NaBloPoMo Day 15: Black and White

Today’s NaBloPoMo Prompt: Have you ever developed a crush on someone due to a photograph?

Sure I have. I’m a sucker for a pretty face. I’m sure I’ve developed many many crushes. But what’s a crush. A fantasy, an idealism. And people let you down when they step out of the photo and say something stupid or do something stupid or forget to bother to like you back.

What’s a pretty face but symmetry and balance, and what’s photography but an idealization of an idea. We say that a person is “captured” in a photo and let’s face it: only captives are fit for being obsessed with. Free people are too complicated and nuanced and shifting in their changes to compel longing for two long.
We think of our crush, and we “picture” them in our minds. They’re frozen, perfect, timeless.

Until the next pretty face comes along and we start all over again. Sometimes its years later. Sometimes its minutes. This is the internet age: I’ve been know to develop and forget crushes several times over just a few seconds.

Today’s NaBloPoMo Photo Prompt: Black and White

A #heron wading, watching at #RichmondBeach on a cloudy morning in #September.

A photo posted by Jason Edwards (@bukkhead) on

Sartorially Challenged

Postaday for May 14th: The Clothes (May) Make the (Wo)man. How important are clothes to you? Describe your style, if you have one, and tell us how appearance impacts how you feel about yourself.

I have no style. I am a 43-year-old married white man, upper middle-class, chubby, raised in the mid-west, work from home. I am the antithesis of style. I could wear the nattiest tux, cowboy boots and a beer hat and still be invisible. I’ve got a bear—out of laziness. I’ve got a receding hairline— thanks, genetics. I’ve got green eyes, but I’m going to have to go back to glasses soon, so say goodbye to seeing those.

I’m not bitter or anything. I’m no fashion monkey… not that I begrudge other’s their sartorial endeavors. Have at it. My wife looks good in pretty much everything (I admit I am biased, however). And some people have the body to make even jeans and a t-shirt look good, so it doesn’t matter what they wear. I guess I’m the opposite of that— nothing’s going to make people go wow when they see me, so jeans and a t-shirt it is.

If anything, lately, I’m finding that all my favorite t-shirts are gray. And when I buy a shirt for some reason, I end upo getting ray ones. Not sure why this is. Otherwise, shirt tend to run towards non-branded and plain. Or I find I’ll choose them for how soft they are. I am the opposite of the woman in the Steve Martin short story Cruel Shoes.

Sometimes I do get in a Hawaiian short mood. I have a handful of those, and I like to wear them now and again. I thinki that’s because I like tropical vacations so much, and I want to somehow magically evoke that sense of peace and relaxation. Either that, or its because on TV retired spies and private eyes wear Hawaiian shirts and while I don’t have the guys and bravado to be a spy, I think I’d be a pretty good retired spy.

At our house I’m the one who does the laundry, and even though there’s only two of us, it sure does feel like a lot of laundry. I think if I ever won the lottery, I’d just have new clothes delivered to the house every day. In a variety of styles. “But wouldn’t it be better to hire someone to do your laundry?” Nah, this is a fantasy, so let me have my dream. New clothes, every day, especially socks. nothing feels better than putting on brand-new socks.

And there’s where the proof of my style-less-ness comes through. I like hawaiin shorts, cargo shorts, and new socks. You tell me what that would look like 😉

NaBloPoMo Day 14: Sun Flare

Today’s NaBloPoMo Prompt: What place do you want to visit based solely on beautiful photographs that you’ve seen?

Yes and yes. On the one hand I see photos of tropical places and I think “I want to go there, read novels and do nothing.” Fortunately I’ve had the opportunity to do just that. The wife and I have been to Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Puerto Vallarta, and the Riviera Maya. We’re going to San Diego next, and Costa Rica is on our to-do list, along with our fourth Hawaiian island, another Caribbean trip, and someday Miami (maybe even Cuba if that gets all cleared up in our lifetime).

Pretty much any photo of someplace sunny with sand evokes this. My wife wants to try Greece, too, and as long as it’s on the Mediterranean and I don’t have to do anything, I’ll go.

