I’ve stayed pretty quiet this week, other than shooting a wedding and taking approximately a million photos inside my house, specifically photographing old family photos I’ve dug up from the closet so I can archive them digitally. I spent a lot of time with my mom, brother, and estranged cat, Raphael (who has been living with my mom for the last two years because I’m too scared to fly him across to SF).

This is my mom and my cat.

This is my brother.

The wedding I photographed was that of a good friend from high school, Ellen. Here are a few shots from the day… if you were a guest and want to see the rest of the wedding photos, you’ll be getting a private link from Ellen shortly.

PS – Don’t judge me for my lack of wedding watermark awesomeness. I’ll design a better one at some point in the future.

The family photos I’ve been photographing have been to make THIS:

(You can click the photo to see the whole page.)

I’ve been making memory pages for my entire extended family, including myself. The experience has been pretty freaking amazing – I finally own photos of my Dad (I owned absolutely none prior to this), I saw what my grandfather looked like for the first time (as well as many great-aunts, uncles, and three out of four great-grandparents), have tons of ridiculous photos of my mom and her sisters from the 70s, and have been up with my mom until 3 a.m. every night listening to her tell stories. Honestly, you really need to do this next time you go home. It’s still blowing my mind. I’ll write more about it in the near future.

So tomorrow (I mean today) I’ll be waking up early, and my long-time adventure buddy and ultimate bro Logan (you can click that link to see an old photo of us posing with my childhood piano trophies) is going to pick me up and we’re going to explore the depths of Eastern North Carolina, as we agreed this would be a proper thing for us to do while I’m home. So we’re going to Aurora and exploring fossil fuel pits. I’ll take photos.

PS – I’ll be back in Raleigh tomorrow night, and would like to see all of you RDU folk. You will likely find me somewhere near the intersection of Hargett and Wilmington streets by nightfall, FYI.

That’s all, I’m off to bed.

END!

2010 has been a very unique year for me. It’s probably the most stable my life has been in at least five years – staying put in one city, stable income, relationship, 9-5 schedule – quite an adjustment for me. That said, it’s still been a year full of big changes, developments, preferences formed, lessons learned.

Most of the big changes came in March. I was working a job that, despite sounding pretty cool, made me quite miserable. I felt incredibly overworked and undervalued, and spent a good bit of early 2010 quietly hunting for jobs, though quiet jobs hunts never seem to be too productive. Fortunately (though it didn’t seem that fortunate at the time), I got fired. I immediately tweeted that I needed a job, and within five days, got hired by an incredible communications firm, where I still work today.

Around the same time, I met Aaron. Upon meeting him I was pretty sure he’d end up being my boyfriend. Sure enough, still is.

I’ve gone through a series of quarter-life crises over my photography, professional life, etc., but I continue to meet and work with folks that bring out the best in me and value what I bring to the table. As 2010 comes to a close, I’m surrounded by people who value and appreciate me, and that is the best gift I could possibly fathom receiving.

2010 largely set the stage for 2011, and I’m prepared to have an even better year-in-summary 12 months from now. So that said, 2010, you were good to me, but I’m ready to put you to rest. Move along now.

Anyway. Here are some photo-highlights from 2010. As I was sorting through my year in photos today, I noticed that this year in retrospect felt significantly shorter than 2009 – largely because I didn’t actually take many photos or write blogs this year. Frankly, that sucks. So in 2011 I vow to start taking more photos and blogging again, if anything, for the sake of my own sustained memories – that’s why I started this blog in the first place.

So, for those of you who read this from time to time, hi, and thanks for reading.

Happy new year!
hp

2010 recap photos:

Visiting North Carolina.

Having visitors from North Carolina.

Photogging SF music makers.

SFMOMA times.

Underground times.

Above ground times.

Dolores babies.

Road trips to Santa Cruz.

..and then driving until you reach Hermosa Beach by morning.

The first of many photo adventures with Aaron.

Lake Tahoe.

Wondercon.

Megavisits.

Road trips to Portland.

SF photo adventures.

