Are you cool?

This week I visited the campus of Rutgers University and the RU cool room. They certainly are cool, I mean, you can get, at the very least, monitor envy in about one blink. They are also cool for the work they are doing monitoring the eastern seaboard (and world) with state of the art ocean sensing technology. But as usual this is not what I am here to blog about today, especially as they are cool enough to already be recording and publishing all sorts of stuff about all the cool stuff going on, check out the AUV Scarlett Knights glider page, for instance.

The real question left in my mind today, is of course, am I cool. Do we not all want to be cool? It seems to me we are we often stealing or borrowing the cool of others in the hopes of projecting ourselves as cool? My favorite phrase of the summer was certainly, "I'm so cool I make the Fonz look like Henry Winkler." Here I am borrowing it to appear much cooler than I really am. I did however fix a malfunctioning device by bumping my fist on a table this month... so maybe I am a little cool....

Feet!

I do not like them. You might ask yourself, if he does not like the feet, why would he choose to feature them so prominently in this, the current shot of the week? Well the answer is, so I could tell everyone the following:

I do not like feet.

If you are married to me and many of you are not, you already know that I find them ugly. You already know, I think they are a great stocking stuffer. You will also probably already realize that none of this is rational. Some people do not like Bill O'Reilly....some people do not like feet. I happen to not like both, but that's a different blog.

Flaming out

So we have done it. No not that. We had the end of summer party/belated e birthday party, of course. The summer is all but gone up in flames. With it C.O.D's initial summer has come to a close as well.

But as usual, that's not exactly what I am here to blog about. I am here to say thank you to all those people who came to share the day and celebrate the transition to a new season....or another year with e......or to drink beer.....

Whyever you came thank you! I know e and I certainly wished we had more time with each one of you.

Now go forth and embrace the pending fall.

Another just one

We had such a great time at the wedding I thought it deserved recording a couple more of my favorite shots from that day here at the blog. Embarrassingly I was having so much fun shooting shots at the event that I did not learn as many names as I probably should have. Two, possibly Three, of my favorite images from this day contain this man... the unnamed guitarist from Patrick's band. As e has already said this picture looks like it could have been taken 70 years ago and was taken on the fly as I rapidly saw the image coming together. This resulting in me liking it that much more, that it required complete unscripted recognition that a possible picture was about to happen and that it came out this well thrills me to no end!

one

The internet version of benshotme turns one year old this month. This is one of the first bsm images, as it was shot with the first of two new digital camera's, the purchase of which was inspired by my desire to make new photographic discoveries. I landed this image when the camera was just hours old (to me). I had decided to (finally) "go digital" and it has been a personal revelation. Being from Cape Cod I have a new analogy for my approach to photography, for me, its like fishing. I will head out of the house to the water (any place that reflects light), and start casting (pushing the shutter button), sometimes there are keepers (these are the images you see here), sometimes the big one gets away (damn the fleeting moment that is poorly exposed) and sometimes you come home empty handed (but feeling good for the effort). The other fishing analogy is that I do not really enjoy the post processing of images, you know film and print processing, we will call this the gutting and cooking. I had not been shooting much mostly because I found the gutting (darkroom) and cooking (framing, matting, presentation) too time consuming and the stink (chemicals) often gave me headaches (that can't be good). So here we are a year later and I'm still very much enjoying trying to get that next digital byte!

Just one look

Or maybe ~1111 some odd looks. When Carina started singing her way down the aisle with the one hit wonder "Just one look", Patrick's, the groom's eyes welled over. Later when the teary eyed Emily read her poem to the couple, it was easy to see that you were at a special event. Now that we are back here to bog hill and the picture uploading has commenced, going on 15 hours, the specialness has not worn off. E bops around the house belting her rending of Carina's rendition of "Just one look". And I, I will be thoroughly enjoying looking at the over 1100 looks I recorded from this beautiful day trying to determine which ones are fit for public consumption.

The year we disappeared

Tears welling in his eyes would be one sign of the magnitude of this, a rare, visit to town. Tears welling in my eyes is another sign of the profound loss this family has suffered. When some grown bully from your hometown attempts to murder a police officer on his way to work and then the crime goes unresolved by his colleagues and the members of the community you love, what can you say to express your profound disappointment? Now that they are left with nothing else to hope for, in the unresolved- some might say intentionally neglected- case of attempted murder of a police officer, John Busby and his daughter Cylin, wrote a memoir about the event; their life defining event.

