Light and paper
While rebooting a few minutes ago, I noticed the winter sun lighting up the samples of Benton Sans I had taped to my whiteboard earlier this morning. Is that a message? It is a beautiful typeface (I'm particularly fond of the light compressed and extra compressed).
A little something for you
I was trying out some techniques for an entirely unrelated project here at work, and this weird little scene showed up.
Odd how the origins of these strange things can be something as mundane as fussing with compositing methods in Photoshop.
A lovely fruitbasket... sort of.
Shot out back of the Yakima Fruit Market -- which, strangely, is in Bothell, not Yakima.
Edgar's holiday card
Edgar and I have been working day and night on the photo for the holiday card he's going to send out to everyone on his mailing list. We think we've got a winner:
Of course, it wasn't until after I had spent hours and hours working with him on this shoot that he told me the truth: He doesn't have a mailing list. He just wanted a cheap excuse to roll around and show his sexy belly to the camera.
Whadda freak.
Another Circus photo
No, no naked clowns for you. But here's an old favorite that I came across while doing some new scans for the Circus folks:
Digging up old portraits
In preparation for a shoot tomorrow night with the ladies of Circus Contraption, I've dug up some negs* from a shoot in April of 2002. I'm particularly fond of this one of Kari:
* How long before we never hear anyone say that again? "Negs? What are those? Is that an old file format?"
And now, a little color
Becky and I went to Bainbridge Island in mid-October for a little one day field trip. We rode the ferry over, had breakfast, went to a nursery Becky likes there, and bought pumpkins. And I used it as an opportunity to continue in my quest for a film that works really well for scanning with the intention of going to both black and white and color.
Results are mixed for my quest, but at least some of the photos turned out well:
Work in progress
Part of the massive negative sorting and scanning project I've been engaged in for the last few days has been towards the goal of seeing what kind of work I've been doing on the street for the past year, edit it towards a show, and to inspire me to spend more time shooting on the street.
It's not that I don't love photographing on the street, it's just that, well, inertia is a powerful force, innit?
Anyway, here's a small selection of what I made work prints of today. And what you're seeing is definitely a work in progress -- aside from doing the most basic tonal adjustments on these images, they're basically untouched -- there are dust spots, and most of them aren't printed the way I'd want them for a final show. Some of them probably won't make a next cut. I'll probably look at some others and think "why did they even make a first cut?"
Think of this as a glimpse into my artistic process, as horrifyingly pretentious as that sounds.
Pascal van Heesch, on Sunday, November 30, 2003 at 05:27 PM:
Dear Edgar,
Nice work, specialy the bit more itimate work. I am not completly sure of the bit over- blurred pictures, may be the blur make the picture stronger may be weaker.
Thanks for sharing these pictures,
Pascal
Edgar looks better back-lit than I do
Can you tell that I'm using my time off this week to go through about a year's worth of back-logged negatives?
A pair of much-photographed dogs
I was at Nancy's house in early October and took a few photos of her incredibly personable and much-photographed dogs, Maxie and Lulu:
Not my brightest look
Your author demonstrates why he's not so different from Edgar while experimenting with lighting setups for a shoot with the Circus next week.
For the photographers in the crowd: I'm sitting in front of a softbox, in a low-ceilinged room that acts as a big ol' bounce card above my head. The effect would probably be a little less extreme in a proper studio. Aperture of f/5.6.
J's birthday
Although it's not actually Jacqueline's birthday until the 26th, she's going to be in an airplane heading to Amsterdam then. In celebration, then, and in honor of Amsterdam, we decided to mark the occasion in true libertine fashion: Drinks and tapas at Fandango, then off to the glorious Cinerama to see Master and Commander, and then to the Palace Kitchen for the afterparty.
(Master and Commander, by the way, was a HOOT. I've been reading the novels, and Peter Weir did a great job of capturing the feeling of them without getting too bogged down in the naval jargon.)
Joshua Edelstein, on Monday, November 24, 2003 at 10:00 AM:
Cinerama's a chain? Whoa. Just seeing the logo on the Web site brought back a flood of memories of King Street in 1977. And of hiding under the seat when Darth Vader rolled into the rebel ship.
rfkj, on Monday, November 24, 2003 at 02:54 PM:
I don't think that Cinerama is a chain, the way Loew's or AMC is. I think the Cinerama theaters are so named because they are or used to be equipped to show Cinerama movies--kind of like if they called theaters that showed Technicolor movies "Technicolor theaters". Cinerama was an attempt at showing panoramic movies. It had a curved screen and multiple cameras, I think.
Does the Seattle Cinerama show real Cinerama films?
And I saw Star Wars at the Cinerama, too! (What is it now, a two-plex? Three? Is it even still there? That's definitely a childhood landmark.)
David Adam Edelstein, on Monday, November 24, 2003 at 05:02 PM:
Cinerama was more of a "new technology" -- so instead of a regular boring old movie theater, they were CINERAMAS!
Unfortunately, the film wasn't compatible with regular movie theaters, so movie producers had to decide to target their movies for a very limited market, or (in the rather remarkable case of Oklahoma) shoot the entire movie twice, once in regular format, once in Cinerama format.
