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[22 May 2007|06:14pm] |
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i'm still alive. don't worry. =)
"We'll go out every afternoon for pasta, and the sky will be clear, and we'll go see all kinds of scenery, We'll walk until our feet hurt, and drink wine, and we'll sleep in the same room. We'll look out new windows, and feel different from the way we do now with all the summer light pouring down around us, when it's so hot we can't stand it. I'll wait until then. "
(Hardboiled and Hardluck : Banana Yoshimoto)
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| My 10 web pages I just couldn't live without post. |
[21 Mar 2007|02:01pm] |
(Got this from Thomas Hawk)
1.Flickr Recent Activity: Is it normal to check it at least more than 10 times in one day? I get comments and faves here and there and that's where the flickr email alert comes in handy but it's always delayed!! So it's easier to just check the recent activity page.
2.Flickr latest contacts photos: This could've been easily number one, but a coin toss put it down a spot. Why watch t.v when you get so many good images from your fellow friends/contacts every day?!? Yeah photography is like crack or whatever people take these days. I can't get enough of it, I get all fidgety at random times during the day and I just wanna go out and shoot. And I spend a lot of money on it.
3.Gmail: Is there anything it can't do? It handles my documents, it personally alerts me not a moment too soon when I get an email, it's camera crowd's birthplace (haha) and provides hours of time killing/fun chats with certain friends, yes Marina that means you. Oh and it sends mail also. Thank you Google!
4.SFgate.com/chronicle: I don't like reading the actual newspaper cause one; my family gets the Contra Costa Times which is a suburban borefest and not the Chronicle. Two, I don't like getting that newspaper stain in my hands. So in between chats, flickr sessions, and whenever its tea time, I like to know what's happening around the world and the bay area.
5.A Camera in the Crowd: Uhhh well Anne and I run it, and we have to make sure our little music/photography pet is alive and kicking every second.
6.Upcoming.org: I keep track of any shows coming up and anything else that's happening in the bay area in this little community from Yahoo. I think of it as a digital "word of mouth" If somebody ever asks me "Hey, What's happening tonight?" I'll just be like dude, check upcoming.org!
7.Yelp.com: Honest reviews from regular joes and janes like you and I. Need to find out how the service is on a restaurant, theater, club, mom and pop stand you heard about? Yelp is the answer!! It also helps me keep track of all the places I wanna eat at once I stop spending so much money on cameras and what not.
8.Music Blogs: ( Gorilla vs. Bear, music for robots and IGIF) Yeah its where I get my music these days. Good and original music from the dark depths for the folk/indie music scene. Don't forget A camera in the Crowd!! Plug!!!!!!!
9.ESPN EURO soccernet: I need my daily European football news. There's no point watching ESPN cause all they show are slam dunk highlights and other sports I don't give a hoot about. Well except baseball, but that doesn't start till April!! And whenever they have "soccer news" on regular ESPN, it's always about Becks and Posh. Cmon! There's more to football than Beckham!
10.Digg.com: It's the news that the SF Chronicle doesn't cover. Usually a daily dose of new technology updates and other interesting/weird articles that would make you go "wow really?" Plus I need my daily google updates and any other important tech news. Duh I'm a nerd like that.
So what about you, what's on your list?
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[18 Mar 2007|09:56am] |
ahhhh i was this close to pulling my wallet out and buying this polaroid land camera 350. But dinner was obviously more important. sigh.
-Charlie
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[15 Mar 2007|04:38pm] |
-Charlie
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| let's never come back here again.... it'll never be as much fun |
[06 Feb 2007|03:45pm] |
I wanted to get away for awhile.
The past couple of weeks, I've just been wanting to take my camera, my music and jump on a plane en route to Tokyo.
We all know that's not possible because I don't have that kind of money, yet.
The closest I'll ever get to touching Tokyo/Osaka right now is by hitting Japan town.
I have my camera, and my music set to the Lost in Translation album.
Let's get lost!
postscript: I'll be uploading three photos a day of this series until I run out.
-Charlie
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[23 Jan 2007|02:56pm] |
Finally.
After four years of waiting.
I have to wait 5-7 more business days.
