Snarky Social Commentary

Snarky Social Commentary on an Actually Very Enjoyable Event

Located in Los Angeles (the city of angels) California

Called Design for Humanity

Sponsored by Billabong

Including Photos!

When you grow up in the midwest, you learn from the television and magazines that red carpets are very very big deals and that only very important, glamorous people walk on them while complete strangers shout out their names and try to attract their attention.

 Here is what really happens for much of the time on red carpets:

girls eat sandwiches.

The event is sponsored by Billabong.  It includes an art auction.  I was really excited to see what kind of art would be going for such ridiculous amounts of money.  Here is a picture of my favorite shot of the art gallery:

So, it wasn't really the BEST art in the world.  but hey, it was going to a good cause.  

'

and what, you might wonder, was that cause?  judging by the 2 minute emotionally stirring video they aired before the fashion show, here was the cause:

Children are obese.  And this is terrible.  As remedy or some sort of comfort, a series of nearly naked and most certainly eating disordered women paraded in front of us for the next ten minutes.  maybe it was supposed to be some sort of proof that although children are obese, there will always be unnaturally thin people to balance the scale.  although children are obese now, at least some percentage of them will grow up and be able to fit into billabong bathing suits.   we all took pictures as evidence.  see:

i mean, to be fair, not all of the girls looked completely unhealthy.  some even had muscle tone.  the whole thing was just a little funny to me... like most things involving sexuality.  if you really think about it, a huge group of people were just standing around cheering and taking pictures of some people walking around in underwear.  funny humans. 

as a new photographer, i was really excited for this part, though.  i kind of wish we could have kept cheering for those girls in underwear for another half hour so that i could have had more time to practice around with focus and lighting and whatnot.  

a lot of my favorite pictures from the fashion show ended up being:  out of focus (which is why i ended up liking them) or  muddled by the ENORMOUS FACE of a man that looked like ray's brother from Everybody Loves Raymond (who can ever remember his name?)  or marshall from How I Met Your Mother.  Here is evidence:

In nearly half of my shots that were in focus, his enormous head was floating right next or overlapping the model's legs.  And most of the time, he was turned around, smiling that enormous face smile or staring off into space.  Even when he was actually WATCHING the show, he usually found a way for his enormous head to block what would otherwise be clear shots of the model.

I can edit the CHIPOTLE signs off the sides of buildings (you didn't even notice, huh?)... but my amateur photographer self does not have the program or the skills to edit out that kind of nonsense.  moving on.

there were many great bands at the event (not an ounce of snark there.  that was just serious).  here's one that i plan to check out.  The Lumineers:

and when you get to be really good and played on the radio and you are a man and if you happen to be mildly attractive or at least have some amount of swagger/stage presence, here is the reaction you can expect from women:

there were a lot of really beautiful women there.  a lot of men pretty enough to be women.  so many beautiful people, in fact, that you kind of forgot what beautiful was after awhile and started noticing things like the fact that 70% were wearing ridiculous heels or that those bright red carpet lights make people beautiful from a distance, but are absolutely unforgiving up close.  that's what you start noticing when everyone is beautiful and everywhere.

so, all in all, it was a great time.  we inspected people in the art gallery.  we reminded ourselves that even though children are obese, there are women with eating disorders to strike the circle of life balance.  we swooned to some great music.  

and, as must end EVERY SINGLE TRIP YOU WILL EVER TAKE TO LA FOR AN EVENT,

we got caught in highway detour and heinous traffic on the way home.  

consider humanity designed.

the end.

OH!  i also saw this guy from glee:

trending

here are some trends i am noticing in the world of photography:

artsy things artsy people take pictures of:
1. sunsets/rises
2.  the eyes of animals- close up
3.  food
4.  flowers (dandelions, the unfolding of roses, extreme close-ups)
5.  coffee cups/ latte designs
6.  birds in flight (or just... birds)
7.  skylines
8.  "the details"  "the little things"
9.  guitar necks
10.  mirror self-portraits with camera
11.  people holding hands
12.  babies
13.  big sweeping nature bits
14.  i can't think of a 14 but i wanted to end it on an even number

i, no doubt, do the same thing
 (evidence:
sunset/birds in flight:  two for one!  http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindseying/7595229008/in/photostream
the little things:  or, the "litter" things http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindseying/7588642822/in/photostream)
and will continue.

