Stalking Light and Life

Seems like it will take me longer than expected to upload another big film-entry, so here's a quick one with squared-neg film. The long one will be up before November ends-- I promise.

Grabbed the Rollei and did a couple of test frames... everything Portra 400VC (my new favorite 120 colour film)



I was walking around the uni, looking for something or someone to photograph, and I found a writer that teaches here: Felipe Montes. He's got a bunch of groupies here... which is kind of funny.



It was cool approaching him; he was eating, and seemed surprised to see me asking if I could make a picture.

I had only 4 frames, so I did 3 close and 1 from a normal distance.



I never thought the Rolleinars were the *exact* thing I was looking for. Can't tell you how sharp the full frame is.

Now I can try and play Steve Pyke.

That's all for now.

Have some good news...

...not telling right now, of course.

... it would ruin the surprise.

Hope life catches you well.

J

Click here to download the Alice Workshop Instructions.

PracticaAlice.pdf

More things to come soon...

I've been busy lately... it's cooler to say you're quitting your job than actually doing it.

I mean... I could just walk away and not give a fuck, but that's not my style. I try to do things properly.

Even if people hate me... I like it when they hate me properly, not just plain old, mediocre hate...

...as I know that certain readers do.

But what are you going to do? This is the net, and I prefer to avoid any emo-kiddo or wannaby artsy fartsy pretentious self portrait with camera gear, or books... as if I were masturbating to the thought of being something I am not.

---this is all; what you see is what you get.

Pictures don't lie.

Unless Photoshopped... but that ain't happening here... I couldn't care less about modifying my frames for stuff other than tones and balance.

...as if I could remove in Photoshop someone's being an asshole...

As I told N the other day... I like to make frames of things that catch my eye... but some individuals will never be photographed (again) through my lens just because they are not worthy of it.


And so-fucking-what? My camera; my point of view.

This also brings to mind some other thoughts... like school and growing up.

There's only so much you can do on school, then you have to grow-the-fuck-up.

My limit is Master's Degree. Yes, like... I want to have theoretical expertise in a given field that I am truly interested in (Information Technology - I'm a computer guy according to my university degree). But the problem is not about getting perfect grades, it's actually what you do in the real world.

...and unless you are not doing real world research, if you are still in school, after university, you suck.

"I feel good in this comfort circle that harbors no responsibilities other than doing my homework, and teaching some undergrad kids" definitely does not count as Real World. Puhleeeeease... unless you can actually make it happen outside, then you are using up valuable resources like oxygen.

Anyway... I don't usee a blog to make you think I am a thinker, a philosopher, or someone who actually cares about making himself look interesting. My friends know who I am, and how much I would do for them.

But come on... this is too much bla bla and no photos. My photos.

On a side note, I think it's caring too much to put a copyright notice on each photo, but my good friend Nuno (who is a kick ass concert photographer) told me to always do that.


First, let's get digital out of the way:

My ex-roommate asked me to drop by his live presentation at Café Iguana.

He's an amazing DJ... and this was his night.

It's twice the fun to watch him wink you, just before he puts your favorite mixed song.

We both worked at the same company once... and just like that, life goes on:

Check out his site: http://www.myspace.com/djferh

He's also working as a producer with some other guy: http://www.myspace.com/loudroomrec

T'was a fun night...

Film already!!!

These are some old scans from a Portra160NC:

Reala 100. Do they even make that film anymore? In the lovely store where they scratch the film sans extra fee, they sell it... and it's dated, so I'm going with a "yes, they still make it".

drumrolls

Yes! A lovely brick wall. Please note coma, chromatic aberration, pincushion and vignetting.

Ha!

Gotcha!

Nah, just for the fun of it, here is a brick wall:

This one serves to illustrate two things:

1. Car accidents in Monterrey happen a-fucking-lot... most of the people drive like shit
2. If you batch scan color film with automatic dust and scratch removal, you might end up with shadows like those here shown:

...and now... a commercial break...

I like the rolleiflex, but working out the square neg is quite challenging for me.

I can't wait to see how my b/w homemade developing works with MF... so far with 35mm it's going fairly well.

Now, starting with some images from my first attempts to develop Tri-x myself:

I'm loving Xtol, and learning how not to mess up the Fixer (two practice rolls screwed, one good one screwed, but somewhat scanneable).

And all that mixing, pouring, and shaking produces this:

Delta 100 (Xtol 1:3)

Now Delta 400:

... and now Tmax 400 (Xtol 1:3):

I don't know why cameras are prohibited in super markets. Is it because someone may photograph their layout? You could write it on a notepad. Are you documenting what they have in stock... well... you can write it down as well.

