For Real This Time; In A Garden, Awakened...

The last post was last year on July 4th. Oy vey. 

This time I promise to post more, after feeling especially inspired upon purchasing a new digital camera: the Fujifilm X-T2. Still trying to figure out the nuances of it and use it more. Saving for a better lens too...

I've gotten the chance to test it out on various trips as of late: Vasquez Rocks for a Jam in the Van event, hiking to the Deep Creek Hot Springs, shooting a music video on a Malibu beach, hiking around Ascot Hills and Laguna Beach and most recently--just the other day in fact--a sublime trip to the Huntington Botanical Gardens in Pasadena. An endlessly beautiful place that I highly recommend checking out (all photos below shot at the gardens).

Please do come back and take a gander at this blog section. As frequently as your mindless work breaks allow!

I've recently been using this meditation app called "Headspace" (which I also highly recommend) and currently, I'm working through the 30-session "Creativity" pack. After finding the "creative spark" within ourselves and visualizing its ceaseless expansion outwards, beyond the body and into the world and universe, there's come a point where lovable Andy instructs the user to write or doodle something 2-3 times a day, without thinking too much--without purpose or self-consciousness. Looking back at the scribblings isn't recommended: the idea is to just dump it on the page in that present moment and let it be. 

So instead of carrying a journal and pen around with me, my goal is to post a photograph or two in this blog on a consistent basis, accompanied by a possibly/but-probably-not related written thought or feeling. 

 

 

 

I'M STILL HERE

Dang, it's been a minute. 

I promise I will update more frequently. Honest engine, cross my heart, hope to live.

Been doing pretty good on my New Years resolutions...lowered my blood pressure, on book 7 and 8 this year, drinking a good amount of luke warm water with honey and lemon juice each morning AND I've even gotten to travel around a bit (Austin/SXSW, various desert locations for photo shoots, Lightning in a Bottle, Vail, Colorado, etc.).

Work with Jam in the Van has gotten steadier/crazier/more involved and I'm tackling it all the best I can.

Gotta work on the other resolutions (like WRITING MORE).

OH YEAH! My friend Jesse and I had our first photo show (ever/together) back in February. It was truly a blast and my love for photography grew exponentially (usually grows incrementally when I have time to actually focus on it).

Recently, I got to see some of my photos published on various websites as my friends Robot Teammate & The Accidental Party have received wide acclaim for their 2016 Fringe Festival play "Thug Tunnel". I like shooting promotional things with friends who are beautiful and game (per chance to shoot more stylized, conceptual portrait sessions in the future...)

Welp, I'm going to my favorite pool in the world right now so I can eat a lot of food. Happy 4th, chuckleheads!

-Slip

NYE x NYC (not broke, why fix)

Ever since my dear friend Claire started attending Hunter College in NYC many years ago, I’ve made my way down to The Big City (solo and with cohorts) to experience the delirious energy that is unique to New York as two years bleed together. Since this tradition started, even more friends have made New York City their home. My memories from these trips have always been happy. 

Unfortunately, I am only able to see some of these friends maybe once a year, and I find that time flies by faster (not cool) when it is measured by milestones ("oh wow, I've been at this shit job for a year already?!”) and the aforementioned reunions. I get nostalgic insomuch that I don’t want to lose my grasp of the Past and its components that have shaped me into who I am today. Why forget something or someone when you can still use that knowledge, those emotions, to navigate the world?

I do not like to proclaim my New Years Resolutions because I believe actions are stronger than words and the world is filled with enough pseudo-science, emotionally-driven op-eds as it is. BUT! I was inspired the other day by my good friend Jake—who I am immensely proud of—and the piece he published on Medium entitled I Stayed In On The Last Night of 2015 to Plan For The Start of 2016. The piece provided a nice (nice=neat+concise in this case, which has become an increasingly rare occurrence online…) breakdown of what it takes to set goals and to see them through.