A black body and 50 mm F1.4 lenses. 1.4!!!! So long flash. I'm dead broke though. Negative money for Charlie. I just hope there aren't any good movies coming out soon, Emily, spot me!! bahaha
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[18 Jan 2007|08:24pm] |
It was in the middle of my high school years, 5 and a half years ago, when I realised we lived in an absurd world. A world where an honest and righteous man can have the worst life, and a degenerate no gooder can live in luxury. I realised then that nothing's fair, man A and man B can never be equal. After all that, it still bothers me from time to time how I get the bad end of the deal even after all the ethical things i've done.
Which brings me to the reason why I started this entry in the first place. As you all know, photography is a part of my life. It started 4 years ago, where I started at the bottom of the digital media, a bulky 1.8 megapixel vivitar. From then on, I worked my way up to a 3 mp Canon, then a 4 mp Fuji. But ever since I got into digital photography, I've always had my eye on one camera, Canon's digital rebel. So 4 and a half years later, I'm this close to finally owning one. I know every bits and pieces of that camera, and when I get it, its shooting time and it'll blow your minds.
It's just awful to see all these kids nowadays carrying rebels like its a plastic toy from a cereal box. All these wannabe's use it as a point and shoot and wield it in front of a mirror to take their myspace photo. These comments on someone's myspace caught my attention and i just had to go wtf?!
"I saw that you shoot with the Canon Digital Rebel XT, and I was just wondering if it was an DSLR camera...because I got the Nikon D80 for christmas."
What?! Some middle school or early high school floozy can't tell what a DSLR is, and shoots with a D80? Kids these days just get everything they want without having to go through with the absurdity of life.
Stay away from me if use a DSLR with its kit lens and rely heavily on the auto mode. Please. Treat it like its a fad somewhere else, not around me. Having an expensive camera doesn't make you more "scene" or professional if you don't know how to bloody use it.
As for the people I know out there who do a decent job shooting with Rebel XT's, D80's, and/or film. Thank you.
-Charlie
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[07 Jan 2007|04:21pm] |
Each one of you have your own definition of what success is. It could be in terms of being filthy rich, being really popular with guys/girls, or fulfilling your childhood dream. In terms of my current situation, I'm trying to fulfill two different degrees of success, the first one, my parents thought of what success is, money, money and more money with a secured career. As for me, it's all about doing what you love, and loving what you do. That's it.
And if you know me, you know I'm all about photography,and to be honest, there's not really a lot of money pouring in that business unless you're a popular pro and doing portrait work for a lot clients. And that's not my line of work, I hate doing portraiture work. And to be honest, it's going to be tough to be a photographer in San Francisco with the high cost of living and what not. So here I am still enjoying photography and not planning on giving it up soon, and at the same time, I have two years left in my diagnostic imaging program (radiology). To sum it all up, I guess I'll be successful in my parents eyes by earning $60,000 a year after I graduate even though Im doing something I absolutely hate. And at the same time, I'm keeping my goal intact of being a freelance photographer.
I don't mind a little compromise here and there, I owe my parents for putting up with me for the past 21 years and counting.
-Charlie
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| onward |
[31 Dec 2006|08:30pm] |
When i look back on 2006... actually I don't wanna look back. It is what it is. It was a roller coaster year and I'm back at the top.
I've realised that there is so much more out there that this cruel world has to offer. Forget getting stuck with someone and settling down. I was this close earlier this year to making that decision. People pour over so much emotion trying to get in a relationship. It's probably the most difficult and frustrating thing you'll ever encounter if you don't do it right. And when you do get it right, it tackles you hard and push you down on the ground again. So is there a point to all of it? Yeah, it's somewhere out there.
Six months into having A Camera in the Crowd, it has given my friend Anne and I unimaginable opportunities. Musicians contacting you and thanking you for writing about them, having neverending demos to review from artists you've never heard off, and getting the chance to work with Filter magazine. We have a full 12 months coming up, we'll see where it takes us this time.
As for my New Years resolution, well I don't have one. I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing and forget setting a certain "goal". New Years resolution are pointless anyways, seriously, who keeps them?
Twelve new months laid before me, I know there will be some changes, some good ones and some unwanted ones that will redirect you to a difficult path.
But as my friend Anne says...
"onward into forever
it's perfect weather for a better endeavor
we're in search for our adventure."
And im off.
