Dialogue Parts I and II has always been one of my favorite Chicago songs. It was on the album Chicago V (Saturday in the Park was the big hit) which was released in July of 1972. I think it’s incredibly hard to imagine that it’s 40 years later and the lyrics are still relevant, that the problems that are addressed like war, repression and hunger are still with us today.

The image was made at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California.

Enjoy the weekend…

Are you optimistic ’bout the way things are going
No, I never ever think of it at all
Don’t you ever worry
When you see what’s going down
Well, I try to mind my business, that is, no business at all
When it’s time to function as a feeling human being
Will your bachelor of arts help you get by
I hope to study further, a few more years or so
I also hope to keep a steady high
Will you try to change things
Use the power that you have, the power of a million new ideas
What is this power you speak of and this need for things to change
I always thought that everything was fine… everything is fine
Don’t you feel repression just closing in around
No, the campus here is very, very free
Don’t it make you angry the way war is dragging on
Well, I hope the president knows what he’s into, I don’t know… Oooh I just don’t know
Don’t you see the starvation in the city where you live
All the needless hunger all the needless pain
I haven’t been there lately, the country is so fine
My neighbors don’t seem hungry ’cause they haven’t got the time… haven’t got the time
Thank you for the talk, you know you really eased my mind
I was troubled by the shapes of things to come
Well, if you had my outlook your feelings would be numb
You’d always think that everything was fine… everything was fine

We can make it happen
We can change the world now
We can save the children
We can make it better
We can make it happen
We can save the children
We can make it happen

On Thursday evening, President Obama attended a campaign fundraiser at the home of George Clooney in Studio City, California. Here are some images of the people congregated at the intersection of Ventura Boulevard and Laurel Canyon Boulevard waiting for the motorcade to pass by. The President was in one of the two SUVs with the flags. By all accounts, the expensive event ($40,000 per person) was a rousing success raising a lot of money for the upcoming campaign.

What struck me personally about all of this was the amazing diversity of the crowd as virtually every ethnicity, age and gender was represented. It was actually refreshing to see.

The other thing I noticed that’s getting more prevalent is the amount of people that actually miss what’s happening because they’re too busy taking too many pictures or video with their phones. It’s one thing to capture a moment or document an exciting event but I can’t believe how many people don’t ever enjoy the reason that they’re someplace in the first place.

Sometimes, things aren’t always what they seem to be, it’s all a matter of perspective.
In the case of this plane, everything is perfect, cruising along the California coast above Hermosa Beach on a beautiful day with blue skies and the white clouds. From my angle, it just looks like there’s trouble ahead. Granted, the way I processed the image enhances that thought but… sometimes the opposite is true as well. All hell is breaking loose but things look like they are calm as can be. Until they aren’t. Perception’s lots of things, usually, it’s not reality.

This song has the perfect blend of energy and relaxed cool. After spending this past week pounding away at things, it’s a perfect mood setter (along with a Bloody Mary) for a Sunday morning. Hopefully, I’ll be a little more upbeat next week and have time to actually post something (anything?) here. The above is from an early Sunday morning in Freeport, Bahamas back in 2006.

There are lots of things in this world to be afraid of. Some people are deathly afraid of spiders and snakes. People with peanut allergies recoil at the site of one. Just because you don’t look fear straight in the eye doesn’t mean you won’t conquer it or that you’re not dealing with it. And just like other things in life, everyone has their own way of dealing with fear.

This has always been one of my favorite Jimmy Buffett songs. Yes, his party stuff is fun but personally, I’ve always felt his ballad-y songs like A Pirate Looks at Forty, Son of a Son of A Sailor and Havana Daydreamin’ and this one were better. This song was originally released in 1977 on Jimmy’s Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes album though a shorter version appeared on the soundtrack for the movie Rancho Deluxe in 1975.

