Jan 19, 2012

I worked between Memorial and the senior high today as a Latin teacher. It's nice to have that definite break of two hours for lunch in between schools. The classes were all pretty good.

I went down to Heislerville for a run somewhere different later. I took the straight path along the water up and back. It was about three miles and an overall boring run, but I was tired of the usual places. I stayed to take some photos of the water and grasses for a while after.

Kate, Chuck, and I went to Hammonton to see Brenda's gallery opening. She had her sculptures and some of her liquid emulsion photos, which I love. I want to do more of those. We stuck around for a while listening to Wil play some music and talking to Brenda.

We went to PB's next to meet Shannon and have some drinks. There's always plenty of Yards on tap and something new that I don't get to try most places.

We had a good time and some light food. We stayed there for a while until we were tired and then headed home. I wish this bar were closer.

Good times.

Nov 10, 2011

Ryan and I went to the gym in the morning then headed to Parvin with Erika for a run. We took opposite directions as usual. It was a nice brisk day for a run and my time was surprisingly quick for how slow I felt I was running.

Alex and I took a trip to Hammonton to check out the Noyes Gallery where Brenda works so I could get an idea of how I wanted to frame my photos that I was submitting there to be sold. There was some great work hanging by a lot of local artists. I figured I would keep it simple with my frames.

I went up to Westby to meet Christy and Elaina to check out Will's senior show. There were some interesting digital art pieces there that I had no idea he even did. Overall the show felt strange and it didn't really work for me. He's clearly talented with what he does, I just felt that it wasn't a very good way to fill that space.

After hanging out for a while and talking up there I headed home to attempt to get a job and watch some Thursday night television.

Apr 29, 2011

After taking care of some e-mails that I've needed to answer for quite a while and editing some photos, I went out for a run on a beautiful day. My knee had been hurting, but running makes it feel better somehow. I took the basic trail that we took during the 5K except starting at my house instead.

After the run I went back down the trail for a quick walk and took some photos of the trail and the flowers. I liked this one with both phases of a dandelion.

Later, I met Joanna and we went to a place called Thai Chili. They were very friendly and even their food was smiling. Mmm spring rolls.

The food looked amazing and was presented really nicely. My rice was shaped like a heart. The eggplant dish that I had was great. And I got an orange for dessert. Win. And Foursquare gave us a discount. Thanks!

When we got back we stopped at Margaret's show at the High Street Gallery. She had up her paintings on cut wood. They all looked great. She's really good. There was another person's paintings up as well that were nice. I'm always impressed by painting.

I spent the rest of the night in Westby with Alex editing my photos for finals. I changed my ideas a few times about what exactly I wanted to do for it.

I came home pretty late, but there was no need to get to bed early, or so I thought.

Apr 21, 2011

I actually got to class on time and then sat through two long presentations that took up the majority of the session. Keith did a short lesson after we asked questions of the groups.

I went with Joanna to get food at the caf, where they had a decent veg pad thai. After I filled up on that I went to class and spent some time altering my image to be printed on a transparency so it could then be transferred to my steel. The printer was not working properly so I couldn't get the print done today, but I did get a few people to come down to shoot in the balloon pit.

Later was the graphic design opening so I joined the hundred other people that were there for all twelve designers' show. There was a lot of good work on display; mostly posters and package designs.

In the room across the hall, the portfolio of each student was laid out to give a better understanding of their body of work. They were really nicely done.

The many boxes of wine were easily drained somewhat early in the night. It's a good thing we had a secret stash.. We hung out in the gallery room for a while when Cait and her friends got there. After a while people were all leaving so we followed suit.

Christy and Elaina came down to the box so I could shoot them, but even after I was done they stayed in there playing. It really is a lot of fun.

I went back to Alex's with her and then Cait came back from the bar with her friends and we ordered food. I got this giant panzarotti for some reason and ate about a fifth of it.

It felt like a long day, but that could partially be from staying up until 4am.

Apr 13, 2011

Gym time with Ryan in the morning. We did a few circuits of exercises that wore me out a bit. I go so infrequently I'm not sure anymore if they're exhausting exercises or if I'm just a lazy ass.

After showering and getting pretty I went up to the Student Center where GSA's mock gay wedding was getting into gear. I shot people setting up and getting ready for the ceremony.

The ceremony began in front of a less-than-packed audience and the wedding party came down the aisle, followed by the brides.

