Category Page: photos

Note that on the category pages, the posts are in chronological order, unlike the rest of the weblog.

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

Coming soon for your swooning pleasure...the Robotic Cats in kilts together! Doing homoerotic wrestling moves! In Greece!

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

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(click on the photos to see larger versions)

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

These are good boys. They help me. They make me feel better about being a boy.

On the left is Ben F. Sodenkamp. He's my busines partner and helps me in innumerable ways.

On the right is Andrew F. Dunloy. He's obsessed with zombies and tries to make everyone he's around feel happy and comfortable.

They both love me and show me a tremendous amount of kinship. They both ride me around on their two wheeled vehicles, which is nice, if life-threatening.

In this photo we are walking down by the river in Fremont (weeks ago, photo was in my phone) and having a very silly talk. They were very nice to pose for a photo of them with my phone-camera.

May blessings rain down upon them.

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

My three favorite pictures of Loverzan (that I took) (that I can post on the internets):

She's good people.

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

In addition to the photos that I process and put up all pretty for my "The Witness" story, there are several cool photos that didn't make it into the article. I now have all the raw photos up in something more browsable thanks to the outstanding Simple PHP Gallery...an application I could have written, but wouldn't have done half as slick just for myself. Just upload the PHP files into a directory full of images, tweak some stuff, and voila!

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

Some things just take a long time to do, and I wanted to do this right, I finally got up the photos of beekeeping this year, along with the story. I finally decided not to get a flickr account and just set up a system for tinyplace myself using the excellent Simple PHP Gallery, which I cannot recommend highly enough. So there's now a new link at the top navigation...tinygalleries, which is where I'll add new photosets.

So take a look, the story is in the descriptions of each photo and is best read in order.

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

Ahhh, with the new camera I managed to even get some photos of the elusive Ben beast. Here are portraits of Ben at the end of the day where he tried to upgrade perl on the server and it crashed mail service. Then, a client with an outstanding $5000 proposal and a tight deadline has decided to lollygag around for some ungodly reason. On days like this we quit at 4:30 and walk to the Fiddler's Inn for some strong beer.

(p.s. Marged, I'm talking to you.)

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

My mom was adopted by two loving people who I grew up calling my grandma and grandpa. While they were alive, my mom and I sometimes had discussions about trying to find her blood family. She was really concerned about hurting her adopted mom's feelings, and I totally understood. Grandma Goldberg had raised her up and she felt a lot of obligation to her. Plus, my mom was a firm believer in "nurture" being more important than "nature".

When both of her adoped parents died, I again asked her to go find some family while there were some left. Finally, she took my advice and did. She met some family that welcomed her with open arms. She met her half-sister and now they are close friends. But unfortunately, I found out that my grandpa was (mostly) non-determinable, and my grandma was already gone. All I have is this one picture of her smiling face, which I finally scanned and can send back to my relatives.

She looks so much like my mom, and I hear she was a bit of a wild one, which doesn't surprise me in the least. In general I'm not too interested in geneology, but I sure would love to have had a conversation with this lady.

my dad's side

On my Dad's side I did get to see both grandparents alive. Both of them were Russian Jews from the Ukraine, making me fully half Russian. My grandmother, Gloria, known to us as "Bubby Glore" was evidently quite the ballroom dancer, but by the time I got to know her she was a bit of a shriveled up old lady. For a short time I lived with her and my Dad in her Chicago apartment, and that didn't really do wonders for our relationship, unfortunately. She died without me being able to sincerely apologize for calling her a bitch. I think I'm probably due some karmic smackdown for that one.

My grandfather, a man who ran a diner in downtown Chicago for many years, wasn't speaking to my Dad by the time I met him, shortly before his death. He went by the name "Papa High". We were brought to meet him at about age 12 and he got agitated and said, "Get them out of here." I was pretty pissed off at him for not at least saying hi, but I do know how my Dad can wear on someone's second to last nerve, and then get right to work on their last one, so I don't blame him too bad.

