Dom and Chinon.

Grim and various cams

Last week I tried to go thrift store shopping. I attempted again today but got side tracked. I was very much enjoying the song on the radio (The Toadies – Possum Kingdom). I was so into it. I effing love this song. That I missed my turn. I took the next turn and out of the corner of my eye I see the word Chicago. Then “Welcome to Chicago”. WTF.

I pulled a u-turn and stared in disbelief.

Looks very familiar. Vienna Beef. Its defiantly worth a shot. I tell myself I can’t be too excited. Its NC after all. I go in and the guy asked me if I had been there before, I told him no but I was from Chicago. He smiles, oh so you are familiar. Yes.

I ordered an Italian beef for Jeff and hotdog for me. As he is making it he explains that he is from Chicago and he has been in NC for 30 years. For the last 30 years its always bothered him that there is no Italian Beef outside of Chicago. So three months ago he opened up shop. He even gets the beef and dogs shipped in FROM Chicago. ok, now I’m excited.

He further explains that he has a map near the door that have Chicagoland and push pins to mark your neighborhood. All the pins he got in 3 months. I thought that was pretty good. AND I wanna know who the other Aurora pin in. I marked Aurora for me and Jeff and (after taking the pic) South Elgin for me.

I came home and presented Jeff with his food. I haven’t seen him that happy in a long time. Not like since we were home, but like a LONG time. We ate our Chicago food in near silence and enjoyed every single bite. And I gotta say, it was good. It was authentic. I was impressed.

Thank god for small world syndrome.

So I’m sitting at my computer desk. Starring off into nothing. Waiting for something to happen. When Dom brings me this cute creepy little toy he has. I think to myself I need a picture of this thing before he tears it apart completely.

DING.

I haven’t taking a picture in about a week, that’s kinda a long time for me. I post maybe 5% of what I take. I genuinely just enjoying the weight of the camera in my hands. But its been a stressful couple weeks. Stress blocks up my creative juices.

I made a little makeshift photo studio by putting a big piece of fabric over the dryer and walked around the house looking for some cool trinkets. It took me about 30 minutes to decide what lens I wanted to use. The 35mm fixed focus or the basic 18-55mm. I went with the 18-55mm because the fixed focus focuses too tight when I’m so close and I wasn’t sure about the effect.

I was also having this problem where the photos were looking really muddy. Jen says I was losing pixels but I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. The normally very helpful google wasn’t doing any good at all. (“wet photo” wasn’t returning ANYTHING about pixels) No matter the ISO they still had this wet feel to them.

I realized I have my camera image size set to medium. This only using 5.6 mega pixel, which on my 22” monitor looked like shit. Like my camera phone in 2003. So up that to large and it uses 10mp

DING.

Threw it on 400 ISO and shot at between 1/20 and 1/40 shutter speed.

(I tend to use shutter speed about 80% of the time with manual focus. If I NEED the shot in one shot I use program and AF)

Also changed the white balance to fluorescent cause of the big rectangular buzzing light in the laundry room and WALA!

I rather enjoy these little journeys of learning about my camera. Plus my Frankenstein cookie jar is awesome. I know your jealous. Its ok, really.

Dom’s Toy. The body is a ball so it can bounce.

DOMO!

You want a cookie?

The cat ran off with one of these in between shoots.

There are a few more in the gallery…. if you are interested.

A few months ago Phil got Jeff an enormous computer case. Then a few months after that Jeff got a bunch of heard drives for cheap. This is what has become of this random case.

He was working on it and I was just sitting here watching him. I liked how the flashlight hit the hard drive and I like to watch him work on computers. There are alot of people that can’t do what he can do. Like MOST people.

On October 23. I’m late I know. :/
Side note – Can’t type too much cause of my wrist. I have carpal tunnel. I think its God’s way of getting back at me for making fun of the people that had the brace on and left work early cause their wrist hurt. :mocks: “oh my wrist hurts a little, oh I can’t type”. Boy, was I wrong. This is very very effing painful.

Back to the photos. Jeff’s Brother, my brother, my good friend for the last 8 years, Phil, is not now officially not a kid anymore. Time to straighten up and fly right Philip! We had a birthday party for him, as we have had the last 5 years I believe. This time I decorated with Tiffany’s help and Jeff lit the place up like a disco.

I also set up my camera for a “Photo Booth”. I think it worked out pretty well.

Happy Birthday Phil!

Self portrait – Testing the photo booth

Jeff’s lighting

Phil and Tif AW.

Party people

On October 9 Jeff and I attended the 3rd Aurora Art Walk. He – as an artist, me – an innocent bystander. The concept is simple and genius. You submit your work and enter to be a featured artist. You set up your booth with your goodies at one of 12 locations in downtown. Jeff had balls enough to do just this.

His booth was unique because he was live drawing as the night went on. He does digital paintings, as I’m sure you know, so we lugged his computer and tablet over. The fire museum let him borrow a projector and he pinned a table cloth to a garage door.

The home spun-ness combined with the palpable feeling of creativity feels amazing on my skin.

More info –

the artwalk
Jeff’s work
More of my artwalk pics

Image Copyright of the Aurora Art Walk – Not my image.

So, if they said yes, or sure or shruged and put on a smile. I am only allowed to take one photo. This is because I need to think about placement more, and because I want to capture their first expression. No practising. And no 1-2-3 SNAP. The didn’t get that much warning.

The goal is 10 photos.

More stats. As I said in the last blog – there was 17 attempts. 11 yes, 5 no, 1 Spanish speaking only.

