the photography:
that’s right. i love horses. they are the most majestic, non-urban, non-exotic, animal that i can think of. yet, for some reason, right in the middle of the Old Town neighborhood on the northside of chicago, there is a field (empty lot) that is a fenced in pen for a group of horses. why do i know this? because it is visible from the train (brown and purple lines for those at home keeping score) just south of the Sedgewick stop looking west.

glorious prancing horses. yup. amazing. on this fine day, there were three light colored specimens and one eerily ‘black-as-night but with red highlights’ specimen trotting around the lot. every time i got close to the fence with my camera, one of the horses would inevitably walk up to me as if to say ‘this is the part of the story where you give me a carrot or some hay and i’ll be cool with your presence’. it was pretty awesome.

the back story is that my wife and i have been enamored with these gigantic creatures since we started riding the train together to go to work about three years ago. a good day in my book is when i get to see the ‘guys’ (as they have come to be regarded) on my way to work and on my way home. i even go so far as to make sure i am sitting on the proper side of the train for a good viewing. oh yeah. i’m obsessed.

photos are with the 28mm and if you know your focal lengths, you will realize that 28mm is pretty wide so you can really get a sense of how close i was on some of these frames. good times. they are beautiful creatures and they scare the crap out of me when i get too close. it’s humbling to be so close to such a powerful animal in the (cough, literary license) wild.

the music:
i have this reoccurring habit (um, doesn’t the definition of habit mean reoccurring?) of leaving my ipod at home. this sucks when i have gobs of photos to edit and nothing to listen to whilst doing so. pandora radio is an ok distraction but it’s biggest fault lies within the fact that after about 45 mins, the songs start to repeat themselves. thank god i brought the ipod today.

Operation Ivy were a raucous nor-cal punk outfit featuring a very young (and extra snarly) Tim Armstrong (of Rancid fame) that were full of the punk ethos as much as jamaican rock steady. their mix of punk, ska, and anti-establishment sounds a lot like a cheap The Clash rip-offs but Op Ivy meant much much more to the music community in the late 80′s. Op Ivy’s real claim to fame (at least in the music press) was that they solidified the Berkley punk sound that led us directly to bands like Green Day and Sublime. as Op Ivy played their last show in 1989, the openers were a small little punk trio that had just changed their name to Green Day. oh well, someone had to do it. if kids in the 2000′s are picking up Op Ivy records because Billie Joe Armstrong told them to, so be it. these guys deserve their due. legacies aside, take warning is a stripped down ska/punk jam filled with advice, upstroke guitars, and a damn funky bass line. it stands the test of time for sure. go out and find the Energy LP. it’s as awesome as much as it’s cliche and trite. but hey, they did it really well.

the photography:
another day, another Flickr meet-up. sigh. i will never get tired of meeting and chatting with this interesting group filled with interesting people, who are all interested in the same sorta stuff i am. there is nothing better for the soul than meeting like minded people and eating crepes. hallelujah!

this is my second time having lunch with this crew and it’s really been fun getting to know people and their work. sometimes when i get some free time while i’m sitting at the computer, i’ll peruse various pages of their photography and catch up with what the peeps have been up and who’s talking to who and who’s photographing who. it’s a great visual representation of what these photographers are doing and what they are finding artistically interesting.

i could look at photos all day long. the act of photo browsing is pretty wonderful and if i didn’t spend so much time editing my own photos, i would spend all day flipping through photos. here are 5 (.5) reasons why i find looking through photographs (specifically) on Flickr so cathartic and ediucational:

1. i really enjoy seeing what other people are doing with their cameras and their free time. these particular searches sometimes end in fits of jealousy but at the very least, looking through photos of someplace i want to be invigorates me and gets me out the door with my camera strapped to my shoulder and a granola bar in my pocket.