Getting a Minolta for my birthday, and immediately becoming obsessed w/ film.

Visits from Yogi & Party Boy.

Exploring California.

Heading back to North Cack to shoot Hopscotch Music Festival, visit family & friends, and intro Aaron to the dirty south.

Baker Beach times.

Business meetings in LA…

Visits from Erin & JT.

Riding holiday trains through Niles Canyon.

Getting a Yashica Mat for Xmas, and shooting medium format for the first time (something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time).

END!

The Background:

I wouldn’t say my photo taking has much of a process. I’m constantly on the hunt for new and adventurous situations, and I have a tendency to observe interesting details in what may seem mundane to others. Once I find the situation, I just document it.
I have been taking photos as long as I can remember. I was the girl in gradeschool who everyone always counted on to have a camera on her at football games or birthday parties. I took lots and lots of pictures. Fairly bad pictures, but pictures nonetheless. I simply found the process of documenting and sharing exciting moments as exciting, if not more exciting, than the moment itself.

In the years that followed, I quickly learned that I had a taste for adventure and a need to document it. I traveled on a whim whenever possible, toured the country a few times, and tirelessly explored my city, documenting every bit. I started my hobby of photography and storytelling, first via email list, then later via queenofthepavement.com, and continue to do so to this day.

I’m settled into San Francisco now, and not traveling like I used to, but I’ve realized that if you treat everything like an adventure, whether it be a spontaneous road trip or pretending to be a tourist in your own town or just wandering around your neighborhood, you’ll find your life far more exciting and worthy of documenting.

The Shot:

Prep was minimal, other than spontaneously buying a plane ticket from North Carolina to San Francisco, renting a car, driving to Sausalito, jumping in the air, and shooting a self-portrait, mid-air, in a storefront reflection. Reflections fascinate me – they’re a sort of living distortion of reality, and I find myself observing and photographing my environments through them often.

I’ve probably taken (technically) better shots, for sure, but I always come back to this shot when browsing for favorites. I’ve always felt this photo best captured the excitement I associate with my new discoveries and experiences. That’s really what photography’s about for me – being able to revisit a photo or story and feel the excitement and novelty I felt in that moment, and hopefully being able to share a bit of that feeling with others as well.

Tech Specs:
Camera: Canon EOS 50D
Focal Length: 18mm
Aperture: f/3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO: 200
Mild level adjustments in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom

Go check out the calendar to find some new photogs around the country. Glad I could be a part!

END!

July 2010

My bedroom window & my very round head. I think I was excited because my hair was finally long enough to put in a bun.

Adventuring in the Mission.

Aaron had very curious facial hair at this time.

Late-night spontaneous trip to Ocean Beach. Aaron’s facial hair has transformed slightly. Also, please note our San Francisco “summer wear.”

August 2010

Mick & Lauren’s wedding! The dude on the left with the sweet beard just got married.

Pete & Esme being cute & shit.

Still cute.

Dude’s facial hair continues to evolve.

REAL. THEY ARE REAL.

We are twins. I’m on the right.

Wandering around California again, this time in an abandoned concrete factory (or something like that).

October 2010

Flying to LA for the afternoon. Yes, for the afternoon. My first business flight ever! Life is fun right now.

Oh, and another fun update – I’m a product photographer for Photojojo now! I’m truly stoked to be working for one of my favorite companies on the planet, and doing what I love at that. I’m still working my day job at theMIX agency, of course, which continues to rule. It’s just great to have a side project that satisfies me creatively and happens to earn me money at the same time! Life is developing swimmingly.

You can see my first gallery of shots on the Photojojo site here.

That’s all for now. END!

A trouble detector outside of Aaron’s apartment.

Finding horse (or maybe dinosaur) jaws in Niles Canyon.

Exploring some concrete factory ruins somewhere in California. More photos to come from that later.

Atlantic Ocean.

Pacific Ocean.

Sunset picnic at Baker Beach, shortly after being introduced to a European grocery store in the Richmond. My picnic food consisted of rye bread and salmon eggs, and it ruled.

