Betterwithpesto

There's a thought:

"Is there anything there? Is what I'm doing even special? Am I good at what I say I'm good at?"

Yes?

No?

Life has an amazing ability to both confirm and deny these questions.

Sometimes I feel as if I'm in pure bliss, as if life is a string of amazing, genuine, wonderful events one after the other. That I know how the world works, how to look in the nooks and crannies to find unique bits of joy that few have noticed. I feel as if nothing can stop me, as if the world is just a playground. The air is crisp, the lights of the city are glimmering, and when I pedal my bike it's as if I'm cutting into the night sky.

Then there are other times when I'm scrambling to find a glimpse of happiness. I find myself bewildered by what I don't know, I find my skills inadequate to do any nontrivial task. It seems that all of the perceived joy was in fact me just being naive, and that the world was just playing along for a few hours. "Time to get back to work." - The world says to me. I find myself alone. Paralyzed by the sheer amount of things I haven't accomplished, learned, or bothered to pick up over the years. As useful as a middle schooler, without the cuteness.

"Perhaps I should go eat at Qui... that will make me feel better." Only for that thought to be dwarfed by the skeptic voices in my head. "You look depressed. Do you want to draw attention to yourself? Who the fuck do you think you are?"

I open the fridge and finish off the leftovers.

Hypersensory addiction. Give me more.

I want to go fast. I can't bear even being in any state of normalcy. I become uneasy. I get antsy.

The thing is, in order to get to the next high... a bit of risk is involved. I have to put myself out there. I have to be vulnerable.

I've noticed that there's something to just going out and trying, even with the risk of failure or being mediocre.

The thrill of the unknown. Stability isn't an option, I just can't handle it.

Am I good at photography? The honest answer is I know I'm okay. I just know there are way more talented people out there, that given the same resources... can come up with way better photos that I can. This is what I could get with the yoyo 2x world champion, Yuuki Spencer.

But fuck that idea. I just want to go out and do it. I gathered the resources. Let me light the fire, even if it's not as bright as if you lit it. I want to try, even if it won't be done the "proper" way.

I'm sure I know my way around a camera. Which is why I'm confident enough to teach a class about it. It's really the only thing I've put in time and hard work into over the past 6 years.

I've been fortunate enough to use so many cameras over the past few years, and pick up a lot of random gigs along the way. Here are some quick proof(unedited) shots I did this week, food photos for my friends' Austin Food Delivery startup, Demand Food. Essentially it's woot for local restaurants. You have 2 curated choices per meal. It's not live yet, but I'll let you guys know when it is.

What did we do with the extra food? We used it to feed our programming class: Coder Vox

Yet I chose one of the hardest systems to use, only because I like the way focus falls off just after the focus point. In this photo I see it on her right(our left) arm. That small tinge. I get excited about small things like that.

It's cool thought though... to be able to start out with nothing, and for one hour you piece together a model, location, and concept, and create something neat out of it.

So I'm teaching a photography class on Saturday 2/22 Which is in 2 weeks.

I've only sold a few tickets so far, but luckily one of those people is Josh Baer, my old 1SS teacher and founder of Capital Factory. So that should make some things interesting.

Tickets are still available, and I've added an early bird price if you buy a ticket in the next week

Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/photography-101-tickets-10563135623

The turnout of this event will possibly confirm a lot of things for me. So it'll mean a lot, if you choose to come out.

If you have any questions, tweet at me.

And by the way the previous photos are from a shoot I did with Natasha in collaboration with 2 local clothing stores: Busy Being and Solid Gold.

In addition to the ballin' hoodie, I also found this pink shirt quite adorable. They're in stock at their store at *5th and Comal. *

Again please checkout the event, and please share it with any friends who are trying to get into photography.

Oh and this has GOT to be the most hilarious Sochi Olympics clip: http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/indian-luger-shiva-keshavan-crashes-then-makes-amazing-save?ctx=brilliant-performances

The Ricoh fell out of my bag the the other day, these are the last 2 solid photos I got out of it:

John Prolly on his fat bike.

