the photography:
there was a small break in the gorgeous spring weather here in chicago. yesterday and on into this morning, fog blanketed the north side of the city making for some awesome pictures and some wonky traffic jams. only in chicago would drivers be distracted by low lying clouds.

to set the tone of just how creepy it was outside, i also took some indoor shots of our back stairs and of our kitchen. my wife and i love to watch the CTA workers do their nightly rounds which include walking down the tracks past our house. once they hit a specific spot, they turn around and walk back up to the platform in an awkward single file line. we always joke that it's the 'Others' from the the TV show Lost. last night, we were so entrenched in the cinematic quality of the weather that we actually got spooked by the whole ordeal. thus no photos of people walking on the train tracks in the fog. we were too busy hugging each other and laughing... oh well...

with the baby on it's way any day now (holy crap i don't know if i can wait any longer!!!!!) my blog posts have slowed to a trickle. i will make sure to post as much as i possibly can... when fog like this rolls in, i can't help myself. i also have a good 6 blog posts (or so) containing my-trip-to-china photos waiting to be published... photos are with the 5D and the 28mm f1.8. no tripods were used. everything here is handheld. i'm still like that. enjoy.

the music:
stellastarr* channel not only the great 80's rock gods, flock of seagulls, duran duran, but also the 70's new wave bands that bred them, blondie, the cars, the knack, etc..

this ode to the nose candy is one of the best radio hits that never made it on to anything but college radio. it should be a dance club favorite, it should be on everyone's ipod, it should be the cornerstone for post 80's revival that's been brewing and overflowing for the last 10 years but alas... this band just never got high enough off the ground. me thinks they tried to be too much like rainer maria and not enough like the ting tings. sigh.

the photography:
the fourth installment from my trip to hong kong is centered around the waterfront of the city and a small little day trip we took to Lamma (think Llama) island. Lamma island is most famous for it's fishing villages and quaint seafood markets/restaurants but it's also an enclave for hippy ex-pats. perfect. out of all of the places to hang out in southeast asia and i find the one that's most like my home state of vermont. sweeeeet.

it was a really rad experience. Lamma island does not have any cars or traditional roads per se. everyone gets around by foot, bicycle, or by these little narrow work trucks that look like cushman's sliced in half the long way. we hopped off the ferry and walked the entire island in a less than a couple of hours. the only drawback? it was 85 degrees with about 85 percent humidity. wow. i haven't sweat through t-shirts that fast since my days playing 'sauna football' (which is, in fact, a made up game where you can assume one sweats a lot because of the heat, humidity, and the weight of the football pads). this is what shows up in google if you type in the words 'sauna football'. too hot...

my favorite images from Lamma are from the dragon boat (i think that's what they called the boat with the red flags flying ferry) which brings tourists to the island for what i can only assume is the chinese equivalent of the hawaiian luau. check the roast pig. tasty. also? the baywatch photo. you know which one i'm talking about. the entire beach on the backside (southeast) of Lamma island had a shark fence. yeah... i'm gonna go swimming... sure.

photos again were with the 5D and my EF24-105mm f/4.0L USM. in retrospect, if this were a photo-centric excursion, i probably would have brought my entire lens arsenal. but since we were meeting my sister-in-law and checking two duffel bags of her stuff back to the US, luggage room was at a bare minimum. this combo worked out great. versatility versus size/weight.

the music:
hella is one of those bands that makes music on a level that is all their own. 'traditional pop songs' is a phrase that doesn't even come close to enter my brain when thinking about hella. the music is a combination of the incredibly talented Zach Hill on drums and the 'also as incredibly talented' yet weird bending guitar stylings of Spencer Seim. it's an acquired taste of metal/indie/rock rhythms mixed with blips, cracks, circuit bending, and straight ahead strumming all with nasty time changes and what can only be best described as 'time loses'.

sometimes it's as if my bloody valentine made love with the black keys and mr. bungle jumped in right before conception. but most of the time hella's music is closer to that of trans am

the photography:
i'm still on my kick of dragging up older photos but let's be honest, if no one's seen the photos (except for the family and friends who were bombarded when we returned from our trip), then no one knows what they look like. on that note? here is more of hong kong from the summer of 2008.

photos are mostly from our tram ride up victoria peak, from hanging out on the observation deck at the top, and from our time consuming (and mentally stressful) descent down through the city. you'll notice that from the top of victoria, the skyscrapers play out before you in a stilt-like manor as if you could just leap out and jump from the top of one to another. it's really quite breath-taking for an american tourist as we have nothing even close to this type of geography-meshed-with-cityscape stateside. it's really remarkable. i liken hong kong's skyline to "if las vegas and manhattan had a baby and it was raised on fresh fish and old boats". that's fairly esoteric but quite an interesting thought nonetheless. oh well. i need more coffee.

