external monologue

bizarre accident

okay, one of the most bizarre things i have ever seen just happened right outside of coptix. it's about 5:30pm and a few of us are just working away and suddenly we hear what sounds like a large vehicle running into the side of our building. then we see an SUV fly past the window pushing a bunch of garbage cans in front of it and slam into josiah's pickup truck parked in the coptix carport. from the picture you can see some of the wreckage. the yellow circle is where her front left tire ended up and the blue circle is what's left of our mailbox. the red arrow is the point of impact with josiah's old pickup truck. the woman driving claims there was another vehicle in the wrong lane and she swerved to dodge it, but witnesses say there were no other vehicles around. geez... so strange. thankfully no one was hurt though and with any luck josiah will get a few bucks for his truck.

...

and i thought i wasn't going to have a picture to post today... alright, gotta go home - more tomorrow.

the karaoke swing

as promised, here's the photo from last saturday night of the birthday boys making the most of the karaoke machine. for morris this makes sense - it's in his blood somehow, but the real joy was seeing brent come alive with that microphone in his hand. wow - that guy wouldn't give up the stage...

...

not much to report today and loads of work to do...

jeanne's aftermath

today's photo comes from my mother, taken at my parents house in gainesville, florida. what you see here is the wreckage behind their house after hurrican jeanne blew through. an enormous tree from a neighbor's yard fell on the house tearing off most of the back porch and punching holes in the roof in various places. from what i can gather, yesterday a handful of friends helped my parents tear the tree apart with chainsaws and drag it off. i think this picture must have been taken at some point during the deconstruction. thankfully no one was hurt. my mother was at home at the time, but in a different part of the house than where the roof was broken in. hopefully the repairs won't take too long or be too much of an imposition. i think for the most part we're just glad they're not in worse shape than they are.

from mom: "Well, we got our power back on today after about 37 hours. Our back yard is a disaster area. So many people came over from the church yesterday and brought chain saws and tools. Also Ari's parents and their friend Jerry. They sawed up most of two trees and started on the third. The deck is mostly ruined and about 20 feet of our eave over the back was knocked off. There is one hole that came thru into the house and apparently other holes in the roof that were letting in water. theres a big hole in the main area of the deck where that round table was, the railings are off and one part up near the house--right outside where the stairs are--is broken off completely..."

...

picked up the new interpol album today. just started working through the first few tracks but it sounds promising.

father and son was strange, strange, strange. another one of these russian films that i think i could appreciate more if i were russian or at least understood the culture a bit better. i have to say though that by the end of the film i was really enjoying it. pretty stunning visually.

weekend update

i just realized, after cropping and formatting this photo, that i posted a picture of isaac on friday too. oh well, i suppose you can never have enough wardell. this is another photo from the thomas wedding weekend. some of you may remember it from the gallery on montyfam.org. i think its one of my favorite shots from that weekend. i have a couple things i shot over this past weekend, but i left my card reader at home and can't get them off my camera at the moment.

...

morris and brent's karaoke-birthday-party was a big success on saturday night. the karaoke machine was put to good use and brent, after claiming he wouldn't sing all night, monopolized the poor machine and turned into something of an improv rapper. it was pretty incredible. pictures tomorrow of him and the asian belting it out.

i turned in pretty early - around midnight - that night after a full day of filming. jim burer and i put in 11 hours of running around town shooting footage for this short. i have no idea how it will come out, but i learned so much. we used jim's canon XL-1 and he basically let me shoot the entire thing, which is really good because that's the best way for me to learn. by the end of the day i was starting to feel pretty creative with the camera. if we come up with anything i'll be sure to post a QT video here.

tonight is father and son down at the bijou. i'd like to see it, but haven't really found anyone to go with yet. i think i'll try to catch the 7:00pm show if anyone wants to meet down there. i've heard good things about it.

and i nearly forgot... congratulations to bob and bethany demarco! Weston Ebenezer Demarco was born on 9/23 at 12:00 a.m. He's 8 lb. 3 oz. and 20" long and everyone is recovering well so far.

rhythm and brews

yes, you've seen pictures like this before on loapher. it's isaac, and he had another show last night at rhythm and brews. thursday night's a tough night to play, so there wasn't a huge turnout, but the set was great. very similar to the sound on his new album. i'm thinking that i need to find more creative ways to shoot isaac if i'm going to keep photographing his shows. at least the lighting is pretty good over at rhythm and brews.

