Larryosan's blog

Taking my very first photography class after years of taking pictures so now maybe I will know what I am doing. And after years of using point and shoots or even mixed low end cameras with some manual setting I am moving up to the big time. As I needed to use an all manual camera and I didn't have time to shoot film for the class I decided to stick with digital. But I needed a camera so after years of not buying what I wanted and making do with these inexpensive tools I went out and bought the camera I have been lusting after for a long time.

Now I have to learn how to use this thing, has more menus and controls than any computer I use and more complex than many software applications I work with.

ta ta for now

So I hope you got a chance to look at my new videos, I have been concentrating on taping my friend Tom Goodkind and his band TriBattery Pops, I posted one of the pieces I did for his performance down on the Lower East Side and now I just posted a piece I did of him and his band going to the Mermaid parade at Coney Island in Brooklyn New York. This is the first time I actually went to the parade and I ended up in it, I marched ahead of the band to capture footage and I got into the piece a bit, at least my voice. I am definately not the detached videographer, as I was having too much fun marching along, a real hoot.

But I think now it is time to find a new muse, not that I am going to stop taping the Pops but I want to move on to another subject for awhile, I think another friend is going to be my focus. And also in the meantime I am looking at cameras that I want to buy. I have been looking at small consumer units I can afford but don't offer me the audio featuers I want but I can reasonably purchase in the near future versus waiting to buy something I really want but will be much further off in time. So I am torn right now and I do want to keep making short videos, I know they are not groundbreaking or even as slick and polished as the stuff I see on the internet but I enjoy taping and editing and I hope that my work is incrementaly improving and they do reflect my perspective. In that with anything else I do, I think my vision my artistic persona is interesting and is a little different than what else is out there. Not unique but my own.

So I hope you like my latest offerings.

ta ta for now

Been a very eventful semester, shot three videos, the second and third were personal pieces written and edited by me alone. Had help on all of them but the documentary is really my piece. Was fun to cast and to pound away even if I had to step back from my work and allow it to take shape and not get bogged down in my attachments to early versions, that was the hardest.

So I posted my commercial which was a fun piece, not a slick as I would have liked but the basic premise, eat at Georges and lonely guy finds girl worked out ok.

Also joined college honor society which was a nice ego boost for me and was gratifying as I do work hard in school and work to get the best grades possible.

so ta ta for now.

Well shoot me with a big gun, the video I was ranting about turned out not too badly. Wrestled the components together, had more coverage of shots than I thought and enough to finish the project. The premise is this lonely guy who hears Eat at Georges and is eating by himself in his kitchen then in a park looking at happy couples and finally goes to Georges where he meets cute girl and lives happily ever after. The story worked, I figured enough of Avid to do the work, spent most of my weekends editing and the teacher helped with a couple of quick fixes and all is well. Got an A on this project including the script, the shot list, the treatment and finally the storyboard.

Just finished my rough cut on my documentary on a neighbor about his forming a local community band called the TriBattery Pops, google it, loads of fun, turned out well, actually very happy with my product on this one, was stumped for quite awhile figuring out the beginning but once I had that it all seemed to fall into place, so I am practically finished with all the projects, two weeks ahead.

Well what a welcome, sadly the world is still a fucked up mess, war continues unabated and tragedy looms large in our lives. Bigotry and hatred run rampant in the world in the guise of politics and religion and no I am not speaking simply of the usual suspects the divisions in our world run much deeper and speak to a greater diversity than the simple mindset we have here in the US. And yet in the middle of all this people still carry on, the desire to do good is still there and acts of kindness and humanity still appear from time to time. There are voices of rationality still crying out in the wind and all is not lost, yet. I am amazed that the doomsday clock was actually set back but I think not for the greatest of reasons. In that I mean the major powers are not poised to blow us all to hell but then again there are people out there who are not major powers who may want to blow up bits and pieces of the world to hell, just in small chunks.

Not a positive piece but what do you expect on a Sunday morning when I don't sleep enough.

My tale of selection and rejection in one act.....

Descriptive Essay, free writing.

