So I Have a Mental Illness

It’s a hard thing to say out loud, or even in text. But I’ve got something going on with my head that I’ve come to accept warrants attention in the same way that allergies or arthritis do. Nobody really knows what it is. I’ve been labeled with many things in the past:

ADHD
Bipolar
Depression
Anxiety

It’s not a terribly long list, but some mix of that is me. I’ve always felt like everyone’s mental stuff is inherently subjective. It’s like there are all these sliding scales and I fit into them somewhere. Anyway. I have a prescription now for bupropion. I think it’s helping. I still have some trouble with anxiety, so I’m not sure if I’m going through a tougher patch or if my dosage isn’t high enough or if this medication doesn’t help anxiety. It’s not really meant to help with anxiety so I guess it’d make sense if there was more of that still floating around.

Not sure why I wrote all this out. But I suppose it’s a part of my life and worth remembering how I feel right now.

Which is to say, anxious about things, sad sometimes for no reason, sometimes more sad than is necessary. But I’m better. Better than I was for a little while.

*Tap* *Tap*

Hello. Um, hi? It’s been a while.

I have two children now. They rely on me for everything from food to toilet stuff. Hm. I guess that only really covers the gastrointestinal needs. I also tech them things. And pretend I’m a horse.

Sometimes I feel like I don’t engage them as often or as well as I should. Right now they watch tv probably too often.

I’ve been tired, mentally, lately. And so I’ve been absent while I’m here. I don’t work a lot.

I’ll try to do better.

I think I might try to use this as a journal for a bit. Nobody reads it but me, and it’s attached to this great legacy of posts I’ve made through the years. It feels nice to knit back into my own narrative again.

So often I get caught up in now and the future that I forget who I was and what came before. In a lot of ways I’m sure that’s a good thing. But I kind of feel like I’ve strayed from who I really am and into a “who I should be” territory. It’s not far from the main road.

I think I might turn back and try to pick up on the main drag somewhere. Might have to backtrack. Not sure what that actually means.

Talk soon maybe.

*wanders off*

Adulting.

Blogging has become something I do very sparingly and almost as an afterthought. So I don't suppose I'll be here very often as time goes on. It's a bit sad though. I re-read pretty much the entire blog from start to finish and when I do that I'm always left sort of stunned.

I've come a really long way. Maybe a good way to think about it is to think about where I was making the posts from throughout the journey.

I began in a house I could barely afford right after my first year of college. I was alone in finances and life for the first time. Then I was in dorms, back home, at the school newspaper office, in libraries, sort of all over the place. Then suddenly in an apartment with the girl/woman I'd eventually marry. Then in a house we own. Part of me wants to proclaim that I'll keep posting to keep this narrative going, but that would be an empty promise. And the posts that would come out would be dry and lifeless. So if I do post I'll make sure to try and make it entertaining, or deep. Or both. That'd be nice.

What I find really interesting here is what's missing from the timeline. Leaving The Sagebrush is weirdly absent, leaving a long term relationship is missing, graduating, buying a house, getting married, losing my job, getting a dog, my first gallery opening. Just a lot of stuff.

I look at my writing as well and I laugh (mostly because I think I'm hilarious). But also because of the insane way in which I always assume I know everything. A good example of this is where I proclaim creative nonfiction to be a pointless subcategory as if that even makes sense. Of course it's a subcategory. But that didn't stop me from saying that I'd defend until the day I die that it's stupid and naaaananananaaaaaaa...or whatever it is I said.

But it's also nice to be reminded of what previous versions of me held dear. It's especially nice to see how I write from an objective standpoint. I honestly think I write well, which is good because I'm trying to pen(pitter-pat) a novel: "From Rust"

Well. I honestly expected this to be a bit more...good. I expected some really cool stuff to flow from my fingertips. But no. Just words. Maybe down the road they'll have gathered some dust. And we all know how I like dusty things. So, until I return here's a photo:

Flag.

I'd just finished talking with art gallery owners, artists, and random people in the Las Vegas Arts District. As I walk back to my car I take a detour, climb a cement embankment to a train overpass. As I crest the cement hill I find myself in a drainage ditch filled with all manner of remnants from society.

Some are likely from a person living here. Jacket, pillow, satchel, trash bag hanging from the fence, foam pad. Others seem to have been carried or dropped here by the hands of fate. Sears catalogues, wrappers, cans, paper. I look up the wash, and see a path laid out in front of me, cut through thick weeds glowing gold with the setting sun.

On my right the weeds grow thicker, obscuring any view of the earth beneath, and as I make my trek forward, I hear light rustling from hidden creatures. Lizards, mice, rats, I do not know.

To my left I see a steep embankment of dark lava rocks with train tracks on top.

