Film Noir with Ashli

01 These are my film noir photos that I took for my location class! I love them! Ashli was the perfect model for them! I am really happy that she was able to come downtown and help me out!

Learning Adulthood

01 In this year of change, and self discovery I have already come a long way.

My room, closet and bathroom have been clean for almost two months! It is huge progress for me to be keeping up on my laundry.

I have continually been doing dishes, and the amount left to do is slowly diminishing.

I have vacuumed a couple times and sweeping my kitchen has become a regular thing.

I am learning slowly how to be an adult. (about damn time)

Today I finally bought a new bottle of vitamins. With not eating meat, or gluten, I decided I finally really do need a bit of a supplement. A lot of my previous Iron intake came from my vegetarian friendly faux meat. Almost all faux meat has wheat in it. I got NatureMade brand Multi Vitamin for her. It has Iron and Calcium in it. It also has 300% of the vitamin C I need in a day and therefore will help boost my immune system. I have a 90 day supply of these. NatureMade was buy one get one free at Wallgreens, so I also got a bottle of Biotin, which is supposed to help with healthy skin, nails and hair. It should be interesting to see what sort of difference that that makes for me. The Biotin pills are liquid softgels and tiny and purple. I also have a 90 day supply of those.

Finally, today I made an appointment. For Tomorrow... Should be interesting. I will post all about it tomorrow night!

Chris and April - Engagement Portraits

01




Sunday morning I did Engagement photos for Chris and April. We went downtown after shooting briefly in their apartment. I have made it through editing most of the photos, and I LOVE how they turned out!

The only issue I repeatedly had was my lens not wanting to focus. My 18-200 lens that is. My 50 was fine so I dont know what was going on. This leaves some of my pictures not being as sharp as they should have been. But the meaning is still there and I still enjoy the photographs.

Chris and April, check your in-box on facebook, you will have a link the the gallery!

Amelia Grace- Newborn Portraits

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I finally made it through editing the photographs of my beautiful niece, Amelia Grace. I ended up with 30 final photographs of her. I have placed them in a web gallery if you would like to see them all.

http://mzaycheck.aisites.com/Amelia%20Grace/

Jason and Hannah, I hope you love them! Also, once again congratulations on your beautiful little girl! I am glad to be able to be a part of her life!

RANGO

01 Last night was super fun! Lauren and I went and saw Rango. It was a free screening that I got passes for from my school. We both rate the movie at 5 stars. There were some awesome parts that referenced different movies, including Fear and Loathing. We also love the fact that it took place in the Mojave desert... the only desert that either of us as spent time in, thank you sony!

Well I am short on time this morning, I will blog again later :)

Tuesday Night.

01 So, Monday was AJ's birthday. I decided to make him dinner for his birthday. He chose Tuesday night, and Hispanic food. I asked him what he wanted and he said to make whatever I wanted. After much unsuccessful prompting of what he wanted, I just asked him to choose a type of food. I was excited when he chose Hispanic, the only thing I had thought of had been enchiladas.

I ended up finding an amazing recipe for sweet potato and black bean enchiladas. It turned out really well, and was really fun and easy to make!

We ended up having a really nice evening together. We at dinner and watched Gold Rush, food old Charlie Chaplin. It was really amusing. I hadn't watched a silent film in a long time. For dessert we had mint chocolate ice cream mixed with coffee ice cream that was topped off with mint chocolate Baileys. It was amazing.

I ended up letting him spend the night. We were both really tired, it was 9:30 when we went to bed. I read about 25 pages in my book, the one I have been attempting to read since I was on my flight home from vegas.

Still 10 days and counting.

I

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Review Me

01 I spent almost three hours at school this morning preparing for my portfolio review. I scanned in negatives, from large format and principles. I am getting closer to narrowing it down. I know i should have been putting more thought into this sooner but with how busy i have been with everything else, now is the time I have for it. I am planning on getting downtown super early, well an hour before class tomorrow. That will give me from 7 until 8:45 to do dust removal from my scans, size everything and sharpen in preperation for printing. I hope it all goes smoothly.

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Torn.

01 To start the day, I hit the snooze a couple too many times. I emailed my teacher that I was going to be late... and apparently hit the wrong button on my phone somehere along the way. The email sent, and the dismiss button on my alarm got hit. Granted it got me an extra hour of un interrupted sleep. It also means that I didn't leave Tyler's house in Eagan until 8:30. a half hour after my first class started. All morning I have had this stomach ache, a pounding headache and of course me ears and throat still hurt. Half way home, around 9:00 I decided I probably should have went to the bathroom before leaving his house. 9:30 rolls around and I am finally home. Remember it is only a 20 minute drive from Eagan to my house. Traffic took forever.