Last night myself and some 100 of our townsfolk came to pay our respects and express our shared disappointment, at the first of several book signings here in town. A local reporter was present and I am sure another article will appear in the local paper. The "mystery" "story" of the attempted murder is what will gather the hype of television shows like 48 hours. The local reports for years have detailed the primary suspect's other nefarious acts almost to sake of glorification.

The real story, to me, is how we, the folks from this family's hometown have let them down. They still love this town, as we do, but they can not live here because bullies are allowed- or more repulsively- assisted by town authorities in getting away with attempted murder and more recently murder. The most recent murder in our town, also associated with these bullies, occurred in 2005. The shooting of John Busby was in 1979. Neither crime has ever been brought to trial.

party and stuff

We have decided to host a belated e birthday/end of/indian summa party in September. The idea had been thrown around between e and i for a while and it kind of gained some momentum after james, pictured here, got word of e's birthday and the hint of the word "party". As only james can do, the world was suddenly mobilized, we might be having the announcement of Barack's running mate at the party, the dead were coming back from the dead to play, the rivers would run with beer. It would be epic!

Well thats not what I am here to post about. I am more here to talk about the faces james makes while being photographed. He claims to hate having his picture taken, maybe because "they are all awful." Yet I wonder how this, his patented camera face, is helping? The irony of watching him now run around with his new camera in everyone else's face, for his job, well, it is the stuff you could write screenplays about.

I ask you to go to your nearest mirror and practice the "james camera grimace." This way if you come to our party, and james flashes his camera in your face......

Party details to come....or inquire today.

festival

The Naukabout festival came to town this weekend. We attended mostly to catch up with old friend Ryan Montbleau. This photo of him was taken inside the "band trailer". A humorours stage story was later in the day told by Matt of the Old Silver Band about this trailer. Apparently one of the 14 year old festival volunteers was tasked with "security" for the trailer. He was also around earlier in the summer when the same trailer was used by the Village People before and after their County Fair performance. According to the youth the Village People peed all over the trailer......I for one am still left wondering after all these years which village these peeps really are from?

20

This past weekend featured a celebration of the 20 years passed and the gathering of my high school classmates of 1988. Of our class of ~150 people, ~30, including myself managed to return to our old haunts. We boozed cruised the canal. We ate dinner to Guns and Roses.


Seeing some of these faces for the first time in over 20 years, shocked or pleased some distant part of the brain that is seldom accessed. Personally I do not feel like I am much different than that guy from all those years ago. Sure I am more experienced in someways. I have some knowledge I didn't then, but there are also some things good and bad lost from those days. These lost synapses make me feel a little nostalgic, but not a lot, today is like yesterday,like the days 20 years ago, just another day passed....

A special thanks should go to e for putting up with up all the hoopla.

Lets go!

Beach days are coming to an end. Its cool today. There was rain. My 20 year high school reunion is coming up this weekend. All this somehow seems intertwined.

I don't feel old, as a classmate insinuated, in say the body. I have no aches. There is not discernible difference in my performance at any level. But damn 20 years past anything sounds like a long time. I may not have a sore back but my ears are achy from 20 years reverberating around inside of them.

I want to feel like this

Sting once sang:

they all seem like game show hosts to me

I wonder if you were one of one hundred some odd said hosts in this world; how does this line make you, the game show host, feel?

Chuck? Bob? Alex?

I think I want to feel this way.

Come on down.

Spin the wheel.

You are next!

Dear Debbie

Yesterday, we the family allszplat, visited a local softball game. At the game new friend Debbie said how much she liked the website and these shots. Debbie, I'm sorry I did not respond when you said this. I did hear you. I just feel so awkward when people say they like the work I am doing. You see the problem is, I like it too...I like it a lot, but for me to say that in conversation seems a tad conceited. It's somewhat hard to even write it.