I have no insight into what I do other than my sense of hurtling through the words without thought or direction. So I am now in a remedial writing class in school. I am torn between feeling bad and making the best of the situation. My class is on the eleventh floor of an outlying location for the college, rented space as their original building is slated for being torn down, a victim of 9/11. My first day I joined the crush of young people hustling to the elevator to the upper floors. I was a bit early which was good but quickly lost that advantage when I headed back down to the lobby to find out some more about the class location. When I arrived the students in my room told me that this was not English but a math class, so I left in an attempt to locate the proper place to be. As with this train of thought the whole thing turned out to be an exercise in circular logic and destination, hence down and back up to my original destination. As you can see from this writing I am indeed in need of a writing class. So boohoo to my feelings I am to forge ahead and perhaps improve.

ta ta for now

The Ecstasy and Agony of larry…

I had the distinct pleasure of seeing a thesis photography show by Rachel Langosch. When I entered the gallery I was presented with a series of technically superb intimate shots of people in what appeared to be their homes. Rachel is technically an accomplished photographer so the imagery itself was enjoyable to see, but she also possesses that extra element what I call a peoples eye, she has a true sensitivity towards her subjects that she shares with one of my favorite photographers, tomusan. But there was another underlying element to this show, Rachel was addressing the issue of consumerism in today's society and all these "intimate" pictures were in fact creations of hers done in guerrilla style shot in Ikea stores in the area. The settings that seemed so homey and intimate and gave you a sense of truly peeking into these peoples lives were all fake in the best sense of the word. And if Rachel had not let me know I would have never known, which is one of the interesting yet contradictory elements of her project. If I hadn't known, her point on consumerism would have probably have been lost, so in fact she had to go outside her imagery to bring in that element. I am not totally sure what I think about that, but still on another level that sense of subversive humor where me as the audience may or may not be in on that level of truth is something I really like. That Rachel has created a number of elements that provoke more thought and consideration from me is one of the reasons I am very impressed with her.

The second element I want to bring up is her lighting in these shots, they were as if she had done her lighting with full kit in a studio, yet this was all done with found conditions. Again, you would have never known, and in fact at least two shots I was sure she had set up the lighting as they were up to the standard of what I have seen from studio shots. Another reason to be impressed.

Here is a link to posted images I found.

http://www.myartspace.com/viewer/gallery/?subscriberid=1p6q7dipsa7nsg31&gallery_id=knnjewhhda7nwfj1

Full disclosure, Rachel is the daughter of a very good friend of mine, but I assure you if I wasn't this enthusiastic about her work I would have simply refrained from writing anything, and unlike her father I am not prone to hyperbole in respect to her talent. Not that he is wrong, he is just a very doting dad.

ta ta for now!

Our cat Sadie went through dental surgery and had 4 teeth removed, that is the good news, she is healing OK and the drooling has stopped. The bad news is that it allowed us to see an underlying condition that had been masked by the larger symptoms of the dental problems which is she is suffering from some kind of neurological defect on the right side of her head. She is showing unnatural lack of response in her ear hairs, her eye and her whiskers. None of these are reacting normally to touch and it appears that although her eye is normal she isn't acting as if she can see. She is wandering, bumping into things and not seeming to see anything around her. She moves her head in a weird way and sits with her head held in an odd cocked position. The only thing we can do is possibly take her to an advanced medical center for pets where the price is of no object. And we have already dropped a considerable amount of money for her dental surgery. We have financial limits on this which are part of our harsh reality. And except for fancy surgery perhaps there really isn't much to hope for in terms of positive outcomes.

So we are left with horrible decision contemplation, what is Sadie's quality of life, what is her life span, is she suffering, is she comfortable, how much can we stand as her litter habits have changed for the worse. Convenience is not a major factor for us, but it is a factor and we do have two more cats to consider. So none of this is easy and is the dark side of owning a pet, when we have to make life and death decisions, where we question our motivations, our commitment to our beloved pet and what is the "best" course to take.

Since I went out to Pennsylvania about a year ago to pick Sadie up, she has had at least two major upper respiratory infections, pancreatitis and dental surgery so she has not been a well cat overall. None of this results in us having any regrets for getting her and having her in our lives. This come with the territory with owning an animal.

