My Two Cents

Well, "two quick slideshows about half a dozen square blocks of Albany," at any rate...

As kightp has already mentioned, she and I finally managed to find a time to go wander around and take some pictures. We'd been trying to put it together for months, but weather and work and theater and life interfered. Yesterday, the planets aligned, and we took an hour or so to walk around and see what jumped out at us.

( A few pictures... )

The best part of doing a photo walk like that — other than just the wandering around, being creative and chatty, of course — is seeing the different pictures we get from the same subjects. My favorite pair:

• My take


• kightp's take

It's clear that we we both drawn by the bright colors of the super-soakers, but where I went in for the close-up, picking up on the "abandoned toys" motif, she put them in their context, under the sweeping arch of one of the many extra-photogenic houses we have around here. Same scene, different moods.

All in all, an excellent way to spend a leisurely evening. kightp wrote in her post about how we should prowl Albany's alleys next time. Oh, yes. That, we must do. We just need to make sure that we don't wait (mumble-mumble) months before doing it...

Finally got a chance to clean up the photos we shot of Takara a couple weeks ago. My goodness, she's lovely.

(Big thanks to notenufair for styling and makeup and hair, and iwannabeaudra and randibeeman for schlepping and reflector-holding.)

OK, it's been a busy few weeks, here in the wilds of Oregon.

We opened Fawlty Towers this weekend, to sold-out houses. That's always a good feeling. I don't think my performances were quite up to what they should have been, but maybe I'm just too close to it. I also got to help kightp figure out how to make her camera behave for the taking of our production photos. It's good to have another photographer in the mix for these.

Work's chugging along reasonably well. There's another big round of layoffs coming. Well, that's not exactly true. What's coming is that they've told most of our IT staff that their jobs are moving to Austin. If they want to move along with the jobs, that's fine. If they don't, well, we gave you a chance, so no severance for you. Morale on site is getting dangerously low again. But, the Halo project is sort of a island in the chaos. Well, we have our own chaos, I suppose, just not the "am I on the street" variety.

Photography ... the business I'm trying to start feels dead in the water. I've done all the advertising that I think makes sense, including distributing postcards to all the high schools, and advertising in the school papers, and I've got my web site going ... and as far as I can tell, it's to no effect. No, that's not completely true. I think I'm getting pretty constant traffic to my web site, but nobody's biting. I'm trying to be patient about it, and even expanding a little bit, in that I've signed on for an ad in the phone book, come fall. Obviously, that's too late to help me now, but maybe next year.

But, on the hobby side, the photography's been a lot of fun. In the past few weeks, I've had no less than four shoots with models I've met on the internet. I don't know if I'm making "art," but it's definitely a lot of fun. First, notenufair and I shot Kelsey, who usually works with a photographer friend of hers in Portland, but isn't driving up there as much these days. I really think Mel outdid herself with the styling on this one.



Then, Kelsey's photographer friend, Shannon, liked her photos enough to ask if I'd shoot some of her. By a stroke of luck, she was already planning to come down to my neck of the woods (well, Sweet Home, which is close enough) to visit family, so we set up a quick shoot. Normally, she does rather dark and goth sorts of shoots, so we went with something brightly-colored and cheery, and I think it worked out nicely.



A while back, I was contacted by Meg, a local model and photographer, about doing a shoot. Well, I couldn't pass up working with her; I'd seen her photos before, and she's very good. I hoped I'd be able to learn some things working with her, and I definitely did. Plus, we talked a little bit about working together some time, both on the photographer's side of the camera. She's got an excellent grasp of using and controlling outdoor light, which is an area where I'm still really weak, so I'd definitely like to pick her brain some time. When we were planning this shoot, we discovered that we had both been driving past the same field, looking at the same rusty tractor, and thinking, "that would be a really cool place to shoot." And it definitely was.



During our shoot with Kelsey, notenufair and I stumbled across a ... I have no idea what it used to be. It used to be a building of some sort, nestled back in the woods in one of the parks here in Albany, but now it's a bunch of graffiti-covered concrete pillars, out in the woods. By another stroke of luck, Jen, who I'd shot for "Naughty/Nice," had emailed me that morning to ask when we'd be working together again. And when Mel and I saw that location, we knew we had to shoot something cool there. The three of us got together the other day and did it. We started with a "runaway" sort of theme, and dressed her up in a pretty little flowered dress ... and gradually shredded it to rags over the course of the shoot. That worked really well. We also tried a little bit of some more "urban fashion" shots, which were also a lot of fun. I can't wait to work with her again. The three of us come up with some really great stuff.



