Well, Yesterday Didn't Happen

I think we all were surprised and appalled about that. But, as James Joyce says, Bisons is Bisons. Here's a new picture.
I think the yellow is our neighbor across the way. The red might be a reflection. The black is certainly the night, and the white is the camera's flash. I'm usually opposed to flash, but I think I might be coming around to it. This is the first heavily manipulated photo I've done. It's not all that bad, just the curves looked pretty loopy. I'm getting more of a feel for how to work with photoshop to bring out the qualities I like in the pictures.

Anyhow, cheers from Brooklyn.
-Nick

p.s. This one looks a little better in full resolution.

Photo a Day #9

That was crazy! None of you will ever know, but the browser kept typing in mysterious blue underlined text. I wasn't bold enough to click that mysterious link to nowhere, and well I'm glad I avoided it. There are some things man was not meant to know, and with those things I'll not tamper. I've read too many a cautionary tale.

Still, the curiosity lingers.

You know how after you take a personality test for an organization, you spend the next few days thinking "Why would I ever ever have put that, that was a ridiculous answer and they're bound to see me for the neurotic, confused mess that I secretly am?" They told me to fill it out as fast as possible. I really don't think I should be held accountable for putting "curiosity" as my greatest strength.

So this picture follows in the tradition of yesterday's picture of being a phony. Yesterday's picture was secretly taken two days ago, and in this one the rope which seems to be hanging naturally by the force of gravity, or perhaps being in a swing governed by the laws of kinetics, is actually being purposefully posed by laws so unnatural as the human will. Yes, this shot was staged, and to so little effect. Honestly though I really am fond of it, so don't go around agreeing with me.

Photo a Day #8

Billie Holiday is absolutely the best singer that could possibly come out of my speakers. It's remarkable how some voices just elevate you out of absolutely everything in a way that's quite impossible to categorize. It's not a voice for questions, nor should it be. It's something that cuts quite to the core of a person, and that's fine by me. There's nothing by which I'd rather be cut.

I saw last night a triple feature of films from the depression. The depression, of course, was before the Hayes Code, and films could be unfettered wonderful. There was sass out the wazoo, and they weren't hearing two ways about it. The three films were Woman, Gods of the Steel Mill, and oh some thing that was Bette Davis first appearance. Gods of the Steel Mill had a really wonderful performance by Fay Wray (who will later be appearing in a double feature at the same theatre of King Kong and 42nd Street: a delightful Busby Berkeley Musical.) Anyhow, it's late and time for me to be getting on.

Good luck world, and I'll take your good luck on credit.
-Nick

Photo a Day #7

The sign says drinks, but there aren't any drinks in there. At least, I don't think so. From the look of that window they sell drapes. Just because you got the first and last letters right doesn't mean you're done, signmakers.

Photo a Day #6

It turns out- and this was very surprising to me- but it turns out that New York is actually the coldest city in the world. I would've thought the North Pole, Somewhere in Iceland, Scandanavia, anywhere really, might be colder. But no. It's the sort of coldness that turns an innocent and sane "No Parking" sign to the meaningless and panicked "N = Ark!"

Today is the first day Gabe's had work since I got here, so I'm feeling very independent. The house is empty and quiet, and has been for most of the day. I went out for coffee and scribbling earlier, and I'm happy with what came of it. Mostly character work on the screenplay. I need to start working on production design a bit more, it's integral to the script.

Well wishes, all. I'll have more interesting things to say tomorrow.

Photo a Day #5

Back down to one photo today. It's raining outside and I don't want to take the camera, so this one was from Gabe's window. I think it's got a nice kind of abstract quality to it. If you invert it it looks like a space ship going through a starry sky, or an obelisk of light on Saturn.

The Oscars are tonight, and I'm still mad that Synecdoche, New York didn't get nominated for best screenplay. Alas. As a side note, Blogger.com does not recognize synecdoche as a word. I'm going to try to make it to a toy store/art store later today, and hope to pick up a little sketchbook. I'm not too trained at art, but I think it'd be fun to get some practice in.