There's a bit of history on the Seattle Cinerama site: http://www.cinerama.com/cinerama_tech1_tech.html
Michelle, on Tuesday, November 25, 2003 at 12:34 AM:
I saw Star Wars there too - maybe that was the only theater that showed it. Hate to tell you, but it's a Checker Auto Parts as of a couple of years ago. My office was across the street and over a block, so I got to witness the sad event.
Chicks dig guys with big digital cameras
How else do you explain the babes interrogating me about the enormous Nikon D100 (with accessory kung fu grip) I had rented to use at WEC's 35th anniversary event?
Miz Becky, of course, thinks that it's a fascination with pathos.
As a side note, using the D100 reminded me why I prefer my Leica -- it was so big, and heavy, and had so many buttons and menus and crap getting in the way of shooting.
Well, isn't that loverly
Jacqueline, already at work, alerted me to this morning's weather phenomenon:
Who knows if it'll stick around at all. One thing's for sure, NOA'A didn't see this coming at all:
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SEATTLE WA
415 AM PST WED NOV 19 2003.SYNOPSIS...THE FRONT THAT HAS BEEN OVER THE REGION HAS MOVED EAST WITH COOL TEMPERATURES OVERSPREADING THE AREA AND SNOW LEVELS IN THE MOUNTAINS DROPPING. PRECIPITATION WILL WIND DOWN TODAY AS THE FRONT MOVES FURTHER EAST. COLD AND UNSTABLE AIR WILL SETTLE IN THROUGH THURSDAY NIGHT FOR SHOWERS...LOW SNOW LEVELS AND COOL TEMPERATURES. IT WILL REMAIN COOL BUT DRY INTO SATURDAY...THEN A SERIES OF SYSTEMS WILL BEGIN AFFECTING THE NORTHWEST SUNDAY. &&
TODAY...PERIODS OF RAIN...MAINLY THIS MORNING... HIGHS IN THE 40S SOUTHWEST WIND 10 TO 15 MPH SOUTH PART AND NORTHWEST 10 TO 20 MPH NORTH PART.
rfkj, on Wednesday, November 19, 2003 at 07:21 AM:
Not too far to the north of Madison, there have already been school closings because of snow. I know that Chicago has seen some snow already. And yet we haven't seen a lick of it. It's like there's a little bubble around Madison that repels the stuff. I want my snow, darn it! Everyone gets snow but me! Whine!
As good as fall color gets here
The general consensus is that the colors hit their true magnificence only in the last couple of days.
Ordinarily we don't get fall color this good, but this year is special because of our historically rare long, cold, relatively dry fall and early winter.
Rich's freedom party
Yes, Rich has finally left the building, leaving behind the steaming morass his job had become for whatever the future is going to bring him. Naturally we had to celebrate, and send him off in style.
Joshua Edelstein, on Monday, November 10, 2003 at 03:14 PM:
"Hi, Josh, this is Janel Wockleby, a friend of Mr. David Adam Edelstein. And . . . we're at Rich Beers' house at his party, and we're looking at this mahjong set and shit. And I'm looking at a tile and Dave doesn't know what the fuck it means. I've stumped him on a mahjong tile and he says that YOU KNOW. Anyway, there's a little flower, and there's some green little petal-like things, and then, then a little -- a character thingy with some swishes, and some lines, and so we were -- we were wondering if you could identify that. With the swishes and the lines and the flower and stuff? And it has a "3" on it. And we were wondering . . . if you could help us out. Anyways, ah . . . you know, it's late, but whatever, call, whenever, ah . . . uh . . . you kn -- you know my number? Because I'm calling you, probably! But, nonetheless, it's 425-xxx-xxxx, or you could call your brother who, um, he--has high esteem and all that shit and stuff for you and loves you dearly and -- la la la la la . . . Becky says hi! Buh-bye."
No idea.
rfkj, on Wednesday, November 12, 2003 at 09:46 AM:
Reaching way, way back into the dim recesses of playing Mah Jong at the beach with all my aunties, isn't the third flower the autumn season?
The ritual of voting
One of the peripheral compatibilities between me and Miz Becky is that we both love the ritual of voting. Despite the siren song of the absentee ballot (increasingly popular for people in Seattle), we both enjoy heading over to the basement of the Methodist church and chatting with the elections officials. They're almost always the same few people, although I'm afraid that attrition has struck a few of the older ones.
It's clear that voting that way can hardly be cost-effective; Becky and I voted at 7:45 on Tuesday, 15 minutes before the close of voting, and my ballot was #46 that day.
Mea culpa, mea vertabrae
"There he is, sherriff! There's the varmint what done it!"
Blogging has been interrupted for the last couple of days while I have been recuperating from foolishly re-irritating an old back injury. How? I stacked half a cord of beautiful, but very heavy, apple firewood. I have only myself to blame.
I stayed home for a couple of days because I could barely move. The most frustrating part was that even though I'm not sick, so I'm as lucid as I ever am, I can't sit long enough to work on any projects -- work or personal. Mostly I lay on my belly and read. Yesterday I dragged myself down to the basement to watch The Hidden Fortress, which improved my rather whiny and self-pitying mood considerably. That, plus abdominal/lower back exercises and a tasty NSAID my doctor was kind enough to prescribe over the phone have helped considerably.
