OK so, the setup is this: one night party, setup saturday, strike sunday morning after a few hours sleep. Completely transform an office waiting room into a lounge/dance floor/art space for the duration of the party. We brought in rugs and cushions, projectors, lights, big fabric hanging bits, art from previous iterations of the party, and a dozen or so cool people.
There was also the matter of the music; DJ OTHA (also known as Joseph, the man in the fetching hat) spun like a 4 hour set after opener Vizlicious. Joseph’s marathon sets are always pretty awesome, but this one was really special: https://soundcloud.com/josephotha/joseph-otha-live-drop-party-2024.
I think that’s all? Except to say: dang I’m a lucky dude. Just having all these incredibly kind, creative people around me is really awesome.
Posted by matt on 2025-04-06T05:25:38Z GMT
This was last year, the night before the Drop Party (those pics are on deck). Had one of my once-a-month cigars with friends (which I’ve since quit altogether, because of the transplant requirements). Went over to some friends’ back yard, I think I’d met them once before at some other LoveLab function (the dinner? Drift? something) and it was a nice relaxing evening.
Just posting these because they’re nice and easy. Drop Party is on deck, I just need to make the final edits.
Posted by matt on 2025-04-05T08:33:20Z GMT
these photos were taken a couple weeks ago now, at a weekly dance party that started back in 2020 called Days Like This. Friday night, 5-9:30, just impeccable vibes. really great fun. The first couple were from before, we went to Coach and had sushi before dancing.
despite the fact that the break dancing is the majority of the pictures here, it only really lasted a couple songs. We got to the party late, around 8ish, danced for a while, and then I took a bunch of pictures. I found myself screwing around with the focus modes, trying to find the right one. I think I landed on the 3d-tracking mode? Honestly modern AF is black magic to me, and I’m probably going to spend a little time learning it, because it’s a neat trick to have when the situation arises. 8 frames a second doesn’t hurt, either.
I am woefully behind on editing photos, I still haven’t gotten through the stuff from Driftwood and that was back in August. Had something of a block about it, unfortunately. The photo sets are large and mean a lot to me so I want to get them right (whatever that means) and so I want to do them when I have time to just sit with them but I never do; there’s no increment of time large enough to really digest that many photos into a coherent set.
I am making progress, though. I have a method I think of as the ‘bangers only’ method. When I’m doing my initial selects, I do a pass and bring anything that might work once I’ve punched it up a bit, and then I do a pass toning all of those (global exposure, white balance, etc) and then often this is where my process stalls. I’ll have 60 or 100 photos in a collection, from several days of work, and I’ll have to choose from those, and I just can’t say no to any of them.
That’s where the next step comes in; I have to say ‘yes’ to the picture to get it past this step. No ‘maybe’, no ‘if I squint’, just the ones that are definitely good by my judgement. That usually helps. I got this set down from 50 to 15 in like five minutes (it helped that there were a couple blurry sequences and obvious winners in there). Driftwood 2024, the edit went from 120 to 49 very quickly. I need to do this for the Retreat photos as well, and then hopefully I’ll have both of those posts out soonish. I’m also thinking about doing a book? Maybe? DW 2024 and Retreat 2025. Maybe.
Posted by matt on 2025-04-02T09:12:08Z GMT
There was an event I wanted to go to on a Saturday down in Little Armenia, we didn’t have anything else going, so I booked a hotel near the thing and we drove down saturday, went to the event, and came back on sunday. What was the event? Who knows, I didn’t take any pictures there (it was a Q&A for this project by Anush Babajanyan). Anyway, the clouds both ways were spectacular. The second day the whole day we were chasing rainbows.
A lot of people hate the 5 because it’s boring and long and there’s nothing to see but farms for a couple hundred miles. I understand that perspective because I also have felt that way at times. I think it’s actually a very interesting road once you look at it the right way, though. The interaction of the mountains either side of the central valley, the textures and shapes, all that green… Really what’s not to like besides five hours in the car?
Of course, the weather isn’t always benign; I’ve definitely come over these same passes in bumper-to-bumper traffic which is a different kind of misery. I don’t think that’s the road’s fault though.
Posted by matt on 2025-02-20T08:31:16Z GMT
These are actually from the night before the previous post. I’m trying to get ahead of the trend and give up entirely on linearity. I had looked at flights and arriving one day earlier plus a hotel was quite a bit cheaper, so I went for it. I feel like at the time I might’ve also been scheduling with the possibility that Sophie would come along. I don’t remember, it was last year and a while ago.
Downtown minneapolis was very strange. The 10 story condo seemed to have taken over from all other life forms, and they were all shiny and neat, except where a few of them were still under construction. I wonder how many winters all these new transplants will face before they give up and move somewhere warmer? When I lived there, we didn’t stay through a whole one. Moved in the late spring to West St. Paul, started the third grade, learned my times tables up to I think 6’s, had more than one recess cancelled because it was too cold (less than 10ºF), and moved to Oklahoma in December. The wind was cold inside the dang truck. Terrible cold. You’ve heard of lake effects? This is a place that is swiss-cheesed with lakes. Anyway, I digress.
In the middle of summer, that is to say June, it was passing fair and nice. The Football stadium, as I said, looked like an incursion from an alternate reality, or an alien spaceship had landed and the aliens had decided, on balance, to decamp for somewhere warmer. If they’d waited a bit I’m sure they could have bought a nice condo.
Other than the odd stadium, the downtown was quiet on a Friday evening. I walked around for maybe an hour, then the rain started coming down, and I went back into my motel to watch the first presidential debates. Talk about things going non-linear on us, huh?
Posted by matt on 2025-02-07T09:38:31Z GMT