Sadly it seems we are slowly headed towards death for Sadie, but we are not rushing towards that conclusion, it is in bits and pieces as we evaluate her life at this point and grapple with the harsh choices that we need to make for the best of our Sadie.

no ta ta for now, just say I will see you later.

larry

Almost two weeks in San Miguel DE Allende Mexico is like heaven compared to the squeezed maniacal lifestyle of living and working in NYC USA. I had gotten to the point of being over pretty much everyone that I worked with, on my last nerve and then I go to a place where everyone is friendly, they all say hello "ola" and smile and seem nice. And I don't mean the people who make a living catering to tourists, both north Americans and Mexicans from Mexico city, I mean all the people you see on the street. Now this town is built to bring in tourists and keep them there spending money and it does a very good job without being crass. It is an art colony of sorts with a couple of art institutes and ex pat artists and galleries and maintains the historical quality of the buildings and types of entertainment they offer. Lots of stuff happening in the town center, they have a guy who rides around on horseback in historical costume and lots of seniors all around taking art classes, painting small canvases of various street scenes. With the exchange rate in our favor we could splurge on good food, we ate out everywhere, and it was good food. We went out and listened to singers and musicians in groups, solo players and a Cuban festival with Cuban music it was wonderful. The nice thing is even with lots of eating out we walked all day so you don't come home bloated or fat.

We went out on day trips to small towns that had been centers for mining and are now working to comeback with art and hotels and spas and I wish them the best of luck. We went out to the mountains and saw abandoned gold and silver mines, one town had a medieval looking wall around it to keep out bandits, the buildings now stripped by people reusing the materials to build their own homes. Decay with a speed of light, so the towns truly look ghostly and the land has been turned over to tribal groups, which makes sense as the land is not as valuable as it was, so of course give it away. We met one enterprising fellow who took over some empty buildings to house his goats and sell jewelry to tourists coming into the area. And he gets a small fee for letting you hang out with his goats, which means surrounded by the animals with their poop everywhere. Of course that is just what we did.

Guanajuato is a very interesting town where you drive under the city in the center of town, people also park in these tunnels where you aren't quite sure where you come up again. It has a big college area kind of like the village in NYC and has hangouts for the kids so we of course hung out there having coffee and dessert.

The best part of the trip is art, art, art, we saw art, we bought art, we brought art to have it framed. I brought two of my pieces to frame and some of my fathers art that I framed to put up in our apartment and we bought more art from someone we met last time we were in town, her late husband was an artist Kent Bowman and we went to his widow Cassie who is in her 90's and have bought a number of his works. We have two oils now and we bought a number of his sketches this time and left them to be framed. It works for all of us, she loves the fact that there are people who come to buy his works and appreciate and care about his pieces. And we get to collect art at an affordable price for us. So we bought about 8 new works and got some pottery and some antiques and shipped it all home. So in a couple of weeks it will be like Xmas here.

So that was my trip to Mexico, lots of details left out but lots put in.

ta ta for now

So I got the email through Ipernity, I looked at it and I found that her account was suspended. I suspect that she did something stupid and crazy over my lack of response. So sad, so angst riddern, poor girl, just couldn't live without that wild larryosan loving.

Hello my love

So sorry ladies and men who can't resist my machismo vibrations I cannot reciprocate, my heart has been locked away!

ta ta for now

It is time, in fact over time for another vacation. Everyone I work with is on my last nerve. I am a very accommodating person and glad to help people but it seems that engenders an attitude that I am someone who will be at every ones beck and call to do stuff for them. I am just so over it, as the kids say I am not feeling a lot of people right now. So it is time to get away, though I am going just in time for my mid term test in my latest class. I am taking a history of design course which fit right in with my previous art history class. I love this stuff, we just got into the turn of the century with lots of amazing stuff going on, with lots of interesting artists and designers doing loads of new stuff in art nouveau leading into modernism. We talked allot about fonts and the design of fonts, great website by the way, www.dafont.com check it out so now when I am riding the subway and looking all around I am seeing tons of fonts for a variety of purposes. From advertising to safety and label signage on the trains, and more in the stations, it is an endless stream of text and imagery that surrounds us everyday. Even though as a photographer I look around, I am seeing even more as I take these classes.

