I’ve always found what lurks between buildings more interesting than the buildings themselves. Pardon the composition, I just liked the colors.

I’m starting to document my neighborhood because I think it is odd. It’s a strange mix of historic, industrial, hippy, hipster, east African, wealthy (by the river) — and a little dumpy.

…and a new photo from the fortune cookie factory dumpster, since I had my camera with me today.

… but I got a few photo in today. Now with daylight savings time, I can work late and still have time to take some photos in the evening. Punk rock photo group, yeah!

Even though it is the first beautiful day of the season, I’m still listening to Leonard Cohen, Nebraska, Dear You… why? A little sad today. I need some spring music.

A few photos from my day in San Francisco.

A great fireworks shop outside of Nashville:

Old sign in Knoxville:

Entrance and caves at the Lost Sea by Sweetwater, TN

Another highlight was the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge — the “hidden city” in the 40s where they processed uranium for the bomb. The museum was unlike any I’ve been to — extremely positive about nuclear energy, minimizing the effects that it had and may continue to have on Oak Ridge and surrounding areas. It was apparent that it was created to promote nuclear energy, as well as the extensive cleanup the city has done on the site. It’s worth checking out — if only to learn about the strange history of the town. A quick visit to their website confirmed my suspicion that the Oak Ridge Boys are in fact from the area. That explains a lot…

We stopped on the way home at an amazing antique mall in Indiana. I found a beautiful old book of bug illustrations and verses — caterpillars, ladybugs, dragonflies, etc. Turns out that it matches our kitchen well, and we’re considering using the illustrations for the mosaic on the counters. I’ll post pictures on this project as it develops!

And also, Short Circuits is this coming weekend, on Dec. 1 at Acadia Cafe. Please come and participate or just watch!

My shelf of weird dolls and stuff looks kind of neat lit from underneath.

As I sifted through old photos tonight, Bryan pointed out the awesomeness of this photo. It’s so weird and off-center, with large color blocks. Plus how could I not be interested in design growing up with a kitchen that looked like that? This is Missy, circa early eighties in Arden, DE.

I caved and got an iPod for a price I couldn’t refuse. I’ve been stuffing it with music, but Tip got ahold of it and programmed her own playlist:

1) Dog At Large, Naked Raygun
2) Dog Tree, The Ex
3) All Dogs are Hes, All Cats are Shes, Toys that Kill (though she’s perplexed by the title)
4) Corky Dog, Citizen Fish
5) Hear the Dogs, Dog Faced Hermans (her favorite band, of course)
6) Rough Dogs have Bumps, Melt Banana
7) Vagabond Dog, Naked Raygun
8) Bulldog Front, Fugazi
9) Underdog, The Dirtbombs

Why don’t you rise me up?

Matt did an awesome job of pulling this together in two days, and we had a ridiculous time today running around collecting photos of kids crying, teenagers making out, mullets, odd hats, animals giving birth, and other, more obscure things. In the end, Molly and John were victorious.

Most of my favorite photos, though, weren’t on the scavenger hunt list!

From the hard-to-find print shop (I’m going to make one for Bryan):

This was on our list: posing with a costumed character. John & I happened to both be there at the exact same time!

We each made our case for our set of photos:

And to the victors go the spoils:

And my favorite photo wasn’t even taken by us, but by a machine:

As I ran out the door this morning I did the whole frenzied check for my keys, wallet, bus card, phone, coffee thermos and bike helmet and then happened upon this little well-worn heart stencil to see what I could do with it.

You fill in the blanks.

Just experimenting with the weird light from the rainy night. It was creepy — in fact a guy and I equally scared each other in an alley: I was fawning over beer bottles glistening in the street lights; he was running to his car — not to steal my bike, as I originally thought!

I know that being a photographer is more about seeing a shot than the act of snapping the photograph, but sometimes one has to wonder about naturally occuring (or unintentional) patterns and colors. Looking for photos makes one more attune to organic design.

We went to see Factotum last night. It was amusing — always do love Lili Taylor. But the best part was seeing what parts of the Twin Cities they would use as “LA.” I spotted downtown St. Paul, the west bank, the warehouse district, and, funnily enough, the day labor center a block from my house.

They also caught on film one of the last classic abandoned buildings in downtown, which I photographed last year experimenting with a Lomo. I love the richness of color the Lomo provides.

Right after I took this photo, I was approached by a Hank Chinaski-esque guy. He let me take his photo, but asked that I not use it anywhere. It’s a shame, because I actually liked it quite a bit — but photographing people still makes me uneasy.