What are your jeans doing today?

[-Z-]

thanks very much guys, i learn something with every set i shoot, and here i really found that working in the constraint of a square crop allowed me to focus on the immediate moment of my subject, rather than rely on setting to create a lush "image"...first set in a long time that i felt very close to, the images coming more as an extension of my own personal experience of these people and places rather than me just shooting because i happen to be carrying a camera around

[TheCreativeD00m]

The wife and I finally had some time to ourselves, so we went downtown and shot a bit, ate cupcakes, coffee, and then some mexican food

First we went to see if anything was going on at the jazz lounge. It's in an alley to represent the old hidden speak easy style lounges

from the alley

So it wasn't open we walked to the cupcake shop, the city has all sorts of sculpted bushes

My wife got the "El Rollo" it tasted like a big rollo!

I got the PB and chocolate..very rich!

then we picked up my Son from preschool and now it's time to de-christmasfy the house

[ranonranonarat]

those cupcakes look delicious... DAMN.

[riff]

Beautiful -z-, the combo of narration & photos is magic! And ditto for those cupcakes!!

I haven't been posting that much lately. December was an insanely busy work month, most of it spent in a suit. But I did get out to do a few interesting things.

I did a shoot for a dance company - it was a ton of fun, great to be surrounded by all those vastly energetic & talented dancers! Here are a couple of out-takes:

Once my little one was off from school, we found ways to entertain her & ourselves.

For the first time in a while, we visited the zoo. Because it is the "off" season, we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

One of our favourite spots was with the tigers - it's always an interesting feeling when you're not at the top of the food chain!

The arctic wolves were a blast - we must have spent a good hour howling back & forth with them!

The rhinos were probably where we spent the most time. There was something fascinating - almost prehistoric - about these giants

Another trip we did was to visit the Hershey factory store in Niagara Falls - 650 square feet of chocolate extravaganza! Just a few pics to whet your appetites

I'll continue later with the Xmas stuff !

[jbanger]

^ great shots as always riff !

[TheCreativeD00m]

the cupcakes were VERY rich...the PB one was insane. Riff great shots! My son would have been in heaven in that chocolate store lol. Did you use flash in that ballet shoot? That rhino reminds me of Sanford from "Sanford and Sons" haha

[saintkeat]

I crashed my Road bike in December when hair blocked my vision, I laughed hard after the crash but didn't find it so funny when I couldn't get my front fork fixed.

So I went out and bought myself a new bike! (first 3 are iPhone pics)

While watching my bike being put together, I had a good chat with a National time trial racer next to me waiting to get his Fuji serviced. (Fuji the bike not the camera)

Then after getting the bike outfitted with some aftermarket parts, chased my buddy on his motorbike down to a very well hidden Cafe.

Its called Loysel's Cafe. They serve very nice coffee made with a mixture of Guatemala, Brazilian and Arabian beans. I had a Cappuccino then a couple of Asahi premium beers.

There's a very nice fusion restaurant upstairs called Kilo. It was reservation only. Jeez.

Got home safely. My bike with Nitto bull horns and Paul E-lever

This Paul E-Lever is really nice! I was resisting the urge to constantly pull it throughout my journey. The toy you can't play with unless you really need to =/

[mapz]

^niiiice. yeah that lever looks fun - looks like your hands can really hug that stem.

[Max Power]

A little walk today:

[Max Power]

Edited January 8, 2012 by Max Power

[laxlife1234]

Yesterday I wanted to do a little 'planned' photoshoot.. So I used my moms car and decided to take photos of it.

Well with the help of photoshop I merged these two images into one.

What I did was use the darker image as the top image (as a layer), and the brighter as the base layer. From there I used a mask to pull out details from the bottom image so I could get the car to be brighter as it was too dark and did a shit ton of cloning, and dodging and burning. There was a lot more involved but that is the gist of it. This was the final image:

vw! by jacob skoglund, on flickr

and a few more images... these werent edited heavily.. They were edited in lightroom to just edit the colors a bit..

vw by jacob skoglund, on flickr

tdi by jacob skoglund, on flickr

Other than that I had work from 7-3 and these photos took me the rest of the day so I think it qualifies to be able to be put in here.

Edited January 8, 2012 by laxlife1234

[Max Power]

^nice work. If I only had time to deal with all this editing stuff. Your results (and those of others) prove it's worth doing.

[laxlife1234]

Thanks Max! Well to be honest I'm not that satisfied with it. I know that it needs more work but right now I don't have the time now that the week has begun as I now have to start studying for midterms... even though thats not going to happen.