on one hand- clearly these things are recaptured over and over again ad infintum because they have some inherent beauty or meaning or value to humanity.  no matter how many of these pictures i see, i still get the same fresh rush when i capture one of my own.  it's not so much that i don't enjoy the pictures, i'm just afraid other people will judge them as trite  or... well, that's the other hand...

on the other hand- i have an increasing paranoia developing that every picture i take is extremely cliche.  worn out.  expected.  predictable.  this is an especially sensitive idea to me because my technical skills are not up to par with a gazillion other photographers taking pictures of the same damn thing every day.

but because these pictures still move me and still matter to me, i will continue to snap them and enjoy them when they happen.  at the same time, i hope to move beyond the expected in some way.  i hope to develop a unique voice, somehow.  that leads me to another list:

what makes a photograph effective to a person:
1.  A. the photograph captures something true about a person or
    place that matters to the viewer.  (a situation or an essence)
    B. the photograph captures something innate about the human
    condition (evokes empathy, even if the subject is not
    personal)
2.  the photography is aesthetically pleasing or appealing
3.  both of the above

that seems really simple, right?  i think my goal in photography is something in the third realm.   while i love capturing generally aesthetically pleasing things (angles/color schemes), the pictures i get REALLY excited about are when i feel like i've captured the truth about someONE or someWHERE or someWHEN.  i love the details and sweeping landscapes of life just like anyone else, but for me that only goes so far.  i prefer people as subjects.  or, more accurately, i prefer situations as subjects.

on that note, thinking about moving into any realm of taking pictures for profit makes me a little nervous.  i am afraid my pictures would lose authenticity... that the scenery would be forced or that i wouldn't know the people well enough to capture their truth.  there are ways around it, i suppose.  but i think there's a danger that even pictures of people can be reduced to aesthetical appeal.  yes, you want to make them look good.  you want the colors and lighting to work.

but if that's the whole goal, you've really left them out of it.

anyway, i'm still kneedeep.  today, on the last day of summer school, i rushed home from work and immediately started editing.  i was only somewhat pleased with the results, but that is totally trumped by the euphoria that accompanies everything about the whole process.

i literally stopped after uploading one picture and said out loud to the cats and the empty room,
"i LOVE life."

and it felt good to say it
and really truly mean it.

truth.

yet to be

when i was in high school i used to make a questionnaire in my journal before every school year which included these kinds of serious ponderings:
1.  will in go up a bra size?  (almost certainly a no)
2.  will my high school god of idolatry finally move through the great cloud of blindness separating us and see me for the perfect match that i am?  (definitely a no)
3.  will i get asked to prom?  (maybe.  but i'll no doubt do my own hair and look like a complete mess)

and every year or a few years later i would look back and answer.

although it was a way of documenting how the cookie ended up crumbling,  the whole thing was really more to do with what my general concerns and questions and wishes and fears were at the time.

on the verge of this budding relationship with my nikon (who i am thiiiiiiiiis close to naming), i find myself overwhelmed with the same sort of excited/nervous questions.  So, here goes.

Dear awesome and interesting and stable and overall contented future self:
1.  will i become more adept in focus and flash?

2.  will i go semi-pro in the next year?  will i make some dollars to support this love?  $10?  $100?  $1,000?

3.  if i do move in the direction of for profit, will photography lose it's charm?

4.  will i look back at the pictures i'm taking now and think they are amateurish or alright?  (i can already see a lot of little things i would adjust or fix... focus, lighting.... i just don't always know how)

5. regarding the casual way i handle my gear:  will it lead to scratched lenses and broken somethings and expensive replacement fees or is my nonchalance just the mark of someone who feels really comfortable and natural in their photographer skin?

6.  will getting more involved in photography communities make me more critical of myself?  more critical of others?  tired of the whole thing?  inspired about the whole thing?

7.  where will my style go?  will i prefer photographing people or places or textures or nature or details or big  things?

8.  once i learn more, will i get hungry for new lenses and new cameras and new everything?

9.  will i  get the coveted "Press Pass" into an event?

