Knife skills and other things

contrary to somewhat cool opinion I haven't 'gone native' in my quest to learn some knife skills. This isn't about butchering an elk or disemboweling the neighbor's dog - it's about being able to chop vegetables like Gordon Ramsey and create vegetable centerpieces like one of Martha's minions. Don't worry people - it's a middle class pretension thing, not a return to my 'gut it n eat it' roots.

What else? Well we had a friend over last night who actually talks. It was nice to be the audience for once. And I enjoyed every tale - even if we did slip into ad speak on occasion (nothing more boring or more tempting). We also went to a folk gig where the audience was elderly and enthusiastic enough to have us worry about displaced and broken joints. Alas the young, cool, weird acts were separated by a man in a blue nylon suit who looked like Neil Diamond's dad and sang like Neil Diamond's Waste Disposal. Tragic and he acted as constant deflation rather than punctuation.

Bought my last lens for a while - another Minolta to replace the Sony Kit lens that came free with the camera. Actually I got two lenses with it and one was much better than anyone will admit. But the other is no match for the Minolta and so I gave in one last time. Other than a remote shutter I'm now done with buying for now.

The image above is a much reduced test shot that I took in the store.

So now bathed, dressed and trying to get up for Drag Queen Bingo, dinner at Fiddleheads (Curried Cauliflower Samosa with Savory Eggplant Jam, Citrus-Almond Couscous, Herb Oil for me) and then on to the casino for Dancin'

Time for a RedBull I think

Mood swings

~not in the mood~
Originally uploaded by Lisa at TSS

I'm a tad bi-polar today. My brain is telling me to savage each and every person that comes within 15 ft; my body is responding to the 'fight' impulse with a springier step and almost boundless energy.

Not sure what's causing it - perhaps it's a possession and I'll have to have lots of women in Sunday Hats pray around me while an elderly preacher speaks in tongues. Though I imagine that that's less fun than it sounds. But there is a business opportunity there - hats with brims made of real brimstone. Sure they'd be heavy but these women tend to have pretty thick necks - at least in my head.

They'd smell pretty bad though. With Brimstone just being sulphur. I guess it would be like wearing a large egg sandwich. But at least you'd always have the smell of the devil close at hand to remind you of his noxious presence on earth. I'm liking this more and more, I could sell this.

Just found out that Sulphur is odorless. It's hydrogen sulphite that smells of rotten eggs. Still my audience wouldn't know this - they think that the earth is 6,000 years old, that man was cast from eden for eating an apple and that the end of days is as imminent as H&M's end of season sale.

Never underestimate the customer people used to say.
The customer is your wife, don't treat her like an idiot
And all of those things

But when it comes to the kind of people who believe that angels are roaming the earth and that any second they will be ripped from their clothes up into heaven and watch in rapture as the jews burn I guess that the rule doesn't hold.

Brimstoned Hats for all then

More pics

Jude took this pic of me. Her first 'go' with the new lens.

Anyway weekend looks busier

Friday is a night watching the lead singer of Wilco doing something solo with my friend Toby
Saturday is drag queen bingo
And then dancing at the MGM in detroit
Sunday is looking for photoshoot props.

Maybe this winter won't be a total washout after all

Dangerous

spinout
Originally uploaded by Bob L2008

Had to drive to work twice today

140 miles in the snow
With people spinning out left and right

And somehow just avoiding me

Late meeting meant I missed my knife skills class but Jude is gonna teach me tomorrow,,,, should be fun....

Knackered now...

XOXO

XOXO
Originally uploaded by ♥babybee

Check zipper and let's go...

P1100145.JPG
Originally uploaded by stevenjude

Lots of big proects coming to fruition at work... which means lots of meetings with the big guys. Now I'm not a big fan of the sell - where you go in mob handed and try to explain that this thing is worth spending money on... it feels as though you're selling some old potion.

Better is the process where the clients are with you - have seen the work at every stage and we all just slide into doing the right thing. But that's a small company thing. Big companies have less time - mainly because they're doing more and getting 30mins of executive time means you're doing pretty well.

And the people that I'm working with at the moment have some pretty good, wanna be as hands on as possible, people.

So it's check the flies, blow the charts up big and Present time. Which I enjoy actually - i just wish it could be more discursive.

Weekend over

Weekend seems to have flown by. Today I drove first to Plymouth and then into Detroit with my friend Nardia. Plymouth had ice sculptures. And cold. Freezing, chilled to the bone, find me somewhere with soup cold. Detroit was less cold but had less to do - it seemed even more deserted than usual. Still we made it out to the old train station... which was very cool.

