Digital Traveler

Saturday, 9 December 2006

Andy Warhol Imitation

Wednesday, 6 December 2006

Book Signing in Simi Valley, CA and Beyond

Off to Simi Valley, CA tomorrow, beautiful home to the jurors of the OJ trial (just wonder how many still live there?)

The first thing I'm gonna look for is OJ's book, "If I Did It." It won't be there cause it's cancelled.

I'm looking foward to signing and giving out a free "Holiday Motel" print, one of my best-selling photos with every purchased book!

Last and even more important than the cancellation of OJ's literary work, I'll give individualized advice for those who are looking to buy a digital camera for Christmas.

Then, on my mini tour, I move away from OJ land to the land of Barry Manilow and Suzanne Sommers, the Coachella Valley, for a book signing at the Borders in the River of Rancho Mirage. This signing is at 1 pm this coming Saturday, Dec. 9th.

Simi Valley, selling photography, marketing tip, Holiday Motel

Cheers to the Holidays

Wrote this years ago (changed the dead links)

Santa Surfin'

Go ahead and indulge in some eggnog: Beat to death 6 eggs, add a cup a sugar and cup a rum and 2 pints of half and half. Mix and pour into a mug. Bring to your computer and drink while viewing the following:

Ken Gunn

Old Jim's site is no more since last year; it's Ken Gunn who's taken over with Old Jim's help. At any rate, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas over there. The holiday tunes remain, but better, plugged in with new giffrics (giff graphics). Leave it on and after a few sips of your drink you'll turn into an ornament of joy. Click on any one of the twelve interactive links of red-and-green and you'll interact with Santas, trees, snowmen and more. Many links offer a click-and-drag Santa’s head around the holiday fun on the page. Why? Why not?

saint-nick.com

After the dizzying hoopla of Old Jim, the tasteful Aristotle's holiday is filled with stories, recipes and a trivia quiz. And it's so user friendly, it's like Internet buttah. Best are the links--from the History Channel to Torah Tots--information sings, flutters, and rings in fact-upon-fact of holiday this-and-that.

whitehouse.gov/president/holiday/whtree/

The White House Christmas tree site is an interesting stop, even though they haven't updated it in years.

Unfortunately, my buddy G.W. is a little behind as all the good stuff is from years ago. However, if you scroll down, you can catch a glamorous look at the presidential ghosts of Christmas pasts from Hoover to Clinton. My favorite image: Robert Laessig's interior painting of the Christmas tree in the Blue Room, not because there are no presidents in the picture, but because it looks like there's a snowstorm inside.

http://www.rollanet.org/~anderson/nightb4p1.html

Most poems aren't done justice until someone's taken them apart and rewritten them. Take Clement C. Moore's Night before Christmas. With over a dozen other versions, each that is strangled so tightly that words, rhymed and jumbled, could would sound to the same to your hard-of-hearing uncle. There's text full of trailer holiday trash in A Redneck's Night Before Christmas. And if you have red and green bags under your eyes, you'll want to take a look the intellectual version, a piece that is certain to deepen those colors under your eyes.

http://www.geocities.com/johnkoji/xmas/

Alone this Christmas Eve? Go ahead and finish your nog grog then click on the Midi link and play karaoke in the language of your choice. Sing your heart out this holiday season.

Christmas cheer, eggnog recipe, Christmas music, holiday

Tuesday, 5 December 2006

Autumn for Christmas

About a month ago I wrote the poem Unautumn Photography.

I came up with the idea after I looked over the photographs of my friend Betty's journal.

I had promised her a printed copy of the poem with pictures. Here's what I came up with.

I only had low res images to work with so I ran them through a couple of Photoshop filters to give a painted effect. Sharpening low res photos doesn't work very well so that's about the only thing you can do to make them look presentable.

I sent her the photograph yesterday. Let's see if she finds this. I'm not gonna tell her, rather, I'm going to see if she ultimately finds it on her Internet journeys.

Betty, if you do get here, submit a comment as to what you think about this poster.

Everyone else comment too about what you think of this autumn slowly turning to winter. (Quickly in some places!)

Photoshop CS2 tip, sharpening Photoshop, Unautumn+poem, My Day, My Interests

Monday, 4 December 2006

Photographing Pairs

Always look for things to photograph in pairs, threes, fours...a dozen.

Newspaper pitch rant--I think if you read my blog occasionally you might know what a pitch is. A pitch is when you "throw" an idea to a newspaper or magazine. When you throw an idea for a book, it will not be considered, cause publishers usually want a full proposal (nonfiction) or the entire manuscript (fiction). I "threw" a pitch to the LA Times (the Ventura edition) for a book signing I'm having in Simi Valley.

I didn't even get past the name of my book (which is rather long) before the "city desk" editor cut me off saying "no, I don't think so."

Guess that's just the case in LA with all those movie stars even speaking one word (or wearing only one piece of clothing) to get the press' attention.

To the LA Times I say, okay, "whatever."

...and what goes around comes around. Cheers to all you bloggers, who, along with me, soon will make the newspapers change so they publish stories about regular people doing good things.

At any rate, I hope it's not se la vi a book signing with only me at at 7 pm Thursday, Dec 7 at the Borders in Simi Valley.

About the pic: The blazing color makes me smile: )

Los Angeles Times complaint, photographing pairs, photography, pitching newspapers and magazines

Saturday, 2 December 2006

Mid-Century Modern Acapulco Part 2

This hotel, off the beaten track in Acapulco, is nearly empty with no restaurants or cafes open for business. I happened to bring my partner's parents up there on a wild goose chase for "modern." I found it, but my partner, while finding it a bit interesting, was anxious to get to a place where, at the very least, you could have lunch. "Dad," who is 6 foot 4 or something like that had to be crammed in a tiny VW buy cab, becasue, as it seemed, cabs rarely drive up the hill to this place. If this place were in the United States, it'd be torn down, then replaced with a 30 story condo complex, each condo selling for nearly a million.