" yes, but how do you photogs really feel? "

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george:

How is your summer going?

me:

hothot hot! haha

george:

:0)

me:

looking for new projects to do, and trying to stay cool. how are you doing?

george:

Haven't started looking for work...still getting photos in order...Can't wait to begin some new projects though. Lots of ideas...Doing well...just starting to dig the summer.

me:

yeah, i'm thinking about a few portrait projects as well. just have to pick a few and develop them out. shoot some photos and lay them out to see if it's worth it or not. the summer has been great so far, just to be able to enjoy the heat.

i love the heat. hah

george:

C. Bay...do you have any advice on taking portraits? It's a BIG question...but maybe you have a photographer I can check out for inspiration?

me:

haha, no i always love conversations about photography. for me, a portrait is not only the image you're making.

it's an opportunity to really make a connection with a person.

i think that it's in pursuit of making these connections, which is something that we always strive to do in our daily lives...make connections, that drives me to make portraits...and make them as real and as intimate as possible.

now, this doesn't always mean that this sense of intimacy has to be resultant in an image of a nude. but i do think that my portraits, as well as my nude portraits are trying to convey that yearning for a connection. so, when i make a portrait of someone, i'm looking to have an opportunity to make a connection, and then the image that results from that connection is a visual record of that interaction. does that make sense?

george:

Blog worthy quote right there. I may quote you so be warned. And just so you know...I agree!

me:

photography is the conduit through which i can breach that threshold that we come to at times, the line where we have to make the decision whether we are brave enough to take a chance to get to know somebody. haha.

yeah, i may just use this as a blog post.

george:

:0)

me:

but yes, this is how i feel most of the time

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tonight's homework:

get out there and show them whatcha got.

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" polarizer filter for your soul "

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i'm not sure about the techniques of my other fellow photogs, but i shoot with a polarizer filter on my lenses all the time. even though i know i'm losing between a stop to a stop and a half with it's usage, i know that the ability to deepen blue skies and remove sheen/shine from faces/glass, far outweighs having to shoot slower or at a higher ISO.

i remember the first time i found out about the illustrious polarizer. i was in high school, and was purchasing a darkroom setup which included and enlarger and some other choice tools. the seller was the father of a boy that i went to school with, and he was getting rid of all of this equip. he said that if i could pay him a clean hundred, he'd also throw in a polarizer filter.

since i didn't know what it was, and how it was to be implemented, he showed me how it used two slivers of polarized glass to cancel out certain light. it was magic from the first experience, and that feeling has followed through to my current digital photog self.

i remember just going nuts after that, always looking for the cancelation of shine and sheens on surfaces. i loved darkening the sky to a deep near-black (when shooting b/w film), by stacking an ND filter, a red filter, and a polarizer filter on top like a cherry rocket blasting my images into the obliteration of grays.

in any case, despite all of that glass in front of the lens array and having to shoot so so so slow, i always loved the results. i guess this is why today, with a camera loads heavier and a lens that looks more like a water bottle with a metal skirt, i have a steady hand.

the ability of making my photo more clear, to pull the shades of haze and refracted light aside, and get to the pure intent of the intended image, was and still is a real treat of a moment.

tonight's homework:

buy or borrow a polarizer filter, making sure to do research on brands, linear or circular, thin, threaded, and millimeter. try and test out your normal subject matter, day or night, indoor, studio or outdoor, and see if it's worth it to incorporate this filter into your bag of tools.

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" heat heat, brain brain "

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the most important thing to do when it gets unbearably hot in the summertimes, is to drink lots of water, and to have your cameras at ready.

don't be afraid to put on the sunscreen, a large visor'd cap, and venture out into the streets. there's images out there begging to be made, and there's only so many new images you can make from the confines of your sweaty room.

additionally, let your computer rest a bit, because you don't want to zap its innards with the extra temperatures.

if anyone wants to go on a photowalk or popsicles search, gimme a hit while the gettings good.

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" * :focus {outline: 0;} your life "

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we must, at all times embrace change. whether personal & private, or public & vulnerable. it is all happening, and nothing you did yesterday, are doing right now, or will do tomorrow, can halt this progression of our linear existence.

we're moving ever further along, and riding this time we have together like a beautiful wave that will never end.

tomorrow for me, will mark an end of a certain large period of my life, and begin anew. treacherous and thorned may the paths ahead lie, but i feel present and confident.

this blog then will become not only a looking glass into my personal everydays, but now also will include a more focused and invigorated attempt to make a go of this photog thing. i promise to only be honest and open, and to attempt to share with you the raw and the real, the rough and tumble, the insight and the wayward glance.

thank you to everyone for your collective encouragement and support over the years.

this is our life redesigned, within every passing moment.

we are live.

