sleepy weasel photography

The Laundry on Lawrence

2012-02-07T10:40:00.002-07:00

Just a quick thank you to the folks at The Laundry on Lawrence in Denver for letting me hang some photos for their grand opening on January 27! It was my first non-internet display of any work I'd done, and some models in the photos, Marcy and Lorayne, were wonderful to stop by and bask in the glory!

And thanks to my friend Melissa, an artist in her own right, for giving me the head's up on the opportunity. A plug for her work: AnthroPhilanthropy.

Still an odd feeling to watch people looking at your work, discussing it with their friends, pointing things out, getting a chuckle out of the silly photos. I hope to get more involved in future events.

Goodbye GoDaddy and Hopefully SOPA

2011-12-28T10:48:00.001-07:00

When I found out that GoDaddy was on the list of companies that supported the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), I had contemplated moving my domains and hosting away from them, out of principle. Shortly thereafter (maybe even the same day), I came across the Reddit post discussing the GoDaddy boycott. It essentially sealed the deal for me to move my domains (6) and web hosting to another company.

GoDaddy's disingenuous flip-flop on their pro-SOPA stance just made things worse. And then finding out that GoDaddy is actually exempt from the SOPA law (as the legislation is written) makes even more of a dirty little story.

I have begun the process of moving my domains to a new host, which should be complete by the end of 2011.

I Feel Sorry for Tuesdays

2011-11-17T07:45:00.002-07:00

Sure, Mondays are crappy, because your weekend is over and you’re back to work, but no one expects you to do much, so everyone’s in the same boat. And Monday has its own catchphrase. Does anyone ever say “Looks like someone has a case of the Tuesdays”? I don’t think so. What about songs – “Manic Monday,” “Monday, Monday,” “Footloose”. OK, the last one doesn’t belong there, but it’s Monday—-I don’t function well on Mondays, so no one cares. And it has Monday Night Football, so you have something to look forward to at the end of the day. A lot of national holidays are on Mondays, so it’s a day off several times a year!

Wednesdays have an Addams Family character named after it, AND it’s “hump day.” Enough said.

Thursdays are close enough to Fridays to make them not suck too bad. It’s like December 30th-—by itself it’s not worth much, but in the back of your mind all day, you’re thinking “tomorrow is going to be awesome!” Sometimes Thursdays even have football. And Thanksgivings only happen on Thursdays! And because of that fact, we get a 4-day weekend. Hell, even Black Friday has been moved up to Thursday, because it's THAT cool. Thanks, Thursday!

With Fridays, the hardest thing we have to do all day is decide which seat we should take. T.G.I.F., anyone? It’s practically part of the weekend. It might as well be a mandated half work day, anyway, because that’s all anyone does. Is there a series of famous horror movies called “Tuesday the 10th?” No, there is not. There probably should be, though. If not for Friday, Robert Smith wouldn’t be in love, and that would be a shame.

But what has Tuesday ever given us?

Ruby Tuesdays? Please. They’re like the Applebee’s of sit-down chain restaurants. Are they ever a first, second, third, or fourth choice of where to eat? Never. And if you were reading off a list of places to eat to your friend, you'd purposely leave that one out. Your friend would say, "Hey, I'm pretty sure there's a Ruby Tuesday's around here" and you would say, "Uh, no, I don't see it on my phone...but hey, there's a, um, [cringe] Bennigan's."

Tuesday is like the nickel of the coin world (Monday is the penny, Wednesday is the dime, Thursday is the quarter, Friday is the 50-cent piece. Not sure why I just had to list those. I'm pretty sure this is common knowledge.). A nickel is never considered lucky like the penny, and it's not worth much. Strikes one and two. If you go to a casino, you only play nickel slots to get rid of your nickels. If you actually win a jackpot, you're luck "Fuck, what am I going to do with all these nickels?" At least a dime is worth 10 cents, and it's smaller, thinner, and lighter. Nickels are fat and practically worthless. Strike three, nickel.

Tuesday is like that person in your group of friends that you’d never hang out with alone, and when all your friends ARE together, he’s the one you send off to go get your food, or bowling shoes…then decide you don’t want to bowl and leave--forgetting he’s standing in line waiting to rent 5 pairs of ugly shoes.