So, yeah, it's been a busy few weeks. But definitely good.

The past couple of sessions of my photography class have been "mom and kids" photos, in the run-up to Mother's Day. From an artistic standpoint, I don't think baby portraits interest me that much. But, I'm definitely learning a lot of respect for people who do it really well. (Yeah, I still think Anne Geddes is largely over-hyped tripe, but I've got to give her props for being able to pull it off.)

Shooting Katie and her brand-new little munchkin was every bit as difficult as shooting babies can be. Well, not that bad; we had to worry much more about him smushing his little face into every available surface, than we did about him squirming and squalling.

But, then, you get a shot like this one. It was somewhere between planned and lucky, and if I could go back and do it again, there are things I would definitely change. I'd adjust Katie's face up a little bit, see if I could pose baby's left hand somewhere visible, maybe have Katie not cover his head quite as much. But even with all of that, I still managed to get a little reflection of the love she has for him.

Just want to hang on to this. Y'know, in case I ever get to Egypt...

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/hotels-in-afterlife.html

Or England...

http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=279728

I've been serving on the play-reading committee at ACT. I've done it before. Most of the time, it's a pretty straightforward thing; the committee reads a bunch of plays, picks a season, and the membership approves it. Sometimes it gets a little messy; the committee reads a bunch of plays, picks a season, the membership has some concerns, and they send it back to the committee for adjustment.

This year, it was a clusterfuck.

There was pressure on the committee and its members, both indirect and direct. Personal attacks. Flat-out lies. Secret meetings. An anonymous list of demands. Outright bullying, by a board member, of a prospective director.

So, we of the committee went into last night's membership meeting, already pretty bruised, but determined to fulfill our charge and try to address the concerns that were being thrown at us, in contravention of the process.

Well, apparently, we hadn't given them enough of what they wanted. I'll say this — as attacks go, it was a civil one. The board did an excellent job of keeping order, and the people managed to keep the personal attacks out of it.

I'll also say this — I would have had no problem with the membership sending the season back to us with a new charge. I've done it. I've voted, as a member, to send a season back for revision.

But the final straw came when the membership started dictating what our choices would be. When they started voting that season must include certain plays, in certain time slots. At that point, there was no reason for there to be a play-reading committee. So, I did the only thing left that allowed me to keep my dignity. I resigned my position on the committee, and left the meeting.

I'm sure there are people who have interpreted that as my throwing a hissy fit because I didn't get my way. Well, these are probably the same people who spread the rumor that I was blocking someone from directing "Cabaret" so that randibeeman could direct it, instead; an assertion that, to anyone who has actually met me, is ludicrous on its face. So, I'm not really concerned about that.

There will also be people who look at it as my protesting the removal of "How I Learned to Drive" from the season. Well, that's at least partly true. It's a powerful, moving script that deals with tough subjects and does it well. But more fundamentally, I'm tired of watching this theater be so terrified of doing anything that might offend someone. I want more out of art than just innocuous entertainment.

But even more fundamentally than that, I'm tired of watching one group do whatever it takes to get its way. Because these people really aren't as concerned about offending people — these are the ones who put on "Rocky Horror" — as they are in controlling the theater.

Unfortunately, I don't see any way I can change it. So, I'm back to managing my fun-to-bullshit ratio. "Fawlty Towers" auditions were particularly well-timed; the fact that I'm cast in that is pretty much the only thing keeping me at ACT right now. That's going to be fun. The rest of it, I can do without.

I have one last decision to make. My ACT membership card is sitting here on my desk. There's no question in my mind about what to do with it. I don't want to be a member of any organization that behaves like this. I didn't like this childish behavior when I was a child, and I don't like it any better now. The only question left is what I say to the board when I turn it back in.

As expected, I didn't get cast as Manuel. It's too bad; I think I would have done it well. But, Jared really did rock it, himself. I like to think I made him work for it, at least.

