8/24/09
My hard drives are nearly full. Between daily digital snaps and 4×5 scans, I’ve been going through a lot of storage. On top of filling up drives, the throbbing hum coming from the bearings in one of my drives suggests an imminent failure (all data has been backed up to other drives.)

Looks like I’ll be making a trip to J&R for a new drive in the next couple of weeks. The last HD I purchased was a 1TB Lacie drive; though once I set it to RAID 1 it was only 500GB. And now, just over a year later, it is full with my digital files from that time. For a little less than I paid for that drive, there is now a similar drive but at 2TB, meaning 1TB in the RAID 1 configuration. It never ceases to amaze me that greater power and size becomes so much cheaper over time.

8/22/09
Saw this on Reciprocity Failure. Very cool.

8/20/09
This isn’t a blog about traffic or urban design, but here’s another note on Brooklyn drivers:

My brother turned 26 on Tuesday, so there was a dinner at Peter Luger’s. I showed up a few minutes early and hung out on the corner. In the five minutes I was waiting, I saw two drivers run the red light. And by run the light, I mean the light changed to red while they were still two or three car lengths from the light and could have easily stopped. The second car to run the light actually gunned it to the red light and beeped to warn the opposing traffic that he was coming through the light. If the car with the green light had jumped the light, or even simply crossed the intersection a couple of seconds after the light had changed, he would have been eating the grill of a very large pick-up whose driver would have hardly noticed the impact.

Again, drivers need to slow the fuck down and regard the traffic laws. All the other drivers, pedestrians and cyclists who use the streets will appreciate it.

8/17/09
This is a little last minute, but if you could spare the time, please take a moment to vote for my book, Between Apprehension and Truth, in Blurb’s Photo Book Now People’s Choice Award. Between Apprehension and Truth is a series of photographs that traces the changing social fabric of Auburn and Lewiston, Maine, where I grew up, and my shifting personal relationship with the two cities. With nods to local history and present politics, the photographs render a mixed view of the city as physical fact, projected idea and imagined memory.

Please click on the following link to go to vote:

Thanks. You’re awesome.

8/17/09
So I’ve been working my new gig for three weeks now; well, going on three weeks. I am conflicted about the job. On the one hand, freelance work has been slow the last several months and so any work is welcome. I’ve financed several recent shows with credit cards and need to get rid of the debt load–in that sense, the regular paychecks are great. It will also allow me to go to Korea for three weeks in November. Getting dental and, soon, health insurance is a bonus. So too, the day to day work is easy enough: Place jewelry, shoot jewelry, prep file. Rinse, lather, repeat–150 or so times each day.

What I see as the downside is this: I’m feeding into the consumer culture that I have personal qualms about. The photographs I am taking help to sell products that I don’t believe in. I need money, the company needs my skills. I can make photographs of this jewelry that look good. Fine. Beyond that, it is hard to feel like I’m contributing anything positive to society through this job–and maybe making a negative contribution. (Though it is hard to argue with the fact that selling this jewelry employs a good number of people; that is positive.) As my mom said over breakfast at my grandmother’s Sunday, “Sometimes a job is just a job,” but I’m not sure that is any more than an excuse. I feel uneasy–can I lay down belief because I need the money? For the moment, it appears that I can.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Ji and I were doing some shopping in SoHo. She has a gift certificate to Forever 21, so we wandered through. The store has plenty of cheap merchandise–what caught my eye was the jewelry display. It was chock a block full of schlock. Poor quality, ugly–but cheap and plentiful. Someone somewhere makes this. Someone sells it to the store. And, theoretically, someone buys it. Aside from employing people throughout the supply chain, I don’t see how making poor quality products available is a good use of our production capacity as a society or as individuals. What better industry can we turn ourselves towards?

I don’t mean to imply that the jewelry I’m shooting is poor quality–it certainly puts the Forever 21 jewelry to shame–I mean to say only that the job doesn’t seem a socially uplifting endeavor. Maybe that isn’t important. Or maybe it is. At any rate, I’ll still be pushing my personal projects and promoting my freelance business…and shooting 150 baubles a day.

8/15/09
I just got a new point and shoot camera. It is a lot of fun and fits anywhere. Love it. One picture from the last couple days. It won’t win any prizes, but whatever.

I’m going to have to get more hard drive space.

8/15/09
Shot Fiction Plane @ Mercury Lounge this past Thursday. Good band, fun show. One picture I liked:

8/13/09
This past Sunday we woke up to a screech and crunch outside Ji’s building. A woman panicked when another motorist peeked out from a sidestreet and plowed into a row of parked cars. Never even hit the brakes. Looked like a lot of damage, but the older lady who owned the parked car just drove it off…

An hour later I came to my place to take a quick shower. While getting dressed I heard another accident, this one right outside of my building. A man in a Suburban T-boned a compact car with two women in it. The firefighters used the jaws of life to extricate the woman in the passenger seat. Both women looked like they would survive. The compact car was mangled. The Suburban hardly looked the worse for wear. Someone ran the light. I have no idea which. I didn’t stick around to ogle, but I did shoot a couple of frames as I walked out my building.

Today I was getting off the Franklin C stop and watched as two cars went around a yellow school bus–with its stop sign out and red flashers on–letting children off. The second driver to go around it didn’t even slow down plus was talking on a cellphone.

I’ve also seen several drivers the last couple of days running red lights and driving at excessive speed.

What is going on with drivers in Brooklyn? Drivers, follow the traffic laws and slow the fuck down. How hard is that?