Photography
The older I get the harder snowboarding looks. My kids have shown me how quickly they can figure it out. We got them one of those cheapo snowboards and they just love it. Our youngest, Daniel, is keeping his balance in the first picture, and enjoying some delicious snow in the second. See the rest of my photography.
Joe Thorn and I are gonna be so famous. I've received two emails (since midnight!). The first said they found this on digg.com, the second on del.icio.us. Scroll until you find us.
The first is the Woodstock Square Opera House just before Christmas and the second is my sister-in-law and her daughter on Christmas Eve. Check out the rest of my photography.
My belated Friday photos...
The first is a foggy farm near Woodstock. The second is Danny getting his hair chopped. I had to take the scissors from the stylist and throw them across the room in order to get her out of the way for the photo. I put myself in the mirror because I like seeing myself. See the rest of my photography.
By the way, Joe Thorn and I have both upgraded our cell phones recently Both have ok cameras on them. So we are regularly taking and exchanging photos along our way and emailing them to each other on our phones. It makes for a fun, creative practice. We are also putting some of the better ones on our flickr sites.
I took about 100 photos in order to find the one we liked for our Christmas card. But we had many others that we liked a lot. Here are a couple other favorites (click on them for larger versions)...
It's been some year for my family. We lost three loved ones, including my mom. My wife had brain surgery. I've had significant back and neck problems requiring physical therapy.
We've also had great fun with soccer and baseball and a trip to Disney World. So we thought it would end the year with a bang and take a Christmas photo that represents how much we like being together and how much fun family can be. Enjoy your family this Christmas season.
A couple of Christmas shots. The first is Danny (our youngest) in front of our newly decorated tree. The second is an out-of-focus view of Christmas tree lights. The third is a street-level of the Woodstock Opera House during a snow storm. See all my photography.
No new photos, so here's one from last year at around this time.
Me and a certain pastor friend are going to see this tomorrow. I'm pumped!
-Bob Hyatt is good reading, as usual. 80-20 and the Organic Church Part 1 and Part 2
-Harry Potter as "Shared Text"
-Seth Godin's "Unleashing Your Ideavirus" (Part 1 and Part 2) was an excellent and thought-provoking read. It's not very new (2000), but it was good. More Godin here.
-I really dig this creative photography of kids.
-Must reading for those mashing the Thanksgiving potatoes.
The first is the last soccer Saturday for my boys this fall. They played as tough as they look. The second is Halloween. We told the kids that since we spent so much on Disney World that they had to make do on Halloween on what they already had. Danny already had a Power Rangers outfit with no mask. Elijah (Alfonso Soriano) always has sports clothes around. Sarah is playing a mom (she has puke made from cream of mushroom on her shoulder...yuck). And Jack isn't just any skateboarder, he is Rodney Mullen.
Three pics of my boys today. The first two are Danny (4 1/2) and the last is Elijah (7). The first is Danny looking out an airplane window on the way to Disney World. The second is at the University of Chicago waiting for Molly's 3 month follow up visit with her surgeon. She is now free for all normal activity after a great report from the doctor. The third is Elijah waiting for the Disney flight.
Here's an update on my photos in Starbucks. They have given out more than 100 of my Moo photography cards and I've had to order 300 more just to make it through October! Hope they show up before we leave for vacation on Tuesday morning. I've had at least 5 workers, without me even bringing up the subject, come to tell me that they are getting tons of comments and questions about my photography. Really awesome. Very encouraging. Enjoy these photos I took in Chicago recently, and check out the rest of my photography.
Yesterday was a good day. I took the train into Chicago yesterday to meet Joe Thorn. We ate some lunch (I had Chinese, he had Japanese) and then walked around for a few hours to take some photos of the city. We saw two of the worlds most huge and incredible eyebrows, two of the worlds smallest dogs, and a disturbing photo of two sumo wrestlers. I can't show you any of those photos. But I can show you a few others at the bottom of the post.