Anyway...

I went to the movies with N, and as we got out of the car, I saw this man sitting in a bucket. I've seen him around since I first came to this cinemas, about six years ago. It took me all this time, and the experience I've built until now to approach and ask for a portrait.

I was very happy to see he was was willing to sit for a moment and let me make a few frames.

He told me that he looked after this car for a friend who owned it.

He asked for a print, which I will be making next weekend.

This was a reminder to never leave the camera at home, or somewhere else... you never know where you'll find something that makes you feel that rush pressing the shutter.

Finally...Trix 400 (Xtol 1:1):

And this is life as I saw it happen.

So this is in a way, me.

The me I want you to know...

...exactly how I want you to know it.

Hope life catches you well,

J

I'm quitting my job.

Well... it's not exactly my job. It's my "I don't have anything else to do, and I need to pay the rent" kind of thing.

I am having a hard time matching my profile that my manager expects from me due to several reasons:

• I'm not a robot. It's fucked up to work extra hours because of his mistakes/shortcomings
• I have a mind of my own, and use it rather frequently; I am not going to do work shit just because he thinks it should be done. Demonstrate me why, and where the importance of that shit lies.
• I can't stand working for dishonest people. I've got principles.

If you want a professional team, treat your team like one.

That's all I have to say about my soon-to-be ex-job.

...when in doubt try to figure what exact problem you are trying to solve.

In my case, I'm not looking for anything over-the-top. I want to read a little more, to do some more stuff in a sandbox before actually throwing myself at the big sharks.

This feels a bit weird because I'm on my own now. (own, now, won, ... stupid Word Challenge App in FB).

This means no known friends, no known teachers, and the lovely uncertainty of wondering if I'm any good for it.

Well, the start seems good. I got all expenses covered on my own. No longer depending on dad. I'm sort of a grown up now.

I wonder how many people in grad school still phone home: "Dad, can I have a deposit?". Or... "Dad, I am an idiot and lost my credit card for the 25th time..... even though I am theoretically a grown-up and should be doing these things myself, can you get me a replacement?". I guess it's very different between people, so I won't keep on bitching.

I have a feeling that this will be totally worth it... with or without my usual paradigms.

...so I got some photos from the lab.

Since it was good, old colour negatives, I took it to Fotofase.

Yes, Fotofase SUCKS for b&w, but come on... how difficult is it for super standard C-41? you just put the roll in the machine, and voilà... developed film.

So I dropped the film, asked the negs to be uncut (hate the fucking 4-frame strips when I have 6 strip storage pages).

I have my own scanner, so I do the scanning even though it takes AGES (I'm on a super-tight budget now).

Guess what... drum rolls... Fotofase keeps the official WE SUCK ROYAL title.


They hand me my negative inside a long plastic cover. I wonder how they put the film in there gently... my guess is that they just push the film in.

I did not want to pull out the film, so i cut along the edge, to slide the film gently out of the wrap/cover, only to find out it is completely scratched.

Not as in hairline scratch... more like Dear Sir, we put your film through a sand box with pieces of broken glass, and just for the sake of it, our cat decided to sharpen his nails scratching your film.

One of the frames had the red layer completely torn off. Yes, that's the security layer...

Now, you get it? They are CRAP.

There's some thing I like about doing a BW conversion with portra 160VC. I love that film. Most of the time I'm in between leaving it color, or BW...

For BW, I am an Ilford Delta fan.

So here are the photos:

That's about it. Will scan some 6x6 frames sometime soon.

If you know Spanish, here's my letter to the assholes at Fotofase:

Llevé un Portra 160VC a la sucursal de Barrio Antiguo y pedí que no cortaran el rollo (odio las tiras de 4, y tengo hojas de tiras 6, entonces prefiero cortarlo yo).

Me entregaron en una funda de plástico traslúcido mi negativo, y al sacarlo para escanearlo, me dí cuenta que estaba TODO rayado.

No sé si no saben meter el negativo ahí, o si lo pasaron por arena y le pusieron un gato encima para que se revolcara. No sé si la máquina está vieja, o qué pasó. Me parece ridículo que un laboratorio de fotografía maltrate de esa manera mis negativos.

Fue tan fuerte el maltrato, que en un cuadro, la capa protectora del negativo (la que hace que se vean rojos o marrones - c-41) está rasgada.