Alas, considering one of my goals is to write more (blog posts, screenplays, scenes, letters, postcards, napkin scribbles, phone notes) I’ve decided to share some of my New Years Resolutions/Goals (attempting to utilize Jake’s points) as they occurred to me on the six-hour bus ride back from Brooklyn last night:

  1. Write More (as in: don’t be afraid to/not allowed to quantify)
  2. Use Social Media Less (not pulling the holier-than-thou card, just use it in smarter, more bull-shit filtering ways)
  3. Drink More Water (because it’s never a bad thing, unless you drown yourself)
  4. Lower my high blood pressure/high cholesterol to below 120/80 and 200mg/dL respectively by cutting back on sodium, meat and dairy/condiments (so I don’t die and my doctor gets off my case already)
  5. Read 13 books (read 12 books last year, so it’s only onwards and upwards from here…follow me on Goodreads)
  6. Collaborate with Others in Art (make a film, shoot photography and create other works that I am proud of)
  7. Ask more questions (in the field and on the job, with friends or coworkers, so that I may learn more and not regret being timid)
  8. Learn 3 software programs beneficial to my professional development (it’s a cyber world baby) 
  9. Balance Fitness Better (cardio, yoga, strength, meditation, nutrition, hoopin')
  10. Skateboard more, snowboard more…hell, even surf more (all 3 in one day, very doable)
  11. Call friends and family more/send more letters and notes (communication requires due-diligence)

PS - Some phone pix from NYE in NYC, coming full circle, as this is primarily a photography website :))) http://bit.ly/1O3OMkH

Friendsgiving 2015: The Numbers

  • 16 people
  • 35 logs on the fire
  • 11 beds
  • 22 pound turkey
  • 3 types of stuffing
  • 2 coffee makers
  • 3 rounds of Shave the Ace
  • 1 Drone Enthusiast
  • 3.5 bathrooms
  • 2 hiking crews
  • 150 "floors cllimbed"
  • 70+ 35mm photos snapped
  • 4+ pots of Mulled Wine and Whiskey Cider
  • ~100 pieces of art/memorabilia featuring bears
  • 1 very fun cabin getaway

Film photos to follow. Here are some phone pix: http://bit.ly/21prvmg

Big Sur Camping

For an all-too-brief 36 hours, I finally got to see Big Sur in all it's beauty this past weekend. I had only driven that winding Highway 1 road once before, in the dark, on a desperate and dilerious mission to Monterey Bay and San Francisco many years ago...

Lo and behold, I finally got to see the coastline. The days were sunny and clear and the night was shockingly mild. Here we were in late November, encircled around a crackling fire in nothing but flannels, switching out sips of Fireball Whiskey and Bud Light. Chloe the Dog sniffled and snuffled between our legs, inspecting the countless foreign forest smells as thoroughly as her leash would allow. Camping is truly the potluck of living: everyone brings a piece of equipment, chips in some food scraps here, offers up positivity and laughter there and before you know it, it's an experiential feast; a purer sense of Being.

We encountered many things, but not limited to: a surly convenience store clerk, torn between pulling pins off a board to satiate my curiosity and ringing out a befuddled woman for her pumped gas; mossy forests, green and quiet, adjacent to pristine beaches that stretched far and wide below suspended bridges; hundreds of beached elephant seals doing the darnedest things; and open shorelines, filled with glassy and polished stones, where Dog and Man could run together, untethered, waves lapping at naked feet. 

More photographs will follow, but for now, here is a link to some phone snaps I took: http://bit.ly/1I8TTm8

A short week welcomes me back, and as I fit in work with Jam in the Van and my internship at Chris McPherson's studio, I must also pack up and prepare for Wednesday, when fifteen of us depart for Friendsgiving and cabin life near Bass Lake and Yosemite, where good food and snow await. Many photographs will surely trickle out into the world from this pending trip: a most joyous time...#getyourasstobass!