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" the slience, the silence "

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now that i've gotten a little older, people have started to expect things of me. expect more from me. there is an idea of this ideal yet average person that just exists, with variations based on the various cultures of the world. but they all have one.

you're 30, and have a job, or at least a dream with part-time job, or going to grad school, or graduated from grad school and working on a phd. and wiser, funnier, more handsome now that there are single strands of gray and silver interlaced with your  more youthful-colored hair.

and am i any of these things? and i better for having hardships in my short and average life? have i made a lasting good impression on those that i love? have i made any difference for being in the world? will i pretend like i'm not affected by the things that hurt me, for fear of not being empathetic to real collective human pains?

and these attributes of the average man seems sullied by reality. it seems unattainable; just as unattainable as the ideal man - that glorious tall dark handsome virile successful bastard that gloats and preens and becomes a golden version of what a man is.

that lie. that false apparition. and is there any comfort in the fact that it is not you, and you are not it?

the silence in the air expands as she speaks, and then i can't feel anything anymore.

my artwork, by sorrows, my pains, my hungers, my aspirations, my good deeds, my heart, my everything. it goes dark.

they all grow dark for a moment, like an eclipse slowly caressing the light from out of your ability to see anything at all.

and now 30 seems too old to make something happen in your favor, and too young to give up. all of a sudden i want so much more, both from my self and the universe at large, and is there any harm in wanting more?

what does one do, when you're now the one that needs guidance?


tonight's homework:

do one good and real thing that will bring one person an overwhelming feeling of elation and joy. bring a light into the dark of someone who doesn't know they needed illumination.

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" calculations of your impact "

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heartbreaking, unyielding, devastating love & devotion to the memory of those past.

i was listening to the radiolab podcast on the platform yesterday. i was listening, and i could hear he echoes of trains recent-past, ringing in the space between my earcups and the thin foam material of my children's, noise-limiting, plastic headphones. it was all that i could afford that day.

the sounds coming from the podcast were coming from the daughter of henrietta lacks, a woman whose cells are the most famous in the scientific community. her daughter, roberta, was in pain. her mother's cells were removed while getting treatment for cervical cancer, and those cells had some of the most unique properties that the world has ever seen or seen since. resilient, strong, audacious, and ever-evolving.

roberta was in pain, writhing and on the verge of a stroke. she was heavy with the burden of these cells. she was not a scientific woman, and couldn't quite understand what the scientists meant when they pointed and presented to her a culture tray and said, this is your mother.

roberta bent closer to the tray and whispered to the cells, so that her mother could hear her.

at the height of roberta's agony over the weight of the meaning of the cells, a family member began to sing gospel and praying for her. his booming voice overpowered my tiny insignificant headphone speakers, and i too for a moment, felt like her woes were mine, and he was now singing into my heart's pains.

i looked around at the people on the platform thinking,"how very lonely are we all?" i was looking into the person behind the faces. i was looking into the collective human experience. i was looking into outer space, galaxies, and distant cosmos bodies thinking, "how can we be so small, and the ache be so large? is there no respite?" it was a profound sadness that swept over me in that moment.

all of a sudden i missed my mom very much. then i missed everyone's mom that i ever knew and loved. then i missed everyone's mom on the planet, and felt myself floating further and further away from everything. past the platform, up through the earth to the street, past the buildings and trees, past the atmosphere, burning and exiting orbit, past the stars, past the immense darkness of space, and i was for a moment, the furthest away from my body i've ever been, and i was alone.

and then after the singing and preaching stopped, and i relaxed and calmed, all of that hurt dissipated, and came back into myself.

i was standing on the platform, alone amidst a quiet sea of strangers in the heat of an underground station. those reverberating train echoes rippling against my frame, and i found myself shaking while the tears just fell.

tonight's homework:

tell them you love them. tell them how much they mean to you. tell them now. tell them close and in person, if at all possible. hold them, comfort them, be honest with them, and find yourself vulnerable and filled with strength in the same moment. we have such a little pocket of time together, and it would be a pity to waste any of it.

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" break out the white pants "

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wellsir,

summer heat, summer rain. summer picnics in the park, summer music in the park, summer sleeping in the grass in the shade in the park.

summer roadtrips to the water, summer sitting inside at home with the fan on and a spritz bottle watching the neverending story. summer salads, summer eating out al fresco.

summer drinking steel reserve tallboys at BBQ's which cause you to pass out two hours later only to wake up from sleepytimes to rock on for five more hours.

summer walks, summer bike rides in the darkness without a helmet on. summer laughs, summer sobbing. summer wearing flip-flops and boardshorts.

summer writing furiously and photographing prolifically. summer making your mark, summer going for the glory huck!

summer art shows with cherry pie and ice creams, summer at governor's island with those houses turned into art installations. summer cheese and chilled muscato in a cobalt bottle.

summer looks and glances.

summer breaths and chances.

summer hopes and dances.

i'll see you there.

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