R A S G A D A.

Mis fotografías no se merecen dicho trato.

No regresaré con ud, y si alguien me pide una recomendación de laboratorio, no serán ustedes.

Dudo que FotoLab del Norte sea tan descuidado.

Hope life catches you well.

J

...So there were some reasons to go back to Mexico City...

I won't go into the strongest personal reason... none of your business whatsoever.

Some are just waiting to get back... others like me are just trying to move on.

It's weird how things work. I love home, I love the city, but I think I'm over it.

In Mexico, certain people from the countryside blog about this place, and rant about how awesome and great, and fucking special it is. I guess it is thaaat special when you grew up in a stinky town, and long to feel special in a place where you're not that unique. Anyway... I'll digress.


I still got a sweet spot for Mexico City deep within me. It's too bad I had to leave N temporarily, but well, she's tough and can kick anyone's ass without my help.

...So there was a photo-workshop...

Not any photo-workshop, but the meanest, baddest workshop in town: Foundry Photo Workshop.

Here's some name dropping if you're turned on by that:

• Kael Alford
• Paula Bronstein
• Andrea Bruce
• Renée C. Byer
• Guy Calaf
• Tewfic El-Sawy
• Stanley Greene
• Ron Haviv
• Eros Hoagland
• Hugo Infante
• Scott Mc Kiernan
• Michael Robinson Chavez
• Benjamin Rusnak
• Shaul Schwarz
• Stephanie Sinclair
• Khadir Van Lohuizen
• Holly Wilmeth
• Adam Wiseman
• Adriana Zebrauskas

Last, but not least... not teaching but helping veeeery much:

• Rodrigo Cruz
• Hugo Infante

I jumped between 3 classes: Multimedia Storytelling (Tewfic), Building a Reportage (Eros) and Photojournalist Bootcamp (Renee, Paula, Scott). It's too bad there were so many great photogs teaching at the same time.

Sort of reminded me of a little kid in a huge candy store, and only seconds to grab a few things before mom or dad calls.

And so a week passed by.

A somewhat strange week... with photographers from all over the world, lots of beer, avid desires to learn, to teach, to grow aware of what's around you, and introduce yourself to truly awesome guys... friendship in the air.

I did 3 things: Help translate, get access, and shoot.

Multimedia Storytelling

We headed to Sonora Market, to shoot traditional Mexican stuff.

Well, it's a market where you can find from toys, to herbal medicine, live animals, and healers. It was a bit daunting at first because I had not heard any good things from my father... he was a bit reluctant to let me go... but you know... I've been in worse places.

After trying to convince Lukcero Aghakán to let us take pictures, we looked around for someone else who would be willing to let us take photos and provide us with information about healers and the healing process. We actually never got to talk with Ms. Aghakán; one of her assistants made a point in saying that they had an arrangement with the big-evil Mexican TV network Televisa.

It sucked... I mean... traditional healers with their exclusivity contract with a tv station. Pleaseee...

After wandering around the market for some time, we spoke with Angel Guarda who was truly amazing. He explained the healing process, and was quite friendly when it came to share experiences and take pictures. Angel, you rock!

So here is what I did in the end...

It's not much but I liked the result:

...and well... being in Mexico City, I could not neglect my long time friends Betty and David.

Time was short, but we had fun. David showed us his latest creations and well, Betty smiled.

We went to El Hijo del Cuervo to have a couple of beers and just talk about everything we have always done.

The next day was calm. During the morning I attended the Building a Reportage lecture, and discussed some cool things about coherence of the story, and closeness (image-wise).

But since I had my wheels, I told Matt we could drive downtown and just walk and shoot pictures.

He's funny, and an awesome photographer. Check out MJR. N O W ! ! !

Also met Mustafah from MJR. He did a hardcore project about crime in Mexico City. He had awesome shots as well.

Mustafah was sitting down half awake, half asleep in a couch, so I approached and said:

J: Rough night?

M: Man, last night I was in a police raid and so sooo many firearms... like I'd never seen before. And it was hardcore... safeties off and just ready to shoot.

J: I don't think those guns had any safeties.

M: What do you mean?

J: Safety devices are considered "extra" in here... y'know... guns with safeties cost more, and well...

It was cool he did not get hurt, or shot. A police raid in Tepito... that's harcdore.

PJ Bootcamp.


This seemed like an interesting class, and since I was free, and not shooting, I thought I might as well go in.

So I opened the door and everyone went quiet and looked at me.

Typical "oh shit" moment.