2. i get to see where my fellow contemporary photographers (professional and amateur alike) in the city of chicago are finding the gritty gritty. i like the gritty gritty and so do a lot of the people i follow on Flickr. urban decay is gorgeous. say that five times fast… gritty gritty… it just sounds dirty. now picture tom waits saying it… awesome.

3. i love to see how different photographers take portraits. from the kid on the street shooting strangers with his new DSLR to the woman who photographs herself and her husband on the train with a point a shoot, portraits come in all shapes and sizes, and colors. i love checking out what people will do while having their picture taken. i also love where people decide to take portraits. i take notes on the stuff i like about other people’s portraits and i try to remember to reproduce certain bits and pieces when i create my own work.

4. it’ always fun to see how people set out to do photography projects. i personally have spent almost a year working on my own 50 portraits project. best stuff on Flickr? self-portrait projects. especially the 365 self-portraits (1 a day for a year). there is nothing better than looking through hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of photos of the same person to see how the photographer (and the subject) changes it up (to beat the monotony) or keeps the shot the same especially when said person is on their 8th year of taking one photo of themselves every day (that doesn’t actually happen but you get the idea). so much interesting work being done here… lots of great ideas and plenty of bad ideas too. it’s a virtual how-to and how-not-to in one set.

5. and finally, i just love reading people’s comments and thoughts about photographs. sure, it’s easy to leave the essential “Great shot!” or “Sweet!” or “First!” but i love it when people start to converse in photographic terms with meaning and insight. it’s great feedback not only for the photographer at hand but it’s also great for readers to converse in the conversation as well. fun (and sometimes humiliating but mostly fun!).

Special Reason (or reason #5.5). every now and then you get to see something truly exceptional, emotionally driving, and knock your socks off fantastic. then you copy down everything you like about the photograph and you try to grow out of your photographer’s shell and make your next female model drop the top of her dress just a little lower, you ask your next male model to make that dark sinister face a little more believable and disgusting, and you push your boundaries of comfort as a photographer to make yourself and your art, that much more productive. sigh…

if you look closely, you’ll notice the photos are with the new Canon 5D MKII body and my same old 28mm. a rather splendid combo if you ask me…

the music:
this record has been listed on almost everyone’s “end of the century” essential-to-own record list which, to be completely honest, has become a boring way to wave your i’m-just-as-meaningful-to-america-as-lester-bangs-male-phallus about to see who has the biggest one (the winner of that contest = no one, you all lose). this particular white stripes record deserves all the credit it receives, don’t get me wrong as i tend to rant when prodded with a stick, i’m just upset that making a definitive list is the only way to prance about and posture your “manhood” in the music press. that’s right, i’m looking at you pitchforkmedia… lame.

the white stripes have always been known to take traditional blues and push the boundaries. ball and a biscuit is their ode to the old timers and the forefathers. it’s also jack whites homage to the screaming distortion pedal and tube amplification. in the beginning, this song just fingerpicks midlevel hum hum and reverb that builds to a squeeling, pedal stomping, guitar olympics that could just as easily define white’s guitar playing style if only we could imbed MP3 files into the dictionary. the fact that meg actually keeps time (i mean really truly actually keeps a standard 4/4 beat) throughout the entire song is not lost on me. the lyrics are old world, the guitar sounds are all jack white, and the drums are meg’s best slowed-pace-bohnam bass drum and snare. i love this song. love it.

the photography:
i’m still sorting through all of the photographs i took during the thanksgiving holiday. the sad thing is that it’s literally almost christmas. whoops… i’m a bit of a slowpoke sometimes but hey, i got a ton of stuff on my plate. the detroit auto show is in january, the chicago auto show is in february, the new baby arrives in march, and i’m still shooting about 3 cars a week at work. wowsers. busy.

after spending our first thanksgiving dinner with my side of the family down in rhode island, my wife, my parents, and i hopped in the car and drove to my wife’s cabin in the north east kingdom area of vermont (it’s where canada, vermont, maine, and new hampshire meet… maine is technically 60 miles to the east, you can thank my father for the edit). it’s one of the more remote parts of the state, gorgeous, and virtually untouched for a long time. the accents are so thick on the natives that most vermonters don’t even understand what people are talking about. its a special place.

