dirty laundry

these are a few of my favorite things...

Not counting my favorite people, here are some of the things topping my faves list lately...

Google Notifier -- a seriously cool little program that runs in the menu bar of my mac and tells me when I receive new email.  Notifications are complete with a little pop up window containing an excerpt of the email.  There is also a calendar notifier, intended to ensure I don't miss appointments, but more useful in seeing my day/week at a glance without opening a new browser window.  I [heart] Google.  Oh... this is also available to Windows (bleh) users.

Wall Mounted Hand Sculptures -- cool & functional!  If you know me, then you know how much I love functional, practical, yet unique gifts.  Just say no to useless ceramic figurines and snowglobes!!  Anyway, I first saw these hanging in the deYoung Museum.  I remember thinking WOW(!!) I want a set of those.  That particular set had the hands holding vinyl records.  This set by Harry Allen is more about holding keys, coats and flowers.  If you're wondering what to get me for my birthday and you happen to have a spare $75 laying around, this is the perfect gift.  By the way, I found this and many other fabulous things on the Elsewares blog.

Rehabilitated Dishware -- two things: 1. this is brilliant and 2. I would love to learn how to make my own.  I think the process is a little something like this... buy used dishes at the thrift store, re-glaze, re-fire.  I lack access to a kiln, so it might be hard for me to accomplish this on my own.  Oh well.  My favorite thing about this favorite thing is the whole idea of recycling otherwise ugly dishware into something quite a bit more modern and desirable.  The patterns are also a fun alternative to classic motifs.

Lumen -- Maybe it's because I work in lighting design and am currently obsessed with gobo patterns for weddings, but whatever the case may be, the Lumen by Adam Frank is pretty neato.  I suppose it almost violates my just-say-no-to-useless-things statement above.  None the less, its artistry makes up for what it lacks in practicality.

Other quick links to current obsessions:
* Silversun Pickups -- amazing band out of LA.
* Flickr -- if you take digital photos or scan your prints, you need a Flickr account to share them with the world.  There are far too many neato features to describe, including privatizing your photos to be shared with only the people you wish (for those more discreet among us), and a full fledged membership is only $25/year (or free if you only need 20 MB/month of upload space [that's about 5-10 high res. photos or a gazillion low res.]).
* Environmental Footprint Quiz -- on the heels of yesterday's rant about global warming, here's a little quiz to figure out how many Earths it would take to sustain life if everyone on the plane lived just like you.  It would take 2.7 Earths if everyone lived like me.  Clearly I have some work to do.  If everyone lived like the average American: 5.4 Earths.

i [heart] coffee

Seriously,  I might like the coffee buzz more than the wine buzz.  There something so unbelievably nice about that moment of ahhhh... just about 30 minutes into my morning cup.  I feel super positive and as though anything is possible. Woot woot!! (Yes, I know that I'm a nerd.)

This feeling is as equally comforting as the half a glass of wine ahhh, but definitely not the same.  On half a glass of wine, I feel all warm and fuzzy, like I want to give everyone hugs, and the troubles of the day just fade away.  It's just as positive of a feeling, but not quite as motivating(?).  I'm not sure that's the word I'm looking for, but it kind of works.

My gawd, I sound like a such a druggie.  I'm not.  Well, I don't function well without the morning coffee anymore [hangs head in shame].  But, for as much as I love it, I don't drink wine all that often.  In fact, I'll generally open a bottle, drink about a glass worth and end up using the rest for cooking over the course of a couple weeks.

Whatever the case, I just had to sing the praises of coffee this morning, as I am feeling them is such a nice way.

photo: Coffee-- our life blood --at the San Francisco Red Cross Hurricane Katrina intake center (September 2005).

spring has sprung.

Of all the lame things to talk about, I'm going to talk about the weather.  It has been absolutely gorgeous here in San Francisco.  Yesterday was near 75 degrees with crystal blue skies.  Today I was out walking at 7am (had to move the car), the sun was rising and the temperature was perfect for my skirt & flip flops.

While walking I noticed one of my favorite things about this time of year: the cherry blossom trees are in bloom.

My favorite part of the cherry blossom life cycle is when all the petals fall to the ground and blanket the sidewalk in pink.  It's so beautiful.  Until then, I'll probably keep shooting the blooming trees.

happy couple

My high school friend Ong-Lee and her husband Jason are expecting their first baby next month -- a little girl they will call Ashlyn Grace.  They asked if I would take a few photos of them before Ashlyn arrives, so this morning we all met up at Dolores Park.  The shots below are my faves from the shoot.

More will be on Flickr soon.  I need to let the mom & dad to be see them first.  As a fun little point of comparison, here is a picture of my mom & dad when I was a baby.  I wonder what a grown up Ashlyn will one day think about these photos of her parents.

free photoshop brushes

While doing my daily cruise of photoblogs, I came across a link on hchamp which led me to another link to something spec-freaking-tacular... Designfruit's Free Photoshop Brushes.  Yes, I'm a total Photoshop nerd and if you're one too, you simply must have these brushes.  Below was a brush test of the Fresh Foliage set.

I think I may just be in love.

what's in a name?

