Blacks and Whites Volume. 1

Well I was able to find a stand in monitor to fill in the time until Samsung sends mine back! But in lieu of this I can throw some of my black and white photos that have been piling up. Enjoy a couple as I figure out a way to properly title and explain some of these pictures.

Pinole Shores

In the Furnace

The Greatest Race

When we think of the term "race", it is often followed by a trivial concern over whether we're discussing a left-turn circuit meet or a categorization of our fellow human. The topic of race is one that I greatly take to the heart, as I often speak aloud on various topics of racism. In current news, we've experienced a racial scenario that parallels to ridiculous; the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. is my topic of today.

While returning from a trip in China, a neighbor in Gates' Cambridge neighborhood phoned in police of a reported break-in. When Gates was confronted by Sgt. Crowley it wasn't a laughing matter. Gates was asked what he was doing on the grounds and was repeatedly harassed into showing identification - Gates promptly responded by demanding the officer's name and badge number, which was not given lightly. Gates was then arrested for disorderly conduct, on the porch of his own home because he refused to accept the profiling of a racially enraged neighbor and police officer.

Race isn't just an issue that is affecting African-Americans in this country; with the events of September 11th - and since then - Arab-Americans have become the new "fad" in racial profiling. It is often a frenzy to hear a friend describe any middle-easterner as a terrorist, when just a generation before our most feared "terrorists" were Russians.

We have reached an apex of human appreciation and our control over future conditions will define whether or not we spiral out of control or exit successfully. The time to sit down and discuss matters of race are long over due, especially since we've elected our first African-American President in the history of this country. Whether we can get over the stigma of racial supremacy or segregation will be a challenge for this generation, a feat for the future.

Surrender to Samsung

Blogs have been down for a few days, simply due to Samsung's LCD deciding it didn't want to function anymore. I'm working on a new project called "Blacks and Whites", using black and white pictures produced on the digital SLR. Simple work for now, until the new lens gets purchased - 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens - which will make a sexy addition to the camera world in my closet.

First wave of pictures should get updated soon as I'm in Santa Cruz with a majority of tourists, I'm not sure if things will get done this weekend.

On A Scale Of 1:1

Maybe of us can remember our grade school and high school days, most of us were following a new American phenomenon of the Japanese Anime scene floating around; especially all the line-ups on Cartoon Networks Toonami block. One stands out amongst all, for me anyways, and that was Mobile Suit Gundam and the Gundam Wing Series. Long story extremely short, think mechanical, man-powered space suits the size of downtown buildings with ridiculously large canons and monstrous melee weaponry...now take all that and put it in a bonanza of animated episodes and you've got a following for the masses.

Well on July 11th in Shiokaze Park in Japan a full scale, yes 1:1, Mobile Suit Gundam replica was completed, standing a whopping 59 Feet tall - that's just under six stories. This homage to anime lovers is a blessing in disguise as such a thing could only happen in Japan. These are some pictures borrowed from toysrevil so a big thanks to the imagery. If you're unfamiliar with the show itself its worth a toss on your netflix top picks, even the Gundam Wing movie is a nice few hours of mobile-suit action.

Sanctuary

The last couple of days have been nice. Finally a room to call my own, such a comforting feeling to know you have a refuge all to yourself. I've began a few upcoming projects, three main ones actually. First and foremost is to find a car, and honestly I'm highly considering importing a Japanese Civic (right hand drive!) and just cruising around haha... so we'll see how that goes, but as of now I'm heading towards the EK hatchback for a new Type R project. It will resemble my first car in almost all fashion, nice and clean with a whole lot of JDMness dripping everywhere.

My second project, and by far my new favorite one, is the decoration of my wall. I'm in this whole black and white photo mode and I want to capture the essence of my life as it is in this current, drab, prison-like state before it moves onto something different. I believe that no emotion is a bad emotion and this state that I'm currently in definitely produces a wide array of emotions or emotional settings; capturing all that is the project. Maybe it will be a new hobby, who knows!

Third is moving out of Pinole and moving a little bit closer to the City. That's a long term investment and I'm hoping that by January I'll have a nice place to call my own. With this housing market still a bit in the shit, I'm looking forward to finding a nice studio to live in for the next decade or so.

Cheers!

Midsummer

Well, its July and the ever-shrinking city of Pinole still doesn't feel like its summer yet. Maybe its the wind. I've been deeply troubled by the Air France flight that crashed last month, as I've been keeping up with the news and the conspiracy theories. The search for the black box still continues through the severely mountainous region of the Atlantic Ocean. Only 61 of 228 passengers were found and around 600 structural pieces of the plane itself. The big question, that I have, is regarding the luggage. Reports say that various pieces of luggage were found, but there was no clothing found at all.

A flight departing from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, supporting just under 230 passengers, mysteriously has luggage with no clothing? I'm not going to jump out and say terrorist attack, because that would be too cliche and, quite frankly, I'm blaming this on aliens. Yup, UFOs. Why not? Three other flights reported loss of contact with air traffic and were diverted upwards of 62 miles off course to ride around the "unidentified" storm that "resulted" in the crash. Not sure how I can explain the involvement of extra terrestrials without sounding completely psycho so I'll save it for another day. Just use some imagination, maybe they were shopping...who knows.