I have gotten better at saying thank you when complimented, but a mere thank you also doesn't seem like enough either, so sometimes like yesterday nothing appropriate comes out. Thank you is what people say when you pick up their dropped keys. It does not seem like the appropriate response to the very fuel of ones passion. How do you appropriately acknowledge the very source of your inspiration, without misrepresenting your gratitude? Thank you Debbie- these shots are dedicated to you and the ones before you and hopefully the people to come who keep the desire to engage each other's passions alive.

Introspective

Lately the shots I have been taking have been a little bit more introspective. The first half of this year I was "putting myself out there" as they say. Engaging people with my photography and the idea of benshotme. Lately my shooting pace has subsided a little bit and my cavalier approach has subsided. I am less likely to whip out a copy of our latest magazine to share with a stranger. I'm less likely to approach that stranger who was in a nice looking shot at the drive-in. That good looking shot is also more likely to be of a stool. Part of this is just due to it being summer. There seems to be so much going on in summer there are few choices left for the free time. It also probably means that it is time for the benshotme experiment to refocus and determine exactly what it wants to be.

One of the biggest disappoints to the experiment so far has been that we were hoping for more people to want to participate. If your out there and reading this...I really want to shoot just about anything - I want your ideas for these web pages and the magazine. I do have an invitation to a softball game this week that I intend to shoot, but beyond that the ideas have not been coming from the readership.... join in today send a in topic to be covered!

two terms

On this day seven years ago, I married my friend and lover, the one who shares my laughter and light.

I love you erica!

This now being an election year, I hope things go well and another 4 years are approved by the voters. Remember no signage or picketing within 50 yards of the polls.

4 more years! 4 more years!

dog days of summer

It's here. At least for me. These are the days that it becomes so hot you do not want to move. Its miserable. But the heat, that's not what I am here to blog about. In my mind a while back I decided that if a shot was good enough to be the shot of the week over at benshotme.com then it had better be good enough for me to record it as such over here at the blog and say something about it as well. So this weeks shot is another of phoenix, our cute little cherub of a dog. Recently I decided 2009 would be the year of the phoenix. This year I have been shooting photographs every day some call these projects _____ 365. For me this year was just an exercise, no boundaries any photo any subject, just daily. Well next year I will begin phoenix 365 a shot of our dog every day.... I can't wait!!!!

Juggling the time

So on Monday I would have posted about the wedding (see next post), but the championship game of my Dek hockey season needed to be played. We lost by one goal, for those of you who care about results. Tuesday the company I work for went from a small family owned multi-million dollar biz to a huge publicly traded multi billion dollar biz. You know your average Tuesday. Wednesday the wife and I had one of those epic fights that will be remembered forever, or at least what equals a fight for us. At the very least it put us at our jobs the next day with little under 3 hours of sleep. Thursday was just another day of softball and then dek hockey scrimmaging. It is at softball that I shot this picture of Geoff with way to many balls in the air...an analogy for the week. And that brought us to Friday where the now made up wife and I went to see one of my favorite bands in New Hampshire, which is where on the way back from the previously mentioned wedding I started thinking about my desire to get a blog out this week.......so sorry about the essentially list blog, this one was more for me to chronicle this mildly epic week than for you. How is your summer?

Another busy summer

Where do the days go? I have been meaning to post to the blog all week. I have wanted to talk about and post some of the photos of last weeks wedding of Dan and Stephanie. Here is a portion of Dan's toast to Stephanie and one of my favorite shots.

The scene

Cedar shingled houses with moths flying around porch light. Grills charring up burgers. Fire pits blazing. Raised voices over the blare of classic rock. Beer flowing down hatches. This was the other scene happening all over our Cape Cod last night, on this July 4th eve. It was in and out at Mike and Erin's, but there was of course a little time to snap off a couple shots.

Thursday night jazz

The worlds greatest coffee shop is now keeping its doors open a little later on Thursday nights. This week Coffee Obsession in Falmouth began its open mic/jazz night. Last night I could only spend about 30 minutes there and I was late so I am sure I missed some good times. But while I was there I was treated to nice mix of styles and in a relaxed creative atmosphere. Keep up the good work Hugh and friends.

celebrations

I have loved this shot since I pressed the shutter release. When I get a free minute it will become the shot of the week over at the main site.