Ok, so this is kind of crazy. After enjoying shooting film with the Minolta so much, I decided to pick up my old Canon EOS Rebel that has been sitting in my room for a year or so now. It was originally my mom’s, and one day a few years ago, while visiting home, I noticed it sitting in a “$5″ box for the yard sale she was having the next day. I of course swiped it. I forgot about the camera until a couple of weeks ago. A roll of film was already in the camera (I had no idea what was in it), so I finished up the roll, not having a clue if anything would even turn out. I was surprised to see these shots show up in the scans.

These are from Raleigh, probably two years ago, at GraffitiSpark. The guy below, Joe, is now a friend of mine, but I had no idea who he was when I took this photo. I remember loving his art more than anyone else’s that day.

And some more surprise shots from the past…

And here are some shots, taken recently, from the same roll.

The first test shot. The owner of the bike walked up as I was taking this, and seemed a little agitated/creeped out that I was photographing his ride. I complimented his bike and skipped off.

Walking through my neighborhood.

This is jpeg. She’s the newest member in Troy and Shipa‘s family, and we love her. You can even follow her on twitter: www.twitter.com/jpeg.

This is jpeg trying to make Troy into a nice chair.

Aaron + jpeg being bros.

I’m still figuring out this whole film thing… and yes I’m still hooked. It takes me a while to get stuff developed (I’m going to have to start budgeting for film), but I’ll be posting it in clumps here and there. Stay tuned.

END!

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while. I’ve become somewhat bored with digital, or bored with something… I’m not exactly sure what. Regardless, I felt the urge to try something different in photoland.

So, for my birthday, Aaron bought me a Minolta x-370 while we were at the flea market.

Since then, I’ve been taking all kinds of photos with it, and it’s been a pretty epic experience for me. It’s hard to explain, but I sort of explained it on Flickr recently:

I just started shooting film, and it is a totally different ballgame. My brain is processing it completely differently.

You have to relinquish control of your work – “control” being the ability to look at your digital camera and know that your shot is as guaranteed as a successful upload to your hard drive.

For someone who holds the documentation of life experience perhaps higher than the experience itself, this is hard to adjust to. For me, moments not documented are moments lost. It sounds a bit extreme, but that’s just how my brain works. I’m sure there are folks out there who can relate.

Knowing that shots are not guaranteed is seriously an emotional roller coaster for me. But damn, film is fun, and (so far) way more satisfying.

Anyway, here are some film shots I’ve taken over the last couple of months, with some stories to go with them.

This is the first successful shot to come out of the Minolta. Aaron, Dakota and I were at friends Troy & Shilpa’s house for a barbecue (side note: I can’t believe I just wrote “barbecue” instead of “cookout.” Am I officially a west-coaster now?), where we met this great little dog named Boobies. He was a stoic little guy, despite being absolutely frozen and shaking like crazy. I let him sleep inside my jacket for a while, and he managed to warm up a bit.

This came from a roll of film that was in the camera when we got it, so I wasn’t sure if anything would come out. This is the only photo that did.

This is actually from Aaron’s holga – he let me steal it and run around downtown with it for a week. I actually really love shooting medium format, and hope to have a med. format camera by next year.

These were from an adventure day in the Mission. This is also when I realized that ordering “web scans” from the photostore equals “really shitty really small yet still really expensive scans.”

This is Aaron without a beard!!! A rare and elusive creature, beardless Aaron is.

This was a really foggy windy day in Alamo Square. I had to sit down to avoid getting blown over. The photostore told me to use this Tungsten film and cross-process it, and this is what came out. I think this is when I fell in love with film.

Working with manual focus & a really shallow depth-of-field is hard. Usually I just point my camera at something and my camera will focus on whatever’s in the middle of my image, I adjust accordingly. Not with this. I have to guestimate the distance that will be in focus, and just hope that something works out when I get the film back.