Now, when I got home, what do I find? I find the entire bag of my gluten free flour spilled out across my kitchen floor... Darn kitten of mine *cough*feather*cough* gets into EVERYTHING!

I am sitting at my computer now, debating the drive into minneapolis. It would be nice to be able to just come home when I get out of class tonight... but $8 for parking is always a hard thing for me to stomach. Also, I just really don't feel like driving anymore. An hour in traffic, feeling sick, is enough. I will probably end up sucking it up and driving, but I am not happy about it.

Well it is time that I should gather my things and consider leaving.

That is all for now.

Me? Despicable?

01 One week down.

Tonight was a lot of fun. I have still been feeling sick, and work was super slow, but I was able to leave work a couple minutes early. The fun began after leaving work. I drove down to Eagan to see Tyler. This was done with the promise of watching Despicable Me. He warned me he had no food for me... but silly me I didn't stop and get any. I made it through the first half of the movie before I decided that I needed a break to run to the grocery store. He drove. We took my Jeep. Cub Foods, here we come. I got some yogurt, yogurt covered raisins and cookies. I also got some new gluten free noodles to try later, when I am at my house. We finished the movie when we came back. The movie was super super cute! It made me laugh and smile a lot. I suppose I should also mention the fun we had on out way back to his house. I told him of my dream of sledding in a parking lot, and how that was the reason my sled was in the back of my jeep... I convinced him. We pulled up beside one of the mounds of snow. Got out of the Jeep, Tyler doing so reluctantly... I started to climb the 'hill'... started is as far as I got. It was too steep and too soft to effectively climb. We gave up. Tyler, not being the type to give up easily, started heading towards another parking lot that he knows... I told him that a true sledding hill would do just as well. I had gotten my hopes up to go sledding. We stopped at this hill on the way back to his house. We left the jeep lights on, remember this is around 10pm. Slowly we made our way up the hill, that was still freshly covered in snow. Snow deeper than my boots. He ran. I walked. My lungs hurt when I got to the top. We caught our breath. We then both boarded the sled, I told him "we are only doing this once" and we pushed off. We started out slow... picked up a small amount of speed and ended up with my legs completely buried in the snow. It was worth it.

Now after watching the second episode of season two of Dollhouse, and doing some talking. He has left to go and plow for the next handful of hours. I am beyond exausted, so I am going to sleep at his place tonight. I am excited, because it means I get to sleep by my kitty Batter. He is a cuddle bug. I miss him a lot.

Goodnight all. Remember I have made it one week. Four and a half to go.

Productive Day

01 Today was overall a very productive day. I woke up at 8:30 and took some cold medicine. By 'some' cold medicine, I mean the rest of the bottle. Liquid, and there was less than one dose left.. I proceed to fall back asleep until around 9:45. By 10:15 my room was clean, including a load of laundry in the wash. I cleaned the rat cage, as well as the litter box. I started work at 11.

Work was pretty good today, I met a lot of nice customers. One guy even gave me a tip after I helped him place his order, making sure he got the correct size as to not loose important parts of his photos. I got my Jimmy Johns from my manager today as well. A reward for an in store contest we had finished last week. Yay for selling :)

This morning was also a lot of fun at work. Andrea purchased a couple boxes of jelly beans that have both standard and gross flavors in them. The catch, each gross flavor, is the same color as one of the standard ones. We stood around as a group and each took one of the same color and all ate them at the same time. It was interesting watchign the faces people made when they got a gross flavor like "baby wipes" instead of coconut. I luckily got the coconut. On other pairs such as the "dog food" and chocolate pudding one, I didn't fare so well. It was a lot of fun though. This is one of the reasons that I love working with the people that I do.

I got more cleaning done when I got home from work. I got home after making a stop at the liquor store for Rolling Rock, and Mint Chocolate Baileys. The baileys a special treat for myself funded in part by my tip from work. The rolling rock, a gift for my model this evening.

Well now it is time to start season two of Dollhouse. The last episode of season 1 was amazing! I can't wait to see what they do next!

sick joke.

01 I am starting to feel sick. Well let me restate that, I have been feeling sick since yesterday. My throat is slowly getting more and more sore and swollen. I dont even want to know how sore and swollen it would be if I still had my tonsils. My face hurts as to my ears. I hope that today is the worst of it, I have to work the next four days. Lets hope it goes away on its own.