And if this isn’t the worst list of songs named after Tuesday that you’ve ever seen…

The Fall of Constantinople happened on a Tuesday, and we all know how THAT turned out.

In some countries, Tuesday the 13th is an unlucky day. At least here, if the 13th is on a Friday, well, it’s still Friday. In those other countries, it’s a bad luck day AND it’s only Tuesday. Fuck, just go shoot yourself.

Come for the abandoned buildings. Stay for Dave's Juicy Burgers.

2011-10-30T12:55:00.010-06:00

So it's not quite an annual trip (yet), but it was a revisit of a fun shoot from two years ago - semi-aimlessly driving through southeastern Colorado's parts unknown with two fun models (Lorayne and Marcy) for a weekend.

We stopped off in La Junta for the first night and checked into our sketchy hotel, where the owner seemed to enjoy patrolling the parking lot and making sure his guests successfully checked into their rooms. I can say I at least chose a place this time where the bathrooms and showers were usable, so for that, I get a bonus star. The girls wanted to go check out the killer factory I had looked into online as a possible shoot location, so we all wandered over. Lorayne was nice enough to point out that her cell phone flashlight was brighter than mine, but we started scoping out some areas we could shoot at the next morning.

By the way--why are there so many liquor stores in La Junta? It's not a joke--I really want to know. And WTF is that smell?

We shot over to Wendy's for dinner (there wasn't much to choose from), where it looked like they weren't expecting anyone else for the night, therefore putting their most confused employee at the register, where it took her 5 tries to get Lorayne's drink order right. The decor in that place was odd, though. From signs about Dave's Juicy Burgers to shadowboxes showing weird humping zebra clowns or something, it was difficult to keep my appetite. I won't even comment on what Lorayne said her dark red raspberry lemonade drink looked like. :::shudder:::

Saturday morning we woke up and I took Marcy to Walmart for some things--can you believe Marcy doesn't shop at Walmart? So we checked out of the motel and ventured over to the factory we checked out the night before. After some public nudity, trespassing, and me inadvertantly, but not surprisingly panicking about the public nudity, we did manage a slew of fun photos to start the weekend off (the first which I can say are inspired by the line from the movie 'Spies Like Us' - "Won't you gentlemen have a Pepsi?" If they were standing like this by you, you'd be filling up on a shitload of Pepsi.

This was in an alley facing the factory, where people were working:

As we prepared to leave town and head off to our next spot, a train was rumbling through town carrying military transportation, and Lorayne (being in the military) wanted to check it our before we left:

A spot I really wanted to check out this time was Picket Wire Canyon--not just to shoot, but also to see the dinosaur tracks, because I'm a nerd and it's sort of mandatory for me. So we trailed off into the backroad-nothingness of southeastern Colorado and Marcy spotted the ruins I had seen in some photos of the area. This really was a perfect spot: far enough away from the road for privacy, and it was a perfect day outside.

Aside from the "serious" shots, the girls couldn't resist having a little fun, too:

As an idea how close we were to the road, I snapped this shot of Lorayne:

And then here she is just being rude!

And this is some sort of dance, I think. The White Man's Shuffle, perhaps.

Marcy even busted out her camera and started snapping shots. Here's proof - one naked girl taking pictures of another naked girl (yeah, as a photographer, I have to say this is kinda hot):

And here is Marcy planking - or based on where we were and what she did there, I call it ruining.

We ventured closer to Picket Wire Canyon and stumbled on a little windmill spread and stopped for some shots. Lorayne had the idea for this shot (both girls in different spots):

And we had snagged a broken pitchfork from our early morning shoot and wanted to do an updated version of Grant Wood's American Gothic, so here's our for comparison:

And I don't even know what the hell this is. Early 1930's photobombing?

We wrapped up and went off to the canyon area for a pit stop and see how far it was to hike to the dinosaur tracks. 10.6 miles.

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So as we were back in the car heading towards our next stop (and Marcy catching a nap), we were officially in Bufu, CO as we passed a distant dilapidated building. We didn't let the closed gate deter us. Psh. Lorayne hopped out, opened the unlocked gate, and we drove up to the area, which was still far enough off from the road to get away with it.

I got some nice shots. I think I almost died right before I took this shot, as part of the roof structure fell down behind me (thanks to Lorayne jiggling this door!)...

