227/365 // cut a six inch valley through the middle of my soul
227/365 // oh, oh, oh, i’m on fire
220
song: home is such a lonely place by blink 182
220/365 // i love the lightnin’ but hate the rain
220/365 // tomorrow’s frightenin’ but not today
220/365 // i wish i could slow down time
but not enough to slow you down
216
song: you don’t know what you’ve got by blink 182
216/365 // stuck in life’s waiting room
216/365 // always so close to goodbye
216/365 // you can write my epilogue
Disclaimer: I’m totally fine, have just loved this song since it was released and finally created visuals that felt right for it. That ending bridge at about 2:11 hits that spot in my brain that tickles my ear and alters my brain chemistry and that’s how I know a song needs a photograph.
213
song: acoustic #3 by goo goo dolls
213/365
the least they ever gave you
was the most you ever knew
206
listen to: death grip by andrew mcmahon in the wilderness
206/365 // sometimes, it looks just like a movie.
206/365 // this kind of stuff just doesn’t exist
206/365 // or maybe it does
MUNDANE TO ORANGE
192/365 felt a bit surreal as a storm approached a very tiny town along the river. My usual “tracker” was unavailable so I told my brother where I was.
Me: “I’ll check in by 8:30, otherwise you’re on dead body duty. ✌🏻”
Brother: “Okay! Just don’t die.”
As I walked around, the storm continued it’s approach. I visited a small dock, maybe the term is marina? For it’s size, it had… just a ton of boats docked. All sorts of sizes, names, and fanfare attached. It didn’t feel like the midwest. Rather, like somewhere more south, somewhere sinister. A familiar scene kept popping into my mind as I framed shot after shot. It was from this show: Bloodline. I never finished it. It was series… A family who kept killing each other? It’s foggy now. Google says: A sudden tragedy unsettles the Rayburn clan. While searching for evidence in his case, John finds something disturbing from the family's past.
The show was super suspenseful and beautifully filmed but kind of hard to watch. I don’t think I ever finished it. Sometimes I stop watching shows, movies, or reading books when I like how the story is right then…You get to a part and you know something awful is about to happen, a plot twist… It’ll change everything. No. No, thank you, not today. And so I abandoned it and move on. Anyway, I did not die so my brother escaped dead body retrieval duty. We’re tighter than the Rayburn clan.
192/365
192/365
192/365
193/365
193/365
194/365
I think I might like the color orange.
196/365 // heat me up; cool me down
197/365 // vacancy
It wasn’t a portal to Narnia, I checked, thoroughly.
WE DON'T NEED TO WHISPER
Are you surprised there are more moons and fireworks to go around? You shouldn’t be.
195/365 // we don’t need to whipser
194/365 // 12 Jul 24; 10:52:37 p.m.
195/365 // and the world we know disappears
BEHOLD A PALE HORSE
And when the time is right
It’s gonna change the world
And with the darkened sky
There is nothing fertile
And there is no more love
Or gates of pearls
190/365 // and with the darkened sky
I see the seven stars
I see the seven stands
I hear the deathly voice
I count the sins we have
190/365 // I see the seven stars
I am the living one
I am the first and last
The crowds, the noise, the change of the guard
It’s such a strange celebration
The kids, they laugh, there’s fire, it eats up the world
It’s such a strange celebration
All our eyes are burned by heaven and earth
It’s such a strange celebration
190/365 // all our eyes are burned by heaven and earth
Photographs inspired by Behold A Pale Horse by Angels and Airwaves and some $25,000 worth of fireworks. It is hard to resist photographing fireworks. It can be cliche in photography circles and a running joke with everyone else — when have you ever looked back at that photo or video? Did you ever watch it, even once? Pobby not. However, if you have any interest in space and things unknown, it can be pretty magical when you overlay fireworks onto another photo.
So every year, I drag out the camera and photograph them again. I like to wait until the end of the show when the area is filled with smoke so I can get a little bit of a cloud/fog feel. I like using that texture in double exposures and collages. Of course the bursts and sprinkles and shatters also provide their own aesthetic. 190/365 // and with the darkened sky is made up of four different firework photos and one self portrait with a sunlight lamp. 190/365 // all our eyes are burned by heaven and earth is made up of 3 firework photos and one self portrait with a sunlight lamp.
The crowds, the noise, the change of the guard
It’s such a strange celebration
The kids, they laugh, there’s fire, it eats up the world
It’s such a strange celebration
All our eyes are burned by heaven and earth
It’s such a strange celebration
CATALYST
Been waiting for magic,
Killed time in traffic.
Inspiration is static —
Overstate for the dramatic
Fall back on a classic,
Easy, systematic —
Albeit anti-climatic.
Visual, photographic.
189/365 catalyst
PORTA 800
On 181/365, I broke out the old Pentax with my nifty fifty and paired it with a Porta 800 film and here we are. I used this photo as a placeholder for the masses to let them know some 35mm film was on it’s way. So we’re doing a trade. Though these were not taken, they were developed today. I use to develop and print film myself but lack the facilities. Someday I’ll get around to converting a bathroom into a darkroom but until then, I’m at the mercy of Bart, the friendly photo lab manager at Sun Color Photo, the best film processing lab around.
181/365
I can’t remember where this camera came from. When I started in the darkroom in college, I received my own film camera... I think my mother, uncle, and maybe one or two others offered or gave me their old film cameras. I have several now. Each one has it’s own unique personality. I love the pentax the most, as it’s been so reliable, and a work horse. It's never failed — knock on wood — and only slips on the wind up in the last couple frames.
184/365 catfish ln
184/365 forgotten castles in the sand
184/365 yucca blossom
My favorite of all that the ND prairie has to offer.
MIDDLE THINGS
I have an attachment to the North Dakota sky, land, weather, people…
180/365 nothing happens the same way twice
180/365 don’t think about it
173/365 got three?
174/365 caught in the rain
175/365
181/365
MAGIC ON THE PRAIRIE
There are very few things better than the wind in swnd and the big midwest skies, especially during storms.
Cotton trees are my favorite.
They’re the only tree that talks to you. They have leaves that whisper and cotton to carry your secrets.
When I was small, my grandmother told me “to grandmother’s house they go” in a sing-songy voice. All the cotton seemed to converge and gather in her yard… and I had all kinds of questions about the mysterious white specs that took over for a few weeks every year. She answered every single one.
I’d ride my bike and they would slip past my face and “to grandmother’s house we’d go…”
And so, we had a little visit on 167/365.
DISLOYAL ORDER
Doc, there’s a hole where something was
Doc, there’s a hole where something was
Fell out of bed, butterfly bandage, but don’t worry
You’ll never remember, your head is far too blurry
165/365 // Doc, there’s a hole where something was
inspired by disloyal order of water buffaloes by fall out boy
I will never give up my love affair with double exposure and crappy punk rock.
Never, never, never.
There is something so satisfying about forgetting a song for a few years only for it to come back up in rotation at the most perfect time so you can scream it at the top of your lungs.
I’m a loose bolt of a complete machine
What a match, I’m half doomed and you’re semi-sweet
So here’s a nod to one of my top five favorite FOB songs and my ongoing love affair with double exposures.
Nobody wants to hear you sing about tragedy
So boycott love (detox just to retox)
COLLAGE TAKE OVER
Collage exploration has begun.
155/365 // maybe I imagined it
156/365 // there is no easy way out
It’s going well.
157/365 // (Gone) have I been fading away? Shapeshifter, there’s no way back
inspired by “gone” by knuckle puck
It’s the 5th of June. Every time it’s the 5th of June, I think of the song Gone by Knuckle Puck
But I'll still think of you on the fifth of June
'Cause when I saw you, I lost you all over again
This song is especially visual so it worked out well to continue the collage theme. But I have also been wanting to do this dispersion technique — where it looks like a person or object is “disappearing”. I teach it but don’t often use it in my own editing.
Doesn't it feel good to be invisible?
(Gone) just like the way I used to be
(Gone) have I been fading away?
So when I remembered “the 5th of June” I knew I could combine the dispersion technique with the visual words within the song.
You're a shapeshifter, you're never gonna get the girl
There's no way back, there's no way back
You're a shapeshifter, you're never gonna change the world
There's no way back, there's no way back
I like the word shapeshifter and as you may have noticed, I have a lot of photographs of birds. I took one of my favorites and allowed that to be the thing the figure is “dispersed” into, shape shifts into... It felt a bit incomplete until I added an “up is down, down is up” backdrop of this yellow house. This is why you save all the photos you take…
NOW & THEN
song: now & then by Sjowgren
I knew then what I know now
I may lose it for a second now and then
151/365 // I knew then what I know now
I rarely like a cross process image anymore. I overdid it when I was first starting out. It got a bit out of hand. I got burnt out but tonight the way the light hit the side of the white house. The clouds on the other side of the world were doing a thing. It felt like a cross process kind of light.
