Pride Parade

So, it's pride 09. I wasn't on, but these I like. For those who don't know: I'm straight. And I'm not going to lie, this was mostly about being a part of the spectacle and drinking and cooking out for me. But yes, I do support a whole range of gay rights, marriage and equal protection and other things. But this was a party on wheels.

I'd like to say the big fail is because of the lack of intimacy with the subject(true), or sub-standard camera equipment(not true), but really it was because I lacked two things: focus and a camera strap. I wasn't focused on taking pictures, more on riding the new bike, and I didn't have a strap to hold the camera so I was constantly death gripping it and worried I would drop it.

Two days before, but already started at the Copa.

The Bike Horde.





This was something about people wearing leather and being gay? Not sure. update from my friend hope who Knows Things: "The picture at the pride parade the people in leather. Its the national leather association. that's what the blue and black flag with the red heart represents. its a BDSM community with a very strong Gay following. I know i always have the strangest information. but there you go."

This really surprised me; Dell is a big company, glad to see that they were out there in support. They have a pretty big call center here in the city.

The Boneshakers were out, all five of us that are still here and riding.

I don't know what to say about the dude on the horse.



The crowd at the end was something else. A couple thousand people, easily. All along the route there were spectators, but nothing to make me expect this.

night portraits

I actually took this because I really liked the light, and I wanted to remember it for future studio use. Single, harsh light can be good, even from directly above the subject.

Another "miracle" picture: there's no way to express how little light there is when one of the biggest sources in the picture is a cell phone screen. Of course, there's quite a bit coming off the streetlights too.

Ok, tiny post over. The pride pictures are mostly edited, they'll be along sometime soon.

last tulsa shit

I'm posting this from the backyard of a cookout after pride parade. I promise, this is the last of the tulsa photos. Until I go to tulsa again in a week or two.

skate photos...

I said at the time on twitter, that I wished for a wider lens, but really I think these aren't bad at all. A camera that can shoot sequences would be nice, and I could have shot more varied things with more lenses, but I think sometimes limitations can drive creativity, and that's what happened here.

For everybody that's tired of Tulsa pictures and posts, don't worry, I've got one more small post and then it's back to OKC pictures. And yeah, I could have put up all these pictures at once, but would you have looked as much at them, seen them as well? Anyway, there'll be a lot of pictures from pride parade hopefully, and I've a few from this week too.

More Tulsa, With Cars!

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY... was when I took these. Sunday morning, mostly, although the car show was in the afternoon. i really wasn't that impressed visually with the cars... i liked their style, I thought the work was impressive, but visually to me cars are just a big dead thing in the frame. If I'd been reporting on the car show, I would have picked out little details, but as it was I was just walking around with Rachel and Gretchen, all of us trying not to die in the heat.

















Coming soon (after I take a nap to kill the hangover): The skate sessions.

Tulsa Weekend post the first

There will be several posts, as I took a lot of photos and they're awesome.

Oh the life of a freelancer...

A week ago, I went down to medicine park to assist Jeremy Charles with a little advertorial. Hold the reflector, keep the lights from blowing away, that sort of thing. While I was there, I had a little down time to walk up the main drag and shoot a few pics of the town, and while details were being decided, I was able to shoot the little kid who was the subject of the ad in question. It was nice to get out and shoot in the mode of dropping into a location, gestalting, and shooting pictures based on those impressions.

It's also always nice to work with a pro of Jeremy's caliber, someone who knows their look, knows their gear, lights, who "gets it." That said, working with a family of four who are inexperienced in front of the camera, and having two small kids in that mix, was stressful.

a few that don't fit

these are from various random rolls, don't fit anywhere, but deserve to see the light of day anyway.

Mom was in the hospital...

for once, i actually managed to Shoot pictures of mom from start to finish in the hospital. This visit was more than a little silly. She had a non-specific infection, possbly blood, possibly kidney, but they made her stay in the hospital for 4 days when she could have stayed at home. Ostensibly it was to monitor her, but I don' think we would have done a worse job of that at home. Add to that the stress factor of being in the hospital, and the whole thing was kind of ridiculous.

Mom the day she went to the dialysis clinic with a fever.

The first cultures, which were the only ones that came back positive.

Hallway going into Presbyterian Tower, OU Med center.

Mom coming back from the vending machines. Not happy.

In the last few minutes of her stay, the doctor came in and removed her catheter.

On the other hand, she did feel quite a bit better getting out (no more infection), and she doesn't have a cardiac catheter any more- the leg graft they did several months ago is working, and as of today, she's about halfway through training to stick herself and do the whole thing at home again.

Velvet monkey opening/16th st. Friday

All I have to say is I was really off that night. A lot of blurry pics from too low a shutter speed. So that's why the coverage isn't as good as it should be.

Brofest: The Morning After

I'm not exactly sure if this was the morning after brofest or just the morening after some other party. But this guy is full of hangover.

The brunch club. Stuart here is thinking "I can't believe that I leave in just a few hours."

Celery so big it gets a photo op.