one of hong kong's (and much of developed china can be lumped into this as well) powerful aesthetic visuals is the play and dichotomy between the new (buildings, materials, fancy cars, immense wealth) and the ancient (rickshaws, junk boats, 100 year old ferries, foot paths, peasant attire, straw brooms). it's a beautiful juxtaposition. i snuck in one night photo that i took from our last night in hong kong. it was a beautiful but cloudy night. we went out and enjoyed some sushi and drinks from a 30th floor restaurant in kowloon and at one point, the clouds lifted and i got my shot. pretty awesome. laser lights, all night.

photos again were with the 5D and my EF24-105mm f/4.0L USM. for this entire trip i was wearing either flip flops or my blue dock-siders. true story.

the music:
my dad and my brother turned me onto the Jayhawks back in 1994 or so. i was knee deep in understanding Uncle Tupelo, Public Enemy, Rage Against the Machine, and The Pietasters, all at the same time. confusion really doesn't even start to describe my mix tapes.

but confusion is what best describes my musical tastes since those early days. to me, the Jayhawks are the perfect conduit between what i grew up on (Beach Boys, Tim Hardin, Bob Dylan, Abba, The Beatles, The Kinks, Tom Waits, The Moody Blues, The Grateful Dead) to what i discovered on my (or with help from my brother) own (Operation Ivy, Minor Threat, Fugazi, Mudhoney, The Dead Milkmen, My Bloody Valentine, Wilco, The Tragically Hip, The Get-Up Kids). and whenever i hear Gary Lewis' voice, i just think of rolling along the hills of Vermont in my dad's pickup, tapping my knees, and loving the beautiful mixture of rock and folk. it's pretty blissful.

the photography:
one of the coolest things about hong kong is the open markets. fresh produce, souvenirs, antiques, metal, stones, jewelry, clothes, you name it, you can buy it. many of these open air markets (especially the fresh meats and fish markets) were closed during the SARS epidemic and hysteria of the early oughts. since then, a number of the markets have reopened and offered up their wares yet again. one of the most famous markets takes place at night. the Temple Street market roars into the darkness on the Kowloon peninsula with neon lights, strange and comforting food smells, and the constant chatter of tourists and locals alike. the whole experience made me feel like i was in the middle of the beginning of Blade Runner (sans downpour, flying cars, and edward james olmos...). it was fantastic. known these days for mostly souvenirs and t-shirts, there are still a number of quality vendors hawking more authentic wares such as antique chinese war propaganda, army hats, and bronze buddhas. and the food, oh my, the food. it's a pretty rad experience.

when i travel to new cities, new countries, and new continents, my favorite scenes to photograph are scenes that include unaware locals interacting with their environments. as a constant tourist (i really dig visiting new places), i try to capture with my camera, locals in the middle of everyday life. it's the photojournalist in me trying to break out. new york times cover, here i come...

also, you should still check it: Awkward in China, my sister-in-law's blog about living there. it's pretty fantastic, witty, and funny.

the hardest thing about photographing people in the dark without a tripod is ISO settings. people talk about gear via dollar amounts with the misconception that the more expensive a DSLR is, the better the photos are going to turn out. that would be utter bullshit. it's just another tool to manipulate buyers into spending more money than they should be. more megapixels?! only if you are going to be printing wall sized portraits for your next ad campaign. chances are you're just posting to your Flickr page (which i do fairly regularly i might add...).

PRO TIP: photos are going to be as good as the photographer taking them.

the only time more expensive gear is a must is when you are shooting images in varying places. high speed ISO is a must for sports photographers, quality low speed ISO is a must for photographers who shoot in low light. any time i can get rid of digital grain, i will spend extra money to do so. photos are with 5D and my EF24-105mm f/4.0L USM. love that combo.

the music:
i declare today to be, "Find your best cover on your iPod day"... .

so i went right for the jugular there. choices included but were not limited to: cowboy junkies - sweet jane, the pants - golgi apperatus, the pietasters - fiesta, rage against the machine - ghost of tom joad, reel big fish - gigantic, johnny cash - rusty cage, ted leo - since you been gone/maps, braid - alec eiffle, etc.

when you precede the beach boys cover with the songs, los angeles and i heard ramona sing, only to follow it up with fu manchu? i pick frank. mr. black, the stage is yours. rock me joey...