chris | word

Went and met about 50 other photographers in Chinatown last Saturday. It was part of the first Flickr Meetup of 2007. In case you don’t know, Flickr is a cool photo sharing community where people post photos and talk about photography and whatever else strikes their fancy. Its a great place to see some cool photographs and meet some interesting people.

At the meetup, we walked around and shot some photos and also had some lunch. A nice bunch of people. Here are a few of my pics from that day.

chinatown neon

union station light

rain drops close

In case anyone was wondering I have been busy of late. Yes, I know what you are thinking: “what’s with all the excuses?” Well, what can I say except that for some reason I seem to be somewhat in demand. Not so much in demand I guess, but more like time crunched. I have commitments to several things these days: writing for cinematical, comic book resources, running the other business and many other things.

Plus, as of last week I am now the technology editor at LAist so that means they are gonna expect more from me as well. No more just writing what I want whenever I feel the “muse.” Now, I gotta come up with some tech stuff each and every week or else they won’t give me my hard-earned buckets o’ cash. Well, buckets is probably too strong a word. What’s a word that means one small step above absolutely nothing? I don’t know but whatever it is, its small.

Anyway, I’ve been working on all that stuff so this blog, as always, ends up suffering for it. I really wish there were more hours in the day or, more to the point, that I wasn’t such a lazy procrastinator. That way, I could actually make time and have time for all the things I need to do in my life. Perhaps there are some tidbits of info from somewhere in the vastness of the internet where I could get help with my problems? If only that were true. I’ll look around and if I find anything, I’ll get back to you.

In other news, this past week I went to the opening night festivities for the Photo LA show and saw quite a few interesting photographs. I always wish I would make more time to take pictures so seeing these photos I was hoping would inspire me to do it. I think it helped a little but time will tell. I just don’t feel inspired to create as much as I used to. I’m not sure what that means but I don’t like it very much. I hope its just a temporary thing and will pass. Let’s hope so.

So, take a look at some of these photos and try to get inspired. I will too.

there’s this thing you can do with flickr that allows you to cross-post to your blog when you upload photos to your flickr account. i’m going to try to do that from time to time (or more often if i have nothing to say) just to see how it works and also because its fun. yay!

on another note, i really wish i had gone to sunset junction (even though zach had some issues with it) instead of the rather lame vegas in la thing last night. even with vip treatment (thanks leah) it was still mostly a lot of wine that wasn’t very good and food that was either bland or had run out by the time we got to it. although, the very nice (and very attractive) ladies at the pizza rustica booth were kind enough to give me a coupon to visit the restaurant and eat for free because they had run out of food. classy.

plus, as much as a gambled with the fake money they gave us (vegas, remember), i couldn’t loose it. we finally had to give it away to the chief from border grill just so we could leave. i hope he enjoyed it. i wish my luck was that good in real vegas but no . . . only in fake vegas in santa monica do i win so much money i have to give it away.

oh well could be worse i guess. at least some of the desserts were good. especially the little coconut cream pies from luna park. they were yummy.

enjoy the rest of the weekend.

i like these photos:

can you spot the apple products and the sony psp?

this would make getting around easier.

even great grandma liked her starbucks.

see more here.

yes, the title says it all. its sunday here and i have spent many hours this weekend watching tv. not just tv really, i watched a couple of movies too. i’m not sure why but it seemed like the thing to do. i watched battlestar galactica, the jacket (with adrien brody and the very cute keira knightley) , both NFL conference championship games (go seahawks) and new episodes of the west wing and grey’s anatomy (yes, i watch grey’s anatomy, so what?).

i also managed to squeeze in a birthday party for a one year old (my friends gil and holly’s son, julian) and also a trip to the santa monica civic to see the photo la exhibit. plus lunch and dinner and some time at whole foods market for a crap load of soy milk and other stuff. a full weekend indeed.

after taking a look around the photo la event, i am even more convinced that i am a mildly skilled photographer at best (one of my photos is in this post). those photos at photo la are really, really good. not just good, really interesting and inspiring. just what great art is supposed to do. inspire. it did for me.

i am more determined than ever to try to improve my photography skills. i have a long way to go. i am prepared to suffer for my art though so i got that going for me, which is nice.

my friend j-rod could tell you many more fascinating details about the various photographers whose work were on exhibit at photo la. i, however, can’t do much of that. i will say that i particularly liked the photos of Eikoh Hosoe and David Hilliard. check them out if you get a chance. unfortunately, photo la ends today i think so maybe you can make it next year. try, its worth it.

perhaps i will have improved by then. fingers crossed.