But, I will be playing Mr. Hutchinson, the spoon salesman Basil mistakes for a hotel inspector. Paul and I ought to have fun with that. We get to beat each other up and throw pies. How can you go wrong with pies?

Between Hutchinson and a couple of micro-roles in the other episodes, I should have a pretty light rehearsal schedule, which isn't a bad thing, either.

Just got home from night two of "Fawlty Towers" auditions. I don't think I'm going to get either of the roles I really want. Basil is a three-way horse race, between Paul and John and Gary; I think Paul's probably got it sewn up, but the demon Combinations might still rear its head. Not getting Basil is fine with me; I'm not really that right for it, and I'm just not feeling it click.

Manuel, on the other, is another matter. I read well for him. Probably about as well as I'm going to do. Jared, however, is reading it better. I may be a little more physical, at least in auditions, but my feeling is that's not going to be an issue. And besides, when Jared and Paul did a scene together ... sometimes when you're auditioning a show, there's a combination that is simply bigger than the sum of its parts. That's what I saw with them.

So. There are a few other fun roles in the smaller characters. And they'd be just fine, too. I said I wouldn't take any of the walk-ons; as much as I'd love to be in the show, well, it's not that much. I've got other things I could do.

This might be another "Copenhagen" moment for me. If I don't get, it'll suck, but not terminally so. Huh. Does this mean I'm growing up, or something? Nah...

This was the first night in ... I'm not even sure how long ... that I've had to myself. Before this weekend, most nights were taken up by finishing up "Naughty/Nice," and after the weekend, every night has been taken up by drama. But, there's no new drama today, and no pressing projects.

So, I took this evening to do a massive Flickr update.

The main update was posting the photos from my photography show, "A Little Bit Naughty, A Little Bit Nice." The show itself, last weekend at the Hotel Oregon in McMinnville, went reasonably well. It was part of the McMinnville Art & Wine Walk, but the off-and-on rain wasn't particularly conducive to walking. But, notenufair and capnkirk and the munchkins came, as did saoba and grillghod, and we all enjoyed a little lunch, while we were at it.

All in all, the show was a rousing success. No, there weren't many people there, and one of my models missed the show because the McMenamin's was having their big St. Pat's day party that night, and they kicked us out early to use the room for actual paying customers. But, it served as an incentive for me to actually do the project, instead of just saying, "Yeah, one of these days..."

And I'm probably going to show them again, in the lobby before performances of Rabbit Hole, so local people might have another chance to see them, up close and personal. Of course, any of you reading this can just go check out flickr...

My photography show is on Saturday. I'm just about ready.

We did the last photo shoot this morning. I spent most of the rest of the day editing several shoots' worth of photos; OK, I really only needed to pick the one or two from each shoot that will be in the show, but I also went through and cleaned up the other good shots, and made CDs for my models.

All the files have been submitted for printing. I didn't manage to get them in in time to start the mounting tonight, but I've still got tomorrow night. It should be a relatively simple assembly-line process, and randibeeman said she'll help, since she has a night off from rehearsal.

Thirty-six hours from now, I'll be setting it up in McMinnville. Forty-two hours from now, I'll be taking it down. One could make the argument that I've gone to a whole lot more effort than it's worth. For the most part, though, the show was just an excuse to make myself do the project. So, in that way, it's already been a great success.

And Robert said he'd like to show my photos in the lobby during "Rabbit Hole." That would be kinda cool. I'm going to look at other places locally where I could put them up for a little while. But, that can wait. Still have to get this first show done...

Been a lot going on lately.

Skyscraper closed after a nice run. Because it couldn't possibly go completely hitch-free, we got to share the theater with the Musicafe School of Rock concert on our second Saturday night performance. It wasn't nearly as loud as the dance recital from opening night, and much less crappy musically than I expected it to be. Surprisingly enough, teenagers picking up electric guitars for the first time didn't completely suck.

Of course, by the end of the run, we were all sick, to one degree or another. I spent most of this week home with the Martian Death Flu. Fortunately, it wasn't a "throwing up everything I've ever eaten" kind of flu, just a "no way I'm getting out of bed today" sort of flu.

