Back in the Game
My body is truly a peculiar thing. It’s been a struggle for me at times to understand it.
July 9th, 2007 in Journal | No Comments »
Color of My Dawn
Ao Nammao holds an endearing place in my consciousness as the closest I’ve been to heaven. I envy the owner and workers of the bungalows that I stayed at for they get to live the life we all dream of. Every morning and every night, the bungalow manager stands watch and bears witness to the sun’s majestic opening and climax before going back to work.
Most of us will work 80 hour work weeks to get two weeks off a year to glimpse at the rare privilege some people have already archived for every day of the week.
This exposure was taken with the following equipment:
- Canon EOS 30D
- Canon 17-40mm L-series lens
- Remote shutter switch
- Tripod
Expect an equally dramatic sunset photo to add symmetry to this post later in the week.
July 9th, 2007 in Photography | 1 Comment »
Random MySpace Encounters
MySpace is just an odd place for random encounters these days.
The tally so far:
- 5 porn stars (sorry, I mean “aspiring” models)
- 1 crazy psychopath from the past
- 2 people thinking I was someone else
- 1 person trying to gain access for blackmail purposes (like there’s anything blackmail-able in my profile)
Add to that: Two people from my 5th grade elementary class who literally found me out of the blue. After talking with each of them a bit, it’s amazing how people turn out after embarking down radically different paths.
Not “wrong” paths or “bad” paths — just different.
One has been married, divorced, had a child and lost the child due to an alleged murder and is now crusading for child rights.
Stranger than that sounds, I’m actually enjoying catching up with people from “the past.” My 5th grade year was my last in public school before my parents started homeschooling me. At my own request.
Suffice to say, there’s not many warm fuzzies from that era.
In talking with them, it’s interesting to note how for many of us the social divides and barriers that once separated us are now utterly meaningless. It’s as if they never even existed. Now, Walnut Elementary school is no longer that place where a lot of things happened, but something we survived and shared together.
So now the question is, seeing as these things happen in threes, who else from the past is going to emerge from the shadows?
July 8th, 2007 in Journal | No Comments »
The Seat Is Taken
June is my favorite month of the year. It lays just past the border edge of summer that May ushers in while not being as extreme as August. The world always looks its best in June.
And, like always, I utterly squander it away.
A brief review of history:
2003: Stuck in Kansas doing who knows what. I don’t remember? Do you? I didn’t think so.
2004: Freakin’ Dr. Kimzey’s Economic 201 class during Spring Semester. ‘Nuff said.
2005: Economic Development with Dr. Hanes. More students use four letter words to describe this class than any other.
2006: Just had quit my first post-college job and went camping in the Ozarks. For a week. Not a total loss, but seizing only 1 out of 4 weeks is still a failing grade.
2007: Springfield Freakin’ Missouri. A sense of limbo gives way to stagnation. Work is work, nothing particularly meaningful. Nothing really eye catching in the local scene either. Housemate drama out the wazoo.
So, like every past June that I can remember, I get into an overly introspective mood that compels me to go into overdrive to salvage what’s left of the summer.
June 27th, 2007 in Journal | No Comments »
Cultures I Would Not Thrive In
Add to the ever-growing list: The Hmong, China’s second largest ethnic minority.
I think you’ll agree that my justifications are understandable after reading this excerpt from NPR:
In a clearing surrounded by mountains in southern China’s Yunnan province, members of the Miao are celebrating the new year with the Flower Mountain Festival. Would-be lovers court each other through song. Legend has it that the Miao’s distinctive piercing tones carry far in order to attract distant partners outside their own kin.
…
“Han Chinese don’t sing mountain songs,” he says. “They look at a partner’s talents, their figure, their weight, their family property, etc. But we find a partner through singing. Even if someone is very ugly, the main thing is if they can sing, then they might be able to show love. People who are too good-looking just love themselves.”
The women would run from me in mass. Children would wail and cry in fear. The men would gather pitchforks and torches and pursue me into the far flung regions of the Gobi Desert until my gravely, almost-tone-deaf voice was silenced forever.
