Deluxe Craft Weekend

Well, samples from the half hour that I was there. It seemed like a really fun time, and if I hadn't been sleep depping and working and whatnot this weekend, I probably would have really enjoyed doing some classes and just sitting around kibitzing with everyone. I could have gotten some of my bookbinding experiments done maybe. Anyway, photos:

a sunset, some clouds, and myself:

oh yeah, and a bourbon tasting. MMM free booze. although I was exhausted and continued to be for the rest of the weekend.

What's wrong with this picture? Somebody out there knows.

Romantic Disaster at HiLo

Romantic disaster is a local band that's doing amazing things. They've got a great sound and a great look, the kind that even comes through when they're all wasted and playing a quick set at an AIDS benefit show at a dive like the HiLo. In fact, it probably added to the rawness and unpredictability of the whole thing. Of course, your humble blogger was drunk off his ass, so maybe I was just responding to the visceral loudness and hotness of their lead singer. But I've heard them play before, when I was sober and so were they, and they're good. Put them on your list of bands to catch, and then someday, you can be like, "I saw them in this tiny ass club in OKC. The bassist used to make my pizza." Oh wait, that's me.

friends at the hilo

I'm doing something I've long threatened to do; these are here as a nice tight edit, and there are more over in my flickr. Also, romantic disaster was there, photos and review to come.

Norman Bike against Hunger Alleycat

Not much to say except Ken deserves mad props for putting together the whole bike against hunger series... and to everyone else who organized, Pearl, Stewart, Isiah, and whoever else I'm forgetting, thanks you guys for putting together an awesome set of events; every one I went to was a good time. Now, photos:

























And last but not least, a sunset. I've gotten in the habit of shooting these recently. They're cliche sure, but pretty anyway.

state fair photos

So I went to the fair saturday night.... insanity. The only time I see this many people in one place is when I'm not in oklahoma. But a fun time too, I got my annual fair lemonade and saw the slap chop guy (look at my twitpic, I'm too lazy to repost that one). By the way, can you tell I love my new wide angle way too much?























Katie, Erin, and some other people I only half know on the Fireball ride.

Also, Tommy and Deepak.

Ok, back to room cleaning.

what? 300 posts!

Yeah, I'm as shocked as you are. Some of those are drafts that were never published, but still... a year and a half and three hundred posts later, we're still here. Wow. This one sort of snuck up me. It seems like just a couple weeks ago I had the 250th post. But no. Anyway, some random photos before we get to fair stuff and bike race later today.

I don't have enough superlatives for the meal I had at Musashi's last thursday. The show was fun, but the kobe beef there is tied for the best steak I've ever had. The fried rice was also really good. I like places that pay attention to their staples.

Yeah, ooh, pretty fire. Thanks to Lori for letting me show her a good time.

Completely unrelated: Justin and Miranda.


Little creepy there Justin. (photo by @maeghan).



This picture is really kinda weird. Hipshot and unintentional.

This is weirder. Tim pole dancing.

Opolis show

Went down to norman with Chelsea (and now she has a twitter so I can link that: @thenakedsun) and took photos of the band "Deer People" (or is that "The Deer People"?) and anyway, hated the photos when I first looked, but really these aren't that bad. There's a second band down there, Mayola, they were good too. Louder and more energetic, but a lot simpler musically. I liked both.

On the way to Norman.

Oh yeah, there were random firedancers.

And then the sky opened up. And it rained a lot.

Like, really a lot, even for a place where the rain has been going for two weeks.

And then there were the bands. I was there covering Deer People, so naturally I have a lot of pictures of them. Here:

































Saw this between bands backstage.

Then Mayola rocked out a short set... I don't know about you, but sometimes really high energy three-chord rock is what the doctor ordered. And their bassist is a badass.

just some pics...

for the haters

I've been showing the draft or proof copy of the book around, and there have been some comments made about my selection of images. I'm only going to say this once, so read carefully:




I didn't pick the pictures for whatever reason you're thinking. This book is the result of 5 different edits, three of which were complete restarts from the original 25,000 pictures. It took me 6 months to get this far, a herculean task if there ever was one, so you really won't ever get the full reasoning behind what is in the book. Photographers and picture editors reading this, if you've ever had a 25,000 picture project all in your head, will understand what I'm talking about.




