Vivian Maier

So last month I forgot how I got to this site but I stumbled upon it and Vivian Maier is now one of my favourite photographers. John Maloof, the blogger that has many of Maier's negatives, found/bought them at an auction (i should get myself to one. haha although i probably wouldn't be able to purchase anything. i need to find more garage/yard sales in boston/cambridge this semester once the weather's nice.) and started to blog/post Ms. Maier's photos. (you can read more about it on his site)

(photo courtesy of http://vivianmaier.blogspot.com)

I find that street photography is so intriguing. in fact, if i could actually make a living out of it/didn't have some antagonizing (but also justifiably so) ppl asking me why i'm taking photos of them etc. i would want to do street photography. anywho, her composition is awesome and timing is great and almost all if not all of her photos i've seen so far have impressed me a lot.

These are a couple I really liked:







(in case you can't see, it says on the bottom, "BUY THEM HERE!". this may be my favourite haha)


this one reminds me of the twin girls from 'the shining' except less creepy.

New Camera, New Photos?

So over break I bought (I say "I" but really it's my father and I. went halfsies) a new dSLR. Went on an internal debate right before break between Canon Rebel Ti2 (i think. haha) and Nikon d3100. everyone was telling me to get Canon, but both are great cameras/no real big difference, so what did I do? I chose Nikon, where my heart was set on. So a few days after being home, my pops and I went to Best Buy after work and ba-boom! bought that sucka.





Hello beautiful.

So i've been playing with it for about two months now. I like it a lot cause my photos are coming out clearier and less noisy. But when it's set on AF, it won't let me take some photos if the subject's too close which is a real bummer and annoying. But i'll live.




These were my first few photos w/ the nikon using Auto mode b/c i'm a noob and didn't have time to read the manual/figure shizz out. bite me.


Sox-y! he kept posing for me. haha



Babyy Tyler! :D so cute.


one of my b-friends in italy right now. this had a nice natural glow to it, i feel.

So my first show of the semester was also my first show w/ the nikon! didn't totally work out, but experience, practice, practice s'more, etc. i'm not entirely sure where i'm going with this.


This band, Xylos, opened for Tapes 'n Tapes @ Paradise. They weren't all that great, but fun enough to dance to.

The next band, Oberhofer, was better but got super repetitive.


Once again, there's this photo i like but there's a head on the bottom. I don't know how i feel about it. my eyes aren't drawn to it immediately, but i do notice it later. hm.

I've been really into watching performer's feet for some reason.

<-- Tapes 'n Tapes bassist. <-- Tapes 'n Tapes super hipster drummer that I had a crush on for a night haha he was a pretty good drummer though.

went to another show, Wakey!Wakey! and the Spring Standards, and definitely like the spring standards way more now. met with two of them and they were uber nice. don't really have any great photos from the show though.

been using the video option on the nikon and it's really not all that great, especially the microphone. i'm thinking i'm going to try and change the file to jpeg for video and see if it makes a difference. got another two shows (potentially two) next week to practice s'more. : D

i'm in high hopes that I will actually post more than two entries a month in the future. but i'm not unrealistic. haha it's great to be in a photo class now b/c I have photo assignments and a photo lab to work in and someone critiquing my work and I really want to upload two photos I took at the preschool but I can't since it's of the preschoolers. sigh. wish I had more time to go 'sploring. once the weather's less crappy, I will just screw some hw and go out and shoot some photos. also want to read more. but with what time? good question. will make do.