Today I'm back at work, slogging through a ton of stuff that piled up while I was gone, but at least I have a standing workstation here so I can actually work.
There's a bunch of other topics I want to talk about (Steinbeck, voting, and digital cameras: compare and contrast!) but it's going to have to wait until I get some of this annoying work stuff out of the way.
Strong medicine
Miz Becky has been enduring the tail end of a nasty cold for the last few days, so I (as her doctor) prescribed some hot broth in the form of some tasty pho from Than Brothers:
A little window shopping at the Old Technology Shop next door:
Unfortunately, Than Brothers were out of their signature cream puffs -- a key part of the treatment -- so we were forced to pay a visit to these guys:
Then it was back to the house for a movie.
No, I won't force you to guess this one. It's And Then There Were None. And despite the startling resemblance that guy bears to Tom Skerritt throughout the movie, it's actually John Huston's dad.
Some hallowe'en festivities
Unfortunately I don't seem to have a photo of OUR costume; perhaps Miz Becky and I will have to restage it today to give you the full visual effect. Nevertheless, here are some shots from work and last night's party.
Chandu gets into the spirit of things at work.
A couple of fashionistas: Debra shows us that the new job at UW has opened up her fashion sense; Vince responds to his recent birthday by breaking out of the nursing home for the night.
Later, Janel gets ready to settle down in her kitty-themed slumber party gear while a motley crew looks on.
It's that time of year
Although Vince feels compelled to give a tease of his costume for tonight, I'm staying mum.
However, I did come to work in a portable costume... the one designed to cause the maximum peeing-in-costumes by small children wandering the hallways later today:
The final clue
OK, for those of you who are going to get this, it's going to piss you off that you didn't pick up on some of the other clues... for those of you who don't, well, follow the link after the image.
Who is this strange character? Why, it's E.K., of course. Miz Becky bought me a collection of his work for my birthday, and I've been stealing time to work through it ever since.
Further clues
OK, as promised in the first "guess this show" entry, here are a couple more clues. Surely one of you will recognize these.
If that doesn't do it, then I'll post the final "clue" in a couple of days -- although clue isn't really the right word, since it's also the answer.
Live from the California fires
Jim Ward showed me some photos his Dad took in his neighborhood in San Diego, and kindly let me share them here.
They're apparently on evacuation watch, and looking at the photos, I'm not surprised:
Both images © Harry E. Ward.
Vince also pointed me to an excellent slide show (free registration) in the New York Times today. Those Santa Ana winds are really fanning the flames...
Joshua Edelstein, on Tuesday, October 28, 2003 at 07:51 AM:
Sometimes it's nice to work at a media organization. After seeing the NYTimes slide show, I went up on the AP photo site and browsed images--yikes. Beautiful and terrible.
Name that show
Inspired by Vince's movie quiz (itself inspired by the fiendish Dan's Screen Shot Movie Quiz) I'm posting the following two images for your consideration.
I know for a fact that some of you watching should know what these are from. If there are no right guesses, I have two progressively more blatant sets of images that will surely provoke the right guess.
Vince Houmes, on Monday, October 27, 2003 at 08:30 AM:
No clue, cap'n. But I'll keep a sharp eye out for any dangerous Gnarfs, anyway, just to be safe.
Fall color
Putting that new cross-processing filter through its paces:
It's true, sometimes I'm too painfully formalist. Whatever. It's my damn blog. :-)
Hey, kids!
It's "New IM self-portrait time!"
Joshua Edelstein, on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 at 06:30 AM:
Dude, IM self-portrait? E-mail me your handle! I mean seriously.
It's a little damp here today
It's really pouring -- 1/2" deep rivers flowing down the fire truck access ramps by our building, splashing up over my shoes, cleaning the spiderwebs from roof drains that are usually just moistened by the gentle mist that normally passes for rain here. And it's warm, too, nearly 70°F (20°C).
It's almost a tropical rain, reminding me of storms in Hawai‘i -- like the one that trapped my former girlfriend in Hawai‘i Kai one winter break. She saw me off at the airport, drove home, and it rained something like 24 inches in the next 12 hours. She called me the next day, very grumpy. "I'm fucking trapped in the corner of the island." I of course had returned to the Eugene Mist and wasn't terribly sympathetic.
Those of you familiar with my opinion on the Eugene Mist and other northwestern weather phenomena (this is the only part of the country where "occasional sun breaks" are a regular feature of the weather forecast) will probably be surprised to hear that I really love hard rain like this. Partly it's because the weather is actually doing something instead of just dithering ineffectually like a whiny city council member.
The other reason I like this weather is because it's tied to an important moment in my emotional growth -- the moment I realized that my mother is a human being, not just The Mom.
It was when we were living in China, probably 1981 or so -- I was 10 or 11. We were spending a few days at Beidaihe, a resort town on the coast. It was stormy, and I was grouchy and annoyed because I wanted to go outside but I was sure that Mom wouldn't want us to go out and get all wet and muddy.
She surprised me, though, actually suggesting that we go for a walk on the beach. "But, uh... we'll get wet... are you sure?"
"Yeah! I've always loved to walk outside when it's stormy."
My young mind was blown wide open. Moms like to do messy things? They enjoy weather?
I never saw her quite the same way after that.
Again with the office plants
What can I say, the light was beautiful Monday.
So if I shot these on Monday, why am I posting them now?
Because today, it looks like this outside:
Oh. It's you. I remember you.
Vince Houmes, on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 at 11:07 PM:
It will be easier if you don't struggle. Don't think "nasty grey clouds", think "comforting blanket of life-giving moisture".
rfkj, on Thursday, October 16, 2003 at 09:16 AM:
ALAS...YET ANOTHER SYSTEM WILL BEGIN AFFECTING THE COAST LATE TONIGHT...
:)
David Adam Edelstein, on Thursday, October 16, 2003 at 10:05 AM:
You know, I got plenty of whoop-ass over here for the both of you. Don't make me open up a couple of cans.
Timothy, on Sunday, October 19, 2003 at 08:34 PM:
..... Just saw the Weather report on the news .... The lastest system in our area will adventually pass by, bring nicer weather in behind it .... in April that is
scottran, on Thursday, October 30, 2003 at 11:36 PM:
I was waiting all that long hot summer for my 55 - 65 degree gray days to return! I'm so much more productive this way .
An october gift to you
In honor of the approaching holiday, here's a bit of desktop art for you:
Download full-size image (225kb JPEG, 1600 x 1200 pixels).
He was so cute then
While going through some things, I found an old photo of the brother-thing, probably an early example of my portraiture work from when we were in China in the 80's.
My God, it's full of stars!
Vince Houmes, on Friday, October 10, 2003 at 10:48 AM:
Where did you take this photo? It's super cool.
David Adam Edelstein, on Saturday, October 11, 2003 at 07:08 AM:
Somewhere mysterious! :-)
Caught!
Rusty is not at all pleased that I caught her in the Edgar is a dork pose.
The hostas are giving up the ghost
It must really be fall now.
Guest cute cat
Lucy, resplendent among stuffed animals, does her best Olympia imitation.
Bellevue Botanical Garden
A beautiful summer afternoon -- in, uh, late September -- at the Bellevue Botanical Garden with Miz Becky and her parents.
Fall sunset
Yes, the ugly reality is becoming unavoidable: we're in the death of the year.
The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting colder, and Miz Becky and I are trying to nail down our plans for our annual trip to visit my parents in Honolulu.
Our schedules are a little more constraining than usual this year, which means that the only time we're going to be able to go is around the "high season" between that goyishe holiday and the end of the year.
But who am I to complain? I don't have to go visit my parents in Pierre, or Denver, or Columbus...
E.C. Manning Provincial Park, BC
Well, we're back from our Sekrit Mission... did you miss us? Of course you did. And now I can 'fess up that we weren't on a particularly Sekrit Mission, just a few days of a Fresh Air Experience at Manning Park with some friends. You know the drill: Hiking, canoeing, reading, eating, and sleeping. Along with a bit of tennis and darts.
Somewhere in all of that I managed to take a few photos. Imagine!
Preview of the past
I'm nearly done editing and scanning and working on the photos from my cousin's wedding, from way back in June.
Here's a preview of the madness to come, with the brother-thing showing his true colors whilst being completely ignored by my mom and Miz Becky:
Last night's walk home
Tin King, on Tuesday, September 16, 2003 at 02:29 PM:
Come on, man...burn up some bandwidth and make those pictures BIGGER.
Mmmm, that *does* look good.
As Miz Becky said, "when even the food stylist can't make it look good for the photo, you've got a problem."
Amanda, on Monday, September 15, 2003 at 12:42 PM:
Hi I stumbled upon your site an dI found some really great stuff. That never happens on your first try. i was curious if you wouldnt mind if I used some of your photos for our powerpoint images to add to our bands creative side. Thankyou so much and I would like to know what kind of camera you use. Thank you for replying
A couple of big-head-Edgar photos
It's nice to see him enjoying the new cat tree. He wasn't using it for a while after we got it — preferring to hang out on the back of the wingback chair and leave his hair there.
Last weekend, though, I took care of Janel's cats while she and Vince were in Vancouver. Part of her instructions involved giving Tio "as much catnip as he wants". When I brought the jar over to where he was sitting by the window, he ran back to where the jar had been sitting on the floor and rolled over on his back, looking for all the world like a catnip ho waiting for a fix.
As I rode the bus home, I realized that he had run back to where he had been getting the catnip — maybe that would make Edgar use the cat tree!
One good dusting of catnip later, and he started interacting with it... playing on it... finally last night he decided that he'd rather sleep in the cat tree than with us in the bed.
Sometimes the little furry bastards give us the illusion that we're in control.
Hey, kids!
The lab guys are giving away free masks!
Is it a CLM to let people know about the free masks in a meeting?
Chad's response: "Dave has fun at work. None of the rest of us have fun at work."
rfkj, on Wednesday, September 10, 2003 at 07:28 AM:
Dude, you could be the next Chaim Witz!
