Cookie Dough of the Mind

 

"....You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns When they all come down and did tricks for you..."
Bob Dylan--Like a Rolling Stone

A quick sample of places Ive been to and things Ive seen over the last 24 hours.

Last night we went out to the farmer's market, one of my favorite places to photograph.

These are from atop the parking structure:

The first one is this beautiful old church right in the middle of downtown. Im sad the way it turned out but there is always next time. Ive shot this church twice now and said that both times. Last time I shot the church a guy riding his bike past my bf and I shouted out, "hey your girlfriend is hot!" Hey you never forget your first...

The second photo is a great reminder of all the pesky kids running around screaming. I dont have much patience when it comes to someone screaming shrilly over and over and over and ... over and...

But while we were at the market we ran into Eric. He was buying this voodoo skull walking stick.

A few shots were victims of darkness and uh... I really dont know what but this one turned out interesting:

It got way to dark so we all headed back to my place and watched Lost. No photos because if I keep taking pictures of my friends they promise not to visit anymore. Or worse take photos of me.

This morning I went out with Jeff to run some errands. I gave him my little point and shoot so he could photograph with me.

He has this strange fascination with his cat's rear.

Stopped by my boyfriend's work. Doesnt he look stressed out! At least it's Friday.

Enjoy your weekend!

I was just about to share some of my favorite Street Portraits after reading Torh's Blog and how he didnt know how to answer the question, "why do you want to take my picture?"

The I got some bad news. You see Ive been borrowing a finpix S5100. Because Im poor. And in debt. And unless some miracle occurs it will be another 10 years before i can even think about buying anything so expensive as a nice camera.

As of tomorrow its back to my Olympus point and shoot.

So, Im very much a girl and took some time to cry. Silly huh? Then I decided I'd just go ahead and share some of my favorite street portaits I'd taken over the years. Im still sad, very much so, but its kinda nice to see that I can take some good photos with the olympus too, albeit less frequently.

Go ahead and tell me which photos were taken with which camera.

Probably my all time favorite. You can read that one here already.

I met this guy last May. He saw me taking photos and asked me if I wanted to take his. How can I turn that down? He ended up talking to me for about 45mins. Telling me about his jail time, his tattoos - I never knew you could do it with a guitar string and a walk-man battery!

Cindy: She owns a quilting store down the street. I walked by her store a few times a week then decided to see if anyone in there would let me take their picture. I imagined all those fabrics as a fun backdrop. Cindy was so kind, she said, "You're the photographer, place me whereever you want!"

This is Rocky. She's actually a friend of a friend. I met her at the tattoo expo, she was walking in as we were walking out. As the two of them were chatting I was like, "omg those glasses, can I take your picture?!" She was sweet and said yes.

Another time when I asked someone to take their picture and they asked me why. I said he looked very interesting. He smiled and said sure why not. I took two shots of him and thanked him for his time. He was so kind, I think it shows in his eyes.

These last two I really love as well. These girls were at the farmer's market and asked me to take their pictures. They were sitting in what I call, "the dirty hippie corner". I don't mean any offense by this, its just where they sit every saturday. And they are dirty. And they are hippies. I love hippies, and these girls were just adorable!

Sorry for the length and amount of content. I guess Im trying to cheer myself up.

Once a week I try to walk around downtown and take pictures. Sometimes I meet interesting people. This day I hit the jackpot.

Kyle and I spotted this man, walked up to him and I asked him if I could take his picture. "Now why would you want to do that?" That simple question launced us into over an hour of conversation. He started off by expressing interest in photography. Jim knows all the downtown business owners, including serveral gallery owners and the people who every year put art on the walls along the streets.

He gave me marketing tips. He gave me inspiration. He gave me contacts.

A very nice young lady who spoke almost no english came up and hesitantly asked for directions. Jim lept up and gave concise and easy to follow directions - something most people have no clue how to do in my opinion.

He told so many stories, I can't even remember half of all of them now. He showed me his broken watch, "Wanna hear another story? There's this man who brings me coffee every morning, I thought he owned a coffee shop. I asked him what the time is and he jokingly asked me if my watch had broken. I said it had indeed. Turns out it was Paul, who owns the watch store across the street. He asked me if he could take it over and have a look. Well he brought my watch back a few hours later and told me it was broken. My heart just dropped right there. Then Paul brings out this watch..." here he flashes the watch on his wrist and smiles... "and he asked me to take care of it."

"Jim," I asked, "can I see the watch?"

He held out his wrist. It was gold, a timex; it looked brand new.

"Wanna hear another story?" Jim told us about his two trips across country. About the time he got stuck in Idaho and lost 1400 dollars. He told us an hour's worth of stories until I was tired, unfortunately, so I asked him if he needed anything.

"Wanna hear another story? This lady brought me a leather jacket. A big heavy mother that must weigh about 20 pounds. I'll be nice and warm with that but..." here he motions to his cutoff shorts... "these are the only pants I have and winter will be coming up."

I told him we'd get him some jeans before winter, maybe not that same day but we would.

"Well, I appreciate that, and if it slips your mind thats ok too cause I sure had a good time talking with you two. Wanna hear another story? This lady brought me 3 pairs of mittens she knit herself. Theres a lot of good out here and this town sure has more than its fair share. I've been to a lot of places but this town tops them all."

We agreed heartily with him, shook hands, wished him a wonderful day and walked on. When we got back to the car I turned to Kyle and said, "Drive me to Sally's and lets get him some pants."

We returned to Jim a half an hour later with his pants. He gave me a hug with a huge grin on his face. "Wanna hear another story?" he asked.

I went to the tattoo expo this weekend. I met another photographer there and my bf acted as photography assistant. It was an hour drive and money I didnt have to spend but it was well worth it!

I got some more shots for Mike the piercer's portfolio Ive been working on.

Like this girl getting her tongue pierced. There was blood everywhere and she refused to look towards the camera for some reason :p

Caught some very random stuff and met cool people.

Met some uncool people who told me I couldnt take their picture too. My bf also got his ear pierced. but I was laughing so hard I didnt get a very good picture.

I was so lucky to meet Jesso, a very awesome female tattoo artist. She gave me her autograph and ignored me while I took a million pictures of her. She was amazing, I want to be like her when I grow up!

Seriously I could add quite a few more pictures, but Ill save that for another blog!

Today seemed to be "Elderly Man Day". I have about 3 or 4 more nice shots of different elderly men but Im not sure how many I can post at once ^^;