Mid-afternoon we hopped in Joe's van for a short trip up to Irving Park road toward the concert venue for Beirut/Colleen/Alaska in Winter. Soon after parking at Portage Theater we were able to meet Zach Condon, the front man and brain behind Beirut (see their MySpace to hear all new songs from The Flying Club Cup). Joe took the photo of me and Zach, obviously. It was a treat to meet him and talk briefly about the Take Away Shows of Beirut, which you absolutely must check out if you haven't already. Condon looked tired, road worn. I believe they had to cancel some dates last year because of his exhaustion, so I hope he finds the time to get some rest.
Then we walked up Milwaukee Avenue looking for things to photograph. There wasn't much that caught our eye. We ate at Hops and Barley and then made our way back to the theater for the concert.
Alaska in Winter opened, which was a dude alone on stage (Brandon Bethancourt) singing to what I would call mellow Balkan electronica, I guess. We really enjoyed it. I bought the album: "Dance Party in the Balkans." Worth looking into. Just trust me.
Colleen played next, which was a girl alone on stage with a few different instruments playing minimalist folk (no singing). Very much enjoyed Colleen. I think this music is so intense it really demands full focus, so don't expect to find good lyric-less reading music here. Please go to Colleen's MySpace, stop doing whatever else you are doing, and listen to "I'll Read You A Story." It was easily the best song, the most dramatic song, the most gorgeous song, the most haunting song, she played. The rest were good too, but this one was amazing.
After a 4 song set (these were longer songs) from Colleen, Beirut took the stage. The crowd was filtering in over the first hour and a half and opening acts. But as Beirut started you could see the theater was packed. They opened with Nantes, a personal favorite, which you can see videos for here or here. They played at least the first five tracks of The Gulag Orkestar (maybe more), mostly songs from The Flying Club Cup, a couple from the Lon Gisland EP, and one really intense French song that was an admitted indulgence for Condon (and well worth the time). By the way, Joe took this photo (he had permission from the venue).
The music was played with energy and passion by the eight musicians that filled the stage. Three were mostly on strings (upright bass, violin, mandolin/guitar/ukulele), Condon was on the mic and played a horn, two others had horns (one a trumpet and the other swiched between several things including a baritone sax), and one dude was on the drums and another on the accordion. The band members often switched instruments. I think six of them at one time or another played a ukulele or mandolin. Solid musicians.
I can't recommend Beirut enough. I think it's one of the most brilliant bands of our time. Please give them a listen. Grab this six song live set Beirut did for KEXP Live Performances podcast on Tunes. It was recorded on Monday in Chicago.
The crowd, by the way, not only filled the seats (well over 1,000) and the front of the venue, but packed out the front so that people were packing the aisles when the front ran out of space. It's interesting to note that this is European, Balkan style music and it seemed the whole crowd was well under 30 (except for a couple of handsome pastors who are in their mid-30s). Great to see Beirut have this sort of following.
Here are some photos from yesterday, and for Photo Phriday...
As I mentioned before, I am the artist featured for the month of October at our local Starbucks. Very glad to have six of my photos (the first six shown) on the wall for all to see. I have Moo cards in a couple of places in Starbucks that give my email and Flickr page for those interested in my photos. They are already more than half gone after two days (I think I put out 100)! Pretty cool.
I'm putting up some of my photos at our local Starbucks on Monday. They put up the work of a local artist for a month at a time. I'm October. So I've spent some time every day this week getting the photos ready, buying frames, and getting them ready to put up. Here are the ones I'm framing. The first six are likely the ones to go up. See the rest of my photography here.
These were taken at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, IL on Monday. It was a sweltering day, and I was sick, so double sweltering. At the first aid station they had fan misters that were wonderful. Sarah is cooling off on a bench in the first pic. Danny is enjoying the misty blast in the second. See my other Six Flags pics and all my photography.
