This entry might be mislabeled, but that’s entirely on purpose. 🙂

In his blog, David Zizer talks about forcing you to think creatively. And doing this by picking a single lens, forcing you to find new and creative ways to (ab)use that glass.

This is essentially what I did in my 8mm Project, where I forced myself to shoot with an 8mm fisheye for a week.

And boy was it fun! A bit slow to start in the beginning, but after a while I was loving shooting with that thing.

Now, of course, I want to buy one. I’m thinking of going all Bert Stephani though, and getting a Peleng. (Read: Cheap, quirky and Russian. 🙂

I’m not sure what my next “project” would be – whether accidental or on purpose. I have a few ideas for shoots I want to take, but I have to spend some quality time scouting locations. (It’s tough when you don’t have a crew to do the work for you, like Chase…. 🙂

Chase Jarvis blew the veil on all the secrets, and reveals all the tips and tricks of packing photo gear.

The video above is the short version (and still 10 minutes long!) – if you follow this link to his blog, you can find the 30 minute going-into-all-the-details version.

And who said (gear) porn was NSFW.

I have often wondered what it would be like, to live life in complete transparency.

Hiding not one thought, not one idea, not one of the deep, dark secrets that we all have hidden away, deep down in our subconscious. Sharing them, free to float on the wind like small gray pigeons – beautiful as they fly, but each individually full of dirt and filth?

Would the world be a better place if they knew that I sometimes think mean things, really mean things, without even meaning to?

Would the world be a better place if they saw the sadness, depression and the incredible depths of pain and despair that sometimes wrack this mind?

In relationships people always talk about how it’s important to communicate – Would the world be a better place if it heard every single thought, doubt and indecision that gets filed away, each in their very own dark place?

Would the world be a better place with all the introspection, the self-doubt, the concerns and the worries?

Sure, there are the positives.

There is the love, the smiles, the warm memories… But those are often shared, especially during this high season of loving and sharing with others. We live our lives sharing all the warm fuzzyness, and shying away from revealing both sides of the coin.

Sometimes it’s for fear of rejection, sometimes it’s for fear of hurting others, sometimes it’s your own selfish pride that gets in the way.

So tell me this, dear readers…

Would you like to spend a week in my mind?

I don’t. 🙂

This project came about somewhat accidental.

A few weeks ago, I rented a Sigma 8mm/f3.5 Fish-eye lens from a local photo shop here in town. The idea was to actually play around with it more than I’d gotten to the month earlier, when I rented it for a single day.

One of the days I had the lens, was a deck-warming party at a friend of mines’ house. I had recently read about making time-lapse videos online, and decided to take advantage of the 180 degree field-of-view:

In addition to the ~350 images it took to make the video above, I took about 150 other still images as part of this experiment.

You can see the best picks by looking at my 8mm Project set on Flickr.

It occurs to me that I’m not doing too well on this whole post-one-blog-entry-every-day.

I think what happened, is what seems to happen with every committed project that I start.

I did 365 days of self-portraits. And after about 50 pictures, I lost my drive.

I did the daily blogging. And after less than a week, I lost my drive.

Ugh.

I wonder, sometimes, if the reason for my art-exploration failures, is because I am not surrounded by creativity. As a matter of fact, I’m surrounded by anti-creativity every day. Computers, predefined things, pigeonholed-ness, and lots else.

You can’t further one part of your being without immersing yourself in things that help enforce whatever you’re trying to grow.

Ach. Such a simple solution, and yet not-so-simple after all. I am comfortable in my job as a techie-robot-junkie.

Maybe I really should take a leap of faith – change to doing something different… doing something that interests me, instead of doing something that I’m good at.

I think this has been a realization-in-the-making for a long time. Now to pray that I’ll have the courage to jump when I see the opportunity.

I’ll keep you posted, folks.

When you combine the following:

• 30-40 foot waves
• a small ferry (that’s a car-carrying boat)
• motor trouble
• The semi-truck of doom

… Carnage:

Basically, a small ferry was on its way from Norway to the Faeroes, and ended up having motor trouble due to the height of the waves. (Waves too big, boat too small, propeller comes out of water when boat is on top of a wave) This led to some extra swinging around, which toppled the truck, and damaged some-160 cars.

Click the picture for the full story (in Norwegian.)

Sometimes I wonder what is going on.

Right now is one of those moments – it’s 4:45am, and I’m still awake, sitting around wondering what’s going on.

I monkeyed around with making another video, then I read in my Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card.

Then I got hungry and crawled out of bed.

Now I’m just hungry. And tired of being up all night.

My alarm will go off in 30 minutes.

I’m considering getting breakfast. Nothing like a 5am run to Kerby Lane to make things new and interesting, neh?

Neh – a phrase I just stole from the book… A sort of “Don’t cha think” combined with “No” Or just neh, similar to hehn.

Anyway, it’s now 4:48, and I should get dressed for breakfast.