Adam in China Fantasy Betting Pool

You are invited to participate in the Adam in China Fantasy Betting Pool.

I am going to Hong Kong from March 30th-April 16th. Set bets on things that may or may not happen while I am there!

1. You have 100 points to bet. The minimum bet is 10 points per prediction. The maximum bet is 50.

2. All bets must add up to 100 points. All bets totaling more or less than 100 points will be disqualified. You can bet anywhere from 10-50 points on any amount of bets as long as your points total add up to 100.

3. Please place bets in this format.
10pts Adam buys a camera 2:1
20pts Adam spots Chinese hipsters 2:1
45pts Adam gets drunk at a Chinese bar 5:1
25pts Adam gets sick at some point on the trip 3:1

In this example, the user has spent 100 points on 4 bets. You do not have to put points in every bet, just the ones you like. So if one of those things come true, your payout would be "X" points bet times the bet odds. In the case of "Adam buys a camera", the odds are 2:1, so the payout for a 10 point bet would be 10x2= 20 points. If this still sounds confusing, just ask me to explain it to you more clearly.

4. Please send all submissions to augraphics@gmail.com. The best way to track my progress is to follow me on twitter (twitter.com/otheradam) as I will be posting progress as it happens. When I get back from the trip, I will tally up all the points and see who wins.

5. The person with the most points at the end will win an original Polaroid taken on the trip plus a copy of a photobook with photos from trip. The person with the second highest point total will win an original Polaroid.

6. This pool is only open to people who know Adam, no strangers please. All entries must be received by 6pm on Sunday 3/29/09. In the case of a tie, a random drawing will be held to determine the winner.

THE PREDICTIONS
1. Adam buys a camera 2:1
2. Adam spots Chinese hipsters 4:1
3. Adam spots a hot Chinese hipster 6:1
4. Adam befriends Chinese hipsters 25:1
5. Adam gets drunk at a Chinese bar 5:1
6. Adam finds a bar that has a high percentage of Chinese hipsters 15:1
7. Adam steps into a Chinese night club 10:1
8. Adam steps into a Chinese night club and stays for more than 10 minutes 15:1
9. Adam makes a Chinese friend that he isn't related to 10:1
10. Adam gets sick at some point on the trip 3:1
11. Adam's mom tries to set him up with a Chinese girl 15:1
12. Adam has a bonding moment with his sister 5:1
13. Adam gets a dirty look by a native because they can tell he is an ABC (American born Chinese) 10:1
14. Adam visits a rice paddy 8:1
15. Adam gets a haircut in Hong Kong 8:1
16. Adam bleaches his hair gold 30:1
17. Adam buys something that is made mostly of bamboo 5:1
18. Adam eats a piece of meat that is not from a cow, pig, chicken, duck or fish 10:1
19. Adam eats something funky and regrets it 7:1
20. Adam finds the Chinese equivalent of The L Magazine 8:1
21. Adam finds the Chinese equivalent of The L Magazine that is pocket-sized 15:1
22. Adam runs into someone he knows from America 25:1
23. Adam spots the Chinese version of someone he knows in America 5:1
24. Adam will have a spiritual awakening and end up closer to the motherland 5:1
25. Adam visits an area where there are no modern toilets 6:1

BONUS: Guess the amount of photos Adam takes on the trip (all formats total) and win 200 bonus points plus an original Polaroid. The closest estimate wins:

Ways to follow me on my trip:
TWITTER: http://www.twitter.com/otheradam
FLICKR: http://www.flickr.com/photos/otheradam
BLOG: http://augraphics.blogspot.com

St Patricks Day Weekend

I went to Philly last weekend. Totally forgot it was going to be Saint Patrick's Day "weekend." One of the worst "holidays," I must say. Bunch of frat boys running around drunk and dressed in green. It's like they get way more obnoxious and are everywhere all of a sudden. I remember 2 years ago, I ended up at Alligator Lounge on Saint Patrick's day for some reason - it was like any other night haha! No one in green or any bullshit. Seriously, do they really need an excuse to get drunk? Just do it...

Anyway, it was a pretty mellow visit. Didn't really do... anything. Spent the better half of it at Alex's suburban house 15 minutes outside of center city. Took some portraits of him while Nate worked on a grant proposal..