The other yes is for places I see that I want to go photograph. This is pretty much the opposite of sitting around reading novels and doing nothing else. This is hiking and walking for hours and hours. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the photography bug when we went to Singapore, Mumbai, London, and Rome. But I did by the time we got to Paris— I just wish we could have stayed a month.

So, again, any picture of amazing views, architecture, or complicated lighting makes me want to go there and see what I and my camera can do.

I have a friend who’s going to Prague, and I am soooo jealous. And while I eschew going to Australia because I like having an ozone layer above me and I’m terrified of the huge spiders there, you could probably bribe me with a few new lenses and I’d go to New Zealand in a heartbeat.

Today’s NaBloPoMo Photo Prompt: Sun Flare

#bored #lensflare #nostops

A photo posted by Jason Edwards (@bukkhead) on


Maybe a bit too much. Taken outside of the now defunk Mars Hill Church across the street from Trader Joe’s, where my wife was buying forbidden fruit.

All I Know is I Know Nothing (NOW!)

Postaday for May 13th: Land of ConfusionWhich subject in school did you find impossible to master? Did math give you hives? Did English make you scream? Do tell!

Sorry to say this, (I am, honestly,) but I was one of those know-it-all smart-alecks who thought he knew everything. I’ll go ahead and blame the education system where I grew up, which you can call Wichita, or Kansas, or the United States, or The West. It wasn’t exactly vigorous.

I can tell you about some of my fun failures, though. When I was in 11th grade I went through a rough period where I just didn’t see the point of anything. I failed many classes that year, not from lack of understanding, but just because I never turned in any homework. Lasting effects: none. Don’t let your kids read this— high school in America is more or less a joke. The best thing I can say about high school is that anyone who survives the chafing process is better suited to combat the grossly unjust social structures that society tries to foist on the populace.

I’m a still bitter? Nah…

When I took the ACT, the college entrance exam for schools in the midwest, I decided I’d major in whatever my lowest score was: the idea being that it was the area I need to do the most work in. My lowest score was on the English part, and that’s what I got my BA in. The rest is history? I guess so… I love to write, although, again, let me tell you that writing classes in college don’t teach you how to write. They do teach you how to critique, how to analyze, and more specifically, how to articulate that analysis. This is actually a pretty good skill for writers to have, in my opinion.

College itself, like highschool, is not really a place to learn anything. I don’t mean people don’t learn— they do— I just mean that success seems to come not from what you know but who you know. The education one receives at, for example, Wichita State is not going to be all that different from that received at Harvard for the sufficiently motivated student.

The key there is the “motivation,” in that a Harvard will be more competitive and drive a student more. So it’s those other students, those fellow competitors, that give someone at an Ivy League school an advantage. And then the connections made, the relationships, that’s where the real success comes from. The network you build in college is where all the potential comes from.

And if there was one skill I never mastered, it was establishing, cultivating, and taking advantage of a social network.

NaBloPoMo Day 13: Bokeh

Today’s NaBloPoMo Prompt: Do you sometimes make recipes due to the accompanying photo?

Not really, no. I mean, I like food porn as much as the next guy, but my wife’s the one who does all the cooking, and that’s not because I’m a sexist pig, it’s because she’s really good at it and really enjoys it.

For what it’s worth, and many occasions she’s made something spectacular and asked me to photograph it. Food photography is tough. I don’t have nearly the right kind of lighting options to make her dishes look anywhere close to how delicious they are.

We’ve had a few successes, though. She compiled a cookbook of her family’s recipes to give to her sister as a wedding gift, and I shot a lot of the photos. (Not all of them— we had to go stock for lots of things). We made copies of the cookbook for others in the family, after they say the book itself, liked the recipes, and liked the photos.

But when it comes to looking at pictures myself, I’m rarely moved to go try what I’m seeing. Watching my wife cook, I know that the only thing harder than good food photography is making really good food! And let’s face it, no one wants food that looks better than it tastes 🙂

Today’s NaBloPoMo Photo Prompt: Bokeh

Candid shot of brobot and galbot discussing bokeh

A photo posted by Jason Edwards (@bukkhead) on


Took this specifically for the photo prompt.