But...that makes only one blood grandparent I ever had a conversation with. Luckily I had several extended grandparents. Maybe I'll do some grandparent stories. Maybe I can get my mom to send me some photos.

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

Since I've had the new camera, I occasionally take photos of things on the street. I don't really have anywhere to put them, but some of them are pretty cool. I put a few of the best up in a new folder called Street Scenes on my tinygalleries.

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

Thanks Kim Arbios for another batch of Rhymin' and Stealin' Photos. Note the second photo of Sir Mark the Poet rockin' the imaginary mic.

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

Obsessed with taking long-exposure photos. Here's my latest series taken around a campfire. The ones of the campfire itself are particularly awesome! It makes the fire look so organic and living and blazing!

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

Eventually I'll blog about something else, but this is really what's enriching me these days.

I did two recent nights of long exposure photography. These amazing shots are from two nights ago, and these are from last night. I had three different people help me put together those shots, and they all brought their own artistic ideas that really brought something new.

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

I left contact improv early and jumped on a bus downtown. My dharma brother Nate's last night in town was tonight and I wanted to see him for a little while. He'd offered to come up to the University district but I wanted to see him on his own turf. He's going up to see his girlfriend(???) up on one of the islands for a few weeks(!!!), I guess to see how they get along. He needs to get out of his little tiny apartment downtown.

I was all excited about another night of photos but Nate was strangely distracted. He was cleaning his kitchen really slowly. It seemed to take him forever. I read for awhile, aware that we only had a little while to hang out before he had to take the bus home. He seemed on another planet as I got more and more impatient. Luckily I had an excellent book.

"Do you want to borrow any movies? American Graffiti is pretty good."

I took American Graffiti (1 and 2) and the new Jarmusch flick. I had a weird experience of thematic repetition. Just the night before I said goodbye to my sweetie, as she went to go visit her family in Pennsylvania. She brought me some groceries she didn't want to go bad and I gave her a little painted stone I bought from a deep-eyed man on the street. Now here I was saying goodbye for the second time in as many nights.

Finally he took out the garbage and got his last load of laundry. "Hey," he said, "do you want to..."

"I want to go take photos!"

Excruciatingly slowly he got on his coat and we went outside. It was like a new playground, the reddish, strange lights of downtown. We went to the new courthouse building and I sat and took pictures of a ring of lights. Finally I asked Nate to sit for some portraits.

Nate has Tourette's Syndrome, which causes him to move uncontrollably as kind of an energetic extension of his emotions and reactions. A change in temperature, a pretty girl getting on the bus, or a loud noise could make him flail his arms or say "HA!" I tried a few photos trying to catch him when he was still, but then I got the idea to capture the movements of his body with the long exposure.

I tried, but had a hard time getting him to move on cue. He was just sitting there calmly, only moving occasionally. He was relaxed.

"Hey," he said, "try some word associations or something."

Okay. I hit the shutter.

"Droopy dog! Groceries! Malfeasance!"

His arms and head whipped about.

"Band-aid! Dopamine! Grass stains!"

He painted with his body and I got several shots. We tried to go out for a drink afterwards but we were still sort of distracted. He went back home, but he called me when I was on the bus. "I didn't feel like I got to say goodbye," he said.

I took the bus that goes by the Fiddler's Inn, and Doug was there with some LED lights. We got a few people in the bar to do some LED Light paintings. Doug, Martin, Nina, and I all took a crack at it.

It's worth looking at the gallery of photos for the other night. It's cool to check it out as a slideshow. The portraits of Nate are particularly cool that way.

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

It was a black tie BBQ. Nice to see everyone dressed so damn pretty, especially the Birthday Boy:

Even the little girls in the park across the street were in the spirit of the occasion.

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

Smiling photos of Ben Sodenkamp

And on the adore list we have:

SJ, Shauna, Sarah, Rachel and Nate... no one else who wishes adoration?

Author of this post is ~ ~ tiny daniel

See the whole gallery.