watching expired appliances align

This week, through unexpected circumstances, I found myself browsing photographs by Kate_Elizabeth on flickr.

One of the first images I noticed was this one - gorgeous retro signage made a tiny bit cooler by a row of birds perched across the top.

I was then drawn into this image from the Montgomery Country Fair. Whenever I look at the photo, I imagine I'm trapped inside a miniature world at sunset. It's as if some toy train maker has constructed the perfect place for a night filled with mayhem and carnival doom. This place with its ferris wheel, electic light poles and implied cotton candy is the sort of spot you imagine coming upon just around that big mountain in the distance. You're in the middle of nowhere and you jump from the moving train to explore every nook and cranny knowing that doing so is the worst idea you've ever had. Someone's going to end up losing an arm.

This photo of cherry blossoms along Washington's tidal basin left me sad but also filled with hope. The colors and shallow depth of field remind me of looking at old slides through a handheld viewer.

Another photo I like is the one called Suburbia. The shadows are just right and the green grass is perfect. I'd never imagined Wisconsin in the summer could be so weirdly attractive.

The photographer lives in the town where I attended college. Today I learned one of the Waffle Houses closed. Ditto Valley Lanes and their duckpin bowling. The town now has a drinking spot called Finnigan's Cove. I can't decide if I think that's a ridiculous name for a bar or among the coolest.

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From July 4th - Day 8 of 2008's Baseball Road Trip

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From July 3rd - Day 7 of 2008's Baseball Road Trip

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(photo by erik)

From July 2nd - Day 6 of 2008's Baseball Road Trip

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From July 1st - Day 5 of 2008's Baseball Road Trip

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From June 30th - Day 4 of 2008's Baseball Road Trip

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From June 29th - Day 3 of 2008's Baseball Road Trip

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From June 28th - Day 2 of 2008's Baseball Road Trip

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From June 27th - Day 1 of 2008's Baseball Road Trip

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Saturday, May 24th

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The other night at bocce practice I bounded into Floyd somewhat energetically. Youthlarge attributed the pep in my step to the Chuck Taylors I was wearing, making a comment about how me wearing Chucks makes her laugh (but in a good way). I'm totally misquoting her, I know. It had something to do with the energy and the shoes and the slight goofiness of it all.

The comment about the shoes caused me to remember this photograph. My scanner isn't working so this is just a photo of a photo. Don't let that ruin your enjoyment of my long hair, weak moustache and casual leaning against the Grafton-Stovall Theatre popcorn machine.

(photo from 1995, probably November)

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During my Thanksgiving trip to Tucson, we visited the San Xavier del Bac Mission. I took a few photos.

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I just posted a few photos from my board game party preparations.

They're located in a flickr set.

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Yesterday some friends joined me for a few games of bocce in Dreier-Offerman Park. The pictures are located here.

Don't forget to check out the Coffee Flats Terrors blog, my bocce team's blog.

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the rss feed for the file magazine collection is now a full feed that includes the photos. the site has a great collection of photographs.

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once in the next five times that i do something productive, i plan to work on creating my own photomosaics. i've had the link sitting in my bloglines account since october. since i've been taking digital pictures for the past five years, i figure it's time to see how i can use those photos in interesting ways.

speaking of reminders, i should also mention that i really like the music revies at 75orless.

Posted by Marc at 02:40 AM | Permalink

one of my favorite bloglines subscriptions is FOUND MAGAZINE'S FIND OF THE WEEK. the found item for this week is just super-friendly. it's a photo taken a few decades ago outside an elementary school. a handful of children have bags over their heads that spell the phrase "HAPPY NEW YEAR". the colors are outrageous and fun and the shadow of the photographer's head really makes the image work for me. check it out and add the rss feed to your rss reader now.

Posted by Marc at 03:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

it's time to throw down some links and clean out my bloglines clipblog:

back in june gothamist linked to a few new photoblogs which reminds me that i should update the picture on the front page of balgavy.com and check out all the photoblogs i like. posting jamie's photos from the borrowed camera project would be a good idea, too.

splicing gone wild matt of a whole lotta nothing suggests the idea of the "ego feed" which would combine all of the various feeds he produces with photos and lists and such. i don't fully understand it and i guess that's why i saved it. reminder to self: look back into this two or three months from now.

a link to a review of sharp's kid glove shave gel check out the actual review and all the comments...since it was linked from boing boing and got tons of exposure there are dozens of thoughts on shaving. i have yet to really delve into these. this link also reminds me that this morning i was struck with the urge to shave. i won't be getting rid of my beard but i think i will be carving away a few of the hairs below my lower lip. it's going to look seriously stupid. it's the end of summer, and i'm allowed.

a post from today by jeff jarvis about protests and the convention and the police some interesting thoughts on the nature of protesting and wondering if there's a better way for a group to get their message across.

jon stewart and ted koppel part 2 another link from today, this time from lost remote. i guess jon and todd spoke with each other again and there was good discourse about the nature of media. i'm sorry i missed this. i even watched about 5 minutes of nightline last night, too.

there are one or two other clippings i've yet to really get into but they require some actual thought on my part. i'll have to save those for some other time.