[UkeNo]

Pretty boring but a perfect day for me. I'm walking Lacy, off to grab some brunch (at Starbucks, no less), then I'll return home and do cerebral work all day (write code). That's about as exciting as my life gets folks ! Though I dream of living in an exciting city such as NY, Paris or London -- but for grabbing brunch and coffee at a cooler spot (and much more interesting people watching) I doubt that I'd live much differently than I do now. I prefer quiet, solitude, and calm during my free time.

Shubha...

Great fit Here...Are the Trousers Rising sun? What Shoe/boots are they? Red looks cool!

Thanks

Edited January 12, 2012 by UkeNo

[Max Power]

What I did yesterday: ruin my cam in the storm. This is what I did before a wave struck it. Dare I say I love these pictures?

Edited January 15, 2012 by Max Power

[Max Power]

Edited January 15, 2012 by Max Power

[gringoinoki]

Shubha...

Great fit Here...Are the Trousers Rising sun? What Shoe/boots are they? Red looks cool!

Thanks

iron heart double knee loggers in duck, la sportiva boots.

[Obbigood]

Moving around in France and Spain business + leisure trip before the real deal tomorrow...

another Obbi Good Label

Nothing happen yet...

[kayodic]

continuing obbigood's post

Obbi Good Label trip, Jan 2012

Okiya, Antwerp

[kayodic]

Thank you Rob & Nora!!!

[kayodic]

Kayodic engineer wallet ;-)

Edited January 17, 2012 by kayodic

[kayodic]

i told ya Johnny would go fashion!!! with my friend Daan from Locals AMS at his new showroom (art gallery)

my wrywt 3 days in a row....

[UkeNo]

iron heart double knee loggers in duck, la sportiva boots.

Thank You

[smittybat]

^ What boots are those

[saintkeat]

Red Wing Black Engineers.

[kayodic]

^^red wing 2268 to be precise

[servealoha]

Day 22/366 - 301s Special Treatment by Kenny Baik, on Flickr

[zeen]

Some shots i took recently... Spiders are awesome!

Cicindela Japonica [Explore #441 12 Jan 2012] by Zeen., on Flickr

Rhene Atrata by Zeen., on Flickr

Skull Faced Caterpillar by Zeen., on Flickr

Telamonia dimidiata Female by Zeen., on Flickr

[-Z-]

been a bit again. enjoying bringing in the year of the dragon here in Beijing and took a little trip to Xi'an as well...i thought the fourth of july was cool back home, but watching the entire city of beijing shoot fire works at once for about 12 hours non stop on new years eve was amazing. had a flight the next morning i needed sleep for, but missing sleep for the show was well worth it.

Sunday was a great sunny day, albeit very, very cold. made it to Ditan Gongyuan for a huge new years festival. love this time of year. everyone was in such a great mood. ate some great food, met some really odd and interesting people, and enjoyed freezing half to death over the afternoon. my friend had just bought a fuji x100 so i decided to bring the camera out to shoot at the festival.

one hilarious element of, in my experience, any large gathering of chinese here in the capital city is the abundance of hired security guards. they are everywhere, numbering, it seems at times more than the folk they are around to watch over. nothing ever happens, of course, and their task is relegated to standing, answering questions about directions, and more importantly, sleeping. i don't have a shot of it but maybe 6 or 7 times i spotted huge groups of 10-20 of these guys sleeping on the grass at the festival. getting paid. gotta love it.

one of the crowd favorite fair gifts was this contraption. wind driven pinwheels that would spin and cause little hammers to hit tiny drums located between each pinwheel. i didn't get around to figuring out what exactly the history was behind these, but i'm sure they are fun derivatives of the small hand held prayer drums you can also find at these temple fairs, and at other buddhist festivals i have been to. the kind you spin in your hand. these were really fun, and they ranged from a stick with 1 pinwheel to one's with about 12...saw these all over town for the next week.

the central portion of this park houses the large square temple complex, at the center of which is a large dais and altar. this area was home to, karaoke...behind which people were making offerings of incense to the temple of the earth. around the entire complex were festival games, many of which offering large stuffed or inflatable prizes, hello kitty, giant hammers, balloons, etc. the juxtaposition of these seemed strange at first, but the merriment that went with the festival was so unbelievably genuine I could not help but forgive what i thought to be a strange connection between a place of solemn offering and the jubilation of the new year celebration.

the festival brought with it an outpouring of the city and its remaining inhabitants. it seemed everyone in beijing was present to celebrate. the previous week i had watched the city empty itself slowly, then quickening feverishly until, as i walked the streets at night, there was an eerie silence and lack of life that is never evident here. i enjoyed watching, meeting, and photographing the many faces i saw throughout the day.

as the day wore on the crowd grew and shrank, filling the space around mad performances by magicians, men balancing 20 foot poles from their heads, traditional dance, song, and a frantic acrobatic dragon dance which was definitely a highlight for me. the park is a beautiful place, i had been here once before early on in my time in the city, however when it fills with the lively jubilant masses for new year's eve celebrations, it becomes something much, much more...