My gallery show is a week from tomorrow. I've gotten a lot of the remaining photography done, and most of the planning. We're going to do an incredibly involved shoot on Sunday night, with a couple of models, lots of costuming, and randibeeman doing special effects makeup. I'm looking forward to it, and totally nervous, all at the same time. But, the point of this project was to push myself, and it's certainly succeeded in that regard.

On the other hand, I still haven't done the editing on the last few shoots, so I need to catch up on that some time soon. And I haven't done any of the printing or mounting. My matting supplies should all arrive today, which will help, but I really need to just sit down and do it. And send out the email to everyone I know, telling them to come see the show. And the half-dozen other things that I'm sure I've forgotten...

Well, we've survived the opening weekend of Skyscraper. Not for lack of trying, though.

We're performing in the black-box theater at the newly-build Corvallis High School. Friday night, the same time as our opening, there was a dance recital in the main theater. OK, I didn't really care for being kicked out of the dressing rooms, and being exhorted to stay out of the way of the dancers, who were going to have to make running transitions from one side of the stage to the other, in the hallway we also need to get to the other side of our stage. Well, wouldn't have minded, except that they were blocking the entire hallway the one time I needed it. But, I digress. The main problem was that the music was loud enough that we could have danced to it in our theater. So, we had quite an ... interesting ... soundtrack to the show.

Saturday's matinee — did I mention that there was an orchestra concert in the main theater on Saturday night? — went pretty well ... until the A/C kicked on in the last scene of the show. Nothing like the sound of a jet engine taking off to properly underscore the tenderness of the scene. Well, and except for the members of the orchestra that kept coming into our theater, thinking it was where they were supposed to be, and letting in the daylight.

Sunday ... Sunday went fine. No strange distractions. Nobody walking in and out. And — imagine that — a good performance.

Sunday night was a reading of Fawlty Towers. I've been waiting for the opportunity to do this play (really three episodes of the British sit-com) for 25 years. The phrase, "I know nothing. I am from Barcelona!" is an integral part of my family's lexicon. And it was just so much fun getting to read it. Auditions are in a month or so, giving me a nice break between that and Skyscraper.

Except, of course, that randibeeman's musical director for Reefer Madness just dropped out today. His reasons ... don't make a whole lot of sense to me, frankly, and sound a whole lot more like, "I just want to flake, but if I come up with something plausible-sounding, you can't possibly hate me for it." Since Randa had searched high and low before she finally found him, she's all but stuck for a musical director. Literally everyone we could think of, and many people we didn't know, told her "no" the first time around, so a search is not likely to do any better now. She's going to see if her vocal director will take on both roles. If not, it looks like I'll be clearing my spring schedule and stepping up to the plate.

And did I mention that I still have the better part of 25 plays to read, so I can help pick the next season? I now have a co-chair to the committee, which is good, since I've foisted some of the meeting-scheduling duties onto him. But, that still leaves a lot of other stuff to wrangle, just as far as keeping the committee on track.

Oy. Just, oy.

Wow. How did I manage to get myself into this situation? Again. Here's what I've got going:

• Skyscraper: The entire rehearsal schedule, read-through to opening, is a month. I need to be off book by the middle of next week.


• Play-reading committee: I'm the chair of the committee, without a co-chair, as yet, which means I've got twenty-plus plays to read, as well as organizing the committee itself.


• Hello, Dolly lobby portraits: Not usually that onerous a task, but this time, it's a 40-person cast, plus extra ADs and designers and stuff. That'll be a lot of time shackled to my computer.


• Willamette Apprentice Ballet photos and poster: Just shot these last night, which means I've got another 400 photos to sort through, for individual shots of the dancers, as well as picking the poster photo and then designing the poster around it. Fortunately, I have a little time on this one.


• Naughty/Nice show: The show's in six weeks, and I'm nowhere near done with the photography. Of the 11 pairs of portraits I'm planning, 3 are fully-shot, 4 are half-shot, and the rest are in various stages of planning. Actually, the half-shot ones are all still in a planning phase, too. Thank goodness I've got randibeeman helping me with the logistics and notenufair helping with styling.


• Oh, yeah, this pesky day job, too...

Woof. No wonder I'm feeling a little over-stretched...

Hi, folks ... I'm back. My personal storm clouds are clearing, and I'm once again (more or less) fit company. Hopefully, I've exhausted my drama quota for 2008...