He's in this get-up because he was painting his neighbor's house. So we took photos between breaks. On Saturday night, we went to meet up with some college friends who have settled in the Philadelphia area. Corey had recently moved to King of Prussia for work.


Nate and Corey


Harney

Erica Harney is going to grad school at a school I don't remember the name of in central PA. U. Penn maybe? I think she said it was a four hour drive to get to Philly. We all met up at a bar called Monk's. It's a Belgium bar. There is a "good" beer scene in Philly. Between Monk's and Eulogy, they have good European beers covered.

Soojye and Paul came to meet up with us there too. After dinner we went to a bar that Sarah Davey bar tends at. It was totally spur of the moment thing. Shawn Spangler was drinking there when we went. It made the whole night awesome. I miss being around people I enjoy the company of (or just a lot of Alfred people at once). We were all semi-drunk and had a great time.


Corey, me, Soojye, Paul, Sarah Davey

Overall a pretty good trip. We really didn't do anything except go out Saturday night though. It's ok, Philly is pretty ass in my opinion. Nate keeps trying to convince me to move to Philly since one of his roommates are moving out but what is the point when NY is only 2 hours away?

sixtyseven - he and his sled

I might be able to string a narrative around all these photos of Alex and his baby blue sled.

Sixtysix - Alex

Went to visit Alex and Nate this weekend in Philadelphia. More details Tuesday or Wednesday, when the fricken scanner I just ordered on newegg arrives. Then I'll be able to summarize the trip with some Polaroids I took of surprise guests that I met up with/ran into.

For now, enjoy this portrait I took of Alex behind his house in his suburban home. Yes this is with the new camera, and it's awesome. View it bigger at my flickr page.

Bye Hasselblad, I hardly knew ye

I sold my Hasselblad today to a girl on Craigslist. I couldn't justify keeping it right now since I have no studio space to properly set up and don't have a lens that is good for portraits. Perhaps I will buy one in the future. That or a Mamiya RB67. (ehhh...)

Also, I think I'm going to buy a Fuji Polaroidesque camera and film to take to China and do a little project where I take a photo at set intervals (or just take a massive amount of Polaroids) and then do a self published book of them when I get back. That will require me to buy a scanner. Ugh, why am I doing this to myself?

Either way, I will take a ton of photos in Hong Kong/ Beijing. You can count on that.

Meeting people from the interwebs

As some of you (most?) know, last week I bought a new camera- the Canon 5d Mark II. I was browsing a photography forum two days ago and some guy had just bought it also but they didn't have the lens kit so he bought a different lens with it. Well he sort of jumped the gun because when you put down cash for a new camera, you tend to want a lens for it, any lens. So he picked up a 24-70mm F/2.8L that I debated on getting with this camera. It was either get the kit with a lens (24-105mm F/4L) or buy the body only and get this lens.

I didn't really give it much thought because buying either lens separately costs ~$1100. The kit "saves" me ~$300-400 on the lens. It's cheaper if you buy it with the body. So now this guy realized he wanted the extra reach (from 70-105mm) and I realized that I needed the larger aperture (F 2.8) because a lot of times I'm shooting bars and restaurants (dim light situations) so I decided to trade with him. Hey, this is a great deal for me, I "paid" $800 to get a new $1100 lens.



So I told him to meet me at Joe's (where else?) today and we did. He was a middle-aged man with a balding headline and glasses. That is a very stereotyped kind of photographer in my mind. Sort of like all the people who work at Calumet remind me of my college professor, Roger- mid 50 year old guys with glasses and all sorts of mustaches and monotone vests on.

The guy I met was obviously rich and had a ton of money to throw. He was telling me how he settled back into photography as a hobby (he doesn't shoot professionally but bought a $2700 camera and L glass!). He told me he was collecting cars for a while and then moved onto watches and had always liked to photograph the things he was collecting so he got into photography through it. Plus he takes lots of trips with his wife. They are going somewhere exotic in a few weeks. I don't remember what he said.

So we talked about cameras and things for a while and traded lenses. Oh yeah, the photo above is the new cover of the L, which I shot. I shot a ton of photos for the issue. Check it out.