The Pitch; “Hi there guys, sorry to bother you, my name is Teresa. I’m working on a project. (lifts camera) I was wondering if you would mind if I took a photo of you. (smile)”

6 people out of 16 asked what the project was. Yes’s and no’s. I explained it was as simple as it seemed. Go up to strangers and ask to take their photo. Notice I didn’t say it was for school, I didn’t intend to lie. But most assumed it was for school and said my “class” or “school”.

4 of 11 asked what I wanted them to do. Or how I wanted them to stand. I said, however you are comfortable. The others seemed to either already have a patented pose or never taken a photo together before. After each shot, I showed them the picture (2 said “that will be fine”) and said “Thank you” sincerely and with eye contact.

Every couple did two things.

Said thank you and walked away with a smile on their face. This may be is a testament to politeness or reflex. (“enjoy your movie” “you to”) but I want to think that there was a human connection. I had made their day more interesting. I wonder how many have already told someone about this random encounter.

While looking through the pictures, which are in order of shooting, you can see who is comfortable with each other, who may be new in a relationship, and who wasn’t so sure. There were small stories with each nervous chatter in the 30 or so seconds we spoke.

After two nos I found…

Adorable and instantly warm to me. They seemed to want to hang out and talk.

Then….

They looked at each other and seemed hesitant to get close, until the boy on the left grabbed the other and said “oh c’mon we’re brothers now”

They at first were put off until they heard photo and right away smiled. The girl on the left said she would come find me when they meet up with their friends so I could get another.

This was mother, daughters and granddaughter. The mom quickly moved away from my lens but encouraged her daughters.

These two had known each other for a very long time. They instantly embraced.

She said “what are you gonna do with the picture?!” and when I tried to answer she laughed nervously and waived the comment away.

These two had obviously been fighting in the store and she turned around to storm off and saw me. She put this smile on very easily but you can see confusion in his face.

My favorite. They were both flattered and unsure of me. But more unsure of how close to get to each other.

These two didn’t care what my agenda was. Cool guys.

“OMG thank you so much!” Very cute. I liked that they looked a little opposite.

And the bonus – Playing “Magic”

and my tally

I like to take photos. I like psychology too. I like to see pictures of people that give you an insight to their mind. (see: Diane Arbus)

Off the heels of my last post, I had this idea that I wanted to photograph strangers. Real photogs do this everyday. I don’t normally do well with new people. I choke up. I’m boring. Blah blah blah inset explanations and excuses here.

So the idea is simple and went something like this. Take pictures of people that I don’t know. Where is there alot of people? Public place…the Mall. How? Ask them….? DING! so crazy it MIGHT WORK!

Walk up to strangers, introduce myself and ask if I can take their picture.

This is exactly what I did tonight. There was only one objective. Get 10 people to let me photograph them. The following it the photographic evidence and the psych experiment that it turned into.

The Pitch “Hi there guys, sorry to bother you, my name is Teresa. Im working on a project. I was wondering if you would mind if I took a photo of you.”

I pitched 17 times. I got 11 yes, 5 no, and 1 “no habla english”.

The first two said no. I wanted to give up there, but I knew it was my confidence that was turning them off. First lets talk about the nos.

1 – A Mexican couple, 40-50 yrs old. The man did not look me in the eye. The woman giggled and looked at her husband and said “oh no” hehe

2 – A 40ish woman with her 20ish daughter. The mother laughed, never totally stopping walking, and said “oh no, not with me looking like this!”

3 – A man in his late 30s, with a blue tooth headset and a very young beautiful daughter that was playing around the fountain. He looked me straight in the eye, never looking at the camera that I was gesturing to. He said “I’d rather you didn’t”. This is the only negativity I got in this experience. He obviously thought that it was a scam of some time. I thanked him for his time.

4 – A young family. Parents in their late 20s or early 30s. 3 kids under 7. He said sure and shrugged, she looked at him like he didn’t hear me correctly. She said “I’d rather not” to him, and “because of the kids” to me. This disturbed me. What did she think a would happen to her kids if a photo is taken of them? I then realized that the last man may have thought the same. Thats sad that anyone would have to worry like that about their children.

5 – A lone man in a jewelry store. He looked about 30. He said “ya know, no” then quickly added “not to be a dick or anything”. I told him it was no problem and he wished me luck.

The no’s were pretty diverse. And just as interesting as the yes’s.

This weekend was a culmination of a few things. I was put into three situations with three very different groups of people. I was tested. My will, strength, stamina and ability to feel out a crowd.

Day One – Jeff and I were in a magazine thats produced by a very cool lady named Marissa Amoni. Its called the Downtown Auroran. Its very well put together and is full of other very cool people. You can get one pretty much all over downtown. A photo of mine and a digital painting of Jeffs were included. This is the first time we have ever been in any kind of print. I only got a couple shots at the party because I, like an amateur, forgot to charge my battery. UGH.

Day Two – Consisted of going into the dirty depths of Chicago. We visited a good friend of ours and a great DJ, Sisco. He had many unique fun friends and I made a couple new friends that night.

This next one is actually a different view of the same building that I snapped that made it in the magizine. We happened past it in search of a McDonald’s.

and Previous –

Day Three – A trek from beer pong directly under the L to a bonfire off the Fox in Yorkville. Chicago and Yorkville could not be more different. Jungle juice to Miller Lite. New friends and old friends. I honestly am not at all impressed with Bonfires. But its good for shutter speed experimentation. And its always good to see Steve.

Day Four – Today it was lunch with a couple that we are comfortable with. And continued with Jeff’s never ending homework and my obsessive wedding planning. (no we aren’t engaged…I just really like to plan things).

The weekend was spent with alot of people that I have never met before and many I may never see again. New friends and old friends. But I’m ending it with Jeff. Between Chicago, Aurora, and Yorkville there is nowhere I’d rather be than grocery shopping with my boy.