...

hopefully a pretty quiet night tonight. there's a big poker tourney that josiah's putting on, but i think i may just relax at home. it's been a long week and i could handle vegging on the couch for a while. i've got an early morning tomorrow too - a friend and i are hoping to shoot a short film, an exercise in cinematography actually, which i expect will take most of the day.

goodnight moon II

the moon seems particularly large lately, even though its only partially full right now. does anyone know, are we closer in orbit to it currently? or am i just being more observant than usual and its always as noticeable as it is now? either way, it makes for an interesting and challenging photo subject. because it's so far away and surrounded by total darkness it makes for interesting metering. my camera wanted to shoot the scene originally at 1/6 second exposure but i found that the moon itself was totally overexposed. i think i finally settled on 1/500 second in order to get the detail you see here.

...

a few things to announce...

- isaac wardell has a show tonight at rhythm and brews, along with dawn kinnard and cast king. i think this one will be a bit more low-key than the last, but should be a great set all around. cast king sounds particularly interesting - an old codger from sand mountain who's been playing for years and was just recently "discovered" i believe.

- the good folks at mojo burrito are trying to sell their navy blue 2002 subaru forrester. its in great shape and they're asking $14,500 for it. i told them i'd post the info for them - so if you're interested swing by the shop and ask someone behind the counter about it. it's usually sitting out front if you want to have a look.

spaghetti

thanks everyone for your thoughts on titling my photographs. for now i'll stick with descriptions for the most part and get more creative when it hits me. as i mentioned before, its my week to cook at the house, which typically means at least one night of black beans and rice (or blackbeanshmoo as it is so affectionately called) and possibly a heaping pot of spaghetti - as seen here. i haven't done too many macro (close-up) shots with my D70 mostly because i don't have a good lens for it. this one came out okay but certainly doesn't have the detail a good macro lens would have given it.

...

peacenik cat stevens, or Yusuf Islam as he calls himself, got an entire plane re-routed after his name showed up on a no-fly list. and now he's going to be deported. wow.

tree silhouette

another late-in-the-day post, and another uncreative title. i suppose it's understandable that i don't come up with something extremely creative as a title each day, but lately all i feel like i do is describe the photo, if that. i suppose many of the great photographers weren't that creative with their titles. at least i don't name half of them "untitled" as many artists seem to. this tree is on a stretch of road between my cousin jack's bee farm and the town of cave springs. i love that stretch of road and i always seem to end up there as the sun is setting. one of these days i need to just wander that road for a few hours with some rolls of quality black and white film.

...

somehow the days seem very long lately even though i have a million things to do. i've had breakfast meetings almost every day it seems for the past couple weeks and i'm beginning to tire of never sleeping in. but then, its always good to be up early and to get some coffee and conversation before plunking down in front of the monitor for an 8-hour stretch.

the movie last night was pretty incredible. a little slow for what i was in the mood for, but that's pretty atypical for me - i usually love slow, plodding films. i need to a little research on it merely because it has such strong eastern and buddhist themes that i felt a little lost at times, but it left me with a great deal to think about. looking forward to mesh's review...

phonograph at the wedding

i shot yet another wedding this past weekend. possibly the last wedding of the year, although i think i may have one more in november. this one was down in rome, georgia where the old montgomery homestead is. my cousin's step-daughter (i think that's the connection) was getting married and they had asked me at the last family reunion if i'd be able to photograph it for them. it was another beautiful outdoor wedding, on top of buck's mountain right outside of cave springs. i shot it mostly with traditional film, so i only have a handful of digital shots. this is one i got inside my cousin monty's house. its an old phonograph they had sitting in the kitchen that i could have photographed from various angles for probably and hour or two.

...

mokko is 25 and his birthday was successfully celebrated on friday. saturday was spent in rome and sunday afternoon we had lunch with brady and kristin and sent them on their way. last night i spent a few hours cleaning up and catching up after what has been a couple of busy weeks. it's my week to buy groceries and cook and its nice to have the house in good shape before the days get full again.

tonight, spring, summer, fall, winter and spring is playing at the bijou and i think i'm going to see it at 7:00pm if anyone's interested. it's getting pretty solid reviews even if the premise sounds a bit odd.

after ivan

so what's left of ivan came and went, up here on lookout mountain. we didn't lose power until this morning when i was brushing my teeth and even then it was only for about 15 minutes. there was however hard rain and heavy wind all night long and the french doors that lead to our front porch kept blowing open. even now it appears that our internet service provider is running on backup generator power. one of their base stations is up on the mountain and was down for a few hours this morning. that said, i think chattanooga faired pretty well for being in the direct path of the storm. the photo? this pair of shoes has been sitting in the driveway for nearly a year now filling up with water and drying out with each passing storm.