10.  will i keep up with my 365? even on busy days?  even on sad days?  even on inconvenient days?  even on uninspired days?

just fine

an interview with martin cane five days after he did cocaine for the first time and felt just fine:

mc:  i just tried cocaine for the first time.
interviewer:  cocaine confessional.  tell me more.
mc:  umm not much to say.  it's nothing crazy like it's depicted in movies.  it made me feel more aware and that's it really.
i:  why did you?  would you again?
mc: i would.  but i would try it without drinking first.  and i did because i've been hanging out with sharon from class a lot and she does it.  so i tried it.
......................the next day..........................................................................................
i:  how do you feel today?
mc: fine.  pretty normal actually.  have you done it before?
i:  no. i won the DARE award in fifth grade.  i'm afraid they'd ask for the DARE bear back.
....................later on..........
mc:  by the way, i did it in the girls bathroom of a gay bar with one of sharon's gay friends.  little tidbit for ya.
...
mc:  and by it i mean blow.  not sex.
i:  ricki?  also:  what were you wearing?  did it affect you right away?  did you soil yourself?
mc: you know ricki?? i was wearing khaki pants, flip flops, and a shirt that made me self conscious.  no it didn't.  it took time but it definitely sobered me up.  i peed a little.
i.  why did you choose to wear that shirt?  did you fixate on anything once it set in?  did sherlock holmes use blow?
mc:  it was the only shirt i had; laundry day never commenced.  when we got back to ricki's house i just fixated on the music i put on and my wallet on the coffee table.  i hope sherlock holmes did.
i:  did you tell rayanne?  should we come up with a code word for if you feel like it is becoming a problem and you want me to stage an intervention... like if you sell your dog for a fix or stop eating or brushing your teeth?  is that what happens?
...a few nervous seconds later..........
i:  have you brushed your teeth today?  where is your dog? panic rising.  after school special status.
mc.  i didn't tell her but i might.  the code word shall be 'bananas.'  i've brushed my teeth twice today, thank you very much.  both my dogs are on my lap with ...(next message)...      knives in their guts.
i:  exactly what i suspected.  exactly what i pictured. my DARE training served me well.
................................
i:  why in the girl's bathroom?
mc:  there was some random dude charging his phone in the guy's bathroom.
i:  how random.

fancy camera permission

Dear Missy Higgins,

I am so excited to see your show at the Troubadour venue in L.A. on Thursday!  

I am also knee deep infatuated with a camera I just purchased (nikon d5100).  I am not a professional photographer, I am just smitten over my new toy and never want to see the world in any other way except through that lens.  Infatuated.  As evidence, here is my most recent facebook update:

"guys.  i cannot stop taking pictures and editing them and it's all i want to do in life i just want to quit everything else and say up all night until my contacts are dried to my eyeballs and then wake up and start all over again and this is what it feels like to be obsessed and this is what it feels like to be in love and this is what it feels like to identify a grail and pursue it with reckless abandon.  amen."

do you know that feeling?  I bet you do.

I have no intention of using any of my pictures for anything outside of my own personal collection. Unfortunately, I've learned in the last few weeks that many events that I never had trouble snapping photos from my phone are now off limits for my fancy camera.  It makes me want to draw sad faces on the whole entire world that even after saving up all my money and teaching summer school just to buy my dream camera, that I can no longer take pictures of my favorite events because now, apparently, i am too fancy.  

do you ever feel too fancy?  it's the pits.  i really just feel normal with a little extra enthusiasm.

Anyway, Missy Higgins, your music moves me.  When I saw you open for Gotye a few months ago in L.A., you were no doubt my favorite part of that evening.  Your music matters to me and I'd love to snap a few photographs with my fancy to commemorate the evening.  I promise I won't use flash and I won't save any unflattering pictures and I will be eternally grateful.  

Being new to this fancy camera world, I have no idea how to go about getting a photo pass.  The Troubadour website directed me to contact the artist, so here I am.  

Help a girl out?

L

Me, Age 8

At my 8 or 9 year old birthday party, Eletha brought me a big stack of Ramona Quimby books.  Eletha was my grandma's cranky sister who was hard of hearing and later that night broke our toilet seat.

The other details of the party have blurred, but I remember wishing sincerely that everyone would go home so that I could read my new books.

that is how i feel about work today.

littles

i bought the littles a FURminator today.  best $50 spent in a long time.  i combed about 5 of those huge furballs off them, and i'm not done yet.  holly golightly has claimed the little blue rodent.  she's spent the whole day whipping it around, carrying it in her teeth, and napping with it.  

find your grail

i think i had a religious experience while watching the Monty Python's Spamalot.

they make fun of everything in the best way (in smart and silly ways).  they were making fun of religious soul empowering music during one scene and they kept repeating the line "FIND YOUR GRAIL" in the kind of affecting way that church soul music can sometimes have. and they were mocking the religious part but something about the grail and the searching and the absolute need for that search and pull moved me.