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Dessa's words

01 "Go home to her while you still can." Listening to dessa this morning hits a lot of nails on the head. She makes me think in ways that come slightly unnaturally to me. "I changed the lock but your keys still working." "I still get chills when you talk to me." "One more chaper our book won't close." "We forgive and forget and give into attraction" "this broken habbit i keep glueing back together" all these lines, it is almost as if she knows exactly how to express what i am going through. Six months ago this song sat a lot different with me. It had an entirely different meaning. I think that is why I enjoy her music so much. It always looks different depending upon how you look at it. "It gets harder every time I see you" "it is time to put a line down in the dust, I know what frienship is and it doesnt feel like us" These next five weeks I am going to try really hard to focus on myself. To focus on getting my things done and finding what I want in life, what I want in a relationship.

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Words with Sam.

01

It hurts me to know he is still sleeping with her...

I cant decided if I liked assuming or if I like knowing better

I dont know if it is better that he is torn between us or if it would be better if he just picked her...

Is a relationship that starts as a friendship and ends up with the possible promise of a romantic future together even feasible?

I hate that I am torn between them, part of me wants to be able to just choose.

I cant decided if I liked it better assuming he knew or knowing that he knows.

It hurts me to know that it hurts him that I am still sleeping with someone else.

Just Sex. Just Thoughts

01 A couple things I need to say:

You say that sex is just sex, but in the end I say otherwise. You dont want to hear this, but to me sex means that I feel an emotional connection to someone, sex is more than just physical to me. When it becomes simply physical, it is no longer satisfying.

I care about you a lot.

I think that we have horrible timing.

Maybe someday, in a different time, we can just be together.

If not, maybe it wasn't meant to be.

p.s. I am broken.

Leopard Vs. Cheetah

01

Here is the general idea for my next tattoo...
Photograph compliments of Ally Wurts, Part of her Exposed series.
Censored due to the fact that my blog can be viewed by the general public....

So I am sitting here thinking about what my next tattoo is going to look like and I started to wonder what the exact differences are between cheetah spots and those of a leopard... Here is what I cam across... I also came across Jaguar spots in my search, which to me seem like enlarged faded leopard spots...

"Cheetahs have solid black round/oval spots and black “tear lines” that run from the corner of their eyes down the sides of their nose to their mouth (the lines keep sunlight out of the cheetahs’ eyes while hunting). They’re also lankier than rest of the big cats and have smaller jaws and longer tails. They hunt during the day and rely on bursts of speed (up to 75mph over short distances). When walking and running, they pace, moving their two left legs and then their two right legs. Unlike leopards and other big cats, they can purr while they inhale, but can’t roar.

Leopards have more complex spotting pattern of clusters of black and brown spots which look like roses, called rosettes. This pattern simulates shifting plants and shadows, providing camoflage as the leopards stalk their prey from tall grass and underbrush. Leopards in eastern Africa have circular rosettes, while their southern African brethren have square rosettes. Leopards are also noticeably bulkier looking than cheetahs. They’re not built for speed, but surprise attacks. The extra strength helps leopards drag their prey up trees, where hide the kill to feed on at their leisure. Leopards walk using their legs in diagonal pairs (i.e. left front and right back leg, then right front and left back leg). Like the rest of the big cats, leopards can roar but can’t purr except while they’re exhaling." http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/19145

Noodles

01 That makes my day. Well the first 6 minutes of it atleast. Noodles and Company has a gluten free pasta option. Their Pad Thai is made with rice noodles... And they can be substituted into any of their dishes! Guess who is eating noodles and company ASAP!


http://www.noodles.com/nutrition/

The Red Tie

01 So, that conversation was a bit unexpected for tonight. It was definitely welcome though. It was a conversation that I had been wanting to have, but didn't necessarily feel like I should be the one to start it. Well, two hours of facebook chat and skype conversation will have to be enough for tonight. Goodnight. Hope to repeat this soon.

PBP & ABADDON

01 Right now does not feel even remotely like the day it was when I woke up this morning. My mindset has improved, and my body is more tired than my mind. I had an average day at school. we had some good laughs during class. I had to come home to get work clothes and then went to work for 6 hours.

I escaped work shortly after 8 to make my way to my friends. The Theta Chi house was hopping tonight. It was also rocking. Tonight was the annual Down in the basement show. This year it was really cool because they did it as a benefit show to raise money to support the fight agains breast cancer. They made their goal for the evening by raising over $250. It was a great thing to be a part of.

Rustpocket was on when I got there. I hadn't really heard them play before so that was really exciting. I got some cool photos too, which will be up online later.

