Seeing art & beauty, my HD camera, photography today & David Lowery's inspiring message featured on IFC Icons

"Art is everywhere, except it has to pass

through a creative mind." - Louise Nevelson

Saw that quote in an ad at the train station today. It made me think of how I am grateful for that gift that I have, to see art & beauty in nearly everything.

At a film class in RTVF while at the University of North Texas, a professor challenged us to find art in things through motion picture. I remember thinking that I already do & that I can't wait to prove it on my assignment. Since working on that I couldn't get my hands off of a camera. At the time I had a point & shoot digital cam and the power of digital capturing enabled me to shoot for hours, as well as review my work at a faster pace.

In 2006, a collaborative 16mm film I directed that same year as the assignment I mentioned, starring Giovanni Cruz.

When I was in high school I experimented a lot with journalistic style photography with film and digital and I couldn't wait to invest in my own camera one day.

Photog or Motion, I want to capture the

beauty & art in motion and piece it together eloquently to e x p a n d your mind.

It makes me sad that my current HD video camera is down and my point & shoot photo cam is out of sight. So many times in the last 15 days I’ve had the urge to just go shoot. Hopefully I can get it repaired or upgraded soon.

In 2009, the first project I shot with my current Sony HD camera was a music montage for Brendell, aka Brenda Villareal, a very talented local singer. My camera is shown on a stead cam shoulder rig - obviously fits me too big, but I made it work.

To those of you who have a capturing device, go get creative, capture it, use it wisely. We have so many tools at our disposal in this day in age. People invest alot in like music composing, audio recording and photography software as well as hardware all the time (sometimes they do nothing with it) or they invest in it for the wrong reasons, to fit in, because it’s cool to carry an expensive slr camera, etc. The –want to fit in- like symptom distracts from fully venturing into something. You end up using it for about a year and then it looses it’s cool, and you leave it alone to collect dust. Maybe Nintendo is at fault for strategically releasing its new consoles in a pattern that is so tailored to loose its cool after about a year. Which makes me think about how cheap so many electronics are made today too- they are made to last 'til the new upgrade. Grrr. Selfish corporations. But before I continue on that tangent...; back to capturing visual imagery. I saw a 14 year old girl at the fair with a nice 5D camera and thought, wow, what a luxury that would’ve been to me. I would cherish it and use it wisely.

Sometimes I feel photography has gone from a craft to a mass produced saturated candy. I feel its harder to filter through skilled and talented framing.

On a positive note:
Watching this video from a dfw filmmaker is inspiring. It is aesthetically cool and moving to watch as a filmmaker. It reminds me a lot of the reasons for which I want to succeed in film. Enjoy a message from a brilliant filmmaker featured on IFC, David Lowery.

http://www.ifc.com/icons/david-lowery.php

Big Tex Knows Fried Beer - or Does He?

The Highlight of My Texas State Fair Experience 2010

This year I went all out at the State Fair... well, within my means ;) Tired out the rides, checked out the exhibits, watched the parade, found a nome, and pumpkin brains, and ate a few enticing fried foods - off course!!!

The worst/ best experience of trying food at the fair was

"THE WORLD FAMOUS FRIED BEER."

Behold, fried beer. Shiner to be exact.

Off course if it's fried it had to be Texan.

The experience of biting in to the ravioli like piece of friedness was truly an unexpected one. When you think of beer you think of ice cold crisp type of flavor, but this was nothing close to refreshing. It was a hot, steamy, gooey, syrupy gush of a-far-resemblance of beer goo that squeezed out of the salty ravioli. All in all it was not as tasty as I imagined. I rank it a 2 out of 5. Disappointing, but my face was priceless. Unfortunately the reaction wasn't captured in photograph. But I'll leave that up to you to imagine, or up to you to experience for your self.

Until Next Year Big Tex State Fair of Texas!

Thanks for the fun memories!