...Marcy posed for me...

...and then again did some shooting (with her clothes on this time, for some reason).

With all our limbs intact and no nail holes anywhere on our bodies, we continued the drive east to a out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere shooting range for a little fun. I managed to find the place, and no one else was there, so we set up some Mtn. Dew cans and some melon-ish type object, and took turns shooting my pistol for about 20 minutes.

It was then off to Lamar (where we stayed the second night on our last trip). We did pass the wind farm on the way there, which is an interesting sight:

Once in Lamar, we stopped for dinner at the same place we ate at on our trip two years earlier. None us could remember if the food was good or bad. We were reminded it was forgettable (not bad, just forgettable), which is why we didn't remember. So we got checked in at a lesser chain hotel this time, where the girls were given the key to a room that was apparently already occupied. So they took my room and I had to go get a different room. If I didn't know any better, I'd say the girl working up front was the same one that couldn't get Lorayne's Wendy's drink order right.

As another reminder of the previous trip, Lorayne wanted some specific photos in the hotel room, but I hadn't brought my portable lights, so we turned all the rooms lights on, took off the shamp lades (yeah, that's right), and pulled up the bed sheet as a backdrop. I don't think these turned out too bad for improvising under those conditions:

Marcy wanted to start jumping on the bed and we had her do a Karate pose. As of this moment, I haven't edited this yet, but it was fun doing to see if she could successfully repeat this pose without cracking her head on the ceiling.

A couple serious ones of Marcy from the hotel room:

So Sunday morning, we slept in a little, and packed up, and the girls chose a quick McDonald's breakfast. And wow, what a spectacular customer base that place has. Lorayne tried to use her cell phone to get a picture of this one particular guest, but was unable to, as we didn't want to get our asses kicked by the sparkly, Mexican fashion cowboy. Imagine a guy wearing a nice cowboy hat, dark sunglasses (even inside), a nice, clean, fancy button-up cowboy shirt, jeans, with one of these belts...

...and these boots...

Yeah. Holy shit. This guy was the fucking pimp daddy of Lamar, CO. I'm sure the locals probably refer to him as El Brillantes Vaquero.

Anyway, we headed off back west towards home, in search of anything worth shooting. I had wanted to check out Bent's Old Fort, so we took a back road to get there. On the way, we passed some nice little spots, including a little dirt road next to a small river. We stopped to look around, and one of the girls noticed an emu on the property next to this road. I took some nature shots like this:

...and Lorayne posed for this shot by a tree that looked like it had been hit by lightning:

Out of curiosity we drove slowly by this property on the way out, and after passing it, couldn't help but notice they had zebras on the far end of their property. The gate to the property was open, so we drove in to check it out. We thought it might be some kind of petting zoo or something - they had chickens running around (with little baby chicks), donkeys, horses, goats, and peacocks in their front lawn. We wandered around to try and find someone home to ask WTF this place was, and finally an elderly woman came out from the house and let us know it was a private residence, but that we could see the zebras from the road by the fence.

So of course we pull off to the side, grabbed our cameras, and saw all of this, which seems to include impalas (African), elunds (African), emus (Australian; they creepily came right up to the fence to greet us/try to rip our faces off), zebras (African), a Black Buck Antelope (India), and a couple other animals we couldn't identify.

Lorayne notified Marcy and I of this, thanks to her bloodcurdling scream:

It's apparently an Argiope aurantia, more commonly known as the Black and Yellow Garden Spider, Writing Spider, or Corn Spider (thanks Wikipedia!).

We then went to Bent's Old Fort...sort of. First of all, why is the parking lot so far from the fort? Really? On the long walk to the fort, Lorayne picked some chili peppers for Marcy from a garden, which seemed really out of place. Oh, and she screamed again when she jumped through a spider web leaving the garden (see a screaming pattern here with her?). We get up to the entrance of the fort and find out two disturbing things: 1) it's not even the original fort--it's completely reconstructed to mimic the original, and 2) it costs $3 to get in (and no military discount, to Lorayne's dismay).