AJ's band Abaddon Rising played tonight as weel. It was really exciting for me to finally be able to photograph them in the manor in which I had been meaning to. Fish eye + long exposure+ Flash= AMAZING! I took around 140 pictures of their band alone. I am pretty sure they rock the socks off of the previous pictures I have taken of their band!

Pine Box Preachers were amazing as always. Their shows always lift my mood up. The adrenaline of Dancing and taking photos and being around good friends who play kick ass music is always nice. I filled my memory card to the brim with photos of them. My last shot was taken as the battery in my camera died. Fisheye was my choice lense for their performance this evening. It was a lot of fun. They all commented on enjoying how close I was for the photos, I enjoyed it too, and I hope my enjoyment will show in the photos!

I have to admit, I was really nervous about going to the show tonight. Megan and Meghan were there. They were cordial though. I guess I had expected the worst... But it went well. Meghan now has Megan's other house key. Money is paid back to Megan. The friendships that existed previously are gone, not forgotten in my eyes though. We will never again be what we once were. But at least we can be adults about this and still hang with the same circle of people without injuring each other.

Well that is all for now. I will be up nursing my adrenaline rush for a while. Sleep will happen eventually. It is a good thing I don't have to work until 11am tomorrow. Peace.



**** Stolen from the DOWN IN THE BASEMENT SHOW event on Facebook*****
If you were unable to attend, but would still like to support us, please take the time to donate online at our website, ThetaChiBK.org! Please put in the note this event to secure your donation. We are a tax-deductible 501(c) organization.
*************************************************************************

3 more selfs.

01

How The Photographer Sees Me:
Through The Eyes of A Lens.

How Others See Me:
As the Photographer, not the Photographed.
The Dreads.

How I see Myself. (or would like to see myself.)
Calm. Collected. Meditative.

An interesting thing that I noticed, my eyes are closed or hidden in all of my photos. Except the first of my ideas from last night. This says a lot about how I have been feeling lately. After this realization, I noticed my Facbook profile picture also has me portrayed with my eyes closed.

Google "Madi Wants"

01

• madi wants to watch
• Madi wants you to get involved
• Madi wants to get a beautiful plant
• Madi wants to be the next JK Rowling
• Madi wants to go with Marie and Gus
• MADI WANTS A PICTURE OF HIS FACE,. AND YES HE IS OLDER THAN ME haha
• Madi wants to live in New York and be on Broadway when she grows up
• Madi wants to save enough money to buy a new motorcycle
• Madi wants to see u!!
• Madi wants to know
• Madi wants Matteo's attention!
• Madi wants  to be a rooock star.
• Madi wants xxxxxxx.
• madi wants to meet you too !
• Madi wants a pony cake for her birthday!!!!

Hannah Skating.

01 These six images are my favorites that I took of Hannah at our Harriet Island - Outdoor Activities shoot. These are for my location photography class. The top image is the one that I turned in for the assignment.

Self Portraits with Athame

01 These were taken about 20 minutes ago, and sweet sweet 3am is almost at my door.
They are for a class assignment due on Friday.
Self Portraits - "The one she makes use of to exhibit her art."
Which one do you like better and why?

Lacking.

01 Today I have been lacking in motivation. It really sucks. I got off work over 6 hours ago, and have been home for over 5 hours. All I have done is edit a handful of Vegas photos, chat with people online, eat some food, and be sad.

As far as photos go, I want to get more edited before I start posting large batches... but here is a teaser.




P.s. I want to shoot vegas with a 4x5 view camera.

Sunday Already.

01 It has been a couple days since you have heard from me on here... then again a couple days seems to be the theme about now. It would be nice to hear anything at all from you. I will leave it at that.

Tonight has been fun. I am staying at my sister Julie's house with my nephews. We entertained ourselves for a while with Mario Kart for Wii and then Little Big Planet on the PS3. They wanted me to work on the level I created on LBP but i ended up doing homework instead, the level creation was frustrating me... no patience for it tonight. I hate my lack of patience sometimes.

Well i am typing this on my phone and it is making my hand hurt. This is all for tonight.

Blog entries to come soon:
Dream -wedding ring/moonstone/making a choice.
School- post photos of Hannah Ice Skating
Which alcohols I enjoy, and why.

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The Thing Itself.

01 Written for Photographic Language and Visual Culture Assignment #3

“The 19th century began by believing that what was reasonable was true and would end up believing that what it saw a photograph of was true” - William M. Evans.