I received an odd phone call today.  I didn't recognize the number but thought it best to answer anyway.  A woman on the other end said, "Hello, is this Irja?"  She pronounced my name perfectly, so I figured she wasn't a telemarketer.  I confirmed and she continued on talking about how she was pregnant (insert relief that I'm not a man who recently had a reckless one night stand) and is considering naming her child Irja, after her grandmother who recently passed away.

She Googled the name, found my photography site and thought she'd call to ask what I thought about my name, if I was teased growing up, etc.  I didn't realize just how much I had to say on the topic until that moment.

In short, I assured her that the worst teasing I got over my name was Irja Siberia -- I suppose not much rhymes with Irja.  I also mentioned that the most common mispronunciation and what is now a nick-name all it's own is Err-juh.  Evidently her grandmother had the same problem and nick-name. I told her that I recently found out that Irja is the Finnish feminine of the English name George (still not sure how I feel about that), meaning earth worker or farmer.  And, lastly, that I think it's a great name, that it's becoming a much more common thing to have a unique name and that I receive compliments all the time.

In thinking about it now, I should have also said that naming her daughter after her grandmother is a wonderful way to pay tribute to someone who was clearly important in her life, and that her daughter would one day really appreciate it regardless of being teased as a kid.  Yep.  Those are my thoughts.  She appreciated me taking the time to chat with her.  I appreciated her asking.  Naming someone is an important job.

In other news, ex-chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was found guilty today of obstruction of justice & perjury -- clearly he has ruined his name.  Some people call him the "fall guy" for the whole situation and Bush is likely to pardon him, but I like what Senate majority leader Harry Reid had to say in a BBC news article: "I welcome the jury's verdict. It's about time someone in the Bush administration has been held accountable for the campaign to manipulate intelligence and discredit war critics." So very true.

Tying it all together... it seems now that the name given to a child is not nearly as important as what that child makes of it throughout his or her life.

fabulous photo booth at folsom st fair - II

I'm still playing catch up with photos shot while this blog was on hiatus.  The Folsom Street Fair graced us with its fabulousness back in September.  Much like the previous year, I set up a photo booth to take pictures of willing passers-by.  Unlike last year, I only shot a handful of photos as opposed to 600+ (yowza!), one of which was published in the SF Weekly.

Good times.  See the full set here.  Oh, and here's last year's set.

weekend trip to AZ.

My mom and Bill took a road trip down to Tucson, Arizona for New Years.  My mom is actually from Miami, a little mining town just outside of Tucson, so we have a ton of family there.  My aunt Ani & uncle Paul also flew in from Georgia.  Anyway, I called her the Thursday after the new year figuring they were already home or well on their way.  To my surprise, they were still there and planned to stay through the next week.  On a whim, I bought a ticket and flew out the next day.  It was a great time.

That's my aunt Betty & my cousin Liz -- both gorgeous!  The photo links to a photo set on Flickr of the shots from that weekend.  We spent lots of time just visiting, but also toured Mission Xavier & attended my cousin Sarah's wedding.

Can't wait to go again.

dead flora

La-di-dah... after a long hiatus (aside from shooting photos for work), it was some flowers just past their prime that inspired me to pick up the camera.  There is something really beautiful about a flower in the midst of decomposition.

116 frames later, about 12 were decent enough to share.  Those and a bunch more flower shots -- thriving & dying -- can be found on Flickr.

"pretend like this is san francisco"

Last night Jess, Sonia, Peaches & I went to see the Silversun Pickups, Ok Go & Snow Patrol.  Of course, the band we were most excited to see -- Silversun Pickups -- played first and, to our dismay, went on way earlier than the tickets said so we missed the first few songs.  I've seen them a few times before, so I wasn't super bummed for me, but I wish the other three could have seen the whole show.

Whatever the case, Silversun Pickups put on a great show as usual-- after which Peaches and I got to meet Nikki Monniger (bass) in the hallway just outside the auditorium.  I pulled the star struck dork approach, gushing over how she has inspired me to learn bass... blah blah.  Peaches was a cutie and calmly shook her hand.  It was a nice moment.

Ok Go was decent too, the best part being the video feed playing in time to the music and the hot pink sky-dancer tubes thrusting like jazz hands into the air during the last song.  I usually hate those things, but they somehow worked for this.

Snow Patrol's set entertained as well.  They had three floor to ceiling, *LED nets behind them, glowing with patterns that you had to either severely blur your eyes (I just took off my glasses), or be standing far enough back to properly see what was going on, but it was a nice visual element.  At one point the lead singer, Gary Lightbody, started rambling about people having things that glow in their pockets and if they did to hold them up during the second verse of the following song... you know "pretend like this is San Francisco."  I'm not sure exactly what he meant by that.  It felt a bit like an insult.  He's a foreign (Irish) rock star though, so I suppose it's forgivable, no?  Below is a crappy camera phone photo of what the sea of glowing cell phones, cameras & a few token lighters looked like:

Geez, that is a crappy photo.  It was way more impressive and moderately disturbing in person.  Oh well.  I'm just happy I figured out how to get this photo off my phone!  Yay bluetooth.  So, after all was said and done, it was a good night. 

Back to work for me now.

* LED nets are hard to explain, but imagine if each pixel on your computer monitor was about 1"x1" and spaced 6" apart, with nothing but darkness in between.  Did that help?