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So we're back in the car....and passed by an interesting building in Swink, CO (next to Rocky Ford--yes, where the infamous listeria cantaloupes came from). I pulled off the side of the road and we noticed a woman on the property next to this building and asked her about the big building next to her. After first suspiciously wondering what the heck I was doing there (she thought I might be someone from the county looking at the building to say it needed to be torn down), she finally opened up and started talking quite a bit. It was an old schoolhouse that had burned down years earlier (she lost all of her possessions in it) and wasn't safe to go in (we wanted to go in and take photos). The roof was gone, and one of the walls had recently collapsed, and there was supposedly two feet of soot on the ground from the fire. She also told me why the Rocky Ford melons were so good (because of the unique irrigation system created just for them--which was being duplicated elsewhere and people were growing their own crops elsewhere now). Anyway, we swung around to the front of the building and I took this:

We worked our way to Pueblo and stopped for a late lunch/early dinner at Chili's. Lorayne ordered an adult beverage and had explained to our server (as she handed her ID) that she was in overseas in the military when she turned 21 a few months ago, and she was on leave and could finally order alcohol. Shortly before finishing our food, the server came back to ask Lorayne what he name was again. We all looked at each other wondering what that was all about...until we heard the clapping and saw the congregation of Chili's folk heading our way with a candlelit desert and some singing. Lorayne's face turned bright red as the server pointed out how she missed her actual 21st birthday because she was doing her military duty in the Middle East. There was a nice round of applause from the patrons (and deservedly so). I think Marcy ate most of her dessert, though.

All in all, it was another fun trip, and worth the reunion, other than the girls telling me I drove like a grandma (I do not!) and was old enough to be their dad....oh crap, I guess I am. :( Lorayne is apparently already starting to plan our trip for next year - renting a houseboat at Lake Powell. Hell yeah.

The tower? The tower? Rapunzel! Rapunzel!

2011-09-23T20:12:00.002-06:00

I was cordially invited to attend the wedding of Todd, a photographer freind, and his new bride Lisa (congratulations!) at a fantastic location (the historic D & F Tower in downtown Denver). A few days before the wedding, we frantically scrambled to find a couple girls to join Todd, Russell and I.

We had the giant clock faces, black chandeliers, a spiral staircase, a balcony, a bell tower, modern furniture, and even a bear skin rug to work with, and it did not disappoint. I only ended up shooting with model Trinity--which she said was only her second shoot. You'd never know if from the way she rocked this shoot. Here are the best 8 shots I got from the shoot (out of about 15 I edited).

We started off at the top of the building (21st floor) in the spiral staircase room:

We then had a wardrobe change and went into the clock face floor (18th):

After a break for lunch, with time before the wedding still, we had another wardrobe change and went back to the 21st floor for a few more ideas, which ended up being my favorite images of the shoot:

This shot made for a great silly pose the begged for something odd, so I played with it a bit for a bit of a morbid, cartoonish look:

Then I stuck around to do something I'd never done before - take wedding photos and video! I will say that by the end of the 11-hour day, my legs were burning from constant trips up and down five flights of stairs constantly, but it was a wonderful, once in a lifetime opportunity. Thanks again, Todd!

The Most Amazing Headline Ever!!!

2011-09-13T20:52:00.001-06:00

What's with the idiocy of misleading headlines lately? Yes, they've been around for awhile, but I seem to be noticing them more. Is journalism class not taught anymore?

Let's look at this example: "Justin Bieber Crashes His Ferrari". This is People f$%#ing Magazine, and that's their headline? If you read the actual story, you would see that someone else drove into his Ferrari, doing a little bit of damage. How exactly did Beaver crash his Ferrari?

Example #2: "Audience at tea party debate cheers leaving uninsured to die". This is a Yahoo "Political Reporter," not an editorial. Judging from that headline, you'd think an entire crowd rose to their feed to support the heinous idea of letting uninsured people die. But what's the truth? Well, watch the video embedded in the story. Go ahead...I'll wait. So yeah, it was maybe 2 or 3 idiots shouting "Yeah" when Wolf Blitzer posed the question to Ron Paul asking if uninsured people should be left to die. Not the "audience" - but 2 or 3 people.

On a side note - where in the hell does it say that uninsured people are not allowed in hospitals for care? Come on, Wolf! That question is as horrid as Rachel Rose Hartman's Yahoo headline.

