Category Archives: Jay

Score!

Some times it pays to show up for work. Usually whatever your hourly wage happens to be, unless you are on salary then you are consistently being robbed. There are times when it REALLY pays to show up for work. I’m talking about when you have a high quality converstaion with a co-worker or just out of the blue you get something dropped on you that just happens to be exactly what you need. You could even call it a miracle.

There is a beautiful sequence in the movie “Signs” where Mel Gibson is sitting on couch with Joaquin Phoenix discussing the concept of miracles. Mel Gibson’s characters says the following tidbit:

People break down into two groups when they experience something lucky. Group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck. Just a happy turn of chance. I’m sure the people in Group number two are looking at those fourteen lights in a very suspicious way. For them, the situation isn’t fifty-fifty. Could be bad, could be good. But deep down, they feel that whatever happens, they’re on their own. And that fills them with fear. Yeah, there are those people. But there’s a whole lot of people in the Group number one. When they see those fourteen lights, they’re looking at a miracle. And deep down, they feel that whatever’s going to happen, there will be someone there to help them. And that fills them with hope. See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?

I’m a miracle man. I back this up with the following image:





My one man staff (Jesse Howard) and I have been diligently working on the handcrafted goodness that is the Photography 139 calendar. We have printers. We have a laminating machine. We have hole punchers. The one thing we are missing is our own comb binding machine. Not any more!!! The company that employs me was throwing this bad boy out. We swooped in on it like it was our job. I mean the jobs we get paid to do. So that picture you are peering at with most likely a small amount of envy is the brand new (20 years old) Photography 139 Calendar Comb Binder. The only thing left to make it “official” will be the slapping of the “Property of Photography 139” sticker on the side and christening it with a bottle of ice cold Original Black Raspberry Faygo Soda.

Warning !!!!!!

The following small story is going to contain juvenile and explicit reference to the female genitalia. If you are not comfortable with such subject matter I suggest you turn back now. Otherwise continue and discover the importance of good communication.

Last night at Supper Club a couple members had the following communication breakdown. I will leave their names out to spare them.

Setting: Es Tas

Member #1: (points to shirt that says “I love Pink Tacos”) Hey would you wear a shirt like that?

Member #2: I don’t know I haven’t had one before.

Member #1: What?

Member#2: I can’t wear a shirt if I don’t know whether or not I like it.

Member #1: What do you mean you don’t know whether or not you like “the product”?

Member #2: I haven’t had one before. I can’t wear a shirt for a product I don’t know.

Member#1: What?

Member#3: I think our friend is trying to say that he prefers a big, beefy burrito.

Finally it was learned that Member #2, thought the shirt said “Big Tacos”. Communication breakdowns, perhaps they aren’t always the same.

2007 Calendar

So most of the 2007 Calendars have been printed, laminated and bound. There are just a few left that need to be distributed. If you still want a calendar and didn’t get your order in, better let me know. Because 2007 begins in 13 hours and every day that a calendar comes late, it depreciates in value.

Below is a little bit of a look at what you would get by “purchasing” a calendar.


2007 Back Page

I would just like to impart a small bit of information about why each month was selected.

January Image – Ledges Daily Denouement

I selected this image because it was the most wintery of the images that I have selected. It definitely leaves you with a cold feeling.

February Image – Unnamed Butterfly Image

I made this image exclusively for distribution with this calendar and I don’t like it, so it will remain an Unnamed Butterfly Image.

March Image – Flower in a Ditch

March begins the Northern Hemispheres return to life. Therefore, this is the first of many traditional nature images.

April Image – Oversaturated Dragonfly

April is a month traditionally oversaturated with rain. I went a little crazy with the exposure compensation on this image. Make it a bit oversaturated by traditional photographic estimations.

May Image – Kentucky Appetizer

Traditionally I put my favorite image in May irregardless of whether or not I think anybody else will enjoy it in the slightest bit.

June Image – Yellow Swallow Tail

The end of the traditional nature images.

July Image – Outburst of the Soul

A random selection here.

August Image – Wildflower

August is a great month for wildflowers.

September – Portrait of the Artist as a Middle Aged Man

A random selection here.

October – Wheat Grass

The only fall looking image of the bunch so it went in a fall month.