-Charlie
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| frustrated. really. |
[19 Dec 2006|01:45am] |
do you wanna see my bad side? the side i rarely show?
So we set up a contest at the camera crowd for people to win a sufjan stevens songs for christmas box set, you know, its the holidays and its our way of saying thanks to our many readers. we gave the readers a simple task of printing a picture of sufjan we provided and take him out to the park or wherever you want and photograph him. the funniest and most creative photograph wins. we had the contest for four days.
and guess what?! we didn't get any submissions. our site gets about 300 visits a day, and most of the people just downloaded the songs we provided and not even enter. The contest is so easy! where the hell is your creative side? do you wanna just enter your name and email address and we'll pick a random winner? If you want that go to those money hogging blogs with their eyesore ads. I dont know what's wrong with this world. Everyone's just so fucking impatient. Sometimes it makes me wish we never had all this technology infront of us. People just keep wanting more and more and more, and are never satisfied with what they have.
Anne and I work hard to keep camera crowd running, it's fun writing about the artists you love. We don't get any money for it, we don't want to. That was not our goal. It just feels so rewarding when you see people take time and read your post or have the musicians email your personally and thank you for having them on the blog. People are just so thoughtless sometimes that it makes me not want to share the music I love anymore, sometimes, i just want to keep it to myself and screw everyone else. They don't deserve to be shared something beautiful. But that's not me and that's not going to happen anytime soon.
So for this holiday season, to all the people out there who take advantage of the music we share and rarely take time to read what we think, I hope that moment you cross an intersection, while you have your ears glued onto your conglomerate apple mp3 player, with the mp3 that you took from camera crowd without reading their post, i hope a gas guzzling hummer runs you over.
Thanks.
Postscript:
Thanks much to the unmentioned others who have supported us and have our site on bookmark and always take the time to tell us that you just read our most recent articles. thank you.
-Charlie
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[14 Dec 2006|07:27pm] |
This makes me wanna punch someone!!! whyyy!?!
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[11 Dec 2006|05:11am] |
So there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl sixteen. He was not unsually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. They were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And that miracle actually happened.
One day the two came upon each other on the corner of a street.
"This is amazing," he said. "I've been looking for you all of my life. You may not believe this, but you're the 100% perfect girl for me."
"And you," she said to him, " are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I'd pictured you in every detail. It's like a dream"
They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It's a miracle, a cosmic miracle
As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one's dreams to come true so easily?
And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, "Let's test ourselves--- just once. If we really are each other's 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that hapens, and we know, that we are the 100% perfect ones, we'll marry then and there. What do you think?"
"Yes," she said, "that's exactly what we should do."
And so they parted, she to the east, and he to the west.
The test they had agreed upon, however, was utterly unnecessary. They should never have undertaken it, because they really and truly were each other's 100% perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met. But it was impossible for them to know this, young as they were. The cold, indifferent waves of fate proceeded to toss them unmercifully.
One winter, both the boy and the girl came down with the season's terrible flu, and after drifting for weeks between life and death they lost all memory of their earliest years. When they awoke, their heads were as empty as the young D. H. Lawrence's piggy bank.
They were two bright, determined young people, however, and through their unremitting efforts they were able to acquire once again the knowledge and feeling that qualified them to return as full-fledged members of society. Heaven be praised, they became truly upstanding citizens who knew how to transfer from one subway line to another, who were fully capable of sending a special-delivery letter at the post office. Indeed, they even experienced love again, sometimes as much as 75% or even 85% love.
Time passed with shocking swiftness, and soon the boy was thirty-two, the girl thirty.
One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking from west to east, while the girl intending to send a special delivery letter, was walking from east to west, both along the same narrow street in the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. They passed each other in the very center of the street. The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts. Each felt a rumbling in the chest. And they knew:
She is the 100% perfect girl for me.
He is the 100% perfect boy for me.
But the glow of their memories was far too weak, and their thoughts no longer had the clarity of fourteen years earlier. Without a word, they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever.
A sad story, don't you think?
So this holiday season, don't pass up that good opportunity. I know I have a couple of times, I seem to forget to ask them their names before they get off BART. The train departs and they disappear off the station.
Happy holidays.
