So long...

Well I haven't posted in forever and there's a reason. I don't live in Tampa anymore. This blog therefore is done. It's been fun but now it's over.

Now I'm having adventures in India. You can follow me here.

Hopefully not my only 15 minutes...

I made a personal goal for myself to post to this blog every day in April. As you can see I didn't do it.

Between moving and work and all of the fun little things going on blogging has taken a back seat.

I've been taking a lot of bike photos lately. Fixed Fight III went down in St. Pete this last weekend and I snapped a bunch of photos. You can see them here.

They've been getting reposted all over the web. My friend even found them on some strange Italian fixed gear blog. PEDAL Consumption has four on their blog as well if you scroll down to April 21.

The Orlando Fixed gear blog picked them up too and so did Prolly.

I had no idea all of this was happening until yesterday, it explains why my flickr has been generating thousands of hits everyday.

Anyway I took a bunch of photos of the Thursday night ride yesterday. I put up a light and a diffuser and after a couple beers convinced some of the guys to do some tricks. I'll post the photos later today.

Here's one that I made yesterday more to come soon:

And then it stopped

and I remembered one of the reasons I love Florida

Rain, rain...

The first

My close friend Joshua and I just finished our first multimedia project last night. It was shot with my 5D Mark II using a Rhode Video Mic for audio.

We edited it in Final Cut pro and used MPEG Stream Clip to make the footage native to Final Cut.

Hopefully this will be the first of many.



Go here to watch it in high def.

Fun with Final Cut

Yesterday my friend Denver and I finished our first ever multimedia project. Unfortunately we learned some sad things about editing native footage from the 5D Mark II in Final Cut. Now we have to go back and fix some things.

To make sure our solution would work I slapped together probably the worst Final Cut video ever complete with homemade techno and footage I took of the Sunshine Skyway.

Let's see if this this works!

Easter

Doesn't really mean a whole lot to me but I found my own way to celebrate the resurrection of a 2000 year old carpenter. I drank mimosas and made a giant pancake. It was decadent and wonderful.

Here are some photographs I made:

Old glass new home

I told my dad that I had started adapting old lenses to my DSLR and he sent me a box of old glass.

Neat little lenses. I had fun playing with the Zuiko 75-150mm the only bad part about it is that the aperture blades are stuck so I'm forced to shoot wide open. Interesting results.

I've noticed that old glass gives the pictures a sort of dreamy haze.

Here's a photo I made. I know it's a squirrel but like I said I was just messing around =)

Bikes away

Decided last minute to go on the Thursday night ride. It was a great decision. This was the biggest I've ever seen the ride. There were at least a couple dozen people out there.

The pace got a little wild and people got dropped. I was riding fixed again and fueled my wheel lock ups with the fear of death or embarrassment.

I managed to get a few snaps in as well.

Next week I think I'm going to load up the cooler with beer and water and lure everyone back to my place for a post ride shin dig.

Hmmm, man Tampa is getting so fun right before I leave. It makes me a little sad...

Here's a photograph:

Blitz

Made it down to Miami yesterday to visit an old friend and take in a Flight of the Conchords concert.

We sped south in my friend Ian's convertible, top down the whole way. Originally the idea was just a novelty and we planned on putting up the top some of the time. That all changed when a crucial piece of convertible mechanism ejected itself from the car.

I'm a little sun burned but the experience was nothing short of epic despite the disapproving glares we garnered from manly truck drivers and angsty teenagers.

Here's a photograph I took:

Flute master

Flute master
Originally uploaded by TristanWheelock

I want this guy's life.

You can't really see it but off to the right a banner reads can Paul McCartney, four soap operas and 900,000 people all be worng?

My answer is yes flute master, yes they can. Your hair may blow mystically in the wind but your proficiency with various recorders does nothing for me.

News.

Here's a photograph of the pizza I ate at New World brewery to celebrate the news that our documentary creative crossroads won best short documentary at the Crossroads Film Festival.

Movies and Booze

Is basically how Saturday turned out. I went and did the good old movie double sneak seeing both Adventureland and I Love You Man.