David Adam Edelstein, on Wednesday, September 10, 2003 at 12:08 PM:
I AM SO EMBARRASSED that I needed google to remember who Chaim is.
Miz Becky at work
... sending "just one more e-mail" from her comically tilted, butter-yellow office.
timmy, on Wednesday, September 24, 2003 at 08:09 PM:
Does Miz B's legs get tired from having to roll her chair up hill everytime she gets up from her desk?
How much is that dolly in the window?
The one with the creepy eyes?
More photos from Tim and Heather's wedding
Fast film, an f/2 Summicron lens, and cool lighting. What more could I ask for?
Heather Harding, on Saturday, September 06, 2003 at 11:04 PM:
Way cool Dave! I'm liking Dave and his Healing Hand. And the one with me and Shaun, our ring bearer. He was so adorable. But so eager to get outta that tux! Glad we got such a cute photo of him in it :-)
A wedding photo
I'm going to post other photos from Tim and Heather's wedding soon, but this one is so dang cute I couldn't resist posting it tonight.
The cats just don't get along
They're so happy when they don't know they're on opposite sides of the wall.
Not a flower
rusto, on Thursday, August 28, 2003 at 06:25 AM:
Some kinda spot-weld? It looks sorta like a metal belly-button.
David Adam Edelstein, on Thursday, August 28, 2003 at 10:04 AM:
Nope. Although you're on the right track -- it was very warm when it was created.
A WELL brunch
This morning we had a small gathering of Seattle-area WELL members and a couple of esteemed guests from further south, in Nancy's garden. It was a beautiful Seattle summer day, with good food and good conversation.
More slobbercat
Guess who was waiting for me outside our house Wednesday? That's right, it was friendly drooling neighborhood cat.
Oh yes -- and the rumor that it drools when skritched? True.
An ending and a beginning
Yesterday was the end of an era in the design world at MS: Our beloved design training manager, Scott Berkun, gave his last talk. He'll be cleaning out his office over the next week, but he's effectively gone.
There had been other talented people in that job, but none of them took to it with the same energy that Scott did. He was always excited about the possibilities of getting Design deeper into the product cycle, and he helped us get excited about it when we felt like we were faced with impossible odds. (And the odds ain't good, folks -- 50,000+ employees worldwide... roughly 200 designers... and you wonder why some of our products don't make any damn sense to human beings)
As a last lecture, it was a doozy. It had a classic Berkun title: "Ten Golden Rules: Thoughts on Software from Voltaire, Willy Wonka, and Microsoft Postmortem archives." It was also clearly a "whaddya gonna do, fire me?" talk: He had a beer, he said f*ck a couple of times, he sang a song about the product cycle, and he (jokingly) yelled at the training coordinator who asked him to repeat questions for the tape.
If you're involved in UI design at all, I'd check out the essays on his site, and bookmark it. He's going to do as little as possible for a couple of months, and then is planning to do a bunch of writing. I'm looking forward to it.
Niiiice kitty
There's a Maine Coon in the neighborhood that as near as we can tell was abandoned by some people renting a house a few doors down. He's ostensibly being taken care of by Larry, across the street and north from us, but I'm pretty sure he's also mooching off of the rest of the neighborhood.
Unlike most Maine Coons I've met, which seem to bond with one person and are a little standoffish, this guy is one of the most affectionate cats I've ever met. And one of the most drooling -- man, does this cat slobber when it gets some lovin'.
A couple of weeks ago, he took advantage of Miz Becky and her sister while they were sitting on the lanai:
I wanna make a film noir
I discovered last night that the G3 can shoot short bits of video in black and white, which I of course had to try out. Now I want to make a film noir in crappy low-res digital video!
Here's my proof of concept.
I put it together with the very easy Windows Movie Maker. (Sorry, Windows Media Player format only... there is a player at that download site for those of you on macs.)
Tin King, on Thursday, August 14, 2003 at 11:48 AM:
A little thin on plot...but it looks good.
Poor Mr. Edgar
He can't help looking like a doof.
Lest you think this is an isolated look and that I'm giving false impressions... here are some more moments from the same shoot:
Tin King, on Thursday, August 14, 2003 at 09:45 AM:
Start calling him "Buddha".
Joshua Edelstein, on Tuesday, August 26, 2003 at 11:04 AM:
Best. Photos. Ever.
Ah, Cletus, I love you so. Das ist zuber!
Light in the stairwell
This is probably a sign that I'm truly a photographer at the bone: when I saw the light in the stairwell yesterday afternoon, I risked missing my bus to take photos.
"To hell with meeting my friends for dinner! I must worship this light!"
Rustifer, on Wednesday, August 13, 2003 at 07:39 AM:
I thought it was a sign that you're truly a denizen of Seattle ... (laugh)
David Adam Edelstein, on Wednesday, August 13, 2003 at 08:05 AM:
Smartass. Perish the thought!
What's that on your face?
Tonight we had dinner with Janel and Vince, and then went to see Spellbound (which was excellent). But things got a little, well, ugly, early in the evening.
Janel shows off her blackberry-encrusted lips, first coy, then bold:
Later, in the car, Janel and Vince seemed to still be pretty lip-focused.