Arcade UFO on a sunny day.

I have to send it in for repairs, which is a drag, but it gave me a chance to use my Leica a bit more who I've been neglecting, and Jeremiah lent me his spare NEX 6, which lets me use Leica lenses as well.

I don't think I could recommend the Leica system to anyone. It's hard to use... you can't trust the metering, the framing, and the focus is painfully hard to nail, but I find the photos that come out of it to be quite unique.

Photography has brought me to see and do things that normally I would never do.

The other night I went to a talk about the Austin startup scene given by my friend Damon. Damon is largely one of the most supportive figures in the coding community here in town. Seriously one of the most friendly and genuine guys you could possibly meet.

It was kind of obvious that he was nervous at first. The room was over-crowded with people and the tech wasn't working for the right half the room... but overall I think the talk covered the points that needed to be talked about, and was very informative for anyone new to the scene.

One of the notions brought up that really resonated with me was about the "Virtuous Cycle" and it's application to Austin. A successful startup creates more jobs and wealthy individuals who go on to create and invest in new businesses. It's kind of common sense, but it's something that I see everyday. You can see it in the ever changing landscape of downtown Austin and in the transformation on the East side... The money and energy brought by these tech startups do not take away from Austin's "weirdness." The tech industry fuels the creatives. The cycle allows for more.

Take Kirby, a barber who has a chair in Charlie's Hair Styles, a tiny tiny barber shop across the street from the Omni Hotel(Capital Factory) downtown for example. He was rated as one of Houston's top barber a few years back, and decided recently to move to Austin.

If anyone said they were going to move to a new town to start a premium barber service, set up shop in downtown, and offer reasonable prices in "today's economy"... you would probably give them a funny look.

Austin is beginning to have the ability to have these amazingly funky business relationships that you would have never imagined happening before.

Kirby is starting to stock Jeremiah's beard grooming products to use for his shaving services. Qui's bike rack was made by Windmill bikes on Manor, their woodwork was done by Griffon Ramsey, on the East side, and their ingredients are being sourced by local farms and producers that have just started up recently. The frames for our tables that we just had built for our coworking space were made by a metal fabricator down the road.

If you have a passion for doing something and creating something yourself, Austin is probably the best place that I've seen to make that happen. Austin doesn't have a lot of stuff, but it's a canvas for the ambitious and creative.

It's not a city to be consumed. It's a city that needs to be cultivated first.

I always take the same path from Chicon Collective to Brew & Brew... and the other day I happened to see this girl as I was waiting at a stop sign.

If you see a picture you want to take always go for it. The hardest part about taking photos of people is the fear of rejection or an adverse reaction, and you'd be surprised how rarely that happens.

I had dinner with Natasha the other night after the startup talk at BD Rileys on their trivia night. We went to Parkside for dessert and ran into Wesley and Arturo jamming on their raw bar.

Free Monday night billiards over at Slick Willie's on Burnet.

doge with booties

fuzzy memories from Tiki Night. bud + tequila = passed out patrick

Snow and street fighter

I made a blog post about our new coding class, over at the coder vox blog.

An interesting scene downtown.

I have to say the tacos at Veracuz All Natural are probably the best tacos I've had, and I've had my fair share of tacos.

Recent Works by Griffon Ramsey.

Pretty sure that bread wasn't intended for you, doge.

A typical traffic jam in Austin.

Got a couple of birthday gifts to myself bought at Farewell Books.

Although I kind of find it boring to read about tech people, I think Offscreen is incredibly cool for being a print magazine about the tech scene. I also picked up an issue of Gather, a James Beard award winning food magazine... the photos and recepies in it are jaw dropping and inspiring.

I was also glad to hear that they stocked the Ivan Ramen book after I showed them my copy of it, apparently it sold out on the first day they got it in!

I had a birthday party yesterday. China Palace catering at Brew & Brew. Worked out pretty well. My friends gave me 3 types of pesto as a gift and they made me cat faced cupcakes... meow