En Route

The aches of leg and back soothed by the deep leather of a fireside couch. Recovering from the continuous alternation from punishing moguls to swift chairlifts and back to powderous trees, groomed expanses and doggie bags of trail mix.

It’a all too picturesque to fathom. Every once and a while something extraordinary would poke out – contrails in the sky, particular arrangements of skiers across the valley, etc – that would merit the grabbing of camera.

The big challenge is remembering what wasn’t documented. Of the couple dozen runs taken, which will stick out? Which will resonate years from now? Will any of the spectacular views stick, or has my brain been wired to remember only that which is supported by cold hard visual records? Does it matter? Is the short term pleasure of it all really the greater point?

Skiing, shuttling to airports, redeye flights back home, composition of argumentative analytical essays.

Grounded

Another capture from the aviatory endeavor of yesterday. The vehicular embarkment of intranational travel. An eventual landing in a far off land, and a subsequent day of powderous skiing, mile-high sunlight, and beer on the slopes. Reunition with family, dinner table and couch based conversation, and the lesson of Beauty, Form and Balance.

I say in five years this very image will be createable with nearly no noise. Today’s tools of visual capture are rudimentary at best (considering future technological capabilities), and this’ll be laughable in its technical shortcomings. But for now, by jove it works for me. A prime example of intent versus … aesthetic purities, perhaps.

I’m also putting this out there as more of a metaphorical statement. Me being within this vessel, looking out on the launch pad of my future, soon to be tearing through life at breakneck speeds in an ever expanding sky at more elevated heights. Something like that. Brains, geography, passions, the like.

It’ll sink in eventually.

Idling on the Tarmac

The airport as office. It’s a nice change of scenery from the office I generally inhabit (my living room), or the stairwell office, the coffeeshop office, the empty classroom office, etc. Wherever there’s an internet connection and I have my laptop… it’s work.

My love of airport scenery is possibly second only to that of container ship terminals. Deepwater ports, they get me every time. (Click to see related portfolio work) The industrial machines that run the world and their parking spaces, their petty inconveniences, their strict adherence to orders passed down from highly regulated towers.

Shortly I’ll be boarding my next office with a view of a world in darkness. Perhaps a suitable environment to polish off my scathing essay on the downfall of Enron. Two words – Money and… systematic elimination of traditional checks and balances.

Cylinders in the Sky.

Fitting In

Early post today, actually an excuse to break from writing a poetic analysis of Enron’s colossal implosion, and since the actually photo work is going down later tonight ya’ll get a capture from winter break. The two weeks of jam-packed portraiture that I’m still sending out to the subjects.

Whatever’s happening here, it’s working for me. I’d like to see how different it’d feel if he were neutrally emotive. If that tiny 1/100th of the image affected by subtle changes in facial musculature were blank instead of smiled.

I think with smile it better serves the interests of him, his family and his friends. But to the observant stranger it might be more interesting without the joviality. Less personal perhaps.

Off to some behind-the-scenes work, camera in hand!

Mornings and Reportage

Another no-work day, yet I’m booked solid through 8pm. And glad to be, at that. Opportunities loom on the horizon in distant cities, closer to home obligations creak and demand attention, clients touch base. Such is the weekday in gusdom.

Harkening back to the winter break here, an image of the father seated in his morning ritual of breakfast news intake. The previous day’s happenings condensed into columns, ripe for selective reading. A competition of headlines vying for the reader’s eyes.

I’ll buy a paper maybe once a week and then spend the next five breakfasts working my way through it. Fascinating stuff is buried deep within the divisions of news, too much to be consumed in any given day. Given my current academic pursuits I find myself entrenched in the business sections, but alas the NYTimes’ “Modern Love” column always gets at my sweet spot.

To tomorrow’s breakfast.

Christmas Taxidermy

With the last Sat-Mon three day weekend now way behind me, a full day of Tuesday activities has delivered me now to my mid-week two-day break. Or rather break from formal obligations. I find myself going to panel discussions at MIT on the topic of how biology Ph.D candidates can get into private equity and consulting after they graduate. Fascinating stuff.

And here we have another weekender, sunk into the cream colored couch. A recurring trend here, this was one of those AGHgottashootthisrealquickholdittherek? moments. She’s used to it, and better yet she always looks the part in them. Or rather the part I intended to capture.

This particular view, with the bathroom a room and a half behind the main room, has this incredible depth that has caught my attention a half dozen times in recent weeks. Turns out I just needed that extra subjectual punch to move me to document.

Slumberous pursuits await.

Stopped in Red

The happenstance meeting afoot and abike whilst strolling the city, albeit work motivated, on a wonderfully soft and temperate afternoon. One of my favorite portraits of all time came together under similar circumstances. The lesson? Get out and about already!

He’s a genuine dude, in all respects I can think of. A natural and unprompted smile is made across his maw because that’s him. Sweet indeed.

Back to work.

Circling

Got all dolled up today for my big shoot. Or rather in lieu of bike polo (a rare instance of cancellation, due in part to some snowfall and a birth), I shaved, put on a tie, and played with some lights in the living room. The living room as office and studio both as the bedroom is unworkably cold lately.

Undoubtedly some astro inspiration here due to some videophonic behind-the-scenes/interview goodness with a French photographer who shoots various space machinery and other instrumentation of the largest proportion. No attempts to draw a helmet, just a circle. It’s as far as I’ll go.

Another day of shoot/edit/post. Another awaits.

Directional Geometry

What a difference a night of incredible dreams can make. Nearly makes me want to read some Jung.

Also a week or two of software education has opened up some interesting aesthetic doors. Mostly so far it’s just made those doors easier to open. I could take this even further and talk about different keys, unlocking potential, and on and on, but perhaps the bigger question is where do these doors lead? In what room do I end up?

Alas, it’s still just the beginning. Climbing the stoop, so to speak.

Tri-Quad-Circ

A morning of class, a cancelled lunch date, and a panel discussion of venture capitalists and management consultants speaking to an audience of PhD Biology students at MIT and yours truly. And a homeland friend in town, literally just blocks away on point of contact. Sure is different than the 9-5.

Despite trying to pull together a portfolio of professional-ish portraits (strong images that convey professionalism perhaps, largely through commercial lighting aesthetics), I find myself attracted to the strange. The self portraits, shot primarily to practice lighting, that don’t look anything like me. Where the known gus is completely absent, replaced by some other life force.

And heck, why not pull it into the ‘shop and play around a bit. Admittedly not polished in any sense here, nearly entirely unrevised, just stream of consciousness editing. It could be way better I’m sure, but for now it’s nothing but experimentation. In lighting, in editing. Not much experimenting going on in this writing though.

Boston Fridays.