The Worst Part’s The Throwing Stars– They Get Everywhere

Postaday for May 12th: Those Dishes Won’t Do ThemselvesWhat’s the household task you most dislike doing? Why do you think that is — is it the task itself, or something more?

Sexism alert! I’m a man, and I do most of the chores around the house. Yes, yes, I do expect lauds and praises.

Just kidding. The truth is, I work from home, while my wife pulls ten-hour shifts. It only makes sense that I’d do most of the cleaning. In between conference calls and project deadlines, I can toss in a load of laundry, wash some dishes, and so forth. Its pretty easy. We have a service that comes in once every few weeks to give everything a good scrubbing, so all I have to do is keep things more or less tidy.

And I like listening to podcasts, so it’s sort relaxing to put on The Morning Stream and get up to my elbows in suds. Or walk around the house to our one thousand trash cans (I exaggerate) on garbage day. Or stand in the laundry room sunshine (it has the best window in our whole house) and sort the hots from the colds.

I guess the one chore I hate the most is getting rid the dead ninjas.

We get attacked by ninjas on fairly regular basis. It used to be traditional medieval Japanese ninjas, but lately it’s been all manner of ninja, pretty much just dudes wearing black pajamas and masks. They come in through the windows, the skylight, the back door. One even rang the doorbell and was disguised as a UPS guy. I saw right through it, though- most UPS guys don’t carry katanas on their backs.

When my wife wanted to sign up for an alarm service I scoffed, and when the guy said we could have a nidja-deterrent system added on for an extra fee, I double-scoffed. But my wife had a Groupon, so we decided to try it. Boy, was my face red the first time we found a ninja in the ninja-trap!

It used to be one or two a week, which isn’t bad. Our city picks up garbage once a week, and recycling every other week, and dead ninjas every other non-recycling week. I admit it, I sometimes lose track. I say to my wife “Is this recycling week or dead ninja week?” And she’s all like “I don’t know, check the flyer on the fridge!”

But lately it’s been or two dead ninjas per night. And that so-called defense system isn’t getting all of ‘em. There was one in my car the other day, which I had to take care of myself. Thankfully I was at a red light— the last thing I need is a DWKN.

So god forbid if I somehow forget to put the dead ninjas out on dead ninja week. They stack up, fast, and the bin the city gave us isn’t always big enough for all of them. I know, I’m allowed to stack up the excess next to the bin on the curb, but, I feel bad. I can just imagine my neighbor getting up and heading to work. The last thing she needs to see is a bunch if dead ninjas blown by the wind all over her driveway.

Then again, more than once her trash bag full of dead pirates has split open, and I never said a thing. That’s just what you get if you use cheap bags. And talk about smell! Phew!

NaBloPoMo Day 12: Far

Today’s NaBloPoMo Prompt: What is the hardest subject to photograph?

People, if only because I can never seem to get the lighting right. No to mentioned I prefer candid photos, but have an aversion to photographing strangers. I know, I know, as long as I am on public land I have a right to shoot anything I see. Still, I feel like it’s an intrusion. Maybe if I was really good at it I’d get over myself, but until then, I’m going to eschew photographing people I don’t know.

I say I prefer candids because, as I’ve said in other posts, I don’t take pictures for the sake of keeping memories, but as a means by which to create materials for making art. Posed shots always seem to me to be so stale— unless people go and do something wacky. Again, maybe it’s me— maybe if I was better at it, posed people shots wouldn’t seem to plain
I only recently started using Lightroom and with landscapes and nature photos, it’s done wonders to make my photos look a lot better. Come to think of it, I haven’t even tried putting my people photos in Lightroom yet. Maybe I should give that a try, see what happens.

Of course, all my NaBloPoMo photos are from instagram, so none of the above applies below 😉

Today’s NaBloPoMo Photo Prompt: Far

A photo posted by Jason Edwards (@bukkhead) on


It’s a two hour drive away, but on a nice day Mt. Ranier seems closer.