Mumford & Sons Post Dos

So remember back in April (I talk as if i have an audience. ha-ha) when i was freaking out about this group called Mumford & Sons?

well those craigslist tickets were in my possession a few weeks later thanks to the help of my best friend, michelle, and I SAW THEM. AND IT WAS SPECTACULAR. and then i saw that they were going to perform on Late Night w/ Jimmy Fallon and that I could enter a contest on Jimmy Fallon's site to go to the live filming of the show and SEE MUMFORD & SONS LIVE (AGAIN!). SO I DID IT. AND I GOT THE TICKETS! unfortunately i couldn't find someone to go w/ me b/c becca was still homestuck w/ a cut leg (short story involving a recently sharped shovel). and no one was free/wanted to go. BUT IT WAS STILL AMAZING. le sigh.

so why do i post about them again, you ask? (again, i speak tis if I had someone listening) b/c in august i saw that they were yet again touring north america (CAN YOU SAY HALLELUJAH!?) and what did I do but find a buddy to go to the boston show at HOB and thankfully my trusty friend kristie said sure and I GOT THOSE TICKETS, BABY. fo sho. i wasn't going to have another craigslist episode happen. i got wayyyyyy lucky with that one. and so I waited patiently for about 3ish months until the epic day, 11.11.10 came. And it came. And I saw. And my heart was yet again conquered. (cheeeeeeseee...)

crappy as my day began that day, and crappier as my health deteriorated as I stood waiting for M&Ss to go on stage, even through my failing to stand straight anymore, THEY PUT ON POSSIBLY THE BEST SHOW I'VE EVER BEEN TO. not that i've been to a wholleee lot. but damn! i love it when shows have good lighting! and did they ever!




'There's a chip on your shoulder girl, and by God it'll make you fall if you let it take a part of your soul.' ahhhh

i didn't bring my fujifilm b/c HOB usually has a no camera policy and i saw both times i've been there before, ppl w/ point and shoots so i brought mine and this is as good as it was going to get. but i loveeeeddd their performance so much. it was definitely one of those they liked the performance too performances. WHICH ARE AWESOME.

i can't wait to see them live again. honest.

my 1st semester of my 2nd year (numbers of my birdday har har).

introducing my 2nd year roommate, michelle. crazy yet totally awesome. : ] loves pokemon, singing, & forgetting ppl's names. (okay so she doesn't love the last one)















meet my new neighbors: abbey and annie also known as primate-sloth-among-other-random-shiz-loving girl and her normal roommate. : ] met abby at the door and the rest, as they say, is history. or the present.


























my first newbury comics free show aka my last newbury comics free show. (unless it's someone really really really really really worth it and i wasn't going to see them in concert later that day.) jenny & johnny (jenny lewis from rilo kiley) went w/ my new concert buddy, erica, waited on line outside for 2 hours, stood in a really poorly configured room for a show, and proceeded to watch the 15 minute set behind a little girl who was sitting on someone's shoulders. -.- luckily i'm not that big of a fan of jenny's or else that girl would be down. for sure. (just saying, i wouldn't actually knock her down.)













finally made it to the SoWa market in south end. (i make it sound like i've been determined to go to this for years now when in reality i've only known of it for one. ha!) after a couple twists and turns, natasha and i made it and at first were like eh? farmer's market? and then followed the crowd and found the art. the expensive but awesome art. wanted a whale plushie but that was $25. ouch. one day, one day.











off to the zoo we go! abbey had to go to the franklin park zoo for her bio anthro class and so what did i do? i tagged along of course. adventure time! we legitimately watched the gorillas for 2 hours. and i probably could have watched them for another.


& their fingers must be insanely strong. and their feet?! i could stare at them forever. soooo weiiirdddly awesome..








& on the way back to the T, we found Jack. he is our shrine.






















first show of the year! born ruffians @ middle east. and first encounter of the biggest douchebag in my short life! i punched his fat back. outside that mess, born ruffians. ohmycheese. they are so great live. like so great. (that made me sound so intelligent..) the drummer is so awesome w/ his funky beats, and luke is so dreamy.. haha would definitely see them again. met the drummer, awesome dude. tried to pick up the fangirl in front of me w/ the pick-up line, "you have amazing eyes." haha















2nd show just two days afterwards : D love. anywho, Ra Ra Riot @ Royale (very nyc/clubby venue, reminded me of a smaller webster) Ra Ra Riot finally played new songs (not that I mind the Rhumb Line songs). so great per usual. i for some odd reason or another like the 2nd photo.