I still can’t believe this photo actually turned out. It was shot with my film Minolta, with a manual focus lens. After some time awkwardly holding out my left hand in front of my face, using my other hand to hold the camera to my face and adjust the focus to my left hand simultaneously, I finally measured up a distance that I hoped would be about equal to what I’d need for a self-portrait… a total guessing game. Did that make any sense? I also should mention that during this process I was standing on a giant, unstable rock, beside a river underneath an overpass in the middle of some random canyon in California.

In summary, this experience was much more awkward than it looks.

This was sitting on a rock in Niles Canyon. I sometimes go on random adventures with Aaron. He’s a street art & graffiti photographer, so we go on elaborate hunts for awesome pieces, and, in this case, we were sick of shitty weather and hunting for sunlight. This put us under a bridge next to a river somewhere in the middle of nowhere (I was standing on the same rock in the above photo). It was super hot and sunny – a nice contrast for the weeks of cold and fog we’d been having in SF lately.

These are Aaron’s bike and plants.

I also have some shots from my recent North Carolina visit, but I’ll save those for the next blog.

END!

This blog comes about two weeks late, but it’s still neat, so I feel like I should post it.

This was a homework assignment. I was to experiment with white balance, and create a project that reflected what I had discovered. Kind of a broad assignment.

I figured that since we obviously weren’t going for technical precision, intentionally messing up our proper white balance, I would abandon photo-realism altogether and shoot everything through reflections. In San Francisco, especially in the Financial District and SOMA, they are a-plenty.

As usual, I wasn’t to photoshop any of the photos I took (even cropping is against the rules). I messed with the colors by creating custom white balance in the camera. It turned out pretty neat. I played with levels on some of them post-homework, but most of them are straight from the camera. What a huge change for me.

And some more random shots from that day:

END!

1 – I got 431 visits and 1,131 page views on my blog today. Seriously, WTF. I didn’t even post today, technically. I’m posting this first not because it is remotely the most interesting or important, but I found out approximately 5 minutes ago.

2 – I met MC Hammer last night. I was at the afterparty of a social media conference sponsored by Involver, and Hammer happened to be the keynote speaker. And there he was, at the W Hotel, asking me how I was doing. Apparently a “good, how are you” was enough to provide closure to the conversation for him, and he was off, on his way to probably ask every girl at the bar the same thing. But what a sweet sweet moment we shared.

3 – I started my job at Triple Point PR on Tuesday. My first day consisted largely of learning a bit about our clients (all related to gaming, tech, social media – awesome), and eating Thai food at Osha. I could get used to this. However, I am certainly not getting used to waking up at 7 am as opposed to my previous standard 11 am wake up time. I miss being worthless in the morning already. Oh well, the job wins and it happens to be awesome.

Ok, I’ll stop numbering now.

Anyway. The whole job commencement ended up throwing a bit of a wrench in my photo project schedule. Basically, a schedule that was the product of procrastination, indecisiveness, and bad weather. By starting the job on Tuesday, I was sacrificing the only time I had set aside to complete my weekly assignment – Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Oops.

So about the assignment. I was to create a photo essay portraying “a day in the life of… (insert location here)”.

My brain can work in strange ways, and this can sometimes completely sabotage any creative efforts. In this case, I had so many ideas for locations and narratives, and spent so much time weighing the pros and cons of each, and as time passed I began getting apprehensive of my decreasing time, as well as the thought of my project not living up to the awesomeness of my ideas, and basically worried myself into an unproductive procrastinating rut. It’s really an effective system I’ve got going.

By Sunday, I finally decided to conquer my brain and just go shoot Alamo Square. The view is great, the lighting in the evening is incredible, and it’s always full of characters and dogs and whatnot. It also happens to be a block away from my house. It wasn’t one of the epic narratives I had in mind, but I’m sure I can pull off some neat material. It was warm and sunny all day, perfect for spending my evening in the park. I would ideally have the project done within an hour.

I arrive at the park to a fun surprise – cold, wind, and fog, enshrouding my creative space. Needless to say, nobody was at the park. There were a few exceptions (by the name of Cyndie, Tara, Chris, and Greg), as I happened to invite them, and they were awesome enough to actually show up, despite the terrible conditions. I didn’t end up shooting much of anything… but did enjoy an evening on a blanket with some cheese and crackers and local brews.

