derekl_1963

It's officially Getting Warmer (the indeterminate season we have up here in place of Spring) and the calender is starting to fill... So, these should be coming more often. (Assuming I remember to write them...)

Saturday was a bit of an odd day... Matt hl_mateusz has been in the hospital for bypass surgery, and I was tapped to drive him home. (He couldn't fold up to get in the back seat of their car, and isn't supposed to ride in a seat with an airbag.) So pretty much all day was spent waiting by the phone... and it wasn't until 4ish that the hospital got their act together. When we tried to get him in the van, it was embarrassing to discover that I *couldn't* move the middle seat back like I thought I could so he ended up being more cramped than we had hoped. (I think I was confusing this van with one of the one's I'd owned previously... which brings up the question of what exactly *are* those fittings in the floor for?) Driving was a trial, as I was trying to be as gentle as possible but the roads are bumpy in places and I couldn't be a hazard to other traffic either by starting or stopping too slowly. We finally got him home and some re-arrangement of their living room done (he's sleeping there as he can't do the stairs to the master bedroom). We were invited to stay for dinner, but bailed pretty quickly after dinner because it was getting late-ish and he was very plainly getting wore out.

Sunday, we went over to Seattle Center for the Seattle Cherry Blossom & Japanese Cultural Festival and had a blast. There were a lot of interesting displays and almost all of the artisans were more than willing to chat about whatever it was they were demonstrating/displaying. I was kind of disappointed with the carpentry display though, the gentleman had something of a canned routine and wasn't very responsive or interested when I tried to go a bit beyond that... had there been a crowd, I would have understood, but it was just B and I at the time.

There was a display of Japanese photography from the Tōhoku region (where the earthquake and tsunami hit two years ago) that was simply stunning. It wasn't pictures of the aftermath, but historic, documentary, and fine art photographs from the last half century. I used the show program to make some notes for future research into the photographers.

I took a bunch of pictures (of course) and some should be spectacular... One set in particular I have high hopes for, there was a Taiko drumming performance in Center House (which they've gone back to calling the Armory for some unknown reason), and while the light wasn't bright enough for stop-motion, it was bright enough for longer exposures.

*WOW* I though this would prove challenging, but it exceeded my expectations and then some. Changing and challenging light conditions, bad poses by the cosplayers, bad composition by me... and all of these things having to be dealt with on the fly as fast as possible. These folks are here to enjoy the con too, even if they do want to share their work - it's not fair to take up too much of their time. (And some of the folks in better costumes or of more popular characters could and did get asked to pose again and again.)

( Pictures after the cut... )

Tadaima! (I am home!)

The hotel had storage for guests that weren't leaving right off, so we packed up and stored our stuff. The breakfast place totally messed up our orders, but since they weren't unpleasant and we were in a hurry we went ahead and ate them anyhow. Bacon instead of ham on my breakfast sandwich isn't exactly a deal breaker.

Once at the con, we wandered until I had to go the last photoshoot... when we started, we had just one photographer (me) and four cosplayers - but at it's height we had four photographers and ten cosplayers! Plus, since we'd set up right off the main entrance, there was a lot of attention from passers-by. Once again I forgot to hydrate, and Brenda came to my rescue with a bottle of water.

We got done later than expected, and even though the hotel was well organized and it only took twenty minutes to get our stuff and car... we missed the 1.30PM ferry. I hadn't wanted to drive around, but I wanted to sit in the sun for an hour-and-a-half even less... so we drove around. We're already mostly unpacked, fed, and chillin', and the 3.00PM ferry hasn't even docked yet.

There's more unpacking and cleanup to do, but it's time to go veg in front of the TV... there's nothing undone that can't wait.

Ohaiyo! (Good morning!)



I found a different set of complementary computers this morning, in the back if the lobby bar. (!?!) Speaking of which, the lobby here is huge, it wraps around two side of the buildng and runs the length of the block on both sides. But, between being only steps from the convention center and having three floors of convention/meeting space of their own, I suppose they must see from pretty good crowds from time-to-time. I should take a moment to give kudos to the hotel, other than the crappy coffee in the coffee shop, they've been unfailingly well organized, helpful, and polite.

Day 01

We ended up eating breakfast in the hotel yesterday, very pleasent and comfortable but also very expensive... we found a little cafe down the block which hopefully will be cheaper. Four days at con can get a little expensive, so we need to keep an eye on the expenditures.

Brenda had an early panel on Cosplay, so I went to the opening ceremonies which was pretty fun. Until late afternoon, we were both on seperate tracks and so we only saw each other in passing.

The photoshoot with a group of Sailor Moon cosplayers went well despite having a much lower attendance than the activity on the forums would have suggested. (I'll be shooting them today and tommorrow too, so we'll see how it goes.) Over the day, I collected a lot of shots of Sailor Scouts, for an anime/manga series that's just over twenty years old now it still holds a lot of fascination for many.

