The Mapping Project-Ohio

Obviously not taken by me, but probably my favorite photo of me as a kid. I thought you would enjoy seeing kid Jasmin, bundled up and masquerading as a penguin!

The Mapping Project: Louisiana

I thought the perfect first photo for the mapping project would be from our first trip together, back when we skipped all of the normal friend steps and went from classroom slightly-more-than acquaintances to spontaneous trip to an art festival in NOLA buddies.  Also, because you just reminded me that it has been almost a year since we were there, having trilingual conversations, eating beignets or watching a movie about a busty 70s blond talking to animals at a hookah bar in the French Quarter.  I just recently went over these photos again, and found some that I do really like.  I'm not sure why I wrote all of them off after we got back, but they're not so bad! I posted more on my other blog because the whole point of this project is to choose one photo - so check out some more of them out at The Little Barn

Challenge: Nightscape

So I am temporarily giving up my attempt to find a good picture in the set that I took of an amazing landscape at the botanic gardens.  I failed to realize at the time I was taking them, because of general excitement and because I was in an off-limits area and was being yelled at by a security guard, that all of my pictures have a huge pole going through the middle of them.  But I was so into the scene through that I will not give in!  I will somehow find a way to scrounge a decent photo out of them.  But in the meantime, here is what was a backup nightscape, and in the name of progressing our challenges section, is now my official entry for the night picture challenge.  It doesn't quite equal your website of inspiration, but I am completely obsessed with taking pictures at night now and will continue to do so and try and work up to pictures as cool as those.
And below are some detail shots of this area, because even more spectacular than the purple light was the strange teal stripe of light that was in between the light source and the shadow of this light, which I am completely enthralled by.

Oh, America!

2 cool projects I have stumbled upon recently that we would probably have a field day doing:

ONE: The 50 States Project

http://www.50statesproject.net/

The 50 States Project has brought together 50 photographers from across the USA. Each photographer is given assignments (portrait, landscape etc.) to complete in their style and representative of their state.

How sweet is that? We can do a two state California/Colorado challenge.

TWO: The Interview Project

http://interviewproject.davidlynch.com/

A 20,000 mile, over 70 day roadtrip across and back the United States where "people have been found and interviewed."

Challenge, STRIPES!

I present to you my apartment in all its stripey glory.

I've been noticing the crazy diagonal stripes every time I walk down the stairs out of my apartment complex so I decided to photograph them for the challenge. I'm not sure how I feel about them, there are elements that I like in all of them, but they also feel a little busy for my taste...Also, I feel like all of these pictures could only have been taken in southern California.

Denver Botanic Gardens Parking Lot

So I had to go to a staff meeting at the Denver Botanic Gardens last night, and despite my hopes for the presentation to be in some sort of tropical greenhouse filled with birds and butterflies, it was in a tiled, window-less room in the basement with fluorescent lights and white boards.  I had brought my camera, hoping for some good shots, and though they were nothing like I was imagining, I had a total party.  I spent an hour after the meeting was over wandering in the chilly Denver air without a jacket (which I had forgotten), but it was worth a little hypothermia because I found amazingly amazing shots.  I'm so excited!  And I have responses to two of the challenges.  I'm going to go in chronological order and post the 2nd challenge: in this case, rural/suburban in the urban, and then I have to go through and edit the images for the night shot challenge.

These aren't my absolute favorite images of the night, I thought I would save the best for next, but I do like them as a response to the challenge.  And together, partially because they are slightly different interpretations of the same space, but also because the focus is working exactly the same way in all of them.  I forgot my tripod, so I was setting the camera down on surfaces and had the aperture at like a 3.5 to try and have shorter exposure times.  So they all have a band of in-focusness kind of in the middle ground while the fore and back-grounds are blurry.  It's just working for me with these images, I dunno.

And in case I don't talk to you before, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Underwater Work-In-Progress (Telephone!)

Yo,  I need a reaction to this.  Like in Pam's class, it is one of those I want to see what you think it is before I tell you, because it's a posed shot and I want to re-shoot it after I have some input (I went into the shoot with an image in my mind that just didn't work out, so I want to try again).  It's one of those where I know what is going on, but I'm not sure what other people will be able to see in it without knowing anything about it.

I've never quite been able to pull off red lipstick...

This past weekend, my friend Julia and I went on our first ever photo shoot. Julia Galdo, the fashion photographer who I told you about invited me to shoot with some of her friends at a ranch north of LA. So, I enlisted Julia Chu, who has been one of my best friends since junior high and is nearly 6 feet tall, as my model. (Yeah, there are 2 Julia's in the story.) Julia Chu, wants to get into fashion & styling so we decided to collaborate to create our own fashion shoot.

As soon as I saw your cathedral photo, I thought of this straw hat photo that I took on Sunday. Below are a few more that I'd love to get your feedback on. I'll post some more as I get them edited because I want to get your thoughts on my first "fashion" photos.

Thanks Kaitlyn! I miss working on projects with you!

Telephone!