Sleep writing

Early this morning when I was half asleep, I came up with an entire chorus (with melody in my head!) for a R&B and/or rap song. I got up and wrote down the lines in a daze and went back to sleep. When I woke up, all I was left with was 3 lines that I can't place. The melody in my head is gone, of course...

This is what I wrote down-

They knock the life

No need for drama, mama

She's sweet but my heart is with her

WTF is this supposed to mean? They don't go together, I remember that much. There were other lyrics surrounding them, at one point I remember I had an entire fricken rhyming thing going on. Ugh, this is going to be a nightmare to put back together (pun intended).

Fifty: OH SHI-

I actually do feel nauseous. Even a day later.

Black by Association in da house

Recorded a verse on Valentines Day at Ray apartment. It's sooo bad. I'm going auto-tune on the next song. I think it'd be hilarious.

fourtyseven

Lens hood for Canon 85mm F/1.8 lens and two 8GB CF cards

Getting ready to switch camps. Now if only the camera was as easy to find... B & H said they had the camera kit yesterday, I was out yesterday but didn't bother to go check. Adorama has the bodies in stock today but no kit. Ugh!

No I don't want to say which camera it is yet because what I'm going to end up spending by switching from Nikon to Canon will cost me a small fortune - literally. At least there is a $50 rebate from Sandisk for those 2 CF cards I just bought. It's like buy 1 get 1 free!

fourtyfour

Valentine's Day card from Cecilia. She's so crafty!

she & him

I just had to post this. That is all.

thirtyfour

Last night I set up my strobes in my living room and took some photos.

Quality Control

I'm going to start marking some of the photos in my photo-a-day project to "friends only" on flickr. The majority of them have been pretty sub par and lazy on my part and I don't want them clogging up my feed. So only the good ones will be public from now on. This will put a bit more pressure on me to preform. This is retroactive.

The color and the shapes

To prevent the rotting of my brain, I went to the Whitney today to see the William Eggleston exhibit, which closes in a few days. I'm really glad I went to see it. I could never see myself taking any photographs like he does. He captures something really unique in things that are mundane and seemingly uninteresting. A lot of times, I would glance over such things and never think to photograph them. I have done photographic essays and documentaries before but I would never capture like he does. Just a different approach and way of seeing.

That is something I am starting to explore on my long weeks between freelancing, or as Cecilia calls it, "premalancing." I'm looking at interesting ways to photograph around my house, which I find very boring as a photographic subject. I have always been thinking of my house in broad perspectives- the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom, etc. In that sense, the house is unphotogenic. With that in mind, I have decided to start simple and reduce everything to the basics: colors and shapes.

We'll see how this goes.

Here are 3

Polaroids I took late last summer/early fall that I haven't uploaded till now.

Me

"I put on my overcoat and walked into winter, my teeth chattered rhythms" -Death Cab

I haven't done a self-portrait in years - since my senior show. I find my house to be really terrible to photograph in because I'm here all the time. But also because in the past few years, it's become "my parent's house" to me. I had always had the idea to try and take a photo in my living room with the light coming in from the windows but was too lazy to do it till now. The photo above is the result.

I have so much art work I've acquired over the years that I want to put up but can't because we have limited space and my mother has all of her acquired art up. Plus, it would be really disjointed to have art my friends made next to traditional Chinese art.

We also don't have a lot of space and there are too many background distractions that would take me forever to move to compose a photo in my style. But now that I have time, I'll probably try to set up my strobes and find some interesting compositions to do some self-portraits again.

oh nine is off to a really shitty start

Today I was laid off... and then rehired to freelance for the magazine I hold so dearly. What does this mean? Less time at work and more time to photograph!

That's what I'd like to say. In reality its too cold to photograph and I'll probably just stay home and play videogames and try not to spend money. Having this come after the holiday really sucks since, you know, I would have probably not bought have the shit I did last month.

Speaking of videogames, Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), one of the oldest gaming publications, got sold today and pretty much laid off the entire staff and shut down the magazine and only the online portion will remain. They laid off at least 40 on the staff, which meant they kept like five people. So I don't even know how they will have content to provide for the webite (which I don't read). I only listen to their podcasts, which there will be no more of. No more podcasts for me to listen to on my morning commute anymore. Well, if I had a regular morning commute. ZING.