So to my friend Justin, happy fourth birthday bud. I do have a tip for you for the upcoming year; you can have your cake and eat it too....it just does not have to be all in one bite!

a portfolio

About 10 months ago I decided I would like to be a photographer again. This time I wanted to do it on my terms. When I did so, I joined the digital age permanently. I acquired some gear. I shot with wild abandonment again, like I did as a younger photographer. Today I am proud to say I put together a portfolio of my work from mostly these 10 months. I am fairly pleased. The first pass has 175 images in 8 categories. I am tempted to add more when I should probably be editing.

I still wonder what the "real" photographers out there make of my stuff. If you happen to be one please, I would love feed back. As a matter of fact I would take feedback from anyone of a constructive nature. What is working for you. What doesn't work for you. Do you care?

For those of you who have been viewing along the way, thanks for visiting! And for the true fans, the july edition of ben shot me the magazine is nearly in the can and will be going to press soon!

Celebrity encounters!

I make it to Bruins games a couple times a year. I watch most games on the tele as well. The other day I was driving around on the Cape with the camera when I ran to into a celebrity.

I was driving when I noticed Joe, I could not immediately pick out where I knew him from. Then it hit me this is Jumbo Joe. No, not the departed Joe Thornton, but Joe from Charlestown. Joe who dances during the breaks like there is no tomorrow. Joe who dances for the camera in his crazy hats. Joe's dancing gets him on the Jumbrotron or the tele often. Joe has been a season ticket holder since 1976 and will be again next season. Joe makes people laugh and Joe is an avid supporter of the Bruins. Thanks Joe!

You will be in trouble

Recently someone said to me.

"I didn't know you were a photographer"

My mind immediately thought something along the lines of, well I'm not, I am just a guy who takes a lot of pictures. I have only on a couple of occasions recorded images that I think could really be considered photography. Or at least photography as my idealist minds template of what is required in the medium to be considered photographic. This template is probably a bit too elitist and I have been trying to relax it to allow myself into it's fold. In reality anyone who ever depresses a shutter button becomes a photographer, therefor most in the modern world are also photographers.

As an aspiring photographer I can say if you carry a camera around long enough you are sure to get some real treasures and I do not mean pictures, I mean people. It is funny how some people will react to a "photographer" Here are some recent examples.

A while back on dank spring day I approached a very large man in a yellow hoodie pumping gas at a station down cape. At the time I was thinking it would be nice to photograph some real blue collar codders, from a far this gentleman fit the bill. I politely introduced myself and asked if he minded if I shot some pic's of him at work. He politely offered to break my lens in half if I took any pictures.

If you have been paying attention at the site you will have also notice a series of photographs of beer. I shoot pints almost every time I drink them. At one recent bar I was busy shooting and admiring my pint, at some point I looked up and another bar patron seemed to be glaring at me. So I uttered a cordial how you doing? He responded with an angry "Do me a favor, do not turn that camera on again." The tone was one that left it clear that it was going to be a real problem if it the camera turned on again. Later I realized that the gentleman was in the background of the pint shots. I guess he did not want any pictures of him as the sole patron at the pub in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday.

Yesterday, I had been asked to take some photos at a local landfill. I again politely introduced myself at the gate. The gentleman there expressed ambivalence about a photographer shooting at the dump. I started off to looking for some good ones. Shortly later, while shooting the stack of dead monitors the gateman called me back. He asked if I had permission from the town to be there. I did not. I asked if he could give me a number to get permission, as I could tell he just got off the phone with a supervisor. He gave me the town literature and said that town hall would be open weekdays 9-5. I asked if that would be when they handed out day permits for landfill photographs? He apparently did not see the humor behind this statement and went on to ask what pictures I had already shot. I told him. He said well you better not use them, if you do, you will be in trouble! Can you imagine! The dump photography authorities are sure to be at my door any second! I have not been threatened with being in trouble since I was in my teens.


It is strange the reactions people have to photography and photographers. The good far out weights the bizarre and inappropriate, but I am still left amazed at the reactions. The first photo in this post I will be in trouble for, so I leave you with a the example of some pleasant subjects, a photo of Frisbee golf players discussing their game who happily let me photograph them for 3 holes at Burgess park yesterday.

Covering both sides of the street

Earlier today I shot some people rallying for peace at the local post office. The weather being pleasant there were a good number of people out. I overheard and then became part of an interesting exchange. A man passing angrily grumbled to the peace peeps,

"What! You think there are no terrorists in Guantanamo Bay?"