So I am following all the hoopla about Obama in the news, the pundits, talking heads, the amount of crap that is spewed by all these people who really had no answers while Rome burned simply leaves me breathless. Someone said, paper will take whatever is put on it, I guess the same goes for any medium. Though watching the pundits reminds me of another quote, I think from Stalin, a dog will always return to its vomit, kinds of reminds me of how these guys all go back to the same ideas time and time again. hmmmm

Do you ever get bored by photography? Mostly my own work, but I have to say as a medium I just sometime burn out on this medium, then I have to go look at all the other visual mediums out there to recharge me in this one.

ta ta for now!

Well here we are, rushing towards another year though this is a bit of a human conceit that time runs according to our precepts. There is power in naming, the French knew that which is a good thing for science.

My cat Sadie is feeling better with infusion of sub dermal fluids and some other medications she is eating and keeping the food down. She should be pleased as she drains our bank account. Thank goodness we don't have to send her off to college or any of those things one would do with kids, she is expensive enough already.

The world is a strange and convoluted place these days and I don't just mean the financial problems in the US which is NOT the world, but due to the efforts expended by various not so good people the world is probably a bit less safe and there are probably a few more people out there desiring to do harm to various others for odd and sundry reasons. As they say payback is a bitch and there has been a lot of ill will be generated.

On the other hand there are still lots of good people who want and are working towards a better world and rightly so.

Here's to those people and may the others find something else to do with their time and energy.

ta ta for now

So we were supposed to go upstate New York to visit friends and stay with them at their house for the holidays. The culmination was to be a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. But the fates had other plans for us, our lovely Sadie

Sadie the Burmese Lady

had pancreatitis and was in the vet hospital overnight, but then she was better and came home. But in the last couple of days she started thowing up and not eating, well long story shot, another trip to the vets and now for the next 5 days she is getting subcutaneous fluids, something I have lots of experience doing, as I did this for my old cat Sam who passed away, everyday for two years. So now one of us is going away, and I am staying home being larryosan the cat vet tech.

I am still happy for this season and this is minor stuff compared to what people are facing at this time of the year and in fact for all the time of the year in places plagued by war, ground down for profits and just miserable state due to history and circumstances. Sometimes living in the US we tend to forget the reality of others even those living right next to us if in very different circumstances except when reminded by the professional misery mongers who may or may not have good intent but avoid the primary issue of causation of misery in the world. And the preachers who tell us we are lazy and arrogant and unworthy of God's blessings etc etc.

So still I say thanks that my life is relatively prosperous at this moment and that I have a job and am in decent health. And I feel anger for the rest.

A couple of lines from a poem by Ginsberg sums it up.

" Poet is Priest
Money has reckoned the soul of America
Congress broken thru to the precipice of Eternity
the President built a War machine which will vomit and rear up
Russia out of Kansas
The American Century betrayed by a mad Senate which no longers sleeps with its wife."

The date may have changed but circumstances have not changed much.

ta ta for now

The world or should I say the small piece that I inhabit goes to hell in a handbasket I am at a loss for words. I standby watching the economy sink into a morass while banks and wallstreet is being bailed out with the explanation that this is really to ensure confidence in the economy. The auto companies which made crap for years are begging hat in hand, oh but while our retirement packages dissapate into vapor, executives are sneaking off to high priced resorts so political wannabes on the make can sound off in manufactured outraged. As if their lives are also on the line while so many retirees lives are sinking into another type of morass. One wonders in NYC if we will see a resurgence in bag ladies and bag men begging and decaying on streets that perhaps will also decay and lay strewn with old garbage. Subways dangerous and tagged to the point of being surreal spray painted mockerys of old times. I suspect this will be a great time for confidence tricksters, scammers, phishers, penis pills, online gambling, thieves, parasites and the magazines that tout the life style of other types of parasites who will draped themselves in jewels and pelts while drowning in rivers of high priced hooch. This will be the primary export from the US beyond cow hides and soybeans.

ta ta for now

This is from one of my contacts back on flickr who I think is extremely talented and I want to share his work as he doesn't make it over here and deserves a viewing.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hastings/2954259484

ta ta for now