Evans made this statement in a time before photoshop, though at this time there were already manipulations being made to photographs. Something as simple as photographing a person who had recently passed away, posed in a manor to look as though they were still alive. One photograph like this is of Jeanette Glackmeyer . The photo was taken in 1870, and she had been dead for 9 days prior to this photograph being taken. (Griffiths)

The lines of truth have been blurred even more in recent years. Things such as digital manipulations and composite images have become more common than ever before. Things such as tableau photography caused a lot of controversy when they were first created. Now days, seeing an image that we know was created from many images doesn't even phase us. This is the epitome of this quote by Evans. What we see, and see consistently for long enough, becomes the truth.

“The average person believes implicitly that the photograph cannot falsify... while photographs may not lie, liars may photograph.” - Lewis Hine

Lies within photographs are also becoming more common. Simple things such as retouching blemishes on the model of an advertisement for concealer. This is a lie in a way that it doesn't harm anyone but does not portray the product accurately. This is also a lie because when the photo is being taken, they know that that blemish will be removed in order to keep a certain look to their add. Digital photography has made falsification in this sense even easier.

Images can also easily be falsified straight from camera with the addition of digital photography. With the lenses that are available we can choose easily what to show and what not to show. This is just as much falsification that post production retouching.

Both in camera cropping using the frame to create relationships, and editing after the photo was taken are falsification to a certain extent, though neither are necessarily a bad thing. Showing people the world differently, or in the way we see it, is part of what photography has become. Photography is not necessarily a way that ‘truth’ is documented anymore. It has truly become an art form.

Griffiths, Paul. "Photographs of Dead People Who Look Alive | Socyberty." Socyberty | Society on the Web. 1 Oct. 2009. Web. 03 Feb. 2011. .

The Impact of Photography

01 Written for Photographic Language and Visual Culture. Assignment #2

Photographs, in relation to one photograph being captured, are a unique thing. Each photograph is a moment in time that is only able to be captured once. The prints created from these images are the items that can loose their sense of uniqueness. Prints can still be unique though, the millions of combinations of ways that things can be printed, and the materials that these can be printed on, create and endless set of possibilities for each and every image. The value of a print made in current times, not in a limited edition,I think needs to be determined mostly on technical level and with considerations to the materials that were utilized in creating the photograph. With this in mind a photo created on a sixteen thousand dollar digital back on a toyo view camera, should sell for more than a photo created with a point and shoot. This stands true as long as the quality of the photograph matches the standards of the materials.The way photos are created, and the intention behind them will always create meaning in photographs. This is visible even in "myspace" and "facebook" photographs. These mirror image self portraits is, in my eyes, a way that people use to capture themselves in a way that others do not usually see them. These photographs can tell a lot about the person and their surroundings. These photos may not sell, but the meanings are still there even though this style is over-done and mass-produced.I agree with Berger on his opinions on how advertising is a way of taking our individuality away. By the advertisements saying 'buy this, it will make you attractive like the woman in this photo' or 'smell like our product and more girls will want to sleep with you' it is misleading us. Yes some women may look better and some men may get more sex, but in the end it is just another way to push products. False promises are created, and many have now come to see photographs as false because of this association. I don't know if I agree about the political ties of general advertising, yes they do take some of the thought process away, but it is on a different level than other political business.

Defeat

01 Today in critique for location I felt really defeated. I felt like I had nothing to say about my images because I wasn't happy with them. I felt like they were flat and dull and boring. I hate that when I am sad or upset or confused that my images tend to look the same way. It is like my handwriting, it betrays my emotions.

I really need to figure myself out and get myself back on track.

To invite or not to invite...that is the question...

edit... We will see how this invite pans out...

Welcome to February

01 February two years ago was, at that point in time, the hardest month I have ever been through. That was the month that I broke up with Matt. Granted at the time, for the rest of February, neither of us knew how permanent the breakup would become.

Today something happened. Back story, the locket he had given me about 6 months before we broke up got left at a friends place. I got it back last night. The first weird thing is that I had realized it was missing from my necklace tree a couple days ago, and didn't even think anything of it. This morning I decided to wear it, and had a though to look inside. The note was gone. I had carried the same gum wrapper inside of it for the length of time that I had had the necklace. It was a simple gum wrapper with the words "i love you" inscribed on it. It meant a lot to me. I know I have moved on now, it didn't hurt when I realized it was gone. There were no tears, it was just another simple fact of life that time changes things.

There have been a couple other things that have happened lately that have shown me how much my heart has finally healed and moved on. It is a very interesting feeling.