"The Artist at Work" (a snippet) - Albert Camus

"...But Jonas's new friends almost all belonged to the species of artists and critics. Some had painted, others were about to paint, and the remainder were painted. All, to be sure, held the labors of art in high esteem and complained of the organization of the modern world that makes so difficult the pursuit of those labors, as well as the exercise of meditation, indispensable to the artist. They complained of this for whole afternoons, begging Jonas to go on working, to behave as if they weren't philistines and knew the value of an artist's time. Jonas, pleased to have friends capable of allowing one to go on working in their presence, would go back to his picture without ceasing to answer the questions asked him or laughed as the anecdotes told him.

Such simplicity put his friends more and more at ease. Their good spirits were so genuine that they forgot the meal hour. But the children had a better memory."

Baby's Second CicLAvia

Yesterday was a Sunday and Sundays are often tougher than they look on paper. It's very easy to succumb to the BoobTube and watch football all day (including the obligatory minute-by-minute glances at your fantasy football scores). Pizza, or something of that ilk, is usually the order of the day. But living out in Los Angeles is nice because kickoff comes rumbling around at 10AM, and my team (Fins Up!) usually plays at that time. So by 1:30, the spell is broken and I can do something somewhat productive (or at least get outside). 

Lo and behold, I went and participated in my second CicLAvia in "The Heart of Downtown Los Angeles." Riding solo (laughing to myself at a particular Comedy Bang Bang! podcast), I took the Metro Expo line end-to-end and after popping out onto 7th St. and Hope, I joined the thousands of cyclists, skateboarders, rollerbladers and boring runners. Quickly peddling and joining the flow, the stimuli was overwhelmingly beautiful and life-affirming. Something as simple as riding a bike at the base of giant buildings, many with magnificently intricate murals, on streets usually congested with honking cars is so special. The air was cool, the sky slightly overcast. The streets were eerily quiet with the absence of cars, with only the giddy squeals of certain caffeinated/drunk groups and the cheers of the intersection volunteers cutting through the pleasant air. This particular CicLAvia route was super fun, as it extended through the historic district, the arts district, and out over the LA River toward Hollenbeck Park. Hit up The Last Book Store on Spring St. on my way back to the metro stop and snagged some books on the cheap (after deliberating for close to half an hour). DO NOT let me in book stores, especially ones of that magnitude.

"It is good to get out by yourself," is what I'm trying to get at. I highly recommend CicLAvia to everyone in Los Angeles, or any similar type of event to people elsewhere--it brings about an awesome sense of community and catalyzes adventures through streets and neighborhoods that are outside of one's usual comfort/exploration zone. Special shout outs to the elderly Japanese ladies in Little Tokyo tossing up double thumbs ups to everyone riding by, all of the couples utilizing the bike-skateboard skitching technique and the dude in the King Kone truck for ensuring that my halfway Root Beer Float was made "extra tight." 

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AN EVOLVING BEAST...

At first, this website will serve as a general portfolio--composed primarily of photos I've taken for my own pleasure over the last few years. The categories are random and it is true that I have done little to no "cohesive project" work, but I know that will change in the future. I hope to contribute to the projects of others and discover new ideas and themes that fascinate me, as well.  I was, and am, drawn to photography because every image has a story (cliche as that may be, it is true) to tell. These stories may enlighten us in regards to the past, the present or the future, usually a combination of the three. I am fascinated by the aesthetics of photography first and foremost, but photography also helps me remember my experiences better, more viscerally, despite it's innately static presentation. 

Eventually/hopefully, this site will evolve into something else--incorporating videos, short films, mixed medium artworks and of course, more blog posts (pertaining to daily experiences and musings). So please, keep me on my toes, World! Feel free to contact me with business propositions, ideas for collaborative projects or even off-the-cuff comments. I just want to be a better dude today than I was yesterday. Updates will be as frequent as my spirit allows.

On the topic of evolving beasts, just watched "Beasts of No Nation" on Netflix today in broad daylight. It is a harrowing experience and an expertly crafted film that tells a story very much worth telling. So yeah, check that out PRONTO!

- Slip