I’m in albemarle NC and I can’t sleep. Insomnia-blogging. not much to say right now. might think of more later and give it another post. <br /><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/just_a_few_phots_from_the_road/1245/0001.jpg” alt=”Photos”/><br /><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/just_a_few_phots_from_the_road/1245/0002.jpg” alt=”Photos”/><br /><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/just_a_few_phots_from_the_road/1245/0003.jpg” alt=”Photos”/><br /><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/just_a_few_phots_from_the_road/1245/0004.jpg” alt=”Photos”/>
Posted by matt on 2009-02-14T00:00:00Z GMT
Why am I awake at this ungodly hour? It’s saturday morning. I should be drunk, passed out with my arms around some beautiful woman I don’t deserve. I should have partied all night with my friends.<br /><br />Instead, I’m here in a town in north carolina in a town who’s name I can’t spell right (albamarle? albermar? something). Today, I’m going to go and sit in a chair for hours on end, and take pictures. This instead of waking up with said woman, making breakfast and nursing a hangover all day, orange juice, eggs, coffee, maybe a mid-afternoon bike ride. <br /><br />No, today I’ll shoot more than 10,000 pictures. I’ll hear the same 50 songs repeated about twice, some more than others, and some more annoyingly than others (I never did like Annie). I’ll hold up the 5 pound camera setup for most of that time, a 12-13 hour day, with a short break for lunch. I’ll be exhausted and ache at the end and probably have one dinner choice, because everything else in town shuts down at 8. <br /><br />The strangest part? I prefer this to staying at home. I’d rather be out here on the edge of what I can do, busting my ass, trying to do something nearly impossible (produce good art on demand, several hundred times in a day? that’s so absurd it’s beyond consideration, but here we are). This is difficult, but it’s the life I’ve been missing out on in a lot of ways, going different places, doing photography, a little suffering but much joy. <br /><br />Other than the people in what I’m already thinking of as my old life, there’s nothing I miss. With the exception of the hypothetical pretty lady, who 9/10ths of the time I’m texting from the road anyway. What’s wrong with me?
Posted by matt on 2009-02-14T00:00:00Z GMT
<br />So, i kind of wasn’t going to blog this, it being old news and all, but I wanted to at least share the pictures. Funny story: for the pictures of everybody crouded together in the bathroom, that was for the second cell that passed over us, the one that wasn’t really anything to worry about.<br /><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/oh_noes!_tornadoes!/1247/0002.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br />My first day in the office was actually good. Doing sysadin-like duties already, although I don’t really think I qualify for the title yet. Or at least I was doing them until the power went out. Point for twitter- I found out about the storm a little ahead of everyone else on twitter. Then I sat there for twenty minutes trying to find decent radar coverage (not really possible on the internet, unless you get a live feed from the tv stations, which is easier to get from, say, a TV).<br /><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/oh_noes!_tornadoes!/1247/0003.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/oh_noes!_tornadoes!/1247/0004.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/oh_noes!_tornadoes!/1247/0005.jpg” alt=”Photos” />
Posted by matt on 2009-02-11T00:00:00Z GMT
So I started my new job for reals last weekend, and it was strange, like everything else in my life. The traveling was some of the easiest I’ve done. Nothing went wrong (in an unfixable way, at least). Like I said, the things that are usually difficult, like morning coffee or lunch, were handled with ease. For those not in the know: my new job is taking pictures of dance competitions. to the tune of 20k images a weekend.<br /><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/a_weekend_in_kentucky/1249/0001.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br />The hard part wasn’t really taking the photos, either, although I can tell already that my timing and camera handling is going to get a lot better (this coming from someone who didn’t think that was possible). This is a good thing.<br /><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/a_weekend_in_kentucky/1249/0002.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br />(There was some bs here that I cut out, because some shit shouldn’t see the light of day. not while it’s half baked at least. suffice to say that dance competitions are hard to fit into my worldview; they are, in a word, problematic). <br /><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/a_weekend_in_kentucky/1249/0003.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br />At the end of the day, the girls probably mostly have a great time dancing, and enjoy having quality pictures of what they love doing. I can dig on that. Thinking of it that way, it’s hard to hold onto my objections. At the end of the day, I’m a professional. I do the job, nobody gets hurt because of it, maybe some people enjoy what I produce even. That’s fine with me.
Posted by matt on 2009-02-10T00:00:00Z GMT