So, the current “Cultures that Christopher Wouldn’t Thrive In” list looks something like this:
- Indian Bollywood
- African American Gospel
- North American Polyamorist Pod
- Any American High School Theater Department
- The Polar Bear Club
- Pentecostal (Snake Handlers)
- Jediism
And the beat goes on.
June 25th, 2007 in Current Events | 1 Comment »
Flight
Sometimes you get lucky and take good shots that capture expression and emotion when shooting on the fly. Unfortunately, you don’t get the perfect exposure all the time — like this image which isn’t properly focused and loses its sharpness as a result.
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Location: Siem Reap, Cambodia
Date: March 2007
Camera: Canon EOS 30D
Lens: Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L-Series IS
This was taken on my fourth day in Cambodia after slogging through the Angkor Watt temple complexes the previous three days. I was put off by the more tourist-centric areas of the city so I took off along the river and followed the streets until the touts followed me no more.
I discovered the real Cambodians of Sieap Reap to be warm and hospitable and utterly fascinating with how happy they were despite how little they had.
This is the first shot in a series exploring everyday life for Cambodians.
More to follow.
June 22nd, 2007 in Photography | No Comments »
Seeing the Mirage: The Darkside of Photography
I’ve become increasingly agitated when girls come to me and ask me to take some high-quality, professional photographs of them. The problem, the vast majority of the time, is by “high-quality” they really mean “magazine-quality.”
And unless the photos match up to the images the media bombards them with, they’ll hate it. I’ve shot some amazing photos of girls who have taken one look at my work and wanted me to delete or destroy the pictures entirely.
All self esteem issues aside, it’s always intrigued me why girls almost uniformly reject realistic images of themselves — even high quality, professional ones.
It always comes back to the great mass-media conglomerate of our culture. There’s been a lot of public outcry over the way “the media” defines beauty. Big boobs, small waists and surgery to fix whatever natural blemishes you were unfortunate enough to be cursed with. The standard is indeed high and seems to keep gaining altitude with every passing year.
Unfortunately, skinny supermodels with fake breasts (who are employed in ample numbers by “the media”) are not the root cause of the problem. I believe photographers are the real culprits.
Photography, you see, is the art of lying.
June 22nd, 2007 in Commentary, Photography | 4 Comments »
I thought we were trying to be more humane?
From the Associated Press:
Senior administration officials said Thursday a consensus is building for a proposal to shut Guantanamo Bay and transfer detainees to one or more Defense Department facilities, including the maximum-security military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where they could face trial.
The signs at the border entrances instead of saying “Welcome to Kansas” should be re-scribed to say “Abandon all hope, ye you enter here.”
Dante Alighieri himself couldn’t think of a crueler fate.
June 22nd, 2007 in Current Events | No Comments »
Welcome to Lost Meridian 2.0
About a year ago, Lost Meridian was launched as a hammed attempt to do three things at once:
- Achieve success as a revenue-generating blog
- Cover all of my manic interests and be my defacto creative outlet
- Be all things to all people
Naturally, it didn’t work out (despite getting Slashdotted and having some good success with the photography element). Success mandates specialization and the “Jack of all Trades” mentality proved to be completely uninspiring.
So here’s what the site is now: a straight up personal site devoted to my interests and my interests alone. #1 and #3 on the list have been liquidated.
Photography and travel will still be my major interest. Unfortunately, you’ll still see my social and current event commentary as I feel the insatiable need to get up on my soap box. And as you can tell, my love for obnoxiously large headers has at long last shone through.
Meanwhile, the site has a plethora of issues to work out:
- IE bugs out the wazoo — why can’t everyone just use Firefox?
- Color schema and CSS needs a little more tweaking
- Content migration from TypePad to WordPress — not bringing everything, just the best.
Thanks!
May 29th, 2007 in Site Updates | No Comments »
Thailand & Cambodia
I am severely behind developing the 1200+ photos taken during my recent trip to Southeast Asia. Publication on this site is delayed until some structural changes are completed.
In the meantime, select photos will be uploaded to my Flickr account.
May 16th, 2007 in Photography | No Comments »
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