begin ramble:  then the rest of the play showed how various knights found their grail in various forms of identity- homosexuality, musical theater, a woman, patriotism... name it... and all i could think of was kierkegaard and the idea of finding your meaning somewhere and then leaping and the beauty of true devotion and at the time i thought it was all nuts because i was still so angry but there might be something there because i remember wondering as a freshman in college when i would pass groups of protesters i remember wondering what my cause would be... what my passion would focus on... and for awhile it was the lordjesuschrist but that doesn't make sense at all anymore but i know that i still feel passionate and alive and full of intensity like when i'm taking pictures or writing or leaping like a cat for a frisbee or holding a baby or when the feelings well up and spill out into songs or dancing sometimes i still feel it and there are little grails everywhere and that is enough to sing about.

end ramble.

brief

1.  i just learned how to photo edit the zits off people.  did you hear that friends?  as far as the future generations will know, you stopped having acne on JULY 14, 2012.

2.  oh mylanta, i may never sleep again.  finally got my editing program figured out and i love it with every fiber and pixel of my being.  i could edit photos all day, everyday.  i sit here and do it until it's 2 in the morning and my eyeballs are bugging out of my head and my contacts are dried onto my eyeballs and my body hurts from being contorted strangely for three hours and i've been whispering quietly to myself for the same amount of time and i get up to use the bathroom and have to run because apparently i've been holding it for three hours without realizing it because i am lost lost lost lost lost to the world of disappearing zits and color and shadows and highlights and bringing out some life in people and the otherwise dangerous and dreary world.

2.  holly got out again last night.  she jumped through a loose window screen.  my sister, anne frank, suspects she's attempting to join a street gang.  it's probably the damn chiuauas.

3.  i noticed one of my summer school kids furiously tackling a rubik's cube after he finished his work.  i watched out of the corner of my eye as he completely mastered it.  here was the conversation that followed:
me: M, did you just finish that?  that's awesome!  was it trial and error or do you have a method?
M:  i have a method
me:  what is it?  how do you do it?
M:  it's an algorithm.
me:  you win at life.  you can teach summer school next week and i'll learn how to apply alogrithms to rubik's cubes. or at least learn how to spell it.  you win, kid.  you win.

ok, i didn't say that last part.

savior self

OMGOMGOMGOMGOOMGOlittlebabyjesusGOMGMGOGOMGOG

I first read "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" by the beloved southern goth writer flannery o'connor during undergrad christian bubble days.  Here is what I remember thinking:

Why does the man agree to marry that girl?  Does he love her?  Is he trying to help her get away from her mom?  Why does he rescue her only to leave her at the restaurant?  What's with the random kid at the end?  Why is it so anticlimactic- him just driving away?  


the above serves as proof that i've spent most of my life BASICALLY ILLITERATE.  forget all those book-it pins and free pizza hut pizzas.  forget the baby sitter's club and nancy drew and choose your own adventures and oz (the whole series, not just one) days.  forget that time the eighth grade english teacher commended me on my ability to analyze poetry.  forget fifty gazillion tattered poetry journals that started to amass some time in seventh grade.  forget the fact that when I got my friends together for a little bible study in middle school, i wanted to start with REVELATION because it seemed the most cryptic and SYMBOLIC and meaningful.  forget it all.  hogwash. delusional.

i couldn't recognize even the most obvious fictional asshole.

and i feel like this is a pretty solid indication of my general worldview at the time.  i believed that people were mostly whoever they said they were.  I took basically everything literally, except for the symbols that pointed to jesus.  And I saw jesus christ everywhere.  So when i read "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," i stopped at the word save and started looking for a savior.  And when that wandering man came walking over the hill and offered to help those poor ridiculous women in the first few paragraphs, he walked right into jesus christ shoes as far as i was concerned.  i spent the rest of the story trying to figure out who he was saving and how.

funny how that goes... the whole looking for jesus to save glasses.  apparently i needed to be saved from jesus in order to learn to read and recognize an asshole when i saw one.

retreat

"OMG ggs was like a retreat.  I was confined to the house because of laundry and i loved it.  aunt kate and gg and i sat around allllll weekend eating food and farting and watching the dog whisperer tv shows.  it was great."  -Anne Frank

cubicle 502

I noticed their expressions midweek.  The vacant look in their eyes.  They were looking like adults.  I heard their sighs and throat clearing.  The quiet rustling of papers.  They were sounding like adults.  About halfway through week two, I had turned summer school classroom into a box of work producing predictability.  It was a large sized cubicle and we were all segments of one, functioning, production oriented worker.