[-Z-]

that flight i needed to sleep for was an 8am to Xi'an, which i had been excited to visit for quite some time. mainly to be a tourist and see the terra-cotta warriors, which, was absolutely amazing. but i also have a strong desire to explore everything west of me here in china. all the way out west to urumqi and down to lhasa, back through chengdu and guilin and back up to beijing. so for me xi'an is the first of many trips stretching out west and back again...

i have plenty of pictures of the bell tower, the city wall, the drum tower and 6,000 year old settlements, graves, and the terra-cotta army. but, as i have always felt, those look better in national geographic, the travel channel, and more importantly, with my own eyes in the moment. so forgive me that i won't be posting up pictures of 2,000 year old clay soldiers that were buried until the 1970's. actually, while that is one of the more impressive things i have ever seen, what grew on me even more were the people of xi'an, and their unique and amazing culture which i was completely unprepared for while heading to the city for two days over the new year.

one of the first images i took while walking from xi'an central train station (where our bus from the airport had dropped us, pretty close walk to our hostel) was this. a family just having stepped from the door to their apartment building, a father perhaps tossing his son into the air to his delight. the joy of the holiday continued to be exquisitely present on the faces of the city. it was as empty, if not more so than beijing had been as i walked to the airport express train that morning at 5:30am. workers were still cleaning the streets of the remnants from 12 hours of celebration via gunpowder, and life was just beginning to resume for the day. there was a light snow falling under veiled sky, another inch or so lay under foot. this muted the city and gave everything a compartmentalized feeling, akin to that of a photograph. each look down a street or at a doorway, a group of men warming up or a child laughing was its own separate show.

these men were staying warm over a small fire on the street. when they noticed us approaching they immediately greeted us and asked us our names, if we were from america, what we were doing here, how long we would be in xi'an. after a quick hackneyed conversation in mandarin we went on our way, the men returned to their conversation and their fire, as we continued on toward our destination.

a still life of sorts. this tank was sitting still full of water abandoned. its purpose by the weather and its owner by the holiday.

this woman caught my eye as she slowly made her way towards her doorstep. taking deliberate footing as to not fall on the slippery pavers, she cautiously moved home.

the red paper remnants of a massive new years eve celebration strewn across the city. from alleyway to avenue, conspicuous youth and old alike could still be heard, occasionally seen, sending small fireworks skyward to remove spirits from their midst.

sliding on the ice. as i continue to live apart from my daughter i find myself noticing the faces of children, their laugh, smile, their disgust or small anger with their parents. remembering everything i know and love about my own daughter, yet wondering what i cannot see through Skype, what is lost between satellite bounces, vpn connections, what is truly present in the digital analogue of us. i am heading home for a week next saturday to see her for the first time in the flesh for almost 10 months. the feeling is almost unbearably bright.

at this point our trip took an interesting turn. i have no idea what this restaurant is called, it might be in tour books, on anthony bourdain does xi'an, or may be a favorite of every local for kilometers around. it might not even be that good (though i doubt that). we stopped here because it had, what i perceived to be a heated dining room, it was horribly cold late in the afternoon as we trudged back up through the middle of the walled city. the dining room was not heated, it was as cold as the outside as we were placed at a large table on frozen metal chairs with one solitary young man across from us. tucked deep in the muslim quarter of the city the huge boiling pots and dough being made out front peaked our interest. the billowing steam blew into the dining room, carrying with it a frigid scent of dumplings and some much needed food. to say the least, the sweet, sour, hot dumplings in soup, as well as the beef soup dumplings and a sautéed beef with peppers were all insanely good. a few local beers later and we were ready to head out again, this time with Taylor in tow, the man we sat down with happened to speak a very small amount of english, and we quickly struck up conversation and he agreed to show us around town for the rest of the day.

for me, taylor was the highlight of xi'an. he had no reason to do anything but hold a conversation with us, yet ended up becoming a friend, and someone i will definitely seek out again before i leave china. from urumqi, taylor is a turk, an ethnic minority non-han chinese from western china. he is studying in xi'an, and was on holiday when we met. he showed us his favorite shops, stalls, and places in xi'an.

the next day we traveled to the country side to see the buried army, but you can see that on wikipedia...what remains with me are the people, places, and moments i saw and captured. unexpected friends made, a dumpling banquet overlooking the center of the ancient capital of china. back to beijing the next morning and a week of work during the spring festival behind me, one week until i set foot back in the united states. long time away, good to be going home...for a while.