A peacer politely replied,

"No; I would love to see the terrorists there brought to trial."

As I was leaving the same gentleman, seeing me with my camera made eye contact and said, with a nod to the other group of people holding signs across from the post office,

"I hope you are covering both sides of the street?"

Here is the ridiculous part of the tale. I had also noticed the people across the street. But my terrorist hating new friend apparently had assumed his allegiance lay with the people with the U.S. flag across the street from the larger throng of peaceniks. Unfortunately for him he was not observant enough to see that they too were holding "peace" and "Close Guantanamo Bay" signage. I tried to tell him.

"It looks to me like they are looking for peace on both sides of the street."

He walked away grumbling saying I was mistaken....and that I should look closer. Well I am here to report that a peace sign is a peace sign even if it is found with an American flag.

Pictured here is Joe who choose the more solitary position at the top of the village green. My terrorist hating friend surely read his sign to say:

war is immortal

Graduation 2008

Saturdays grooms and dogs turned quickly into Sundays graduates. e and I debarked the hotel and had brunch at the Galleria. Then it was off to Matthews Arena where Boston Latin Academy graduated their class of 2008. Our favorite member of the class, Michaela Marin was graduated with the rest of the youngsters turned loose to the world this June. Good luck class of 2008.

This is one of the first high school graduations I have been to since my own. I wish I could say I found myself waxing nostalgic about that June day 20 years ago. But alas no, there have been far more momentous and valuable moments in my life since then. What I did not hear from the stage on this day and this could be largely because we seated ourselves poorly for the sound system, was a speech which told the kids the following. So here is how my high school graduation speech would go.

Graduates, kids, friends, while this may seem like a tremendous and pivotal day in your existence, your new responsibility is to make a life that makes this day seem trite, pretentious and meaningless. Now that you have arrived here do not let this day be a highlight of your life. Go get um.

Oh no you didn't!

After the visit to the pound I went out looking for some shots for the cape's newest alternative newspaper C.O.D. I wandered into gamenight.net and shot some gamers.

Then it was on to Boston to meet up with the Daniel Elliott bachelor party party train. I have known Dan since 1997 and he is good people. I did not know most of the other guys in the group but did have a fun photography conversation with new friend James, who was toting around his Leica this eve as well.

We bar crawled Allston and ended up in Chinatown during the end of night drunken street festivities on a very warm June night. Almost, no it did, make me feel nostalgic for our city days.

During the walk from downtown back to our Cambrigde hotel at 2 am I noted to self that we should occasionally make a point of spending a night or weekend in Boston. Our maybe that was just the beer talking.

What a weekend!

This is what will be the first of three quickish posts covering a very full weekend. The weekend started with a trip to the Friend of Falmouth dogs or what many of us think of as "the pound". We had seen a picture of a pup in the local paper and figured we should go check her out for ourselves. We met Misha with phoenix and had hoped we would be uniting long lost pals. Misha started with a guarded attitude towards phoenix and warmed up some after sometime walking around. Now erica and I have a difficult choice of trying to decide if the time is right to invite a new member into our little pack.

If your pack needs some additional love and joy maybe you should venture down to your local shelter or visit petfinder.com and rescue someone looking for their own pal. There are lots of four footers who would love to set foot inside your home and find a place to curl up.

Cicadas!

I will talk more about Phoenix in future blogs. Today I want to talk about her first, of hopefully two encounters with Cicadas. She pointed out the one pictured by staring with concern. She pawed carefully and gently. She licked. The Cicada seemed sluggish but unhappy with its predicament. We photographed. Then the decision was to let Phoenix do what she had to do. I mean really its going to be another 17 years before she gets an opportunity like this one!

Nightmares!