Both films were good. I Love You Man made me feel sort of awkward, it was definitely well done though. Adventureland was better. The actors from Freaks and Geeks keep showing they that they have what it takes to make it in Hollywood. I was thoroughly entertained although it was a less funny than I thought it would be.

Post movie activities including attending the opening of the new Reax space and drinking a bunch of liquid mistakes in the form of Kentucky Gentleman whiskey. Probably the worst well whiskey there is, not that any of them are good.

The new Reax space is really nice. It's a little converted house. One half serves as an art gallery and shop and the other half holds the laptops and other accoutrements that the Reax crew use to put out their little rag.

The art on the walls was kind of interesting. It was by Eleanor Grosch. There was also plenty of Red Bull, jug wine and cookies on hand so I pretty much couldn't have been happier. Here's a photograph that I took:
I must have walked over this square of concrete nearly 100 times since 2006 and I never noticed this. It's so strange. I wonder who the mysterious Tristan is that put this here. I've certainly never met them.

Artcore

I went to Irregular Artbeat at the Skate Park of Tampa last night. The art was alright. Some of the pieces were better than others. The crowd is always great at SPOT events though. Lots of kids, lots of energy and lots of free Red Bull and vodka.

There was a live painting by Chad "Cheeta" Ruis, Austin "Artwar" Englan and "Bean" Spence. The image at the top is the end product of about an hour and a half of work.

There was skateboarding as well of course. Man, those little kids are really good. Events like this one make me think that Tampa might actually be a pretty cool city in five or ten years.
Here's a link to some more pictures from the night.

Today so far.

Work was rough. I usually love the hours spent perusing the Internet, slowly fueling my ever growing addiction to the seductive tendrils of the web. But today it was just sort of arduous. Maybe I'm turning a corner.

When it was time to go home I sighed with relief. This morning was muggy and gray but somehow the evening has turned golden and beautiful.

On my bike ride home I saw a really nice motorcycle. I don't know anything about these machines but this one looked tough and utilitarian, something about it drew me in.

So I stopped and took a photograph. Turns out the owner was a CrossFit instructor who just moved down here to help his friends start a studio.

He let me take a picture of his giant flipping tire as well...


Tonight I'm going to an art show at the Skate Park of Tampa. Pictures and video to follow I'm sure..

Weary

I'm tired. Tonight I decided to go on the Thursday Night bike ride. I used to go on it a lot but for some reason I stopped. Today I broke that streak.

My friend Ian left his fixed gear at my house a few weeks ago. I started trying to ride it the other day and somehow managed to teach myself how to lock up the wheel.

Feeling brave I took it on the ride tonight. It was a lot of fun but pretty exhausting. I think my legs are going to be feeling it tomorrow.

Here's a photo I took:

It's alive!

My Macbook Pro has been resurrected through judicious use of a Phillips 00 screwdriver and more patience than I knew I had.

That's about it.

Here's a photo I took today...


look closely and you can see a window washer

Death of a Macbook Pro

I got a Macbook Pro the three days ago in anticipation of my upcoming career as a visual journalist.

Today it died.

So frustrating!



That's all it does now. It even ate my install discs. I put one in and now I can't get it out no matter what I do. Arghh!!

Kim of Matt and Kim

The happiest drummer in the world puts out a beat at Czar

One step closer...

As I may or may have not mentioned I'm moving to India on May 13 to chase my dreams of becoming a professional photographer and all around media man. My friend Joshua is coming along too.

Now we're one step closer...

Ybor Rap

I saw this guy on my way out of the Matt and Kim show, which was amazing by the way. He started rapping and I turned on the camera. It was pretty great. I wish I had some change to give him but I didn't.

Stickers

Stickers
Originally uploaded by TristanWheelock

I saw this van while I was walking through the back alleyways of south Tampa. I dig it.

Sculptures of photos

Korean sculptor Gwon Osang makes his sculptures from photographs. Each sculpture takes a minimum of 300 images to create.

See more of his work here.