M: Is this PJ Bootcamp?

Scott: Yes.


M: Can I stay? I'm interested to hear what you have to say.

Scott: Yeah, grab a chair.

And they kept reviewing people's projects, and I just felt infatuated with this class. It was about three teachers with incredibly trained eyes for photography telling you how to build a small story with images... and you brought them your photos straight from the camera and they would tell you what worked, and what sucked.

To have the three guys discussing out-loud about what photos were cool and which ones weren't - priceless.

So it was Thursday morning... Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday went by quickly (as when you have lots of fun), and Thursday morning I met Tewfic, Chris, and Adam at the Mother's Monument, where people were protesting naked.

Peasants and fishermen from the Mexican state Veracruz were removed from their lands. Eventually, the local government seized these lands without providing the original owners any type of restitution. Since the local government was not opening any channel for communication, the peasants and fishermen brought their families to Mexico City to obtain an answer to their situation.

Their marching and dancing naked is a symbol of the fact that without lands they do not have anything; not even clothes.

This is one of the first times I've photographed public manifestations up close and personal.

I met a really cool guy called Pedro who guided me around. He had a cool sense of humour... which made me wonder how much humour I'd have if I were protesting against the government.

Well... never mind.

So Thursday Morning I met with the Multimedia Storytelling guys, and shot this. Later during the PJ Bootcamp class, I decided I wanted this to be my project (originally it was supposed to be low-level cantinas, but the window for that project was killer for waking up early for class).

I did not like any of the pictures I took in the morning.

It felt good to see the whole material on the big screens. The colors sucked, but the atmosphere in the auditorium was cool.

My favorite panel was the one with Stanley, Khadir, Scott, and David (from NatGeo), and the discussion about the future of photojournalism.

And that was it for Foundry 2008.

I spent the rest of the time with my family, and was quite happy about it.

Too bad couldn't go out to dinner the three of us, but well... there will be other times.

Better times, hopefully.

Mexico City's airport has seen me many times in these past years. With lots of luggage, with only a backpack and a camera, exhausted from intercontinental flights, but this time was weird. I had this strange satisfaction you only have when things go perfectly sweet, and there's no way someone on Earth can take that from you.

... a small realization, maybe.

They sky on my way back just gave me a pretty good image to close this chapter down... youth, dreams, and good times... here and far.

Hope life catches you well.

J

For now, I have my very own Mexico City entry waiting...

It's far from finished, but well... ya know... Photoshop takes some time... particularly with .NEF's.

It's veeeeery simple to pop your Leopard DVD and just click away "next" or "continue" and voilà... OS X 10.5 for the masses.

And what if for some strange reason the laptop won't read the DVD as startup disk?

When life is not that simple, you can just use a Mac Pro as brain for the smaller, less powerful laptop.

You might even need to end up doing this:



Yes... a huuuge Mac Pro used as a vile Target Disk. That's a very expensive external FireWire disk.

And so, I had to play around with dmg's, open firmware, and single user sessions (sooo in looove with the dark screen, and console appearance)... to finally get HERE:



And just like in American Beauty... I yelled: "I RULE".

Now... after about 35k lines of installation log... here are some useful tips I found. In fact, this is much more for me than you... so I remember stuff. If you couldn't care less... skip to the bottom of the separator...

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• I hated the glossy dock... so I changed it. Since ObjectDock just won't work (haven't looked for it yet), I found a cool console command:
  

  defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
  
  killall Dock

• I also like to know where I am placed every instant I look to the toolbar, so I want to see a full path à la windows:
  

  defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES

  ...ah yes... I am in /Developer/Applications/Utilities... that's why the regular system utilities are not here.
  
  Now I get it.
• Front Row. Yes! Awesome idea, Cupertino. But... if I don't have a remote how can I access it?
  
  Simple:
  

  Command + Esc

Thanks to D.W. Hoard at CalTech for his lovely site with OS X tips. You can learn how to change the login shell, and other practical stuff there.

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I'm off for now... I've been having a headache today, and have still many photos to go through.

Hope life catches you well.

J

I was havig some troubles with a WinXP machine at work.

I could not see hidden files, even after activating them in options.

So I had to go to the registry editor and do the following:

Find: HKLM-Software-Microsoft-Windows-CurrentVersion-Explorer-Advanced-Folder-Hidden-SHOWALL

then DELETE the value CheckedValue in the right window. (Its type should be REG_SZ and data should be 2.)