the funny thing about our trip up to the cabin is that thanksgiving falls right in the heart of deer hunting season. when we decided to go for a walk, we needed to wear as much “i’m-not-a-deer-orange” as we could pile on. we actually came prepared with bright colored jackets of our own as my mom always packs extra bright clothes in the back of the car during hunting season. i can’t say that people in chicago are worried about being mistaken for deer during the fall but who knows.

the cabin is where my wife and i got married. it’s a special place that holds a lot of meaning to not only her family (it’s been a place of refuge for 40 plus years) but also to me and my family. photos are from the woods surrounding the cabin and the players are cousins, aunts, uncles, sisters, and parents. it helped that it was brisk and sunny. perfect for walking with the 5D and my trusty 28mm. vermont’s pretty pretty. it’s no joke.

dinner that night was stupendous. back to back thanksgivings is pretty awesome. did i mention that this is my 100th post? that’s right. check out the archives. i got a lot of stuff to look through.

the music:
out of the handful of indie bands to garner national attention in the last 10 years, the arcade fire have backed up their hype by putting on some of the best live shows and have released two of the century’s best studio records. this was the first single off of the second record and it is one of the catchiest tunes around. i’m a sucker for some mandolin. i saw the arcade fire for the first time back in the day at Merge Fest 15 (Merge Fest XX was this year) when they played a free show opening up for lou barlow (of sebadoh and dinosaur jr. fame). i’m pretty sure no one remembers his set…

the show was at the “local 506″, a small club on the main drag in chapel hill, north carolina that doesn’t fit a lot of people. needless to say, it was the most packed show i have ever been a part of. i like it when artists step up and live up to the hype that others put upon them. i hate being disappointed. pitchfork disappoints me a lot. thank god someone else broke these guys. it was a great time to live in the triangle area (raleigh, durham, chapel hill, located in *gasp* a triangle). there was a lot going on five years ago…

the photography:
as my family gets used to the constant click-click-clicking noises that surround me like dust to pigpen, their guard is dropped (like galileo dropped the orange? beastie boys reference? check). i knew this day would happen. i just knew it. sometime during the first 2 hours of the thanksgiving family get-together in providence, rhode island, my family forgot all about the fact that i was wondering around with a camera. moments like this have happened sporadically with individuals but never with the entire family. it was like i was a ghost. perfect.

there was one little hole to this theory. my ghost like qualities were only applied to those over the age of 20. my twin nephews, ages 3 and 3 respectively (cause they’re twins, duh), could see and hear me the entire time. even if i was real quiet and took my shoes off to lower my chance of audible and visual distractions, they would always pop up and look right into the lens. “unkie, e, you’re taking a picture!”. damn you little brilliant dudes, damn you!!! i am always so excited to see my family. this was no exception.

as the pictures DO NOT prove, we are a happy bunch, jovial and cute. i just like the quiet moments, long pensive looks, and very little screaming. you’d be amazed how much screaming 3 year olds do… they can do no wrong in my eyes though. no wrong.

photos are with the 28mm and for some reason, i took lots of pics of my grandfather. he is a wonderful man indeed. as a fifth generation farmer he has put his time in. this summer, along with my beautiful grandmother, we will all be celebrating their 65 wedding anniversary. a great party will commence. getting four generations under one roof is special. i love my family very much and i can’t wait until march when i can add my own little one to the fray! that makes me smile widely…

Pro tip: ISO rises slightly as the light gets dimmer.

the music:
my love of mission of burma grows with each passing record. they make me smile so big and so wide. support the arts, support local musicians, support your local emperor (that’s right, that’s a Blues Traveler reference, you’ll never see one again… i promise). these guys keep getting better with age. rock and roll, punk, and art house music would not be the same without these bostonians. do yourself a favor. like them.