&! FINALLY MET SOMEONE FROM RA RA RIOT. Wes : D and he signed my record. i wish i had more substantial things to say to these musicians than just 'you're awesome!' haha.. but at least it's true.























PB & J night : ]. that's coded if you couldn't figure that out. haha twas fun and chill. that thing tesla is ahh-ing from (twss. haha and pun. i rule) is the sperm-looking breadstick we found in the papajohn's box. someone had a dirty mind while making it.. (or the customer does..cough)













thus back to midterm studying. must start posting more photos. must take more photos. must go on more excursions. not in that order. but all musts.

til next time.

wow

i am reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis for my religion course. i read this part in book 3, chapter 6 that literally gave me a 'he just explained what i felt in articulated words' feeling. I've only read it twice and a half, but I think it correlates my thoughts damn well. I'll read it again another time and see if it still is, but for now it's like wow, finally someone can say what I wanted to say on the topic of love. It's a bit of a chunk of a paragraph, but please read it through.

"What we call 'being in love' is a glorious state, and, in several ways, good for us. It helps to make us generous and courageous, it opens our eyes not only to the beauty of the beloved but to all beauty, and it subordinates (especially at first) our merely animal sexuality; in that sense, love is the great conqueror of lust. No one in his senses would deny that being in love is far better than either common sensuality or cold self-centredness. But, as I said before, 'the most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of our own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs'. Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called 'being in love' usually does not last. If the old fairy-tale ending 'They lived happily ever after' is taken to mean 'They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married', then it says what probably never was nor ever would be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships? But, of course, ceasing to be 'in love' need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense-- love as distinct from 'being in love'-- is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be 'in love' with someone else. 'Being in love' first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it."

Ahoy

Chips Ahoy.

another time.

Mumford & Sons

Yup that's them. The last time I really really obsessively fell in love with a band was when I started listening to Snow Patrol. I have multiple levels of in-love-ness with bands/artists but Snow Patrol is on its own level, and to even consider having another band be on that level is pretty incredible--> that's how much I really like mumford & sons.

I first found them through random trails of myspace (they're the best ways to find music). I remember liking 'Little Lion Man' but not really following up with it b/c they're folky and i'm not initially into folk.

Then sitting in BU Central, with my headphones on but volume low, the music video for 'Little Lion Man' comes on and I literally stop what I'm doing and go 'hey i know this song, how do i know this song? this song is incredible.' i was very entranced and could not stop looking at the screen. That day and beyond I googled, youtubed, myspaced, etc. the sh** out of mumford & sons.

& marcus mumford is so attractive. tehe. (the one on the right)



but found out he's dating laura marling

(she actually kinda looks like anna faris in 'smiley face' here haha)

Anywho, so for the past month and maybe half, I've been on a quest in search for tickets to see mumford & sons live. two shows in nyc=sold out. show in boston the same day I'm actually coming back to boston=sold out. the only show left? in philly. and graciously one of my great friends, becca, was willing to come with me to see them even though she knew not of them. she knew how desperately i wanted to see them even through a facebook message. (that's saying loads.)

craigslist was very unsuccessful for I wasn't willing to pay more than $25 for an originally $15 ticket, and although philly became a likely option, it wasn't quite favorable.

ALAS. wednesday, during a lecture (ha), at a low almost accepting the fact i was not going to see them, I saw the girl in front of me on craigslist. so I decided to go for it again, see if any new postings showed up.

i had upped my price to $50 b/c becca and i went through the costs and if we paid $50 for a nyc show, it'd be pretty much the same price for transportation + ticket +food if we went to philly. I saw a posting for $55/ticket and I decided to e-mail the person.

'LO AND BEHOLD. 44 minutes later I received a message back! HALLELUJAH. saying he would hold the tickets for me until wednesday (b/c he just left for a four day trip to dc) He has yet to reply to my meet when/where-ness but I WAS/AM SO PSYCHED.

although I am trying to hold it down (twss) b/c I do not have these tickets with me yet. BUT ZOMG. and now I must patiently wait (thankfully I have all this finals stuff to do to preoccupy me).

yeah, that's what's going on.