So Alamo Square was out. I was basically left with no choice but to shoot where I would be spending the next two days – at work and school. So I chose to do a day in the life of my walk from my work building to my school building… the photos basically range from 1st + Market to Powell + Sutter, with a few random streets inbetween that I happened to wander.

The whole shoot was a bit frantic, and I barely finished sizing and submitting my photos in time. I was actually feeling pretty crappy about the whole project, being so rushed, and barely having time to even look at the photos I took, but now that I have the time to sit down and actually see them, I dig them.

This particular class I’m shooting for is a huge work of discipline for me – you are not allowed to use photoshop AT ALL. You are to submit the photos as they were on your camera. The basic idea is… get it right the first time. Get the levels perfect, get the crop perfect, consider all elements of the shot before you take it. Not so easy when all of your subjects are in motion on the busiest street in the city. But a good challenge for me, nonetheless.

The awesome thing about shooting in the financial district – even if the light is harsh, it is easy to play creatively with it. The light that shoots between the tall buildings forms sort of natural spotlights… so if you ever happen to notice the chick awkwardly standing against a tree on Market pointing her camera patiently at light spots waiting for people to walk under them… that’s me. Say hi.

So yeah. I just tried to take a set of photos illustrating my daily walk from work to class, focusing on the elements I tend to focus on in everyday life – interesting people, interesting lighting, interesting situations.

Ok, time to crash before another long day tomorrow.

END!

I stumbled upon this little gem on the way to the museum. I could hear them blasting Bee Gees through the streets from within my bus as I passed them the first time. Once off the bus, I patiently waited for them to catch up and had a nice brief interaction with the unit. They invited me to hop on, but I told them I had to be on my way. It would have been fun though. I saw them again later that night in my neighborhood.

I met up with my friend Tara at the SFMOMA entrance, and she quickly told me to turn around to see Pierce Brosnan, the biggest crush of my 9th year of life, patiently waiting for his vehicle beside us. Damn. He still looks as good as he did in Dante’s Peak. His driver arrived and swept him away before I could charm him. Next time.

So back to the MOMA. Exhibitions of note:

Sensate – Bodies & Design. A collection of pieces that reflect debates about what bodies are and how they relate to design. I particularly loved Andrew Kudless’s 45-foot cast plaster P_Wall. It just looks like pasty fat rolls. Also reminded me of my 9th year of life (my “butterball” phase, as my dad would kindly refer to it).

I was surprised to find that I was actually allowed to take photographs. Last time I was in an art museum was last fall in NYC, and they certainly weren’t having anything to do with my camera use over there. I suppose that, thanks to cell phone cameras, museums have finally retreated in the photo war.

I have discovered that photographing glass boxes is a convenient way of photographing people that don’t want to be photographed. Until these people notice I’ve taken 20 photos of the same box and become suspicious.

As far as my approach to photographing the rest of the museum… I work keeping in mind that at least 37290 people have photos of the pieces in these displays. I can either take some generally uninspiring photos trying to duplicate what is displayed, or I can try to make something unique out of what I’m supplied with… basically incorporating the piece and its environment to make something completely new. I’ve been trying to use this approach to most things I find in the city these days.




(Yeah, this is one of those replicas, but I loved it too much not to include.)



Okay, if you have the opportunity, go see the Richard Avedon exhibit. Jesus effing christ. His portraiture is incredible.




Seriously, this photo scares the shit out of me. Avedon’s portrait of dance teacher/killer Joe Piro. The portrait is perfect.

The rest of the museum was a bit anticlimactic at this point.

Once finished up at the museum, I headed back home to find a little art party in the yard, consisting of Cyndie, Maia, and Martha. Everyone’s preparing for the giant annual art party my house throws every fall. Glad my social debut happens to be as one of the hosts.

That’s all for now.

END!

I’m starting my MFA program at the Academy of Art in San Francisco in September.  These are the photos that got me into grad school.