Every day is the same.  Enter.  Pledge your allegiance to a country and a god.  Hear announcements.  Find your page.  Read.  Assess.  Label.  Answer.  Turn in.  Break.  Learn new vocabulary.  Practice new vocabulary.  Take a quiz on the reading and the vocabulary.  Go home.  Every day.  For three hours.  For four weeks.

It doesn't matter that they can work in groups, or listen to ipods while they work on vocabulary, or that the stories are actually quite compelling.  None of that matters.  Every day is the same.  And so midweek, there was silence and staleness in the air.  The ennui of adulthood.

During the school year, I strive to capture and maintain the students' attention.  I am ridiculous.  We play weird games and make up little gestures for vocabulary.  We are silly.  We are serious.  We are all in it together in a war against the boredom of living.  And so when I first noticed the onset of ennui, it stung a little.  Oh no!  Peals of laughter aren't ringing through the halls!?  The children don't leave everyday full of sunshine and hearts beating out of their chests for the joy of reading and living?!  Am I failing them?

Nope.  No I am not.  They are producing some marvelous work.  They are reading more words every day than they did all school year.  Aside from a few cheaters, they are working effectively and efficiently.  They are learning five new words a day.  Really learning them.  They are doing what they came here to do- make up the work that they failed to do during the school year.

And besides, aren't we constantly told we are supposed to be preparing them for adulthood?  That high school is preparation for "the real world" of employment and working with coworkers etc. etc.  If this is true, I deserve a gold star.  As I look around the room, I can predict already that the majority of these kids will at some point have a job like most of us have had.  A thankless and boring job in which you show up, do the same thing everyday, and leave.  An adult job.

While I hope some of them are lucky enough to land a job that is wildly creative and "doesn't feel like working" (or whatever that fantasy cliche is), the reality is that working is often just that.  Getting through monotonous, routine whole days without losing your mind, identity, and will to live is the crowning glory of most adults lucky enough to have a job. We've all done it or do it.  We all invent little ways to cope and find meaning within the little or big cubicles of necessity.  This summer in room 502, I am offering not only a repeat of English grades 9-12, but a practice run crash course in Adult Employment 101.

But today, Friday, 10 days in, half way through, i, the responsible adult in the room, the Queen B, the holder of grades, the boss, told them all to stop working after break.  Today, Friday, halfway through classes, i said don't you dare do one more bit of work.  you will smile and you will laugh and you will play Apples to Apples with your classmates and we will half watch The Princess Bride playing in the background and you will look each other in the eyes and be the awkward 14 year olds you really are and i'd better hear you laughing and remembering how to live. And that is what i told them in so many words and they fell right in line and it was great in so many ways.

wild

The cats got out last night.  Who knows how long they were out there.  When I noticed the door open, Sherman was on the porch meowing in short, panicked gulps like a trusty tattletale boyscout.  He did not resist capture.

I stepped outside further and heard a high pitched wail from somewhere up above.  I thought maybe Holly had climbed into some trapped space.  I was about to check in the basement door when I looked up and noticed her big saucer eyes staring wildly through the rails of the upstairs neighbor's porch.  She was meowing in this high pitch that registered somewhere between pure, wild excitement and sheer, utter panic.  "Here I am!  See me!  I'm up high!  Holy shit, I'm up high!"  When J attempted rescue, she hissed and resisted a bit.  Covered in cobwebs, I'm pretty sure she was both relieved to be home safely and so, so proud of herself.

My _____ Life

"Teasdale had a sad life and often expressed her sadness through poetry."

Imagine your entire life memorialized in two paragraphs for decades of future teenagers who probably won't even read it.  Imagine the sum total of your life experience summed up in the word "sad".

All those moments.  All her thoughts and feelings and normal days and big joys and aches and little mundane things.  Reduced.

Was her life sad from the beginning?  Was she the kind of child who wailed through the night and never had any friends?  Was her childhood horrible due to no fault of her own?  Or did the sadness set in with puberty, when hormones started her heart and brought feelings requited and failed and unrequited and generally awful?  Was it some horrible adult trauma or depression?

How tragic does a life have to be to get the word "sad" as its only adjective?