Year in Review: Music

I feel like there weren't too many really, really good albums last year. Since I don't keep up on music and the albums I've listened to last year aren't really that diverse (white people with beards and guitars, lolz) I'll just list some of the stuff I enjoyed last year.

Black Kids - Partie Traumatic
This has been a mixed bag in the press (The L's music editor hates it), but I like it. The songs are upbeat and fun to listen to. I don't really mind that their sound could be compared to the Clash. It's good driving music.

Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs
I don't hype myself up for Death Cab releases anymore. Their albums are always strong, but the last 2 releases have always been missing that little something that pushes it over to greatness for me. Where I'd usually listen to their albums for months, I've only listen to this one for like 2-3 before moving on and going back to it occasionally, all the while skipping over the ones I don't want to hear.

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
This really seems like a 1997 release, because it was all the rage before the record officially came out last January.

She & Him - Volume 1
The only way I can describe this is that it had me at hello. Literally. Half way through the title track, 'Sentimental Heart', I already knew I would love this album and it didn't disappoint. I can't decide if this or Vampire Weekend is album of the year for me.

The Disappointments of 2008

Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst
Like his last album under Bright Eyes, this album has like 3 really, really good songs, but the rest are unlistenable to me. All his songs are just starting to sound the same to me... which is a shame, They all sound like rejects from A Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, but without the heavy synthesizing. Does that make sense?

Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
Whatever the hell influenced Rilo Kiley's last album obviously made it's way to Jenny's sophomore effort. The 2 songs she posted on her myspace as a preview before this record came out, 'The Next Messiah' and 'Acid Tongue' were great and also gave a false impression that the rest of the album was in the same vain. Instead it looked like a calculated manuver to hook in fans of Rilo Kiley pre Under the Blacklight. Which is what the album sounded like - a follow up to Under the Blacklight.

Kanye West - 808s and Heartbreaks
The College Dropout was phenomenal. I feel like all his albums have gotten progressively "worst". Not to say they were bad, Late Registration and Graduation were both decent, just not as good in comparasion. I'm not into the whole Auto Tune thing here... it makes him sound like shit live (see the SNL preformance he did to promote 808s). Also, why is it cool that Kanye can go all "emo" on us and people still eat this shit up like it's gangsta to be heart broken? Can't wait till my friend puts out his album 909s and Goodtimes.

Year in Review: Photography

It's all about the light quality.

My favorite photos that I've taken this year (in no particular order) -


Andrea hates this photo but I love it. "Looks like this could be in Elle" - Becca


I wish film was not so expensive and inconvenient to shoot, otherwise I would have done a lot more of it. I want to make prints of the above two photographs but going to a color darkroom is a huge hassle, not to mention I don't even know how to print color. At least, I wasn't taught but I pretty much know how it works and can probably just wing it if I ever find myself in a color dark room.


Funny and weird and confusing all at the same time. I wish the light doesn't die so fast every time I go to this beach.


Kendall knows how to pose, like for serious.




I shot both of these on the same day. It was just one of those day where everything came together really well. The thing is, the lighting that day was not anything spectacular, I just used it to my advantage. Dana's photo was through seer observation for days looking for a place that had light being filtered through so it wasn't too harsh. It was high noon summer light! So I went into that one knowing where I wanted to place her.

The Edith didn't start so well, I couldn't find a good location with good light. We walked around for a bit and I found a good spot to back light her- again, it doesn't look like it in the photo at all, and that is what sets these two photos apart for me.

Overall, my output in 2008 was higher than any year since when I was in Italy and I'm really happy about that. I've had many, many lovely people to shoot and for the most part the people at the L went along with my shenanigans.

For 2009, I want to do some more elaborate studio shoots and shoot new people because lord knows I've exhausted my immediate circle of people to shoot. Not to say I'm not grateful for them, but fresh faces would be welcomed. Afternoon photo shoots with new people are one of the greatest joys for me- shooting and getting to know someone at the same time - the entire process is just great.