When I first learned how to edit photos, it was all self taught on an old site called pic monkey? picnic monkey? something really ridiculous and they had all these interesting presets. I would memorize how they changed my photographs. I got really good at analyzing color and light that way, so not time wasted but I would start to search for that “light”. Out in the world and how it would appear. I’d tell my friends, “Oh yeah, it’s totally cross process light right now.” I thought I was so cool, you know what, no I was cool, dammit.
Anyway cross process comes from film photography. It’s a technique that requires you to intentionally mess with the chemicals, like using the “wrong” or a different recipe for the type of film you’re developing. I only used one color film in college and I followed the recipe because, hello — rule follower. I regret not messing with color film more. Anyway using a different or wrong recipe made the film come out with random and unpredictable color changes.
When digital took over, people started manipulating photographs to “look” like film in photo editing software. I’m sure there’s a great video out there to tell you just how to do it wherever you edit but the best way to get good at editing is to just do it often and keep trying things. All I do for fake cross process look is shift the curves channels, mostly green and blue. In this double exposure image, I went a little past cross process but it still reminded me of back then.
So Sjowgren has the perfect song for that. It’s also a song that has just a strong feel to it and it felt like outside tonight. It is the end of something but it’s not over. The last day, but really just the start. Endings, beginnings, doors, windows. All the cliche sayings. I’m not sure what to think. My thoughts are still spinning, sitting, stalling, settling. I’ll have to get back to you.
But here’s what I learned tonight editing, I adore placing cloud overlays in prairie grass and blending with a soft light or hard light. Double exposures forever.
CLOUD GENERATOR
song: cloud generator by tycho
149/365
133/365
148/365
146/365
140.
down Alice’s staircase
the magazine room waits
beware of rabbit hole gates
IT'S ALL GONNA BE OKAY
When everyone gets the northern lights and all you get is a cheshire moon and darkness… Lemon life.
131/365
ONE DOWN
Are you paying attention?
The light this morning. It doesn’t get much better than that. Like a literal film light leak, splayed out across the eastern sky. I pulled over three different times and retraced my steps back and forth trying to find just the right angle to see it as it was.
I left the car running.
I left the window down.
I left the music on and it happened again.
One Down by Slaughter Beach, Dog played through the speakers.
Magic.
124/365 // 5/3/24 06:50:30
”One Down” by Slaughter Beach, Dog
The trees are bare
I breathe the air
I hold it down real deep
Before I let it out
The trees aren’t bare, they’re in bloom. The light leak looks like the sun taking a breath, holding it deep and letting it out. The smallest moments are the biggest ones in hindsight and I’ve got to collect them all. One Down.
BARELY, JUST BARELY
I barely, just barely out ran the rain tonight. On my drive home, I felt too tired to create a self portrait inside so I was hunting for a photo as the clouds swirled and drifted into thunder heads. There was a deep blue thickening up the west and I was chasing after it. I stopped about a mile from the house and pulled into a residential area. The plan was to run up — just the most massive hill —and get a wide shot of the road and said hill with the clouds rolling in but… It just wasn’t right. I saw the photo clearly in my head but it fell flat in reality. Maybe, for the best, because it did involve a lot of darting on and off the road on a blind approach.
121/365
On my way up the hill, before knowing all this, the sprinkles were just beginning. And I heard a plane so, naturally, I looked up. Shocker, I know. And there it was, almost floating in and out of this gray haze. I haven’t seen that before. The opacity faded in and out as it passed between these soft, foggy layers. I almost missed it, focusing and adjusting the settings but I got it, just in time before it was lost in the cloud cover.
121/365 // cloud cover
On the way back down, it was a mad sprint to the car as the rain was roaring and the camera was exposed. Editing these, I get a bit envious of the simplicity of it all. The plane slips in and out of view, sheltered and isolated. I live near an airport and I watch them roll in from time to time. Some days, there’s one after the other, crystal clear. But occasionally, I can only hear them, obscured and guarded by cloud cover. Such a simple thing, wrapped in tiny liquid water droplets, high above it all. There’s a Tiny Moving Parts song called Day Drunk. And it goes like…
It’s just me in the kitchen looking up at the clouds
I wonder what they talk about
And it would make an interesting story if someone could figure out how to tell it.