After a brief speech about love and the usual, the brides were pronounced married and then presented to the audience and walked off down the aisle. It was a pretty short ceremony.

The reception took off upstairs and we got some Lady Gaga on the speakers and then got to the eating portion. There was only a little bit of vegetarian food, but the hummus was awesome.

I got a (rain)bowtie and kept shooting photos as people danced and ate. We had a really good time celebrating.

The usual wedding things happened, like the throwing of the bouquets, the garter belt thing and even line dancing. The cake cutting was the most anticipated event of the evening as Keith made it and it was delicious.

There were bubble everywhere, as people got them on their seats as souvenirs. People shuffled out after a while, but we stuck around for quite a while listening to Glee songs and dancing. It was a lot of fun.

A group of us went to Peking Buffet for dinner. I hadn't been to a buffet in quite sometime and I'm still not that good at eating a lot. The food was really good though and we laughed a lot about stupid things.

I went with Leah to the High Street opening of Jenny's class's photographs. There were some really good shots, such as Lauren's, but overall the show seemed really crowded on the walls and it was hard to focus on one piece. There was a pretty good musician playing while I was there though. (The Amboys.. which Jeff and I were going to name our band long ago.)

I went over to Chris's opening in Westby next. He had a good amount of wine so I had some of it. There was fruit too. I wish I just went there to eat. Alex made her dinner there.

His show had all of his final pieces next to initial sketches he did for them. It was a really cool idea and it shows off his talent and attention to detail. I wish I could paint.

Quizzo was interesting. We got a lot of answers, despite people taking a complete round off for some reason. We got it without 'em. I thought we did really well, but, alas, we did not win nor did we get close to winning.

I went to Kat's when I got back to celebrate Wednesday, which this week meant sitting on the couch, drinking two beers, then eating kettle corn to keep from falling asleep.

I left in hopes of getting to sleep early but ended up not getting to sleep for quite some time anyway. Oh well.

Mar 29, 2011

I came to class late and joined in the fun in the dark room. I didn't miss much it seemed, but I was there in time to start printing from the negatives to refresh myself in printing. It seemed that I remembered a lot more than I gave myself credit for. I made a nice print with relative ease.

I spent some time during the next class shooting people working in the studios, including the photo lab where people were seeing their 35mm film developed for the first time, which explains their expressions. I got a lot of the shots we needed during that period.

I went downstairs for the artist talk by Beverly Semmes. She showed a lot of her work on a slide show and explained her process. It was all interesting, including the woman in the front row who thought the talk was about feminism and rudely interrupted the whole thing to ask why she wasn't talking about it and then walked out.

After the talk, we got some very good finger foods and were able to view the gallery with the actors in their positions. The room was filled with fabric and two large dresses hung above a table where two women sat silently putting together a puzzle. Her concepts and visuals are really intriguing.

I worked on some Gallery things with Alex, giving her the photos I shot earlier and figuring out what else we had left to do. Christy stopped in after her class was finished and we watched some of the Mighty Boosh. That show is hilarious.

Mar 10, 2011

I went to History of Photo, where we discussed presentations and our online midterm (a midterm I would inevitably forget to do...) We spent some time on information about photographers after all of that.

I spent the next couple of hours trying to figure out and then adjusting the track lighting in the gallery. I wanted the lighting to look nice. It was a pain to move them all. Actually, the ladder was even more of a problem to move because it was taller than the ducts in the room. Eventually all of the lighting was set up and it looked really good.

Christy had been helping me with the lighting and we both decided we should have a lunch break. We went to Saladworks. Of course. I got a delicious soup on a rainy, rainy day. We went over to Shop Rite after eating to get supplies for the evening. I got a bunch of soda that I don't drink, chips and cookies.

I brought all the stuff back and set it out on the food table and before I knew it, it was almost time for the show to start.

People started showing up and eating foods and looking at work. A lot of people came and everyone seemed to really enjoy the whole show.

Even Shannon came into the art department and spent some time just for my show!

Mark did a dramatic reading of some of my notes. Jeff looks amused.

Josh did an interview with me after the show about the meaning of the pieces and what else I'd be working on. I think it went well.



You can watch it here.

We all hung out after the show for a while and then went to get pizza at Ciconte's because I hadn't eaten enough earlier.

I was very happy with my reception. It went better than I had hoped and only a few people weren't there that I wish had been. Most everyone got to see it though so that's all that matters.