There are two reasons I put pictures in the book: either they told a part of the story, I thought they were a good picture, or more usually, both. Of the individual portraits, I tried not to have more than two or three of anybody, and I think I did that... but there are also pictures that are more about the things that are happening, and I didn't really think about who was in those at all. Except I did, kinda. The second edit featured a couple of people more prominently, and I actually trashed that one because I didn't like the way it felt with those people at the front. It's not about any one person, or any three, but about an indefinite number somewhere between 20 and 50, about what you can fit into a two bedroom apartment for a decent party.





That said, I think I'm going to go back and write little vignettes about the pictures... not captions, but stories to go with them. Not for all of them, but for some of them.




Note for these photos: they're all from last wednesday, there's more coming, a lot more, I have an infinite backlog right now actually. Too much other stuff going on to post, but I'm trying now. There was an unintentional hiatus while I was sick and an intentional one the past couple days, but I'm officially back.

am I late to the party, or is this just awesome?

right? (via today and tomorrow)

Norman Playground

So to put a capper on an unbelievably amazing day, we went down to norman, where Amber and her fiancee Josh fed us cake and roast and squash. Even the squash was good, and I've never like it in the past. Might have to revise that sentiment now. Anyway, we watched a movie, something weird with Zooey Deschanel and some dude adopting a baby from china.Weird ending, but I think I liked it. Then we all went to the park, where it was very dark. Too dark to focus using normal methods; zen methods were employed with some success. As sharp as can be, considering 1/10th of a second at f/1.2 and ISO 25000. You don't believe me, you go out and try it. Anyway, pictures:



Chelsea took this one, she said I needed pics of myself on my birthday. Here's me playing on a playground at 25 years.

And here's the playground, also by her.

Amber, looking at Josh in the foreground.

25th Birthday, photoshoot, awesomeness

Basically last sunday was one of the best days I've ever had, right up there with my 20th birthday, the day I graduated high school, and the field day at summer arts' institute. Might even be the best, what with all the excellent madness and amazing people and things.

I woke up and went home, had a good breakfast with the family, eggs, home fries, bacon, the kind of meal you dream of later. Then I coordinated with Chelsea and Meaghan for the shoot later that day (don't cheat, there's tons of story before we get to those pictures). We were going to go to Stillwater and make a big production, but Maeghan had cut her foot badly the night before. She didn't want to cancel, so I suggested we scale back, just do one of the ideas and do it here in the city. So we did, and chelsea came down and met us at Sauced. Cyrus showed up on his motorbike (dubbed the aluminum falcon because it's also a piece of crap) and said hello and whatnot, and then jetted, and so did we.



We found a place to do the painting, over at Grant (@schofield) and Damaris' (@somna) house, but they weren't going to be home, so we went in search of coffee, and failed. What we did find, Sara Sara, was downright creepy. But their cupcakes were decent and the milk bar was brilliant. They need to work on their coffee offerings though. Real espresso would be nice.



Then I waited, while Maeghan did the work and Chelsea sat very still. This is what the waiting was like:



Now add to that 20 mosquito bites, and I decided to go inside to wait. This is what the girls were up to:



And later:



And finally, on location, swatting a bee:



And the final silhouette:



There's another picture up at The Naked Sun our literary journal. That's right, I said "our"- I'm one of the editors and web designer, and if everybody is half as cool as then seem, and can manage to meet deadlines, we're going to be the raddest thing out there.

From the shoot, we dropped Maeghan off to go get her foot checked out, and headed to Norman for cake and more adventures. Tune in in a coupla hours, and there'll be more pics.

Last friday

Ran into Amber and Kat at blue note, fun times.



The moon was full, so of course crazy things happened.

Fuck yeah 1984. Year of the Orwell.

Erin and Katie. Don't know why they're blurry.

Oh yeah, Neal was in town, just for shits and giggles.

