Number 10.

Years ago my sister and I were bored one day and decided to make a music video.  We had a blast making it.  We thought it was the greatest thing.  Well it was awful.  Plain awful.  Since then we have made 9 more.  Any time we see each other for holidays or vacations we set aside a couple hours to create another dance epic.  I like to think they have improved in quality but I won't make any promises.  Here is our 10th video.  Enjoy.

Holidays. AKA The Good Days.

Holidays are supreme.  No school, no work.  Pure bliss.  This Thanksgiving was no different, it was sublime.  Here are my photos from the week.

My mom making her world famous pumpkin waffles.

I don't even know what my dad is doing. 

One of our traditions: seeing a Thanksgiving movie. 

We opted for the stress-free Thanksgiving, AKA we ate out.  This guy serenaded us while chowed down.  Classy.

The day after Thanksgiving, the neighborhood boys came over and cordially invited us to their rodeo.  It was being held in our neighbor's front yard.  I was ecstatic.  Thanksgiving was already great, but now you're throwing in a rodeo? Marvelous.  We all made the arduous journey two houses up the street and found lawn chairs waiting for us.  We took our seats and out came the boys.  One in a cowboy hat and one in what looked like a hockey helmet.  He even had a mouthguard!  The one in the helmet was the first rider.  He mounted the bull.  It was invisible.  The gate swung open.  It was invisible.  And the bull charged out, leaping and bucking.  It was still invisible.  The helmeted rider held on for dear life.  He was visible.  You could tell, this was not his first rodeo.  Most entertaining rodeo I have ever seen.  I can't wait to see what next year's will be like.  Sadly, I was so enthralled by the death-defying riders that I didn't get any photos of them.  But there is always next year.

Here are some other photos I took of the weekend's adventures.

Unfortunately, some were ruined in developing.  Maybe in 10 years I can use this shot to claim ghosts are real though (that's what you do with a messed up photo right?) #silverlining.

Black Friday shopping with Payden. His life will be forever changed.

Some serious rodeo spectators if I ever saw some. 

"Hey Mike, can I have a treat?"

Sights of the Week

Currently I am obsessed with film photography.  I love not knowing how the pictures are going to turn out.  It is pure suspense.  It is heightened by the fact that I have no idea what I am doing.  Often I catch myself thinking, "Are any of these even going to look good?" And often they don't look good.  So here are my latest attempts at photography.

Just Call Me Hipster

Last week I was hit with this insane desire to get an old camera.  I'm talking old school.  I'm talking film.  So instead of doing my homework I googled camera shops.  Then I went on a frigid adventure to find this shop and get the deets on old cameras.  Five minutes before I would've turned into a human popsicle I found it.  I wandered inside and started asking questions.  The woman working there started using terms and lingo that she assumed I knew.  Well I didn't.  I think she could tell I was the novice of all novices because she started to dumb it down for me.  I left the shop to do some research but prepared to spend $100 on an old film camera.  Like all responsible adults about to make a drastic financial decision, I called my mom first.  She is a saint and told me she can give me her old camera that she took on her mission to Hong Kong 30 years ago a number of years ago.  At first I was skeptical.  Did it have the right vintage look?  Was it hipster enough?  My dear mother reassured me with some pics of the beauty.  It was a Canon AE-1.  I was convinced.  It was perfect.  I wanted it.  Bad.

Days after acquiring my new toy, some friends and I went to Vegas for a friend's mission homecoming.  What a perfect maiden voyage for my new hipster camera right?  So after giving the wonderfully illustrated Getting Started pamphlet a once over and arming myself with 4 rolls of cheap film that I picked up at CVS, I was ready.

So here are the photos from my first endeavor into film photography.  Now you may see some shots that are blurry or mega dark.  Don't go thinking that I had no idea what I was doing.  All of these shots were meticulously composed and captured...Psych! Truth is I had no idea what I was doing.

I call these shots: Dark Knight Rising

These I call: The Transporter(s)

And these are titled: What the?!

Alternate title: Amateur Hour

Alright, some of them were actually decent.  Here they are.

I call 'em: The Goods

 

     

So there you have it.  My next adventure will be in B&W so stay tuned.