I stay to my path, listening to the breeze as it sighs over the tracks, across the tops of the weeds, and through the chain link fence. I come across a section of downed telephone pole, bathed in sunlight, and I walk along the top of it. The wood cracks and splinters beneath my boots. At the end I hop off and look to my left. Almost hidden beneath the weeds are red and white stripes.

Crouching down, I peer into the bush and find a sun faded American Flag. Taking care not to disturb anything, as is my practice, I raise my camera and take a shot of the flag hiding in shadow. Once I have this shot I pause before walking on. Many great photographers have told me that patience, along with the eye to spot a subject, are the most important skills a photographer can use. As I look around, I take notice of the direction of light.

Sunlight is coming through a chain link fence, casting golden patches of light throughout the wash. In a few minutes, a patch of sunlight will dance across and highlight the hidden flag. As I wait, I notice that directly across from me is another American flag, flapping in the intermittent breeze. I frame it along with the weeds in front of me and add to my collection of photos for the day.

After I finish this shot, I notice that a patch of sunlight is quickly approaching my flag. I frame a few photographs with the Las Vegas skyline behind it. As I shoot I notice a faint light in the distance. At first I believe it's the sun reflecting off of the Trump tower. It gets closer and I realize that it's not a reflection, but the headlight from an approaching train. My heart begins to race.

I'll only have a few moments to get a shot with the flag and the engine of the train up close. I get one with the train coming towards me and shift my position to get it as it's passing. As I dive back into the viewfinder I find a third flag, painted boldly on the side of the oncoming train. My breaths come in short almost panicked bursts as the train passes. I snap an image with both my flag and the painted flag in it.

Once it passes I feel comfortable leaving my flag where I found it. I remain for a while in this place somehow cut off from the stress of life and enjoy the breeze and the day as it winds down to darkness.

I present "Flag." a series made in the span of a sunset.

If ever I get the chance to display this series, I think I'd like the layout to be something like this:

Galaxy Tea

So I was making tea the other day and found that the bubbles and foam swirled to look like a galactic disk. So I gave Deanna her tea and the next day I broke out the star and moon mug and made myself a cup of tea. And then I photoed it. I drank it before it got to be too cold, I promise.

Anatomy of a shot: Alien Abduction

I recently put together a fun shoot with some family. We went out to the desert and took some photos of us being abducted by aliens. It was pretty fun, and I thought it might be fun to break down how I did it.

First, here's an overview:

That pretty much sums it up. But as you can see, it was a pretty fun setup. i did discover that i needed at least two shots to make the foreground and background come out in one seamless photograph. So I had to do one with a model, +Sean Clark , frozen in air. And another exposed so that I could get the faint mountains in the background. As far as the initial lighting setup was concerned, it was pretty straightforward. lots of duct tape, improvisation, and the right tools. the flash itself had to be modified a bit as well:

As you can see, this is all pretty advanced stuff. (Har Har). Just some good ol' tape and tin foil. I did a lot of experimenting to find the correct shape for the pool of light. And then came the actual image production in Photoshop:

Looks easy, takes FOREVER. I wanted to give Sean a bit more height so I had to cut him out and place him where I wanted him. Then I had to make sure the images fit together. So there was just a little tinkering with the lighting on each layer. In the end a pretty fun image was produced:

Hope you enjoyed!

Texas Tourism

I recently visited +Sean Hostmeyer in Austin Texas. While there I got to be a tourist and roam around, which was an interesting experience. Living in Vegas I see a lot of attractions, so it was nice to see how someone else does tourism for once.

I saw super hipster bars, a mammoth capitol building, delicious burger joints, The Alamo, and I got to visit my grandparents. here are some pictures.

Abduction finals!

Well I finished this one a while ago, but here are the images! I've been a bit busy buying a new house quitting my job and beginning a career in photography so please excuse the lack of posting!

Abduction Project

So, while I'm still very active over at www.flashrecord.tumblr.com, I've started another project! I always have so many. Anyhow, this one is just a fun photo shoot about being puled up into a space ship old school style. These are some test shots for the official stuff which I'll be doing out in the desert somewhere. I played with some light in my living room to do these:

Stoplight Designs

So here are the final versions of The Stoplight Los Angeles logo that I made for Gabe. The first one is the one I had for final review:

He said he wanted something "from a city". So I tried a stencil font and he enjoyed it. here is the final image:

Tastes are always different from person to person, and I learned a good lesson about designing for someone who isn't me. Either way, I'm pretty happy with the result. There are even some "simple" versions I like. Makes me think that a stencilled whole design might look pretty good on a wall or something:

And one last thing, I did some expirements with putting photos behind the design and I liked a lot of them: