Beth and Puddy

These two are just adorable.

From the Archives: Seldon

One thing I love about Picturelife is how it bubbles up old pictures that I had forgotten about. Here's one of artist, poet, messenger bag mogul, and all-around-nice-guy Seldon from last year around this time.

Shodan

Well, it's done. Those weeks of anxiety are over, the black belt test has come and gone, and I did it. And it was absolutely the hardest thing I've ever done. The physical aspect was grueling and unimaginably hard - I don't think I've ever sprinted, kicked, punched, burpeed, or done so many push-ups in my life. I have no idea if it's possible, but I think I might have sprained my diaphragm, I was gasping for air so hard. But the hardest part — by far — was not quitting. 20 minutes in, every part of my body was screaming for me to just sit down on the mat and stop. My head was spinning, I was panting for air, everything hurt like hell, it took all of my concentration to keep my balance and not fall over during kicking drills and kata… Every time Shihan said run, I wanted to flop down on the mat and tap out. During the kumite, I got knocked over (I tripped or lost my balance — really, I swear!) and lying there, even just for a few seconds, felt so damn good. But I got up.

Now, in retrospect, I'm kind of sad I didn't look stronger, and I couldn't have been more impressive in my fights. By the end I was just flailing and getting hit. But I know that's just the vain part of me thinking that. The whole point was for me to be utterly beyond running on empty by the time the fights came around, and that my real test was whether I'd quit or keep going.

I'm really proud that I didn't quit. I have a pretty strong competitive drive sometimes, especially against myself. But I couldn't have done it without the constant encouragement of Shihan Al, Sensei Allison, my fellow classmates, and the presence of both my former* senseis Brian and Edwin, and my wife Stephanie.

People have been asking me what's next. I'm going to keep training - I want to refine my technique, improve my form and my stamina, and maybe even start teaching. And I want to improve my fighting. I still get a little freaked out when sparring, so I need to be more relaxed and comfortable with that. The next level of black belt is a long road and many years away, though - I'm nowhere near being ready to even think about that at this point.

Most importantly, though, I want to remember exactly how every minute of that test felt, so I can remind myself that when things get hard, and my brain is yelling at me to give up, I can overcome that need to quit and that I can do anything I decide I want to do.

*Brian and Edwin will always be my teachers, so "former" probably isn't the right word - it's just that I don't currently train with them on a regular basis.

The Hardest Thing I Will Have Done

Just over six years of martial arts training will culminate one week from today, when I will be testing for my black belt (shodan) at Midwood Martial Arts and Family Fitness Center.

When I was a kid I wanted to take karate lessons, but I never bothered to ask my dad about it - I just assumed he'd say no (looking back, I honestly don't know why I assumed that). I happened to mention that childhood desire off-handedly to my boss one day, and in a case of pure coincidence (aka serendipity), her husband had just opened a karate school in Brooklyn. He gave me one free class (it was a slow day, so it was just me and him), and from then, I've been hooked.

You a fan, a phony, a fake, a pussy, a Stan I still whip your ass, you thirty-six in a karate class You Tae-bo ho, tryna work it out, you tryna get brolic Ask me if I'm tryna kick knowledge - Nas, Ether

There's a recurring joke in our culture about grown men taking karate classes - I don't really get it. It's such a good workout, no matter how old you are, and beats hanging around waiting for some gym rat to get finished with the dumbells. Plus, you learn some usable self-defence skills. I won't claim to be the toughest guy in the world, but at least I know I can get punched - hard - and it won't shock me into paralysis. I'll hit back.

Back to my black belt test: I'm terrified. I keep having little minor panic attacks about every possible aspect of the test. Will I get enough sleep? What should I eat beforehand? I hope I don't get a nervous stomach and have to run to the bathroom before the test. Will I be able to make it through the conditioning portion of the test? What about the fights (kumite)? There are black belts coming in from at least two other states to help with my test. I will have to fight all of them, multiple times, over the three-hour duration of the test.

Newly-minted Brown belt, March 2012

The reality of it is I know my teacher, Shihan Alfred, wouldn't even have me test if he didn't think I was ready. The noise I'm hearing in my brain is just that - noise. And a big part of what we learn in karate is how to face our challenges, and to have faith in ourselves and our abilities. In fact, it's all right there in our dojo kun (mantra):

Shihan Alfred DiGrazia

You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

That quote comes from the great philosopher Winnie the Pooh.

I'll check in again in a week or so to record my post-test thoughts. By then, if all goes well, I'll be sporting the black belt, and will have completed the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life.

Dilated

A routine eye exam resulted in dilated pupils and blurry vision for a few hours yesterday. I'm quite proud to say I have 20/20 vision, so not being able to see clearly is always an alien sensation for me. As an excercise, I decided to shoot a few images to illustrate how it felt.

I think my biggest takeaway from this exercise was that it forced me to re-focus (bam!) on some of the basics of composition - if you can't really see your subject, you have to pull back and compose the scene based on abstract attributes, like light and dark, color, and where the blobs of light are.

Anyway, it was a fun little exericise, but I'm always glad to return to clarity.

For Sale: Plywerk Prints

Please visit my brand new print gallery on Square Market, where you can purchase prints from my Hello Brooklyn series (requires Flash).

These unique prints were made for my photo exhibit at K-Dog & Dune Buggy, coffee shop and late lamented Prospect-Lefferts Gardens institution.

The photos are printed on gorgeous bamboo panels from Plywerk, and are color-fast so they'll resist fading. They're all matte prints, except for one metallic print of the rooftops of King's County.

Hopefully you find something there that will spiff up your home or office, or that will make a nice gift for someone you care about.

Superbowl Boulevard

A rare trip to Midtown brought me in the vicinity of Time Square today. Here are some photos of superbowl Boulevard, in anticipation of the Big Game this weekend.

Your First Mac

As part of their 30th Anniversary of the Mac celebration, Apple has a cool year-by-year visualization of peoples' first Macs and what they used them for. Scrubbing through the timeline, it's interesting watching Internet & Email surge into popularity in the mid-90s - followed by the decline of Desktop Publishing shortly thereafter.

I've used Macs since college - in my freshman year, one of my friends had a Mac SE II, which was an amazing machine for playing Tetris (and writing papers, of course). Later, when I transferred to SCAD, the labs also had a bunch of Quadras and various other assorted Macs in the Desktop Publishing and Computer Art departments.

I've worked on nothing but Macs at the various advertising gigs I've had since I graduated, but the first Mac that I bought for myself was a 15" G4 PowerBook in 2001. The thing had 8MB of VRAM and a 500Mhz processor, and it cost me close to $4000, but it lasted a good 6 years before it started to feel old and sluggish. It shipped with OS 9, but I remember running at least up through OS 10.4 (maybe even 10.5) on it, which is kind of impressive, looking back on it. It's still one of my favorite Macs, in terms of its design, although it had its issues (the stress cracks near the hinges, the heat, etc.).

My setup, circa 2007. MacBook Pro and G5 Tower.

Around 2003, I had a brief part-time gig at the Soho Apple Store. That was a fun gig, and the employee discount helped me get a G5 tower and one of those giant plastic-bezeled 23" Cinema Displays.

Eventually, I upgraded from my old PowerBook to one of the Intel-based (and now aluminum rather than titanium) 15" MacBook Pros.

2009 - iMac 27" and MacBook Pro

When the G5 got long in the tooth, I replaced that with a 27" iMac. This was about the time I was finally sold on the iMac as a high-end machine - by now there was no point in spending $2500 on a MacPro (tower only!) just because I considered myself a power user.

A couple of years later, I got my first (and only, so far) iPad (the 2nd-gen version), and ended up selling my MacBook Pro.

Current setup: unibody MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt Cinema Display

For a while there, I was rocking the iMac/iPad combination, and it was cool, but I missed the ability to go completely mobile and get work done. Don't misconstrue that as me validating the "iPads-are-for-content-consumption" trope - the fact is, my 9-to-5 requires me to work on desktop-only apps like Flash Professional and Photoshop. Plus, I use Aperture to manage my giant photo libraries (though I'm dabbling with Lightroom more and more lately, given the neglect Aperture has been suffering).

I've always held on to the philosophy that I should get the best computer I could afford, and that way I could extend its useful life for as long as possible, and then sell it for a pretty decent price. That's worked for me for the last 13 years and 5 Macs.

So that's my Mac history - what's yours?

Tunnel

Prospect Park Brooklyn, NY

Absurd Creature of the Week: Foot-Long, Sex-Crazed Snails That Pierce Tires and Devour Houses - Wired Science

Two things: first, that headline - boy, is that dramatic - but hey, it worked.

Second, Giant African Snails sound like absolutely awful critters in so many ways.