Finally create a new DWORD value called CheckedValue (same as above, except that the type is REG_DWORD). Modify the value data to 1 (0x00000001)..

Voilà.

Here, in the Sonora Market, there are many elements of the occultism.

Many spiritist, santeros, witches, magicians and chamanes are found here.

To do any witchcraft work, there are four main elements that rule the planet: Fire, Water, Air, Earth. Everything is energy. Witchcraft does not exist, it’s only energies.

But how are energies created? Chamanes dance around a bonfire until they reach ecstasy to create energy; there are people who mourn/pray; there are those who work with herbs and manipulate herbal substances to whatever end… good or bad. But there is a greater power that people do not recognize: the energy of the human being. There are those of us who have a great mental power, there are some who are not aware of their own power.

The human body is a receiver and an emitter of energies, that is while after some time there is a need to cleanse the body. For this end, there are many many methods... like temazcales, baths in rivers or cascades, cleansings, quartz stones, etc.

The easiest and most traditional way to heal oneself is an egg, or some herbs from nature. Most of the time, no-one knows how to do it properly, nor how to use the 4 elements.

At the beginnings of time, there were two parts that controlled the stability of the planet: the good and the bad. Since these are two extremes, a fusion becomes a saint... the balance.

Saints desired more power so they discovered red magic and green magic.

Red magic is a very powerful energy, and uses blood from sacrifices or donations.

Green magic is based on nature; herbs. It does good or bad to the humans. There are very powerful herbs that may kill humans, so everything depends on what is used.

Most of the people doing this, are not aware of the foundations of how to handle magic. A lot of them have read literature from undocumented sources that worked for a particular case, and most likely won't work for other cases.

Black magic by itself does no harm... you need to have a combination: a duality.

There are four main types of magic: Black magic, green magic, red magic, white magic: four elements: Water Earth Wind and Fire.

Many recipes or preparations just use a couple of types of magic, without considering the others... for the product to work, you need the presence of four... it's like a two-feet table.

I'm 53, and I've been doing this since I was 12. There's nothing I haven't read... but many don't know a thing. I was taught by ascended teachers whose names I can't mention.

There are three fundamental steps to a complete process:

1.- Consacration of the elements: that prepares the energy in them.
2.- A rite: All the movements and gestures for the process: whether good or bad.
3.- The spells: the most important step. The spells create an enchantment; they close... they create a trascendency in the process.

For a healing, herbs or natural elements are used. Oils, soaps, lotions, perfumes... many elements can be used as well. In reality, to heal a person you need energybecause the human being is energy.

There are four other steps for a healing process:

1. destroy all bad energy. Spirits and negative energies exists. Even though people don't believe in them, we are not alone at all. They exist beyond our capacity to understand them.
2. The human body is comprised by seven energy points called chakras. When someone is not feeling well, it's because their chakras are not stable. Once a person stabilizes and harmonizes his/her chakras, healing occurs... this can be done with herbs, with energies, with many different elements... even with conventional medicine.
3.- We are all immersed in the energy of the human being. There's a polarity; once a person is polarized he/she becomes a human magnet. Bad energy can be repelled and good energy can be attracted. For all this, you need a process... this polarity exists on Earth. There's people whose polarity is so unstable that good things that arrive to them are repelled unconsciously... same with health. When you're correctly polarized, you attract good energy.
4.- There are many protections (like the tetragrammathron), and elements that serve as protection. Unless those things have a healing and spell process, they are only material things, and cannot provide real protection.

Once you have a connection with divine energy, the universal energy, you become immune to many things, and no energy can affect you; you have an energy field that protects you.

(shows book by Barbara Newmann - hands that heal)

The most special cleansing is by using quartz.... it has an energy by its own.

In Sonora Market, in order to know who knows about magic and who is fake, one should ask them how many types of magic exist. If they don't mention the 4 magic we have mentioned, don't waste your money.

If a person uses an egg for a cleansing, they use white and red magic because the egg is in principle a living being, and it is used as a sacrificed to absorb all bad energy in the person.

If they use plants to cleanse, they use black and green magic.

The trick is in consacrating the elements and ritualizing the process. In wrong hands, this processes can hurt people, or do evil upon others.

In this market, there are not many people left who know about magic... the only way is to approach someone who knows magic.

In a human being the energy terminals are in the palms of the hands and the feet; those are the sources of energy flow in all of us.

Here are six photos I like from the film I picked up from the lab yesterday.

Everything shot in Portra 400 NC.













It'd be cool if at least one of those photos made you smile.

Hope life catches you well.

J