...

today is morris yaegashi's birthday. he's gonna kick me for announcing it so publicly, but seeing as last year it was almost forgotten i wasn't about to let that happen again. i'm working on plans for a night out with him - maybe dinner and drinks? any of you locals have suggestions and can we get a crowd together to celebrate?

friday free mp3: in memory of johnny ramone who died on wednesday i give you Blitzkrieg Bop. i actually saw the ramones on their last world tour my freshman year at covenant at the atlanta big day out with old school buddies joel knutson, rachel kennedy, jill smith, matt monahan, karen bennett and joel cell, among others. (geez, talk about a trip down memory lane. i think matt and joel got kicked out for starting a bonfire?)

and finally, a point of clarification: a number of people have asked why i was signing papers for the new church building. no, i don't have a secret stash of funds or a swiss bank account with which i can buy large tracts of commercial property. actually, at one of our last congregational meetings i somehow ended up on the cornerstone board of trustees thanks to some quick nominating and seconding by josiah and frederick. at the time it just seemed kind of silly but it has turned out to be very helpful for the church since i seem to have a much more flexible schedule than many of the other board members.

the last cookout

we held what i expect will be our last small-group cookout for the summer of 2004 last night up at the commons on lookout mountain. the weather's finally turning cooler and the sun is setting earlier. by the end of the evening we were huddled around the grill, roasting marshmallows for s'mores over the dying embers. somehow a fitting close to a surprisingly temperate summer here in chattanooga. the photo is from my preparations for the cookout: slicing up tomatoes i found an unstaged still life photograph sitting before me.

...

cornerstone church is now the proud owner of one marble top baptist church building in the southside of chattanooga. (nearly) everything went smoothly at the closing yesterday and after signing my name and initialing more forms than i had time to read we walked away with the title in hand. (and i don't even own a house yet...)

totten film still

i'm beginning to worry that anyone reading this blog probably thinks i'm a bit obsessed with the totten boys what with all the photos of them lately. perhaps i should worried about whether i actually am obsessed with them, but they seem to make such interesting photographic subjects. i guess its their facial expressions and their general look, or maybe it's that they're just dang sexy as any number of girls have expressed to me at one time or another. whatever the reason, here's another shot of chris, back at the dixon wedding rehearsal dinner in widescreen format.

...

ugh. i have got to get out and take some pictures. this rehashing thing has gone on long enough - hopefully this weekend will provide some possibilities. i had intended to take pictures down in atlanta with tim and ari last weekend but we worked so hard getting them moved that i forgot to pull out the camera.

today at 3:00 pm we close on the new cornerstone church building. i'm pretty amazed at how much money has come in and that we're actually going to buy this thing. it's hard to believe that only a month ago it seemed like a pipe-dream.

isaac and faron

i've just realized that i've never actually seen faron's name in print and that i have no idea how it is properly spelled. however, since i have a tendency to picture words in my head regardless of their actual spelling, i'll just have to go with the image that pops into my head any time faron's name is mentioned. unfortunately, this visualization process is wrong more often than not but its something i don't have much control over. someone please correct me if (since) i am (likely) wrong. another wedding photo here - one that i think captures genuine expressions from both faron and isaac when they are most at ease and enjoying themselves.

...

some music for today: once again i missed the free mp3 on friday so i'll make up for it here. i found a great site this morning called music for robots. they (he?) daily posts free mp3s to be found online. recently there was a track by mike doughty, move on, ex lead singer for soul coughing - probably my favorite band when i was in college. it's good to see that he's still making music.

back to work...

brady update

those of you who have "met" brady through this blog may have recognized him in the wedding photos over on montyfam.org. you may have also noticed that he wasn't in a wheelchair and didn't look too worse-for-wear. i had intended to get a photo of him jumping or dancing or something just to show how far he's come, but we never got around staging anything. but here you can see him with girlfriend kristin (who most of us met for the first time that weekend). he's doing very well in his recovery and seems to be in great spirits. its pretty incredible to see him walking around after the last time he visited. i finally got more details of the story of his fall (of which he still doesn't remember anything personally) and the more i find out about it the more unbelievable it all seems and the more i see God's providence in every step along the way.