-Charlie
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[28 Nov 2006|07:00pm] |
You know it's best performance you've seen in your 21 years of being alive when Chan Marshall takes the bouquet of flowers you give her and then shakes your hand. A couple of songs after that, she sits on a speaker and you two are less than an inch apart, she then takes her hand and pets you in the head. And at the same time two hours of singing her heart out backed up by the awesome Memphis Rhythm Band. "What a world What a world"
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[07 Nov 2006|03:52am] |
To be honest, politics is the funniest thing out there.
From political sex scandals to the switching of powers in the senate.
It's crazy if you know what's going on.
Read the newspapers, watch your nightly news, and at the end of the day,
watch the daily show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. It beats out all the sitcoms out there.
Sticking to the topic, it's election day tomorrow. so if you're registered, go out and vote.
Election day is the only time everyone has an equal voice and the results are colorblind.
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[04 Nov 2006|06:21am] |
took it from Helen.
Write a journal entry with six random facts about yourself.
Then, pick six of your friends list and tag them - no tag backs. These rules should be included in your entry. ( i don't feel like doing that tagging crap.)
1. I get up around 7 a.m on saturdays just to watch English premier league soccer.
2. I'm sick of my hair.
3. There's this attractive Japanese girl in my physics lecture, she sat next to me for the first time today and smelled like moth balls. NEXT!
4. To be honest, I only watch Battlestar Galactica for Grace Park.
5. People with bad breaths give me headaches.
6. The only reason why I still wear girl pants is because they're the only kind of pants that actually fit me and don't make me look like a parachuting clown.
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[02 Nov 2006|08:24pm] |
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music |
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foxes (sighing like a furnace) - Sparrow House |
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Everything's happening so fast.
The sudden increase in traffic @ A Camera in the Crowd
It's finally November, the first spell of winter rain.
Voxtrot in two days. After missing them twice, i'm finally going to see the cool kids from Austin.
Thanksgiving and day after thanksgiving electronics shopping in a couple of weeks.
Then Chan Marshall.
Someone slap me, I think I'm still asleep.
Ever since I can remember, I've always loved the rain. I feel good and usually in a better mood when It's raining. Yeah call me weird, but sunny days make me grumpy.
I remember it was either eleven or twelve years ago. It was a cold and rainy afternoon, and I took advantage of it by getting comfy on my bed. I sat on my bed, made a little fort out of my pillows and read my superman and x-men comic books while listening to the heavy rain drops. I wish i could bring that back or at least go back in time to relive that moment. Everything was so calm and safe.
Now we have so many problems with the society, I don't even know where to begin. We have no superheroes to save us from never ending political problems, poverty, and disasters the world has in store for us.
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[22 Oct 2006|08:31pm] |
Sometimes you just can't help but laugh when someone says "Oh his/her music has helped me and changed my life..." And you think, "they're musicians, that's their job, they're not on a humanitarian tour". Your respect for artists and musicians change when they've had a strong impact on your life.
We're about 2 months away till the new year, but i'm already looking back at 2006 and thinking how much i've changed. The first quarter of 2006 was probably one of the worst times in my life. I won't go into boring details, but the whole thing was just downright depressing. The fact that i had no one to talk to made the situation even worse. All i had were three musicians. Three musicians who helped me fall asleep at night, who kept me busy during the day, and who kept me sane and positive.
Elliott Smith, Chan Marshall, and Denison Witmer. I already thanked Denison Witmer when i had lunch with him that one day. With Chan, i'll get my chance when i see her on the end of november. As for Elliott, he passed away three years ago, we know he's watching over us, right Anne?
Yesterday marked the third year of his death, my friend Anne wrote a really long and beautiful post about him on a camera in the crowd. We just owe him so much.
So if you haven't heard of him, or not familiar with his work, Go there now, i'll provide a link at the end of this entry.
And speaking of A Camera in the Crowd, it's redesigned, so now comments actually work. I'm proud of Camera Crowd, and Anne. So much work is put into it, every entry, Anne and I make sure all angles are covered and give you as much juicy information as we can. It's doing better than we thought it would, it's going well, but this is just the beginning.
Thanks to everyone who's gotten Camera Crowd to where it is now. This is just the beginning. You know who you are.
Music and photography is not our life, it's just a part of it. Just like the colors and the kids, it keeps us up and running.
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