Brofest

These pictures are all from the raddest ride kickoff/fundraiser ever. Stuart, Pat and Cameron are heading across the country on the Broquest (link goes to their site). This is why film sucks sometimes; I'm just now getting the pics from their out of town party up and they're already three states into their Portland to Portland run. Oh well.

The Dudes of America played, and they're a bunch of rockstars. I'm too lazy to caption, you can figure it out. That and I'm blogging while flying down the highway. wah-hoo.

So I've finally gotten my film developed, and the first batch is just some random photos. There was another roll of old film I found in a drawer, and I think at least one of these is from that. It's really weird and difficult to be working with files scanned from film automatically. I can't adjust exposure or white balance or any of that good stuff. Oh well, at least they're better than nothing. I can't wait until I get a new body in though.

lack of posting (and why)

So I've been doing stuff and seeing things, but the reason I haven't been posting that much is this:



That's almost a week's worth of shooting. I know, I know, that's not a lot, but it will make for about a week's worth of posts, once I get around to developing it. I'm waiting on some money from a lens I sold. (With my canon body out of commission, I didn't need the 24-105 any more, so it went on ebay and sold quick).

Meanwhile, there was a race yesterday, Bike Against Hunger the First, which was pretty cool. Kudos to Ken for putting it together and for all the rad prizes. Cody won, and I'd swear he rode up to my checkpoint on one wheel. He was there and gone in about 10 seconds. Yeah though, if you ever get the chance to work a checkpoint, bring a sign and a nice chair. A beverage and a book are optional but the book probably saved my sanity, i just wished I'd had the rest of that stuff. That, and it's impossible to run a checkpoint and take pics of the checkpoint at the same time. It's one or the other.

OK, I'm going to save the rest for another day, because there are a lot of stories to tell, and a lot of pictures that go with them, so rather than mix things all about, I'll just wait until I can get the pictures, and then tell the stories.

The comments on the story about the accident in tulsa are really terrible, really sad. I can't believe people actually think like that, that the solution to driver negligence (which is almost always the case of bike accidents involving a bike and a car) is for cyclists to not ride their bikes.

I ride a road bike. I ride it on the road because it's made for pavement, and because it's illegal for me to ride on the sidewalk. For a lot of miles of my riding, there are no sidewalks. Bike trails are nice where the exist, and I don't mind dodging pedestrians and slower cyclists even, but the trails almost never go anywhere useful. I ride in the middle of the lane because that's the safest place for me to be. I am more noticeable and to pass me you have to use the other lane. I'm almost never on roads that don't have a passing lane, at least when traffic is an issue. Every cyclist with any experience knows the roads with the best pavement and least traffic to get where they are going, and new cyclists often hear about them the first time they meet other riders ('You take 10th st all the way from where? no no no, take 4th to downtown, then...').

If you're a driver, watch where you're going and don't drive drunk, ok? I see a lot of people bitching on the internet about aggro/self righteous cyclists, but if a random cyclist started killing drivers at random, and got away with it (hit and runs are the rule), wouldn't you be mad at them? This case would have been just like that, if an eyewitness hadn't run the driver off the road to stop her.

Fact: you have to double or triple your speed to reduce time traveled by a significant amount when driving in town. That means that even a full 60 seconds waiting behind a cyclist (this is a lot longer than you think) going 15 mph waiting to pass is only going to slow you by about 30 seconds in your overall travel time. You spend more time than that sitting at red lights, making coffee or chatting with co-workers. Hell, I spend more time staring at the wall persuading myself to get out of bed. It's not worth getting upset over and certainly not worth killing some poor guy who's just trying to get somewhere.

If you're a cyclist, be careful. You'd look hotter in a helmet, and by hotter I mean sexier without head injuries. Use lower traffic roads, lights, and bright clothing. Of course, none of that helped me this last time, but I know it's saved me a thousand other times. Don't be an asshole, but take the lane, it's yours by law, and if you're off to the side, it's easier to go unnoticed. If a driver is coming towards you, yell at them, whatever you feel like yelling, as loud as you can. More than once yelling "HEY!" has saved my bacon.

I think that's all. Good luck and good night.

Car Kills Two Cyclists in Tulsa, third in hospital

I already posted this to twitter, but I figure more people will see it if I put it here too. I look at all those bike pieces scattered in the road, and I'm thinking, if my bike had been super light carbon, that'd be me. Lugged Steel Saved My Life. (For those that don't know: I was hit a couple weeks ago by an inattentive driver).

Text story here and video:


This is a sad day. My heart goes out to the dude in the hospital and the families of the dead.

(another post to follow, more generally about sharing the road.)

Haley makes a rare appearance. Erin, true to form, takes advantage.

Slip n' Slide fun.



Shoes/no shoes.

Lori is shocked by the nude hippies. I don't know why, really.

Cute couple, or separated at birth?

Yeah, these don't really need captions:

photos of the brace

So last night I was mobbed at the party when I took off my shirt... mobbed with markers. This is the result.

Wednesday photos

This is sort of a test post, I'm mucking about with the stylesheet. I'm also writing some essays for the photobook I've been trying to do since january. Wednesday was a success though, in that I got out and had a good time. And I took some photos. The style might not be right, but I'm working on it.