like to hire me). These photos are from the Santa Cruz portion of my trip. I am absolutely in love with the cyprus trees along the coast (as you can see in the photo at the bottom taken by my friend) and would take one home if I could.

Photo by Alex P.

Filed under: Photography, snow by ramune

Massive Attack – Psyche (Featuring Martina Topley-Bird)

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Lately I have been in a bit of a music funk, so I was pretty excited to hear the new Massive Attack album that came out this week. I had a hard time picking one song (since I like all of them), but I am especially hooked on Martina Topley-Bird’s voice in this tune.

In other news, we’ve had even more snow over the past two days and broke records! I love it! During the blizzard yesterday one of my neighbors came around to tell everyone he was bringing his grill into the parking area to grill burgers and brats. A bunch of us gathered to eat in the cold and shovel out cars. It was good motivation and the shoveling went quickly (it helps when one of your neighbors borrows a snowblower from work).

Here are more photos from this past weekend when we got 32 inches. Please excuse the ziplock bag that slipped into the photo below. Although you can’t really see it in the photos, it was snowing quite a bit, so I put my camera in a large ziplock bag to protect it from the elements. Enjoy!

Filed under: Photography, snow by ramune

Arovane – Windy Wish Trees

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If you live around DC you may have noticed that we’ve been getting a ridiculous amount of snow lately (terms include Snowmageddon, Snowpocalypse, SnOMG, Snogasm and more . . . I prefer to just call it snow or a winter walloping). In my neck of the woods we got some 32″ in two days. It was fantastic! If I had not used up all my energy shoveling like mad and wandering around taking photos I probably would have dug tunnels, built an igloo or built the largest snowman I could build with my own strength (which after all that shoveling would probably be pretty tiny). Some people complain about the snow, but I love it . . . even if the plows are a little slow at making the rounds or doing a quality job. Snow makes winter worthwhile. I am not as much a fan of cold unless there is snow to back it up.

Although it’s been wonderful and beautiful, many trees have either lost branches or completely fallen down all around town. I am glad I moved my car because the spot I usually park in was the dumping ground for one hovering pine tree.

Here are some photos from this past weekend’s broken and fallen trees. Strangely many branches and trees fell between cars and not directly on them (although there were a couple of those too). More snow photos to come . . .

Filed under: Holiday, Photography, Silliness, nutella, taste by ramune

Tom Waits – Chocolate Jesus

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It’s that time of year again . . . it’s World Nutella Day! It’s been snowing here most of the day, but I was determined to hunt down the illusive Nutella jar and get its photo (then eat its contents). I found this one attempting to hide in a tree. Busted. Here is last year’s Nutella Day post.

Ms Adventures in Italy
Bleeding Espresso

Filed under: Photography, inspiration by ramune

Mucca Pazza – Surf

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Catching up a bit since I am behind a couple posts . . .
I might have to visit this laundromat more often just so I can look at this fantastic “exotic plastic” laundry bag dispenser. Here are a few things I love about it:

• “Exotic Plastic in Designer Colors”
• German flag rainbow
• “Laundry Bags” typeface
• Photos of kids with laundry bags bigger than they are. One looks rather spooky and the other is so excited his parents made him carry the giant “exotic” bags.

Filed under: Photography by ramune

Ratatat – Nostrand

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One of my aunts visited recently and since she has already seen all the DC sights, we took a wee day trip up to Frederick, MD to check out their covered bridges. It’s a nice thing to do if you like to get lost and wander through farmland. I plan on going back sometime specifically to get lost and take photos along the road.

Filed under: Collaboration, Photography by ramune

Wall of Voodoo – Mexican Radio

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My friend “hoi” and I both like to take photos and have talked about collaborating on some photography projects. Our first one was to take photos, exchange a few raw files and process each other’s photos to see how we do things differently. A little over a week after we had nearly two feet of snow dumped on us we went to Great Falls to take some photos for this project. Two of the comparisons can be seen here and you can view his version of the above photo here.

The photo of the branches was taken by hoi and the photo of the falls was taken by me (I’ve noticed that in winter I want everything to be black and white/sepia toned). We are going to try to make this a regular project. I think the results will be even more interesting when there are more colors involved. Click on the images to see the results larger.

View large versions of photo by hoi
Original
Processed by Ramune
Processed by hoi

View large versions of photo by me
Original
Processed by Ramune
Processed by hoi