I'm reserving this space for more deceptive headlines. Perhaps these sites should require journalism degrees for their writers instead of the Cracker Jack prize leaflet on how to add words to a blog page. And before anyone throws that comment back at me, please note that I don't claim to be a "reporter."

Boyz II Men in Denver on Labor Day - Yes, I'm a Warlock!

2011-09-07T12:18:00.014-06:00

I've never been a big concert-goer, and especially hadn't been to many in the past 10 years, but after finally getting to meet a long-time musical influence of mine, Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds (pictured with my daughter) on June 25 and enjoy his show, I got the bug again.

So when I heard an old favorite Boyz II Men was performing at A Taste of Colorado on Labor Day, and it was a free concert, I decided to go. I had originally planned to meet some family there, but after spending 30 minutes looking for parking (nice planning, City of Denver), it was a struggle to even get to the location. Cell phone reception was pathetic, at best, which made coordinating with family nearly impossible. So instead, I whittled my way through the crowd to get as close as I could to the stage, where the Boyz had already started the show.

Back to the planning complaint, I'll just say the crowds were a nightmare. There were no walkways cleared anywhere near the concert area. It was a human parking lot like Walmart on Black Friday--times 10. But since I gave up trying to find my family, I was able to sneak in fairly close to the stage. Well, sort of. I found a big guy that was weaving through the traffic and went as far as I could. Until the movement stopped and this was my view of the concert:

So, it stands to reason that I would not have anything thing to show visually for my efforts, right? Wrong, for I am a warlock! Despite my severely obstructed view (and camera's auto-focus issues, and the fact that snapping a photo during a video apparently embeds that still into the video), I managed to get a few videos of the Boyz's performances and some decent-enough photos, so if you like looking at chairs and water bottles, you're going to LOVE these! (BTW - I have no clue what's up with Wanya's haircut.)

Nearly Shafted at the Gold Mine Photo Shoot

2011-09-03T15:30:00.008-06:00

It seems that no amount of planning will guarantee a perfect shoot, so it's always best to just go with the flow. So several weeks of preparation for the gold mine shoot yielded a lot of Fool's Gold, but a few real nuggets.

So Russell (the other photographer) and I originally had 3-4 models lined up, but as usual, one that originally agreed dropped off the face of the Earth (she probably had multiple grandmothers die back-to-back), and 2 others decided in days leading up to just stop communicating. So we had 1 model confirmed, and I tried to convince Russell to reschedule. We both put on a mad rush to find at least 1 more model, and he reached into his bag of tricks to rustle up a second girl.

Surprise #1: Upon arriving in Idaho Springs at the gold mine, I found out that Russell was unable to bring his lights, which made the heavy generator in the back of my car nothing more than a gasoline-scented air freshener.

Surprise #2: The owner that had granted us access informed us that he could not stay, but we might be able to ask one of the 'help.' We were told $20 could do the trick (which is all Russell had on him and I had nothing). But, oh yeah, that's only going to hold the guy for 30 minutes. So off I raced back into town to an ATM to get more cash.

Surprise #3: When the customers were finally gone and we could go into the mine to start shooting, our guide had to tag along. That brings up the awkward scenario of explaining to the guy that the 2 models were about to lose their clothing. Russell and I tactfully tried to ask him if he had any issues with "artistic" photos, at which time he tried to tell us how a shot most people like to get is with their kids holding the TNT trigger with the parents standing behind them with their fingers in their ears. OK, fail. So Russell stepped in and asked the guy if he had a bad ticker. He still didn't get it. So while Russell and I struggled for the rights words, one of our models, Jackie, was kind enough to just loudly blurt out "We're shooting nudes!" Luckily he had no issue with it, but it added a bit to the willingness of one of the girls to flaunt her good in front of him, so we had to get creative.

Fortunately, we had enough light from the solar powered bulbs still lit to shoot what we wanted. For me, it gave me these:

When we finished inside the mine, we were lucky that everyone else left, which allowed us pure access to anything on site, and only a small need to watch for cars driving by. I took a lot of shots of Niki on an old rusty tractor, but really only liked how this one turned out:

Before we lost all natural light, I envisioned something fun in front of the closed up entrance of the mine area:

So some cash, 2-hour drive, several wasted hours tracking down models that never showed, and one really dusty car later, we chalk up another interesting location shoot.