You read the subject correct – gas strikes generally don’t work, and here’s a short rant on why:

Every year when gas prices spike for some yet-unknown reason (other than profit), I get emails, SMS messages, IM messages and whatnot talking about how the world/nation/state/city is attempting to hold a “Fuel Strike” on a specific day.

The instructions generally are simple:

“Don’t buy gas on <day>”

The problem with this kind of strike, is that they never work. The short timespan is simply to short to have any impact, since people will storm gas stations the day before (and, potentially, the day after) in order to get their fill of gasoline.

One way in which a fuel strike might work (emphasis on might), is by prolonging the duration of the strike. I imagine if we all refused to fill fuel for a month or so, it might have some sort of impact (negative or positive, who knows).

However, we Americans are too in love with our gas-guzzling vehicles to last a long enough amount of time to have any impact.

I have attempted to solve the fuel consumption (and thus expense) issue for me by riding both my bicycle and my motorcycle to the extent that I can. Bicycle is near-free (food costs increase with the metabolism increase), and my motorcycle gets about 4 times the gas mileage that my truck does. (It has other drawbacks, though.)

So please, don’t bother holding a one-day strike (of any kind, actually) – it won’t accomplish anything, and you’ll be out time and energy best spent some other way.

Dear blog readers,

It occurred to me a while back that I should make another attempt at engaging in a photography project of some kind.

Gordon has hopped onto the SoFoBoMo bandwagon (not a bad idea), and it got me thinking. Despite this thinking, I’ve been on the fence about actually doing a project like SoFoBoMo (publish a photo book in a month).

Earlier this week I spoke with several photographer friends of mine, and they all thought that not only are “projects” a good idea, in that they keep you shooting when you might not be “in the groove” (as I appear to be presently), but they also help you progress and learn things, be it lighting, composition, networking, courting customers or what have you.

So here goes my attempt at an elevator pitch:

Hi, I’m Dominic, and I’m a photographer. I’m currently working on a project where I take recurring photographs of

on a daily or semi-daily basis, and plan on putting the photographs together as a book when I’m done.

I’m mostly doing this for my own sake, practice and the experience. It’s also part of a challenge (to myself) to produce a photo book (coffee table book) in about a month.

I still need to come up with a quick schpiel on what a model release is, and some good reasons for why they should sign one.

Anyway, here’s to hoping I get through this, and for several other future ideas.

(This is a repost of an old blog entry that was lost due to a hard drive crash; I stumbled across it’s sorry remains earlier today)

Dear John,

There are so many things I want to apologize for – I am sorry I didn’t meet up with you last time you were in town. And I never came to visit you in Los Alamos.

But most of all, I want to apologize for not having done a better job of staying in touch with you. I did call, but by then it was too late. I remember the tears streaming as I listened to your voice – the last thing I would ever hear from you.

I have many cherished memories – my first rock climb, and how you encouraged me despite my complaints; my second rock climb, and the joy at making it to the top; 7am Saturday mornings trying to beat the rush out to Enchanted Rock; spending a week with you in Yosemite, the “homeland” for many, and yours in so many ways.

There is so much more to be said, so many blessings to be counted… but unfortunately they will have to be left unsaid.

May you rest in peace, friend.

– dominic

John William Jensen died March 6th, 2005, after accidentally setting off an avalanche while on a search and rescue educational course.

John was one of my first very close friends of recent times – a great friend, confidant, mentor and all around good guy.

They say time can heal the wounds, but I’m not so sure. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t fondly remember the time I spent with John, and more often than not I get choked up.

I still miss you, John.

As those of you who stop in here from time to time may have noticed, my website has gotten quite the face lift.

I’ve spent the last week or so working on a new layout and design for the more photography-oriented site – I am still filling in some content, but over the next few days things should fill up the way I want them.

For those of you who are wondering why I did this – I’m considering focusing more of my energy into developing a photography business (yes, I know – along with the other hordes out there) and I wanted things to look a bit more professional.

Some details: Save for the blog, everything else is hand-written using vi (unix text editor) – no IDE was used for any part of this.

I spent countless hours tweaking the CSS for a cohesive design but I think it worked out pretty well in the end.

Yay.

After the long photo shoot Sunday evening, I got in a conversation with one of our models, Zion. She was looking for a photographer to help her take a few shots for a show on the Food Network that she was going to be on.

They needed several shots of her ordering take-out, eating take-out and relaxing at home, to be interjected into the show when it airs.

The time I spent on this shoot Monday evening was great education – it made me think very in-depth about lighting, composition, how to frame shots, how to get creative in a small space (her apartment wasn’t very spacious).

All in all, I had a great time, despite being pretty tired from the day before.

Then again, I really can’t complain, afterall my photographs will be shows on the Food Network. 🙂

The last few days have been pretty busy around here.

Friday night, I volunteered as Security for a Caedmon’s Call concert. It was fun, the concert great, meeting the band was awesome… but it was long hours standing on my feet.

Saturday, we moved Rebecca and her roommate, Rebecca (a.k.a. Bopling.)

this feat was accomplished by 17 people in about 2 hours. Many hands make light work, or somesuch.

That evening, I was invited to a coworker’s birthday/I-finally-sold-my-house party, which was great fun. The party (not I, I drank mostly water) emptied the margarita machine twice (6 gallons total), I got to see some other coworkers in a more “relaxed” setting.

I finally got home sometime after 4am (I know, my fault.) And crashed in bed. Yay.

All the above was fun, but exhausting, and that’s not all of it… more in the next entry. 🙂

Last Sunday, myself and 46 other photographers from the Austin Strobist flickr group got together for several hours of chaos shooting.

We had pooled our money and rented a swank downtown nightclub, Vicci for 5 hours.

We divided into 4 teams, each with approx. 10-12 photographers. We then rotated through the lighting setups and the models.

I was lead for team #4, and we started with shooting Zion – a model I’ve worked with before, who is great fun to work with. Full of energy, and always ready to laugh.

Next up were Carole and Garrett, a modeling couple here in town. They were great to work with, you got some more freedom in composition and posing, since you had two people to work with. I actually spent a few extra minutes after shooting with them to get a shot I’d had in mind:

The third model we shot was Michelle, a new transplant to Austin. She’s originally from Brazil and moved here less than a month ago.

The fourth model we shot with was Jessa – she’s been to the Strobist meets in the past. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any good shots from the shoot with her – we were experimenting with the lighting and when I reviewed my photos afterwards, I wasn’t happy with any of them.

5-6 hours of hectic creativity later, we all ended up going to Manuels (sp?) downtown for some dinner.

Much fun was had by all.