Not water
Any guesses?
rustifer, on Saturday, August 09, 2003 at 06:32 PM:
A nice shiny table, with a hard slat chair behind it?
David Adam Edelstein, on Sunday, August 10, 2003 at 08:29 AM:
And the young man in the corner gets it in one!
I can see you
Fun and games with a nalgene bottle and a quickcam:
Catching up on some older photos of Kaua'i
The combination of me resolving to clean up my desk by finishing projects that have been on hold, and my recent purchase of a slide feeder for my scanner, means that a few of my older photo projects that never made it to an electronic form will probably show up here in the next few weeks.
This batch is a set of photos shot on Kaua'i in November of 2001. First, we start with a walk through Kapa'a at dawn:
Then, a few photos from Allerton Garden -- note the compositional rut I was in while we were there...
Finally, sunset at the Kalalau lookout.
More photos from the Oregon coast
Here are some of the black and white photos I took while we were on the southern Oregon coast a couple of weeks ago.
The first several are mostly from one very foggy morning walk on the beach in Port Orford; the last two are from the sandstone bluffs on the beach just south of Floras Lake.
The cats deal with the heat
It got up into the 90's here in Seattle yesterday, which meant that at midnight it was 83°F (28°C) in the house. The cats were... not pleased. Perhaps it had something to do with their fashionable fur coats.
Rusty found herself a nice cool piece of slate to lie on:
Whereas Mr. Edgar, the more new-agey of our cats, decided to try yoga.
Those of you who have been to our house will immediately note that neither of the cats have the good sense to head to the basement, where it's easily 15°F (8°C) cooler than upstairs.
Your author, of course, being a happy island boy, was diggin' it.
Hommage à David Lynch
rusto, on Monday, July 28, 2003 at 08:28 AM:
Excellent shot!
Another dyad
I'm not sure why I'm seeing so many pictures as pairs lately, but I'm just going to go with it until they stop coming.
Vespas-a-plenty
It seems our local luxury car dealer/repair shop has started carrying Vespas and other scooters.
They're so dang cool looking. I'd buy one if they weren't also so dang eco-sleazy.
David Adam Edelstein, on Monday, July 21, 2003 at 03:28 PM:
I suppose I could get a Lepton: http://www.zapworld.com/lepton.htm . They just don't have the same style, though.
Social commentary via graffiti
Seen this morning next to my bus stop:
Nice sunset tonight
Shot mere moments ago, via the joy of digital.
A quick trip to San Francisco
The penultimate stop in our vacation-of-1000-cuts was a longish weekend in San Francisco. We're back in town for about 18 hours, no kidding, and then off on our next leg.
We had been toying with the idea of going down to San Francisco for, well, a few years, and had never gotten around to it. The catalyst for our finally deciding to go was that a friend of mine from The WELL had decided to hold an open house to show off his collection of Chicano art; that it was clearly going to be a gathering of several of the people I know from the WELL's Arts conference sealed the deal. Plus, of course, we got to visit San Francisco.
And here is my scruffy little travelogue:
The Lodging
We stayed in the Golden Gate Hotel, on the recommendation of... well, someone, I can't remember. But it was an excellent recommendation. The hotel is centrally located in the downtown area, a few blocks from the Powell BART stop (particularly convenient since BART now goes all the way to SFO), and half a block from a cable car stop.
The Golden Gate Hotel is a wonderful, charming place, with a couple of very friendly innkeepers, and at least two house pets: Captain Nemo, un chat noir, and Humphrey, a very sweet golden retriever. I say at least because there was one other dog we saw there one morning, but I'm not sure it was a permanent resident. Anyway, this was a great place to stay; we'd definitely stay there again.
BART
Coming from Seattle, we were delighted to get to ride a real transit system. And ride it we did. Aside from a few picky design critiques (which I'll write about later), it was a great experience.
Murals
Maybe I just missed the bulletin, but I had never really heard about all of the public murals in San Francisco. I was impressed with them -- from WPA to historic reconstruction, they were all fascinating.
It struck me that most of the people in the WPA-era murals looked morose. Miz Becky pointed out, of course, that it was the great depression, after all.
We visited some in a building on the edge of Golden Gate Park, in the Coit Tower, in Rincon Center, and in Grace Cathedral. I'm sure there are more.
This and that
Here are some other random photos from the weekend.
Dining
Oh yes, how could I forget food? We had several great meals:
Our first afternoon there, we headed into Chinatown to get some lunch. We followed my nose into King Tin, where we had mighty fine barbecued pork and duck and a very tasty chow mein with Chinese greens.
The next night, we and Chris did the same thing, ending up at Le Zinc in Noe Valley. Great French Bistro food; I had a very tasty cassoulet that would have easily fed two people, which forced me to strategically eat just the tasty meaty bits (sausage, duck confit, pork confit, etc.) and forgo the delicious white beans they were lying on. Becky and Chris had... uh... something else tasty.
The next day we had lunch at Yank Sing in Rincon center. We get some good dim sum here in Seattle, and we've had some excellent dim sum in Vancouver, BC; but this topped it all. So tasty and delicate and beautiful... mmmm. And their chili sauce was so good I had to bring home a jar in case I couldn't find it here.