It is not often that you have a photography nightmare, many of you probably have not had any, last night I had one. Many years ago I worked at a photography school. This school had huge gang darkrooms and sinks for printing and developing black and white film. The sound of water running was as persistent as the humming fans and clanking of fluid filled developer cans against stainless steal sinks. This was the setting of the nightmare. The plot was that I had just started developing two rolls of film. This is usually done in the clanking cans or tanks mentioned above and in the dream my film was in the "developer". I have developed thousands of rolls of film and I naturally multi task during this process, and I still do in my dreams as well. I left the tank at a developing sink surrounded by students to go to another area to find supplies. When I returned the film still on its reels had been emptied from its protective tank to the edge of the sink. Horror! My still light sensitive film, my images, were being destroyed by the very thing that made them, THE LIGHT!! Instinctively I shoved both reels back into the tanks and refilled the developer. I then scoped out the room where many students were sheepishly attending their own processes. I called out for the culprit and surprisingly a student at the far end of the sink area owned up to having ruined my film. I was so angry! We exchanged several sentences where I used this as a teaching moment for the listening students. I berated him, very unusual for me.


Exposing ones film happens if you do a enough developing, accidents happen. It is always a very painful experience. You are left wondering what might have been? The lost corrupted images were they great, were the exposures good, where the expressions timeless, you are left to your imagination and the desire to go back in time and correct the accident or re-shoot or or or, but you can not go back in time, they are lost. Forever.

In trying to figure out why I would have such a nightmare, I can only think of one reason. The process of intentionally exposing developing film or paper to light is called solarization and I recently recorded the image in this post. This is a unmodified digital image that has a resemblance to a solarized image. It was taken at the Enormous D show the other night (see the next post). This image got its unique appearance from another photographers strobe going off during the exposure. I call these happy accidents. Ok note to self keep thinking happy thoughts, so the nutty photography nightmares stay away. Next thing you know I will dream that that I am working at the Sears Studio trying to keep toddlers vertical in the faux jungle!

Enormous D

Last night erica and I had the pleasure of meeting and then seeing two performances by Don McCloskey, sometimes known as Enormous D. The shows at Sweet Tomatoes East Falmouth and BBC Hyannis were as e and I say "good times". I personally was charmed by the Don's unflappable nature, as he was not phased when a kidlet, the 5 year old Bella, from the audience jumped the stage to to perform I'm a little tea pot. He was heckled into performing a capella and seamlessly delivered a crowd pleasing We are the world. In the significantly busier Hyannis show he joined headliners Apex Groove and picked it up a notch delivering 3 songs with energy, showmanship and a stage presence not normally seen in these parts. On the personal side we were able to share some drink, stories and a couple of laughs. We left promising to see him again as he has several shows around the Cape this summer. It is not often I throw out guarantees, but if you want to see a good show, put on by someone who has put in the time and learned the ropes and then taken these tools and molded his own identity, get out there and see the D when he is near you this summer. Good times.

Why benshotme

Last summer kay, erica's (wy wife) sister invited me to take pictures daily as part of a collection of people sharing in the same endeavor. I did not accept the offer at the time but the the idea was sparked in my mind. Could I sustain taking photos everyday? Could I take shots I liked daily?

So quietly, on my own, with a point and shoot 5 mega pixel Nikon S2 I started slowly and persistently shooting more and more often. In a former life I was a photographer and I want to tread back into this carefully. It was not long before my passion for the art and field was rekindled, soon I wanted to also share the photos I was taking. It was in the fall that while driving on the highway, in a flash of inspiration, the website name was in my mind, benshotme! I could hardly wait, when I got home I checked and the domain was available. Soon I was designing and plotting for my new website.

Early on I missed some days here and there. Even today I have less "inspired" days from time to time. But two new cameras later, here we are in on May 24th and I have shot something everyday so far this year. Not bad, and getting better.

The fun of the website soon also gave birth to the idea of a print edition of the best of the images being published to the web. A magazine. We are presently putting together the material for July's our third edition.

That brings us to today and this blog. While there are stories in the magazine and photos at benshotme, here you will find some of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. For instance in the coming weeks I will probably share the story of being called a paparazzi, or maybe how I didn't shoot Jerry Springer that same week or maybe how the yellow hoodied bear of a man down Cape threatened to snap my lens if I took his photo.

It is here also that I ask you to come and interact. If you have comments or want to know about an image, ask and I will share here. If you have a suggestion of something that you want to see recorded at benshotme let me know.

Cheers and happy shooting.

post one

hello,

i am not sure i will use this space yet, why don't you check back later, but in the meantime there are tons of photos to check out at:

www.benshotme.com