Uncommon Sense

5D Mark II + Olympus Zuiko 50mm f 1.8

Something old, something new...

Taken with an Olympus Zuiko 50mm f1.8 attached to a 5D mark II

Another old lens I picked up. It has more edge softness than the SMC-Takumar I was using yesterday. There's heavy vignetting but it sort of makes for a cool effect.

What do you think?

P.S.
The gun is fake

Neglect

I've definitely been neglecting this little outlet. There just seems to be so much to do these days.

I fell in love today. With a lens, har har. I discovered the beauty of attaching old lenses to new camera by using little adapter rings from Hong Kong.

This isn't a new thing. Apparently people have been doing it for a while. You can read all about it here.

Anyway, the weather was perfect when my little metal adapters came in the mail today so popped an SMC-Takumar 55mm f2 onto my trusty 5D and walked around the neighborhood. I got the lens for $13 at a thrift store with a Pentax camera body attached to it.

The results were surprisingly wonderful. Here's a little example. More later. (maybe)

Playing with new tools

As I've mentioned a bunch of times I can shoot video with my 5D mark II.

I haven't messed around with this function much that is until now. Shooting the documentary over the last couple of weeks gave me a perfect opportunity to get comfortable with the moving image and what it's good for.

I also learned how to use Final Cut and soundtrack pro to mash things up. I'm going to try and do this a lot more but for now here is some of the b-roll that I shot for our documentary.

Enjoy.


sparks fly


wind in the trees

One more step

My close friend Joshua and I collaborated on a piece for the St. Petersburg Times about cobblers. He wrote the story and I took the pictures. It will be in the metro section tomorrow.

Here's a tease:

Read the article here.

I made a film

Me and my team with a dead hawk in the foreground

The last two weeks were hectic to say the least. Long days that began early and ended late were the norm for myself and the two other members of my team as we stabbed blindly into the world of documentary film making.

Our film isn't perfect but I'm very proud of it. The effort it took to make was monumental and I feel confident that I could do it again and I will. The audio levels still need to be mastered so you may need to mess with your volume as you watch it.

It was filmed in high definition using the latest and greatest cameras. It's possible to watch it that way here but the file is massive so it may take something like an hour to optimize depending on your computer and internet connection. If you want to see it in it's native form I suggest letting it load and then going and doing something else and coming back to it. Some of the shots are really worth seeing in all of their ultra defined glory so if you like me, do me a favor and watch in high def.

An interesting point for those into this kind of thing. We mixed footage from Canon XHA1S AND MY 5D Mark II. See if you can tell what's what.

A little background: This piece was filmed in Clarksdale, a small erstwhile cotton town in Mississippi where blues music was born. The place has a surprisingly high concentration of artists. My team and I wanted to explore creativity and how the artists who lived int he town found their inspiration. The idea changed and morphed into something new as the filming and editing process unfolded.

Here's what we ended up with.

Let me know what you think...

On my way

Woke up before the sun and drove myself to the airport to catch a flight to Memphis and then a car to Clarksdale for the Delta 09 workshop.

Everything went off without a hitch although I was surprised that Northwest charged me $15 to check a bag. Oh how times have changed.

Got on the flight and off we went...

the clouds looked like an ocean of cottony marshmallows...
and the pools of water below glittered when the sun caught them...

We touched down in Memphis on time. I grabbed my bags got the car and met up with Diana, one of the students in the workshop.

She's a nice woman with a lot to talk about. We had an hour drive to get to know each other and we got along just fine.

We got to the Shack Up Inn a little before noon. This place is incredible I'll post a ton of photos later. Check out the website, it's from another world.

Time to eat. So that's all for now. More later.

1976

This is amazing. At first I didn't know what I was looking at or how it was possible.



Oh the things you can find on the internet...

I discovered something wonderful...

Usually when I find a new blog I just add it to the list and check it periodically. This time it's a bit different.

I found Franke James. Shes describes herself as, "an artist, photographer and writer whose artistic mission is to do something green and document it."