That night, we made a pilgrimage out to Albany to visit Nizza la Bella, owned by the wonderful Evelyne Slomon -- a fellow WELL denizen. Another meal of excellent French bistro food in a beautiful space. The frites -- french fries -- are amazing. How does one make french fries taste better? I have no idea, but they manage. Everything we ate there was at the same level... mighty good food.
barbara edelstein, on Tuesday, July 29, 2003 at 04:48 PM:
reminder to david that his parents lived in Albany California for 6 years....
Give unto me a bit of flooring
Three photos of the office floor at PCNW, tarted up a bit using the RAW import trick:
Mr. Edgar explores the underworld
Ever wonder what your cats look like when they hide under the sheets while you're making the bed?
Miz Becky thinks he looks like a naked mole rat.
On the road and back again
I was in Detroit over the weekend, at my cousin Abby's wedding. The wedding was a great time, and I got to see a lot of relatives I haven't seen in a while (my brother and I figured that it had been 19 years since I had been in Detroit).
Most of my photos of the family were shot on film, which I haven't had developed yet, but here are some of the sights.
OK, OK
...enough of this. My technical problems aren't going to be solved anytime soon, so I might as well keep using this server for now, and I'VE GOT THINGS TO POST, HERE, PEOPLE.
Like, for example, the following two images from our jaunt earlier this week to the Olympic Peninsula.
"Bob, is that scraping a little?"
Cleaning marks on the concrete outside of my office, this morning.
Addendum: After looking at that version, I decided that this image would probably be better in beautiful black and white. What do you think?
Arnold Edelstein, on Tuesday, May 27, 2003 at 01:16 PM:
It's neat both ways with--for me--the edge
going to the black and white. The color
shows the scrapings more clearly and the
black and white is more like a design.
The Father Thing
rusto, on Tuesday, May 27, 2003 at 03:35 PM:
I prefer the color version: it has a vaguely Da Vinci drawing look to it.
Laura, on Thursday, June 19, 2003 at 12:02 PM:
I like the color version better, per rusto's DaVinci comment.
Some experimentation
A few urban images tweaked in the Photoshop RAW import filter. These are part of a long hunt for a digital replacement for cross-processing film.
Not bad, although that red curb stripe is a little intense, no?
sean, on Friday, May 23, 2003 at 03:14 PM:
I like the red curb. It does kind of look like it was just drawn in with the brush tool, though.
I don't have the RAW import filter yet. What kind of changes are you making with it to get this kind of image?
rusto, on Saturday, May 24, 2003 at 04:37 PM:
I agree about the red curb shot, it appears to have gone all the way to max saturation. But I like the overall effect you're getting!
David Adam Edelstein, on Saturday, May 24, 2003 at 05:19 PM:
The three sliders I'm maxing out are shadows, saturation, and contrast. I'm not really sure what shadows does -- the effect on the histogram doesn't make any sense to me -- but that's where most of the effect is happening. The other two just push it over the edge. Which I've never been averse to.
rusto, on Sunday, May 25, 2003 at 04:44 AM:
Worth the 99 bucks?
David Adam Edelstein, on Sunday, May 25, 2003 at 07:36 AM:
That's hard to say definitively. On the one hand, I think it drastically improves the workflow of using raw files -- instead of having to convert them before hand, it's just file/open in Photoshop, and then you have all of the controls you need to fix white balance, adjust the exposure (measured in stops!), etc. Also, it includes the option to scale the image up slightly, using Adobe's latest and very clean resampling algorithms, which means that my G2 has just become a pretty good 6 megapixel camera. On the other hand, it'll be built into PS8, so it'll be "free" then.
Could you hold the phone a little higher?
A few photos from a shoot for promotional materials for Mr. Chris, crack real estate agent:
Demonstrating how the camera lies: the first image, with the monitor, looks natural on film, but in reality the monitor was barely facing Chris. This kind of thing is a challenge with executive portraiture, for example, where people have to stand much closer to each other than they normally would in order to look natural on film.
rusto, on Sunday, May 18, 2003 at 01:16 PM:
Hehe, gotta love that "point to something on the pad" routine as well, eh?
The nearly landed gentry
I had lunch with Janel today, who's out sick but was bored out of her skull.
Since I had a little time, we drove up to see the house she's in the process of buying, and I took the first picture of her standing in what we expect will become her back yard:
The house is reasonably sized, but the back yard is huge. I think she could fit one and a half of our yards in her back yard. It'll be interesting to see what she does with that space.
sean, on Thursday, May 15, 2003 at 06:09 PM:
You people are killing me here.
Rustifer, on Friday, May 16, 2003 at 08:03 AM:
Pictures of your yards alternately depress and encourage me. <waves at Janel>
This and that over 14 hours
1) Archaeological evidence of an ancient hair salon on the roadside, 6:35 pm:
2) A great DIY political sign, in the rear window of a pimped-out white Cadillac Eldorado, 7:12 pm:
3) An odd little truck, downtown this morning, 9:26 am:
An evening's pictures
A few sets of pictures from my sojourns downtown this evening.