Yesterday was spent just playing with the new lens.


Not entirely successfully - but hey living and learning

Dance card filling up

have more models that I'm looking to do the Norma Desmond shoot with...
Starting to plan shooting boards...

This could be an expensive hobby

So today I decide to go out and get myself a couple of simple things for the camera (I buy it gifts)... wanted something that could blow off the dust (think repurposed douche basically) and a brush small enough to get the skin that flakes from my hands, eyes and forehead in this dry weather off the body and lens ('cause it's stomach churning to look at)

Drove through to Dexter and Huron Photo and they have a huge display case of Minolta lenses. They fit with Sony. Hmmmmm. Surely they couldn't have a used Minolta 50mm f/1.4 lens? Yes they could. Perfect condition. Less than half the new price. Better built than the new Sony. And perfect for portraits and low light.

It really is gorgeous.



Spent the afternoon playing with getting the tip of my nose in focus and the mustache nicely blurred. Then at getting a single hair in focus.

It's been much fun.

Wanted to do some self portraits... but the one thing that I'm missing now is a remote controlled shutter. That way I could sit in a chair with the camera and a tripod and have it focus and shoot - rather than having to find a proxy for where I'll be sitting; focus on that (auto or manually) and run like hell to be looking relaxed in the chair before the 10 second timer pings.

But that will be it (for now).... no more... I'm about to be jobless in Canada for God's sake.

This wasn't the best of today's pics. But for some reason I like it. Think it's the color.

Well equipped

I just bought a Minolta wireless flash from a guy at work. It's nice. You can hide it in corners and surprise granny. Or use it for artistic purposes. It even has it's own little umbrella. I swear one day this camera will be as well equipped as I am...

Perhaps I should post something other than my face on Facebook - it seems that the way I look is my biggest weakness. Other than the fact that I'm not particularly nice.

Here's how my friends (ahem) voted me

STRENGTHS:

best to hang out with for a day
most tech-savvy
most fashionable

WEAKNESSES:

person with the best profile picture
nicest


All I have to say to that is the body dysmorphia had already lowered my self esteem to almost zero - now that I know I'm also a complete tit I can almost smell the oil on the rope of the noose. Thanks 'friends'

A murder of crows

murder of crows
Originally uploaded by bizarre ink

There is a large Murder of Crows that have taken residence in the trees behind our house. Hundreds, maybe a thousand of them. They're noisy - all of the dogs in the building are freaked. They're messy - my car, my skylight and my patio are covered in crow shit. And they're scary - I understand now why it's a murder of crows.

I'm wondering whether they're also significant,

For the Celts, the crow was sacred and meant the flesh torn by fighting. "The crow pierced him" was a way to to say "he died".

The Bible has a different take. After Adam and Eve were driven away from the Paradise, the crows started to eat carrion - and they became black-feathered. At the end of time, the crows will find their beauty again and sing harmoniously to praise God.

In Africa the crow is a sent as a sign to tell men that menace is on the way.

The Greeks has the crow as a white messenger bird, until it delivered bad news and was turned black by an angry Apollo.

So it's bad news basically. One because it's black. Two because it feeds on carrion.

Bugger.

Wonder if there's a 'loose bowel' crow legend anywhere

Step two en route to better pics

Decided that it was time that I stepped up to the plate in terms of the kind of pictures that I want to take and to get a little more excited by the kind of thing that I'm doing.

Luckily I got an invitation to shoot here which seemed like a good thing to me.

The concept is really simple... I'm going to update Sunset Blvd. with a little angst to go with the melodrama. Imagine that Norma Desmond had been a Suicide Girl or perhaps a Pussycat Doll and then spent 30 years waiting for phone to ring.

This is the venue that I'm going to be using...



And this is the first model that I have confirmed



It's going to be great (or a disaster)... but hey if I can arrive in Canada as a member of the Detroit Photo Fetish scene then I'm a happy man

It's President Obama to you

DSC01545.JPG
Originally uploaded by stevenjude

If you're British and you're reading this that's

O-bam-a

Not

O-bahm-maah

think african chanting O-bam-a, O-bam-a, O-bam-a

Anyway today the new President is sworn in and the country will watch the edited highlights.

I'm on the look out for "Shaving Parties" - there have to be people who are celebrating the end of Bush with a "lose yours" themed event - doesn't there?