Here are the lyrics in case you want to sing along:

Years grow shorter, not longer,
the more you’ve been on your own.
Feelin’s for movin’ grow stronger’
so you wonder why you ever go home,
wonder why you ever go home.
People are movin’ so quickly.
Humor’s in need of repair.
Same occupations and same obligations;
they’ve really got nothing to share,
like drivin’ around with no spare.

River gets deeper not shallow,
the further you move down the stream.
Wonderin’if I can keep her as I
race to keep up with my dreams.
How they shine and glitter and gleam.

The image is from December of 2010 when I spent some time in Las Vegas. I was standing in the parking lot of Mandalay Bay when I made this image. I’ve always had a thing for framing planes with palm trees.

This would pretty much sum up my mood at the moment if it were doing a full 360. This image was made back in 2007 while on assignment in Rurrenabaque, Bolivia. I was sitting in a wobbly long boat on the Rio Yacuma that was turning as I tried to capture this bird. It was basically a throwaway since I had my fill of cormorants and didn’t check my settings. Still amazed that anything remotely interesting came of this. It works for me today though.

For the specheads, RAW – ISO 100 – 400mm – f8 @ 1/100

As sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, it doesn’t take humans long to get undressed, partially or otherwise in front of a camera. It was probably happening just as frequently 50 years ago, it was just more difficult to get the film developed. Now, cameras are everywhere and it doesn’t take long for an entrepreneurial mind or two to capitalize upon the convergence. Instagram has spawned a cottage industry of sorts, content aggregation based upon its stream. Gizmodo did a piece three days after Instagram was acquired by Facebook on a site called [Boobstagram] which has been running since October of last year. Apparently, their mission is to create awareness about breast cancer and the 21,000 people who liked them on FB must agree. Based in France, the operators have also registered the domains asstagram, legstagram but haven’t put up sites as of yet. Another french outfit has registered penistagram.com but haven’t gotten it up yet either while probably waiting for a Cialis sponsorship. Of course, the web’s favorite photographic subject is not ignored.

And if the market for grainy, tinted, lo-fi images wasn’t oversaturated enough, according to Engadget, Ikea plans to release its own camera this year, apparently to help you document the successful assembly of the Nyvoll bed frame.

Now that I feel completely inspired, I can sit down with a winestagram (taken) have a smokestagram (available but politically incorrect) and read a bookstagram (taken) while I listen to musicstagram (taken.) Seriously?

Some of you may have gotten your butt kicked by the recession the way I did. Thankfully, things are turning around but for a long while there, it was rough. One of the things that helped me get through was playing paparazzi. Yes, I know, an admission like that is usually met with derision if not worse. For the most part, most of the people involved in this business are pretty normal and like everything else in life you get your share of people you want no part of. It goes without saying that living in L.A, geography played a big part of getting into it. Had I been living in Duluth, it probably wouldn’t have worked and I would have been cold. As a full time gig, it’s a lot more difficult than you might think and relatively speaking, the photography is the easy part. I’ll get into the “other” parts down the line. For now, here’s a shot of Ryan Gosling coming out of Home Depot. It’s a nothing image but as US Magazine like’s to remind everyone, “Stars, they’re just like us”. Yeah, right.

Like a lot of people I know, I’m suffering from information overload. Facebook, Twitter etc. are all great and then another one like Path pops up or Pintarest or Tumblr. Who can keep up? It’s like watching American Idol, The Voice, Dancing With the Stars, Biggest Loser, Next Top Model, X-Factor, Insert Your Country Here’s Got Talent and on and on and on. Overload. That being said, and being the masochist that I am, I decided to start this blog so I could have more room to exercise my mind and write about topics that I enjoy and find interesting. Whatever strikes me at the moment will probably make an appearance here. I’m planning for it to be a melange of photography, music, pop culture, travel and more but you know what they say about best laid plans. If you don’t feel like visiting regularly, I understand. That’s why somebody invented RSS Feeds and Google Reader. Enjoy the music.