My first panel ended up being canceled, so I spent more time wandering around and photographing the cosplayers - and there was some incredible cosplay going on... Some people are very dedicated, I saw one girl cosplaying Chi (from Chobits), and over the course of the day I saw her in pretty much all of her outfits from the series - in order. There's been a nice mix of new and old overall, along with many people in kimono. Renting the fast lens turned out to be a brilliant idea, as the lighting in the convention center has been uniformly horrible. I've been shooting a mix of just snapshots and trying for some portraiture, but mixed results on the latter. The cosplayers aren't really in that mode, and I still need to work out how to bring them out.

In the midst of all this, I also hit the dealers room - which was a total sensory overload between the crowds and all the cool stuff. I could have spent a fortune just on clever t-shirts...

Then it was time for a panel on creating AMVs, which was a little different than I expected but still interesting and useful. I have a couple of ideas for AMV, but they're one of many projects on the back burners. After that, Brenda and I hooked up and wandered around and headed over to the food court at Westlake Center, which has an amazing assortment of ethnic fast food, for dinner. She had an udon bowl, but nothing caught my eye and sadly I just defaulted to a chicken sandwich from McDonald's.

We came back for a panel on "Anime Girls and Bishounen (pretty boys)", but it turned out that the moderator wanted the crowd to discuss what they felt was attractive about their favorties... this felt a little skeevy so we bailed and wandered some more just watching and chatting with various cosplayers.

We hit a late night panel on abridged series and parodies, which turned out to be pretty amusing as well as informative. One of the moderators premiered his new video abridging/parodying Sword Are Online (which I've wanted to check out), which was funny as hell. (Even to Brenda, who didn't catch all the MMO in-jokes.) The panel was still going on at 11.30, but when they started a new video (the series didn't appear too interesting) we ended up bailing.

We'd hoped to get to the late night adult (hard PG/soft R no nudity) costume context, but we were both just wiped out... Ended up coming back to the room, chatting a bit about Saturday's schedule, and hitting the hay.

Day 2

In some ways, more of the same, in others different stuff... we're hitting the artist's room and the dealer room together first thing, then Brenda has a series of panels on Japanese culture while I have another photoshoot and more anime panels. Her alaram will go off soon, so it's time to go get coffee for her and take it up.

A&S daycamp on Saturday was it's usual blast... lots of time chatting and geeking. No photography this time because I spent too much time chatting and geeking...

My corned beef for Saint Patrick's Day turned out excellent except for a little grayish strip running through some of the meat. Does a wet cure need a little extra time, or did I try and pack too much onto the shelf and weight the brisket down too much? I can fix the former next year, the latter not so much.

Long time readers of my LJ may have noticed a dearth of photography over the winter... For whatever reason, I've been in a long creative funk. I haven't stressed too much (at least publicly) because these things happen, and eventually they do end. I went on a photowalk with a camera club the other weekend and got a couple of decent shots, and did some editing from the archive last week... so it's been coming back.

But yesterday, a stream of water flowing across a parking lot caught my eye, and I got a pretty good shot. It's not the greatest ever, but I'm very pleased with it because I'm not only shooting again, I'm seeing again.


Seeking Same

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Seeking Same [Monochrome]

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While waiting for a meeting to start, my friend (and fellow photographer) Jack and I were watching a vague bird shaped blob in a tree across the road. I thought it was an eagle, Jack thought the color was wrong... and neither of us had on hand a lens long enough to resolve the blob or the question.

So I was looking about to see what else could be seen, and the last of the evening light on this power pole caught my eye. As I'm framing the shot, Jack starts going "Derek, Derek, Derek", and I'm thinking - "can't you see me taking a shot?". Turns out he couldn't, because he was watching the bird take wing. So when I lowered the camera, he tried to point out where the bird (which turned out to be an Osprey) had landed, only it had taken off for parts unknown...

Ah well, at least this shot turned out decently.



Power Lines

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This weekend was mostly about chores and errands and setting up my new computer... But I did have an unusual shooting opportunity, my friend Mark (of Virtuous Photography) is not only the father of two girls in the dance troupe, but their "(un)official" photographer as well. (His daughter is the smaller girl all in white.) He invited me along to shoot their performance as part of the "Haunted Fairgrounds" Halloween festivities For most of the evening I was able to set up with my tripod straddling the corner of the stage, right in the thick of the action.

The shoot was challenging because of the low light, but fun and interesting too, because I've never done anything quite like this before. Because the performance was repeated, I could start to anticipate events and plan my shots as well as experiment with different settings.

There's more coming from this shoot, but it's Monday and that means I need to get on my housework and chores...

Broken Dolls I

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Broken Dolls II

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I spent three hours out in the cold and wind down in Manette yesterday trying to get a picture of the ferry in the fog. While the anticipated light never quite happened, I did get a couple of interesting shots which I'll post later. Since the ferry only runs every hour or so, I also had plenty of time to wander about and see what else there was to see.



Discarded

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