...

sadly, i haven't picked up my camera to take a picture of anything since the wedding weekend. i hope to get back on the horse this week and get some new material, but it may just be rehashing more wedding photos. speaking of which - has anyone had good experiences with getting digital photos printed? and if so, where and how did you do it?

if all goes according to plan we'll be closing on the new church building wednesday afternoon. another seemingly impossible situation that has really shown how God can work in the details. we've raised over $40,000 in less than a month towards our down payment and donations keep rolling in. if you're someone who has contributed we're so thankful!

Topo Chico soda

i've found the best new place in town for lunch. its a little trailer over on East Main Street just past La Altena in a parking lot on the left. inside are a couple mexicans who only appear to speak enough english to take orders and money. the menu is entirely in spanish, as are the soda bottles and the burritos and tacos are about as mexican as you can get in chattanooga. a filling lunch with a small radish-and-cucumber salad comes to $3.75. tough to beat.

...

that's all for today...

sunflowers

another photo from the wedding this weekend. the flowers were amazing, as were all the girls who put them together. this is mary putting together a few sunflowers for the bridesmaid's bouquets. as for the rest of the photos from the wedding, they can all be found at http://montyfam.org/gallery. so spread the word.

...

i think i've mentioned paul graham on here before in reference to an article he had about hackers. well, he's posted another essay on his site that might have a bit more general appeal. for me, it's probably the most interesting thing i've read in quite some time - well, at least since that article last week about politics. it's called the age of the essay and its fairly long, but i highly recommend printing it off and taking a few minutes to read it. a quote to whet your interest:

"Surprises are things that you not only didn't know, but that contradict things you thought you knew. And so they're the most valuable sort of fact you can get. They're like a food that's not merely healthy, but counteracts the unhealthy effects of things you've already eaten."

the wedding kiss

they did it. they're married. and now they're honeymooning somewhere in the backwoods of north carolina (i think). what an amazing wedding. paul ferris' parents property was such an ideal setting for the event and the number of people who helped pull this event off was downright unbelievable. ben and anna have, by far, the most talented group of friends and family of anyone i know. i don't think they actually had to hire anyone to do anything, except for perhaps the guys who set up the tent. musicians, sound engineers, photographers, cooks, bakers, seamstresses, deejays, pastors (mark wardell really came through in the clutch), not to mention everyone who set up and cleaned up. unbelievable. i shot this wedding entirely digital, along with paul and ben's friend angela stover. between the two of us there will be no shortage of images and i'll try to get a bunch of them up over on the montyfam.org gallery soon.

...

funniest part of the weekend? the five hours we spent driving through the mountains of kentucky on our way to roanoke. kentucky, you say? that's not on the way to roanoke from chattanooga. well, it is if you accidentally stay on I-75 for two hours north of knoxville. yeah. so that happened. and then we drove through the mountains to get back to I-81 for five hours. thankfully it was beautiful, and we didn't have to be anywhere, but who'd have thought it would take us 12 hours to get to virginia. yeesh.

since there was no free mp3 on friday, and because the first dance at the wedding was to neutral milk hotel's in the aeroplane over the sea today i think you should all listen to another of their great songs holland, 1945.

what else. i'm exhausted. and i think i might be catching a cold. but i'm thankful for DayQuil. i have to say, everytime i start to catch a cold and then pop a few DQs i really think i could get addicted to these things. i can't quite explain what it is, but its like the volume is turned down on everything and i can suddenly breathe again.

totten's diner

john totten, also from the city cafe this past weekend. this may be the last of the portraits for now since i'll be gone for the next couple of days to benanna's wedding. that event though, i'm sure, will provide quite a few more photos.

...

sorry about the late late post today. i dropped my car off at market street tire this morning to have the oil changed and tires rotated and forgot to grab my camera. didn't get it, and more importantly the compactflash card, back until after 3pm and i've been busy since. i do want to put in a plug for market street tire as the cheapest oil change in town though. well, at least for my volkswagen: it takes some special filters and usually i end up dropping nearly $40 for an oil change, but they did it for $22 and the tire rotation was free. can't complain.

guess that's all for now. i'll try to post from roanoke tomorrow or friday, but it maybe monday before a new photo comes through.