Photo a Day #4

Well, day four of photo-a-day is going strong. Technically, I could refrain from uploading a photo 'till Tuesday and be okay. This is the first day I actually ventured out of Gabe's apartment, by myself, with my camera. There's an overwhelming feeling of conspicuousness skulking all around an object trying to frame it. Particularly when that object is on someone else's private property. Oh well, they can deal with it and so can I. I think my composition is coming along nicely. I went out today thinking that I wanted to get something with a more unified color palette, and this one hits that pretty well. I want to eventually move into more surreal stuff, but now I think I ought to just focus on the basics: framing, color, movement, genre. I find myself desaturating a bit in Photoshop. I don't know if that's just to do something different than the "auto color" option or not, but I think I like how it looks.

This second picture looks to me like a wizard's entourage that was ambushed by another wizard who turned them all into plants, that all whithered come winter. It's actually the plants outside a brownstone near Gabe's house. I might come back to this one later and try to put in some old people's faces on the plants, as a venture into surreal. But for now I like it how it is.

The test earlier today went well. We never find out our scores, which is upsetting, but I'm confident. We hear back in mid-March about whether or not we got in. Which, for me, means nothing but more photography practice for the next month or so. Hopefully I'll be able to get some writing done as well.

Photo a Day #3

Today I actually managed to get around to my picture before the sunset. Well, I call it sunset. The sun doesn't actually set around here, the clouds just stop being bright. It was freezing and windy all day, and I have a cold coming. I need to be rested for tomorrow, so today was much less stimulating than yesterday. We went grocery shopping, visited a coffee house, and I blew my nose about a thousand times. It's all good though. I'd rather have a cold in New York than a heat stroke in Texas.


We found a cool video store today. Rentals are only 2.25, which is cheaper than Austin. The catch is that you can only keep them for one day, and late fees are steep. The first video store I walked into had a Bergman section though, which is pretty cool. I also found out that Film Forum is doing a retrospective of... '30s comedies? As far as I can tell. It looks delightful. They have a double feature coming up which includes Bette Davis' first appearance. I don't know too much about her, but the radio makes much of her eyes.

Tomorrow's the test. I'm stoked. I'm terrified that I won't make it on time. It's all mapped out, but I can't repress a million manic what ifs.

Photo a Day #2

Today we went out to New Museum (not to be confused with the Nueue Museum,) which was mostly video installations. They had a strange 16mm Short there called The Minotaur. It had three characters- an old woman, an old man and a young woman. The old man was the minotaur, the young woman was a sex object who eventually gained independence, and the old woman was the narrator in whose mind their interaction took place. Also interspersed were images of nature- trees and forest scenes.

The sexualization of the Minotaur is a strange thing to me. It makes sense to an extent: the Minotaur was a product of transgression on both Minos' part- a curse for breaking an oath to Poseidon- and Pasiphae's part- the product of bestiality. However, the Minotaur himself is a guilt symbol, and aggressively destructive. Sexualizing him gives him an agency which I think is foreign to guilt.

We also had some delicious Indian food, and (I re-, he initially) saw Synechdoche, New York. I was reaffirmed in my opinion that it was possibly the best American movie I've seen. It doesn't need to straddle the line between comedy and drama- it subsumes both. It has an interesting commentary on human relations I think. It both acknowledges lack of true communcation and affirms human connectivity. Language is given up as a intersection of coincidences, and people relate to each other by inherent codes, which none is really able to confirm in another, but which none of them ultimately need to.

The photo is Gabe, with me, glasses, and curtain in the foreground. I swear I'll learn how to focus one of these days. Maybe the day I learn how to tell the autofocus to stop focusing on the wrong thing.

Photo a Day #1

I made it up to New York yesterday. The plane was delayed an hour but aside from that it was pretty uneventful. Coming in, the city was cloudy. This was spectacularly cool as we dipped down beneath the cloud, and points of light swam in and out of the mist before all suddenly lighting up into the cityscape.

Unfortunately, my first photo a day was not that. It was a sleepy image taken from under Gabe's tin awning while waiting for him to arrive. There was a very cool pitter going on over my head at the time, and the blue Christmas tree in the lower right hand corner caught my eye. I'm not crazy about the photo, but I'm even less crazy about missing the first day of photo-a-day.