Photo Telephone...READY SET GO!

In an inspired, excited, stream of consciousness gchat...the only kind of talk that Kaitlyn and I ever have, we decided to start a game of photo telephone. The rules are simple...I post a photo, she responds with a photo somehow related to or inspired by my photo and vice versa. She shoots, I shoot and photo telephone continues. We'd love to hear your thoughts on our photos!

P.S. We've also added a challenges section, where we'll be posting photo challenges for one another to compete. When both of us complete a challenge, we'll post them side by side to see how differently we approach each challenge.

It's Taco Time!

As usual, a fantastic card!

I was going through my photographs while working on a photo project I came across the time I was in San Fransisco.  I have pictures of the Chinatown and this crazy Japanese mall which was amazing, and I decided that either I have to come visit you in LA and we can find an Asian mall there, or the two of us need to reconvene in San Fran and go exploring the hello kitty shops and sushi restaurants and manga stores.  I need some Asian-Americana in my life right now.

Dear Kaitlyn, I love the way you doodle.

new orleans ain't a city, it's a star

This detours from our normal format of sending mail but I finally got around to hanging things up on my sad bare wall in my room and now it is collaged in the colorful, ridiculous way I like it and I wanted to share with you!

Also, I wanted to emphasize the Prospect 1 New Orleans poster because the other day, I walked out of my apartment complex to go to work and as I was crossing the street, this schnauzer started staring me down...literallly mad dogging me, I suppose. I said hi to the owner as his dog sneered at me and I looked down at the guy's shirt and it was a purple Prospect 1 New Orleans shirt. I got so excited and was like oh! I was there...I went to Prospect 1 NOLA...but alas, perhaps it was because his dog hated me, perhaps it was too early in the morning, he did not seem that excited. It made me super excited though!

Lookee What I found

I think this is one half of the original exchange!

This postcard reminds me of 500 Days of Summer... and the Decemberists (the band, not the revolutionaries. Well, maybe both now. Train of thought.)

There is a city by the sea
A gentle company
I don’t suppose you want to
And as it tells its sorry tale
In harrowing detail
Its hollowness will haunt you
Its streets and boulevards
Orphans and oligarchs it hears
A plaintive melody
Truncated symphony
An ocean’s garbled vomit on the shore,
Los Angeles, I’m yours

Oh ladies, pleasant and demure

Sallow-cheeked and sure
I can see your undies
And all the boys you drag about
An empty fallow fount
From Saturdays to Mondays
You hill and valley crowd
Hanging your trousers down at heel
This is the realest thing
As ancient choirs sing
A dozen blushing cherubs wheel above
Los Angeles my love

Oh what a rush of ripe élan
Languor on divans
Dalliant and dainty
But oh, the smell of burnt cocaine
The dolor and decay
It only makes me cranky
Oh great calamity,
Ditch of iniquity and tears
How I abhor this place
Its sweet and bitter taste
Has left me wretched, retching on all fours
Los Angeles, I’m yours

And to add a nice asian finish to this package, it came with this beauty:

 A camera from Evanston and a cat from Taiwan!  Pretty much wearing it daily.

One of my passions in this world is fake food.

I mean that in all seriousness. As a kid, I loved going to Japanese restaurants to just stand outside and look at the displays of fake food. I am a proud owner of a pencil case that looks like a hot dog and a paper mache donut from New Mexico. So imagine my joy when the trinkets shaking around in Kaitlyn's package turned out to be...



the apple was rolling off the scanning bed.

these fun little miniature vegetables are now hanging out in my room.



and the note that came with it:

And the award for most delicious postcard...

YUM. that is pretty much all i have to say.

and lately I have really been missing Pita Inn in Skokie, IL.

$2 for a dozen freshly baked pitas, delicious falafel sandwiches with the best condiment sauces, hummus...YUM.

What better to spice up a day in suburban/rural middle America than...

a postcard from Istanbul!

And so the mad pen palling begins. I guess I will start with an electronic postcard of sorts...

Dear Kaitlyn,

Thank you for being my pen pal. You are probably the only person in this world that will ever send me letters to the extent that I will send you letters. So, I'm glad I found you, my meant to be pen pal. Here's to our friendship of inspirations, world travel, cheesy postcard photographers and the US/a couple other countries Post Office...and of course Juan...who really started it all.

<3 jasmin With that...voila! Here is the first postcard of our exchange!  

I was an avid stamp collector as a youngun and by avid...I mean, I collected everything for about two or three days each. Now I have rocks, stamps, foreign bills, stickers but not very much of anything. Nevertheless, stamps still really fascinate me.

Home of My Uncle Jack

我爱台美，台美爱我

(j'adore les filles taiwanaises, les filles taiwanaises m'adore: une chanson de M.C. Hot Dog )

This postcard ROCKS MY WORLD

Going through my papers from school...

I found the coolest birthday card ever. And installed my printer onto my new computer! Yay start of scanning. Now I gotta find me some jalapeno corn bread, mmmmmm.