Deutsch's New GoDaddy Superbowl Spot

Yep, I'm biased, but the work that my peeps at Deutsch NY is doing for GoDaddy is definitely a breath of fresh air compared to the sexed-up stuff they were doing in-house.

Diggin' in the Crates, Photographically Speaking

Ghostface Killah at Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival

Brooklyn, NY June 2007

Shooting in the Dark

After reading all the effusive praise people have been lavishing upon the Fujifilm X100s -- particularly it's low-light performance -- I decided to put it to the test during a walk to Union Square last night (right as the temperatures were dropping, and the storm was gearing up).

The ESB, as seen from 7th Ave. Straight out of the camera.

I'm still getting used to the camera's controls, and I have yet to decide whether I prefer shooting through the viewfinder or the LCD, but one thing is for sure: the thing is a rockstar at low-light. I'm accustomed to cameras like my G10, which barely likes to go above ISO 400, and even on my 7D groans a bit at 3200. But this thing took 3200 and shrugged it off like it was nothing. I even cranked it to 5000, and while it got a little soft, I didn't see the multi-colored confetti-like noise I would have seen on the 7D. As a bonus, it's svelte form-factor makes it comfy to hand-hold even at low shutter speeds like 1/10s.

I won't go on much more - I don't have that much to add to what's already been said about this camera. For my personal shooting style, it's going to be a bit of an adjustment working with the prime 35mm-equivalent lens, but I can already tell I'm really going to like this camera.

All of the following images are straight out of the camera, except for the second one, which was cropped slightly.

Don't Start a Company, Kid » Big Nerd Ranch Blog

I generally agree with this article about not starting a company. Or maybe I just like the article because it validates my fear of going out and starting my own company. It's scary shit. Failure is scary. I believe that bit about luck being a big part of succeeding.

This quote struck me, though:

(And don’t even talk to me about retiring early. There are few things sadder than a smart person who retires early and spends a few decades playing golf and waiting to die. If I am really lucky, I’ll push a clever chunk of code to Github in the morning and die at the dinner table that night.)

Okay, that would be a really satisfying way to go out, but what's wrong with spending a few decades playing golf, or doing whatever it is that makes you feel alive (whether you're smart or not)? I would love to retire early and just travel with my wife, shoot pictures, eat good food, play tennis, and work on making a better me-shaped dent in the couch. (Sadly, it ain't gonna happen - I'll be grinding in one way or another for a long time.)

(via daringfireball.net)

iPad Art - Morgan Freeman Finger Painting

I'm genuinely surprised that there are still people who bring out the "iPads are for consuming content" trope.

On another note, this got me remembering something from my old art school days. The abstract expressionists, if I remember right, were all about boiling down a medium to the essence of that medium. The things unique to painting that make it essentially painting are paint and a canvas (and maybe a brush). They weren't keen on one medium emulating another, and as such, weren't into photorealistic painting. But here's Kyle Lambert taking it a step further, using a virtual canvas on a digital thing to emulate photography. Interesting stuff.

Pencil | FiftyThree

I've been quite pleased with my iPad 2 over the last two-and-a-half years, not feeling the familiar twinge of gadget envy when newer devices like the iPad 3, 4, or Mini came out.

That's started changing lately, particularly as the Apple cogniscenti have been pushing out their reviews of the iPad Air (and Mini), but I've been coping - even though I'm noticing more and more lagging here and there during day-to-day use of my aging precioussssss.

But just today I was reading about Wacom's Intuos Creative Stylus, and I was shocked to see that it was incompatible with the iPad 2. It's expensive, but I won't lie - I was bummed.

And now this: the Pencil, by FiftyThree, makers of one of my very favorite apps, Paper. Again, it's incompatible with my iPad, and the culprit is low-energy Bluetooth, which only made its appearance on Apple's tablets post-iPad 2.

If I'm being realistic about it, I don't think I can exactly afford to upgrade my iPad at the moment. But it's official: I'm definitely lusting after a new one.

Maritime and Tao

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Meatpacking District November, 2013

Parkside Ave

How Do You Like Your Eggs?

A little 3D work-in-progress based on a sketch by my pal Vic, of Happy Tuna Creative. 

Russel Brand: Wow.

People all over my social media feeds have been posting this Russel Brand interview all day long. I ignored it for a while, because I've always been generally quite dismissive of Russel Brand. After the first three minutes, my perspective changed.

First, I wish I was that articulate and passionate about anything.  Second, he's right about voting - what is the point?