November – Four Flowers

Olivia’s birth month. My auction image from Songs for Olivia.

December – Building 429

A Christian image for the month of Christmas.

Not much info there, but enough for the intellectually curious.

Weekend Reflections

Pufferbilly Days has now passed. At some point in the future I will go up to the Chamber of Commerce and retrieve my pictures, trophies, and ribbons. That is correct, instead of giving our ribbons for Win, Place, and Show; they give out trophies. I’m not complaining. This will be the first trophy that I have won since I was maybe 10 years old. But a trophy doesn’t help with my quest to some day have a wall covered with ribbons. I suppose that I could nail the trophies to the wall. The truth be known, I feel like I don’t need to enter the Pufferbilly Day Photo Contest any longer. Even though I only won 1 division and there was no “Best of Show”, I feel like Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam. When their video for “Jeremy” won the VMA for “Best Video” he said: “Good. Now we don’t have to make videos any longer.” They didn’t for a long time. I feel like, “Good. Now I don’t have to enter that contest any longer.” But of course I haven’t won Color yet!

I most likely will continue to enter the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest though. Not because of my “ribbon wall” that will never come to fruition. Although if somebody would give me a “Participant” ribbon for “life”, I would proudly display that. Which reminds me of a point I shall make further down in this page.

I also won’t continue to enter in some narcissistic attempt to win the Color Division. I will continue to enter for the only reason that I think most artists enter anything. To see how people will react to their art.

On Friday evening I was standing near the Photo Contest with Jay. He had just received his marching orders from the Salon 908 CEO about his artistic contribution to the Salon 908 float. On the way back to his Keeler Street studio, we dropped by the Contest so he could gaze at the entries.

As we were admiring the artwork, two girls from a slow pitch softball team known as either the “Jammers” or “Slammers” came around the corner. One of them had already came up to the Photo Contest. She had brought her friend back with her to specifically see 1 picture. I tell you with no small amount of pride that the picture that so piqued her interest was my self-portrait entitled: “Blue Steel”. The title is a reference to the movie Zoolander. I briefly considered the name “Magnum”, but I decided that was a bit presumptuous. The reason that I relay this anecdote is because it is an example of the type of recognition that is most meaningful to me. I enjoy it way more than any ribbon or trophy. A stranger connecting to something that I have made. How cool is that?

Unfortunately I get little of that kind of recognition because I can’t just hang around my pictures all day. Despite any voyeuristic tendencies I might possess, I just don’t have THAT much free time. It does remind me of a time that I entered a picture of Karma in the Boone County Fair. The picture was a close-up of Karma and a predecessor of “Happy Karma”. As I was looking at the flowers in the horticultural exhibit nearby I overheard some lady remark to her husband that I must have “brushed that dog’s teeth” because they were so white. Karma was perhaps the greatest dog in the history of the universe, but she never got her teeth brushed.
That brings us to Saturday night. I headed to Jack Trice Stadium know full well that I forgot to charge my camera batteries. Therefore there will not be a page of “Snapshots for the ISU-UNLV Game”. At least it is not likely that there will be one. If I do get bored enough to put something of that ilk together, it will at most include 10 pictures.
Observations from Saturday’s game:

We played terrible. But we always play terrible the week before the Iowa game.
The defense was quite a bit better, but UNLV made many more mistakes than Toledo. The same dump passes and 3 yard crossing patterns worked well for them.

We can’t cover kickoffs at all.

I’ve never seen anything quite as pathetic as the display that UNLV put on after the game. Refusing to shake hands and jumping up and down on our logo was reprehensible. What is the old saying: “Sports don’t build character, they reveal character.” I believe that they do both. For the record, the play that UNLV insisted was a touchdown. Their receiver was closer to Webster County than the north end zone of Jack Trice Stadium.

Brett Meyer had what had to be one of the worst games of his career. Even the passes he completed weren’t accurate. Also there was a decided lack of the QB draw that was extremely effective against Toledo.

3 carries isn’t enough for Jason Scales. When can we see what this guy can do?

RaShawn Parker is the man. He is a true Freshman and he already making big plays on the defensive line. Jason Berrywho?