Posted by Marc at 03:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

an editorial on camera policies in privately owned public spaces

read the whole thing and then check out the list of policies for venues and businesses around san francisco. (link via xblog, but i think i saw something about the sbc park/sf giants policy yesterday or the day before)

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kdunk links to an interesting story about the subject of one of her fotolog photos being recognized by a friend of the tattooed subject. after some debate the friend showed the photo and the comments to the subject.

the notion is pretty interesting and it reminds me of all those times i'm at various tourist attractions and i'm anxious to knowingly exist in the background of someone else's photos or home videos. i have this weird fascination that one day i'll become super famous and that some kid will be looking through his parents' photo album and say "hey - look at that guy who is looking at the lens! that's marc balgavy, the famous (actor, director, movie star, public personality)."

of course, i've had this urge for as long as i can remember. the impetus to write letters to comic books as a tween (obviously, the term didn't exist then, but bear with me) or teen was so that someone twenty years from that point could find my name in the letters page of THE INCREDIBLE HULK or WOLVERINE and exlaim "wow, can you believe that? marc balgavy used to read the same comic books i'm into." that hasn't happened yet and, honestly, i'm quite frustrated by it.

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today is the day i'll read about the history of the branding (and possibly marketing) of the polaroid camera (but only throught the 1970's). (link via coudal partners)

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because i believe that no event can be over-documented, i've just posted a few of donovan's photos from chris and mary's wedding. this group of photos also includes pictures from a party that mike and kara hosted the night before the wedding. i took photos that night but have yet to post them. please note that i cropped and altered the color on some of the photos from donovan. i also chose to post just a portion of the photos he took. i hope he won't be mad at me for this. there are a lot of fireworks photos. i think i'm responsible for a number of those as i was in a giddy fireworks photo taking mood just as the memory card for my camera came up full.

amie p. also sent me a few great photos from the wedding. i've posted them on balgavy.com and they're worth checking out this very second.

lastly, i'd be remiss if i forget to mention that dan took a number of fun and interesting photos at the wedding (i've now added a link to his photos from the main chris and mary wedding page @ balgavy.com). go check those out, too, if you haven't seen them. then look at some of his more recent photos from jamie's wedding.

Posted by Marc at 12:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

i haven't posted photos from this past weekend's wedding of chris and mary. i'm not that on the ball. i took a lot of photos. most of them are sort of blurry and contain a fair amount of "red eye." i had a great time, though. i also failed to get a photo of myself in my suit. i think a few people took photos of cicadas crawlling up my leg (and/or ass) and the back of my neck. i would like to see those photos as i think they'll help me pass the first round of auditions for "fear factor." (and, yes, mentioning fear factor and cicadas in the same story is a blatant steal from a story dan told at the wedding)

if you took a bunch of photos at the wedding and are planning to post them on the web (shutterfly, ofoto, fotolog, wherever) let me know so i can link to them from the photos i post. if you're not doing that and you've still got a few photos worth sharing, email them to me - marc (at) balgavy.com and i'll post them as part of the big wrap up from this past weekend.

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i'm keeping my fingers crossed that new photos on randompixel will start coming in soon and be interesting. basically, a guy sent a few cameras out into the world. they were returned to him and he's scanning the photos and posting them. the neat part is that he sent the cameras out five or six years ago.

also, as soon as i get around to cleaning my desk, i'll finally post the photos jamie took for the borrowed camera project.

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a really great look at the behind the scenes photo selection process SPORTS ILLUSTRATED used during the most recent superbowl (via digital photography review)

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for those thinking about buying a digital camera in the near future, walter mossberg has a good summary of what to look for when making that first purchase.

and i promise this week i'll look at my cheap digital camera to see if i can get it working. it's not in good shape, so the future of the borrowed camera project looks pretty dicey.

Posted by Marc at 05:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

some miscellaneous photoblogs that i've been checking out on occasion:
(details and comments forthcoming, if i can tear my attention away from the American Muisc Awards)

moments.daily
razvan's photoblog
kevin steele
london photos
cold static
east end park
karmative
knurdle.com

persistent truant

fritzblog!

external monologue

jetselective

unaspiring

designgravy

pink*box

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I've finally posted the ten photos from Kim who borrowed my digital camera a few months ago. Check out her photos, the most recent images from the borrowed camera project. She's photographed a pretty interesting series of images. Hopefully, she won't mind my mentioning that she should update her fotolog soon. It's got some even crazier images.

If you'd like to borrow my camera, send me an email (marc726@hotmail.com). Put "borrowed camera" in the subject line. Then prepare to wait. This whole thing is going quite slowly. But that's sort of what's fun about it.

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a few quick notes before i go to bed. chris larry played some amazing cambodian garage rock(scroll down to second review) on his live radio show tuesday night.

alex recently revamped lachimafilms.com. check out the news section for continually updated info about the creative things he's been up to. one of the most exciting things he's been doing is handling the film/video channel of wiselephant, the new company helping artists clear a path between their work and their audience through marketing support and more.

and if you haven't checked out lazy comet, jamie's new fotolog, do so now. he's currently borrowing my digital camera and the stuff posted on his fotolog is just a tease for what he'll be submitting to the borrowed camera project.

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i thought i was doing my occasional searching for random photoblogs, but somehow i ended up at sixhours.net and realized that everything else i found would pale in comparison.

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aching for something to look at? twexus is filled with over 20,000 images and pairs them in interesting ways. it's a sort of photoblog, but also one of those "neat" projects. you can look at the images the creator collected in a few different ways (single images, pairs, symmetrically). (link via xBlog which also presented a link to where IKEA gets the names)

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a few months ago amy borrowed my camera! i really like her photos because they give us a sense of her day and the spaces she occupies. take a look at them right away and comment below!

if you're interested in borrowing my camera, send an email to marc726 (at) hotmail.com. (but the list is growing, so don't expect the camera anytime soon)

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