First, some building abstracts. Yes, most of them are working through the same idea again and again. We call that a "series". :-)
Next, I make ze funny joke by subsetting signs to make new words. Can you tell I've been playing a lot of Scrabble?
Finally, a rather charming cat I found sleeping in a window, enjoying the afternoon sun.
Mr. Edgar, again
By popular demand, an older image of Mr. Edgar from October of 2001:
Really, he's a handsome devil most of the time. I just catch him when he's chillin' in his crib, as the kids say these days.
Not his brightest look
Poor Mr. Edgar... a couple of days ago I showed him in a position of power... now I show him with his guard down.
Hello, my name is
Andrea has a couple of great pictures of a graffiti wall in NYC today. Checkitout.
Andrea, on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 at 08:26 PM:
Hey thanks!
Glad you like the pics.
Best,
Andrea
Lake Union Sunset
We took a short walk in the cold air tonight after having a tasty dinner at I Love Sushi, which is right on Lake Union:
(Yes, it's a slightly bent panorama, but I'm finding I really like these proportions for photos on this site, so I'm going to keep working on refining my technique)
Who's in control?
No, the cats don't run our lives. Why do you ask?
Oh, uh, well, you see...
Downtown windows
A few images shot while I was waiting for my bus home yesterday evening. Nothing like boredom to spur exploration.
Puppy sighting
Meet Orion, who Vince and I saw on our way to lunch today.
Rockin' party, dude
Tonight we went to an "appetizers and dessert" potluck at our friends Rob and Dana's house. I've known Rob for about eight years, and I've always been amazed at the energy he approaches life with -- and his boundless creativity.
Recently he's been experimenting with rock art, partially inspired by Andy Goldsworthy, but taking it in his own direction. The latest project: exactingly balanced rocks.
Before you ask the obvious question, I'll tell this story: One of the guests at the party tonight was asking me whether I thought Rob drilled and pegged the rocks before he epoxied them together. I told him I didn't think Rob even used epoxy, which the questioner laughed at.
Turns out I was right. They just balance. See for yourself:
Mysteriously unrelated
Two random images... Or Are They?
Twiny viney thing in Ballard:
Stylish salt and pepper shakers at Red Mill:
Atmosphere
It's grey. I'm homesick, looking at webcams and listening to music from home.
Palace Chicken
Stopped in at the Palace Kitchen early this morning for a nightcap and snack:
Color fields
Waiting for Bulletproof Monk (thin but entertaining) to start at Redmond Town Center on Thursday:
More azaleas
The azaleas I posted about a couple of weeks ago have finally reached their full ludicrous glory:
Look ma, no leaves!
Geometry
Watch me flex my mad formalist skillz:
(Yes, the contrast was hopped up a bit in Photoshop.)
rusto, on Friday, April 18, 2003 at 10:48 AM:
Way to work that negative/postive space!
Light on surfaces
It's been a light-on-surfaces kind of couple of days. Spending way too much time at the office, so light is about all I can think about.
Branches and leaves
The trees below my office window are starting to leaf out. Tweaked somewhat using Adobe's new (and very cool) Photoshop Camera Raw import tool.
Window shopping
A couple of shots from last night. Shot through the stylish windows of the Red Light, a vintage store near the University of Washington.
Hawai'i photos, finally
In January, a bunch of us went on a group trip to Hawai'i. Besides Miz Becky and myself (and one sad, touristy trip Vince took as a teenager) nobody had ever been there.
Miz Becky and I spent four beautiful days on O'ahu with my parents, Janel spent a couple of days on Maui with her family, and then we and the newer arrivals all converged on Lihu'e airport. And thus began a week of swimming, relaxing, eating, and Scrabble.
Three months later, I've finally gotten the time together to edit and caption my digital photos. Enjoy!
Sunny afternoon
After a very wet morning, it's turned into a beautiful afternoon here in Seattle.
And Mr. Edgar, that handsome devil, is enjoying the sun by baking between the glass and solid doors at the back of the house.
Capitol Hill reservoir
I took a stroll around the reservoir while waiting for my writing class to begin the other night.
I noticed for the first time that behind the 8' fence, with barbed wire along the top, is a sidewalk and a nice concrete (stone?) railing, a reminder of more gracious times when we didn't have to worry about people falling in and suing, or (more recently) throwing something unfortunate in.
Azaleas
The amazing azaleas in front of building 18 are beginning to bloom:
I always remember azaleas as "those plants that remind me of rhododendrons but aren't", to Miz Becky's infinite amusement. I'll leave what I remember camelias as to your fertile imaginations.
As I was trolling the web to remember what the heck azaleas are really called (you can tell I'm trying to fix it in my memory, can't you) I ran across this perfectly charming page on the Wilmington, NC, Azalea Festival's royal court.
Is it just me or does it seem that A. House, S. Parker, and C. Atwood all took a sip from the same bottle of hooch before the photo session?
Vinny, on Tuesday, April 08, 2003 at 01:56 PM:
"...your fertile imaginations." ...You are saying either that I have multiple personalities, or that you now have at least one other regular member of the Blog Audience?