Brrrrrr

So the cold of yesterday's shoot took its toll on the number of models that showed up.
It was supposed to be four... then two... then one (and her mom)

Mom carried hairspray and blankets.
Model was sweet and professional.
My pics still have to be 'developed' from RAW (or ARW as Sony call it)




The best are still to come... but I am in love with this lens (a shame as I can't afford it) even though it was perhaps too good (look closely and you'll see that our model has pets)


Today is Martin Luther King day - so we have a break. Jude of course isn't here. We're bad with American holidays. And always seem to have something booked when one occurs. She's off in Whistler for ten days, skiing with 'another man' as I'm sure previous generations would have put it. Very garden fency that statement.

I blame the death of the garden fence conversation for our obsession with celebrity. It used to be that we could tut-tut about our neighbors - the woman that worked, the elderly spinster and her 'sister' in the post office, that Marjory with ideas above her station. But as time to gossip, higher fences and bigger gardens brought seclusion we moved our aim -- to Angelina and jennifer, to J-Lo, to Madge and to all of those women doing the things that we lambasted our neighbors for.

Anyway I'm home alone... and this morning I woke up with a zebra.



Better than a moose I guess

A stupid time to look for a job

So with the jobless numbers at their highest since 1945 and with businesses going under faster than a Biggest Loser cruise ship torpedoed by the fat fascists Jude and I decide that it's time for a move.

To a city where I don't speak the language,
And that wouldn't really take to me even if I did.

Of course Judith already has something there... which is good. It just doesn't pay us enough to keep us in the profligate style to which I've become accustomed, or even to keep us in style.

So I'm going to have to work.

Luckily there seems to be a lot of goodwill towards me out there. I'm really good at what I do. Given the right culture.
I'm happy to work on anything - there's no such thing as an ugly brand in my book.
And of course I'm cheaper than I should be.

So while the agencies aren't lining up to sign cheques; they are lining up to have a look, poke around under the hood and work out what might or might not work for them.

I have some ideas too. Less work, more play, better input. But we'll see.

There are worse things in the world than living in a very cool city and having time on your hands.
Looking forward to it

People are perverts two

Girl eating the apple in profile with graffiti behind her
Originally uploaded by stevenjude

take a girl in her underwear
give her an apple
shoot her eating the apple in a window
tag the picture with the word "Suspenders"
and you average 50 hits an hour
filthy men

First blog in a while

Flash test
Originally uploaded by stevenjude

It's my first blog in a while... primarily because I've not been able to feel my fingers for the last couple of days - rendering typing somewhat difficult (I thought head-spike but didn't love the look)

It's -25c here today with a wind chill taking us south of -40c.

Now I know that I have to get used to that - but when the ice on the inside of your car is an inch thick and the heater causes it to melt into 'that'll smell later" puddles you know that it's cold.

Frostbite warning is down to five minutes. The tire pressure sensors on every car are going haywire and even though I'm wrapped up as though I were a boy in a bubble about to be shipped by FedEx I feel chilled to the bone.

Brrrrrrrr and GMTFOH

Gloomy

1-26-07
Originally uploaded by chrismaverick

It's really cold outside

I'm tired (mainly because while I'm back in the swing of 5,30am to get to the gym I'm not yet at early to bed to make that painless)

One person that I work with is entirely spineless, I'm entirely emotionless. That makes for friction.

But mainly it's just cold outside
Or is it mainly that I'm tired

take your pick
Either way I'm not a smiley person today

GMTFOH - Weather watch

High: -10 °C RealFeel®: -13 °C
Low: -17 °C RealFeel®: -33 °C
Frigid with blowing and drifting snow; considerable clouds with a couple of snow showers

Dirty old men

knackered schoolgirl spy?
Originally uploaded by stevenjude

The world is full of dirty old men, it seems. I post this wholesome image of a busty young wench dressed as a schoolgirl and suddenly it's on a 'we love knee socks' site and being salivated over by men who, I guess, watch a lot of women's field hockey; remote in one hand, whatever comes TO hand in the other.

Why it's almost enough for me to mark the thing as private. Almost. I need the hits.

Which reminds me - I lost the sitemeter from this site when I updated the look. Partly due to technical incompetence and partly due to the fact that every time I saw the number's dip I'd slide in a phrase like "Lindsay Lohan's Lesbo Snatch" just to get those Middle Eastern hits (go Yemen)

I miss knowing who's been in - but I have to say that freedom from the tyranny of the numbers feels good. Really good.