So Sunday was a washout. Art in the Park is always my favorite part of Pufferbilly Days. I
didn’t even go to it this year because it rained all day. Instead I finally made it to the theater to see Little Miss Sunshine. I had forgotten that Labor Day weekend had passed and finally the theaters will start to fill up with good, intelligent movies instead of the barren waste of space movies that occupy the multiplexes during the summer months. Movies like: Hollywoodland, The Prestige, The Illusionist, and The King of Scotland. Finally a reason to go to the theater.
Little Miss Sunshine was better than I expected, which is saying something because I have been anticipating this movie since May. I am ready to proclaim it “The Best Roadtrip Movie Ever Made!!” I would go into more detail, but I think it is sufficient to say that it is both intelligent and funny at the same time. I very rare combination for movies these days.

One last note. I’ve been experimenting with adding video to the website. If you are one of the observant fans of this site you may have noticed a 2 second video of Bethany at the bottom of this page. That video was the result of said experimentation. That success shall pave the way to a future little video segment I hope to get going in this journal. Jesse and I are going to act out 10 second clips from some of my favorite movies. No particular reason for this besides that it entertains me. Hopefully it will entertain you too.

Eastern Iowa Road Trip

Closing in on the deadline for the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest. I’m not sure if I will have any pictures ready for the contest. I procrastinated to a point where I don’t know if my pictures will even be delivered in time for me to mat them and get them down to the Chamber of Commerce before the 4 PM deadline tomorrow. However, I do have 6 pictures ready to take on the competition. They are not the 6 pictures I thought they would be. The 6 pictures ended up being a picture of Willy, a wildflower, Derrick, a self portrait, a crucifix in a Bible, and a butterfly. Hopefully the pictures will arrive at my workplace early in the morning, allowing me time to mat them and take them back to Boone on my lunch break.

Also this last weekend I went on a roadtrip to Eastern Iowa with Jay, Jesse, Monica, Derrick, Jen, and Robert. It was an extremely pleasant time.

First Journal Entry

So here is the first journal entry. I felt like having as pretentious sounding name as possible for my journal. I have a few goals about this journal. My main goal is just to actually write in it. My second goal is to be as truthful as possible towards my true thoughts and feelings. I have another journal on another website, but it is really just a collection of sarcastic statements and cheap jabs at open faced sandwiches. This journal is meant to be about what my achievements and failures are in the world of art. What projects I am working on and what I have accomplished and what I have failed to accomplish. What I am photographing and what I am thinking about entering in photo contests. What I am thinking about. It might not always make sense. It might just be things I need to write down because they strike me as poignant or inspirational. This is in a small way an online “idea box”.

I do also have a goal of producing something that makes me worthy of having a pretentious sounding journal title like: “An Artist’s Notebook”.

So last night, I attended the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon Reception with Sara. I figured that the two pictures that I had accepted for display would be a picture of Jay entitled “Portrait of a Self Portrait” and a picture of a bullfrog entitled “Kentucky Appetizer”. I didn’t have any real strong images to enter into the contest this year, but I felt that I had some that were good enough to display, but probably not good enough for ribbons. I was correct. Those were the two pictures selected for display. They did not receive ribbons.

So now I turn my attention to the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest. I wasn’t going to enter this contest because I have been frustrated in the past by the way it is ran. The pictures are never displayed on the day that they are supposed to be displayed. Instead, they might be displayed as late as 48 hours. The second thing about this contest that sticks in my craw is that they don’t put the names of the photographers or of the image up anywhere. Basically, there are a bunch of pictures up and who knows who took them.

I don’t complain because I seek the fame and fortune that comes with having your picture displayed at the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest. I complain because I would like to know who took some of the other pictures. Sadly, 1 town west the now defunct Ogden Fun Days Photo Contest was ran a million times better.

Jay talked me into entering this year’s contest. I told him that I didn’t like having to put any emotional investment into this contest, when it was so poorly ran.

He said it wouldn’t require any emotional investment. I could just put the pictures I made for the Ogden Fun Days Contest into the Pufferbilly Contest and whatever happens happened.

For better or worse, I’m just not wired in such a manner. There are very few things in my life I can just say “what happens, happens.” Photography certainly isn’t one of them.

He did convince me it was a waste not to enter one of the few contests around here just because it was so poorly ran. So, I am entering. I need to come up with 6 entries by August 31. That is the limit and I do not want to do anything less than the limit. I don’t want to mail it in.