Chelsea Sat. Morning at osu-okc; we were on the hunt for fresh fruit, and found none there. but the flowers were nice.

I don't even remember when this was. Thursday?

Another Monday

Monday rolls around and I'm looking for polaroid film when who should call me but Christa May, wondering if I'm down for a little libation at Mcnellie's. Of course I am. I'm always down for Mcnellie's.

Logan and Matt, not me, but Christa's new dude. Isn't it nice how everyone seems to be forming couples at the same time? Or at least several of my friends have over the past few weeks.

Matt by himself.

I'm posting all three of these because I can't remember which she liked and I think they all look pretty decent. #3 is the best, but who am I to judge? Oh yeah, that's my job. So yeah, just ignore the first two, those are just for Christa.

Amber's B-day

Amber herself at the piano.

Terrible shots. I'm glad I stuck with rum.



Cool dog.

Location, Location

Sunday was location scouting. And thrift stores. And a nondisclosure agreement, so I'm not sure what I can and can't say, but none of these are embargoed, formally or informally, so there you have it. We're working on cool shit, and when it comes out it's going to be really rad, but that's not for four months or so, so expect teasers and hints and nothing substantive until at least january.



Credit where credit is due: photo by Chelsea M'lynn.

Sherree Chamberlain

This is the band and the singer/songwriter that the crew that I was there to photograph was there to film. Wait, let me rephrase. I showed up and my friend Tomee was there with a film crew to record Sherree and her band, and Tomee asked me if I would shoot some production stills, so I did. And I got backstage access for the whole show, and some nice pictures; My friend and fellow photographer Jeremy Charles said something on twitter about the joy of the performer being why he does concert photography, and I saw what he meant shooting these pictures. I shouldn't be surprised that he also has a gallery of photos of Chamberlain too. Dude knows what's up. Girl can sing and entertain and has the look too.

Random friends

Hopefully I can be forgiven for sandwiching these photos of some friends I ran into at the concert in between band posts... these are cool people, as far as I know. I mean, I'm not their mother, so I can't be a character witness, but at least they knew where the cool show was in stillwater that night and made it out, so that says something. And some of them, the ones I know better, are verified badass. So, guilt by association with me:

Uglysuit

So last saturday and sunday I was in stillwater for various reasons including location scouting and "for the hell of it." I rolled out of OKC at 9pm, right after work, and rolled into stillwater at around 10, rolling right up to a show and betting an assignment for production stills in the first five minutes of being there.

Anyway, I'm getting out of the car and combobulating myself (grabbing my camera and checking the settings and making sure I have an extra battery and card) and I hear the band that's playing, don't know who it is, but they sound good. Then I walk in and recognize Uglysuit on stage. Fucking good show.

One picture

There's a story in news-photographer apocrypha about an old school photographer who went out on assignment to someplace very remote; say, China. Mongolia. Now this guy was old school to our old school; learned to photograph with a 4x5 and knew a time when lens caps doubled as shutters. He went to China with a new nikon 35mm and when he got back, as he was deplaning, an assistant for whatever paper he was working for met him just off the plane to rush his film to the lab. He pulls out his camera, rewinds the roll that's inside, and hands it to the assistant, saying "Print 'em both, kid."

Now, I'm not a fan of the slow, patient photography that this implies; neither am I a proponent of going out to an event and overheating a motor drive taking way too many pictures. I like to take a series of pictures that tells the story over time. But there is something to be said for being patient, and taking less pictures. The night I took this photo, I took two; this one and one of the inside of my bag as I was putting the camera away.



Now I have to go and edit the pictures from the next night, where I shot 500 pictures in a couple hours. There's a lot going on here at matt mills world HQ, so stay tuned.

Code for a Cause comes to CoCo

So saturday was a busy day, spent mostly recovering from friday in the morning, but I did manage to stop by the CoCo for a minute to snap a few pictures of code for a cause, a really neat charity that provieds web site makeovers for nonprofits. 600 hours of web design and coding all compressed into one day. Pretty awesome. Wish I could have stayed longer.