This is going to be my last post here. Don't know if it's forever, but I'm going to crawl into a hole for a while. Email's still good (charlescprince gmail address) but if I don't reply, please don't take it personally.

С днем рожденья тебя
С днем рожденья тебя
С днем рожденья kightp
С днем рожденья тебя!

(more info)

After bailing out last week due to yucky weather, today iwannabeaudra and I headed out to Independence to shoot some pictures. pookacat pointed us to Wings of Wonder, a newly-opened butterfly hatchery and exhibit. She also came along with us to help out with the photography, and I'm so glad she did. (Perhaps she'll post some of the shots she took, too.)

First, let me say that anyone into butterflies, photography, or just plain purtyness should take the trip out to Wings of Wonder. They've put together an amazing little greenhouse, even if it weren't full of pretty little butterflies. And on a chilly winter day, there's a lot to be said for being in a nice warm greenhouse.

Of course, the warmth of the place did make it a little bit challenging. I thought I had let my camera warm up sufficiently, but it was apparently still somewhat fogged over when we started. So, the first 80 shots or so range from completely fogged over and useless, to slightly fogged, and a kind of neat "soft focus" effect.



Definitely a lot of fun. There are a couple more shots on my flickr page, and there will eventually be some more.

Been a lovely, low-key weekend, here in Oregon. randibeeman and I spent much of the weekend just cocooned on the couch in the basement, catching up on the TV we missed while were both involved in our shows. The cold that had knocked her out at the beginning of the week was fading, but the back spasms decided to pile on, right about Thursday. So, that sort of defined the weekend.

Friday, we had a few people over for games, which was a good time, as always. We tried playing a new trivia-type game that Torsten brought, but wound up having to revise the rules on the fly, because it didn't make sense to have the blind woman trying to guess in charades, or try to jot down as many things as she could think of in a given category, without the help of her seeing-eye husband. But, we made it work. kindreds_girl was supposed to stop by, but instead spent the weekend staying with a friend who recently lost her daughter, and wanted people around; while I missed getting to see her, there will always be other times.

Friday evening, I stepped away from the gaming to shoot some portraits. Leslie, the wife of the director of My Fair Lady, was throwing a birthday party/family reunion, and had me come shoot a few pictures. It was quite an experience. Most everybody was into it, to one degree or another ... except for one roughly-fifteen-year-old boy, who just wanted it over with. I'm afraid the shots I have of him and his dad are just not that flattering or friendly, but I did what I could.

Saturday, I had planned to shoot photos of iwannabeaudra, but the cold weather turned into cold and rainy weather right about the time we headed out the door. So, we're going to try again next week. We're going with a "super-girly" theme for her, because that's absolutely the last choice she would make, in real life. If anyone's got ideas for indoor locations where we could shoot that, please let me know; I think we've really pushed past the end of outdoor shooting season.

Today was just more lounging about. Well, randibeeman and I went out so she could shoot some photos for her class, but that's about it. And soon, I've got a rehearsal for a little singing gig that's coming up next month ... I expect we're going to massively over-rehearse what's going to be six people doing a half-hour gig. But, we're actually getting paid a bit, and it's been since the Bitz gig at Monteith since I've done any real singing, so it's still a good thing to do.


Tomorrow, it'll be back to work, somewhat rested and relaxed, but still not that ready to go back. It's been a little odd around there, lately. One co-worker left recently, pretty much burning his bridges on the way out the door, which has left some strange vibes in the group. And last week, another co-worker's son was killed, so that's definitely going to be a strange energy. I can't imagine my co-worker will be back in the office yet — at least, I hope not, unless he's really ready to be back so soon — but it's still something that's hanging over everything.

Finally got a chance to go through all of the photos from notenufair's photo shoot last week. There are a few more of my favorites up on flickr.



The in-the-river shots didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. We'll just have to try again when it gets warmer, and can spend more time with it, instead of trying to shoot as much as we could before my model froze to death ... or at least before she froze enough that she'd never speak to me again...

Instead of actually getting to work at a reasonable time this morning, I decided to take a first pass through the photos I shot of notenufair the other day. There will be plenty more, as I get a chance to edit them, but here are a couple, to whet your appetite.