She creates these wonderful visual essays about things that happen to her or things she's doing. Her past essay topics include, a dinner with a stranger, reactions after a propane plant exploded near her home, and her quest to turn her driveway into a green paradise among others.

Take a look at her site, it's inspiring.

Withdrawal

I like this photo a lot. That's Shannon James with some guy who plays football for the Philadelphia Eagles. I saw them at Dave Navarro's party over the weekend. I was there covering it for the Times. The expression on both of their faces are great. This is how the other half lives I suppose.

Anyway... I'm about to turn my laptop in for repairs. I think it's going to be gone for about a week. I'm pretty sure that I've backed up everything but I'm sort of worried that I might have forgotten something. I have a pretty serious computer addiction so these next few days should be interesting. I might have to go read a book or something (gasp).

Lots

I just finished confirming everything for the Delta 09 Barefoot Workshop. I'm going to be heading to Clarksdale Mississippi for two weeks to learn how to make documentaries. It's pretty exciting.

Film making has been a secret dream of mine for a long time but I never took it too seriously. Now I have the tools and I'm about to get the knowledge. Watch out world.

I spent the weekend playing paparazzi at various glamorous and not so glamorous Super Bowl parties around Tampa. I'm going to edit the photographs this afternoon and have them up by this evening.

It was a challenging but overall rewarding experience. I can now say for certain that I never want to be a celebrity photographer but that I respect the people who do it.

And, I saw this:
I first read about it on Slate. The review had the headline, "Jean-Claude Van Damme Made Me Cry." I couldn't believe it but after seeing it I have to say I'm convinced and that I too teared up a little.

The film paints a very human and touching portrait of Van Damme the man rather than Van Damme "the muscle from Brussles." It addresses his custody battle over his daughter, his money problems and his difficulty dealing with stardom. And yeah, he delivers a beautiful poignant monologue that just sort of ties the whole thing together. Watch it. It's completely rewarding.

Sapped

Its been a battle to find energy today. I had plans to get a few pressing things done but I had to put them aside...

The above picture was taken yesterday during a long bile ride to north Tampa. Is it a commentary on our times, zeitgeist in physical form or just a book in the trash? Maybe all three?

Sunday cooking sessions have resumed after the Inauguration weekend hiatus. Take a look here if you care to see what I eat for some reason.

I'm having trouble making my brain work right now so I guess that's about it.

So I'll leave you to ruminate on this other little gem I saw on yesterday's bike journey.

Back in town.

The inauguration was an epic experience, trying both physically and mentally. The thousand miles of driving, the arctic blasts of wind on the morning of the big day the crush of the historic crowd it all blended into a heavy weight that I was glad to carry but also glad to put down.

Now I'm back home in the Sunshine state and the cold seems to have followed me here. I've been sort of slow getting back into the swing of things. The task of editing the videos and photos that I took over the past weeks seems daunting so I've been taking my time with putting any of it up here it. It'll happen soon though.

On a side note if you live in Tampa and picked up a copy of the Times on Friday check out page 3b I have a nice big photo there. The content isn't all that exciting but I'm proud of it none the less.

I don't have an inauguration pictures but I do have a few snaps that I took over the past few days. I think all of the Egglestein and Shore and Polliwog(link totally worth clicking) and Too Much Chocolate kids are rubbing off on me...

Inauguaration Eve

Today was long but pretty amazing. We managed to get actual tickets to the inauguration courtesy of a gracious senator and some inside family ties.

Tomorrow we'll be standing in the silver section with a view of the jumbo trons and maybe even Obama himself.

I've sort of lost track of time at this point, that coupled with the cold weather, excitement and constant walking has me exhausted right now.

Check it out though, we're official. Look here and here.

and take a look at this...


An activist group set up a giant inflatable Bush and encouraged passersby to throw shoes at it. There were more than 1000 pairs of shoes to choose from al of which were donated to charity afterward.

Pretty sweet?

All right, time to go to bed...

We made it

We're (we being myself and my friends Joshua and Ian) here in D.C. now, braving the freezing weather. I made the poor choice of wearing Chuck Taylor's and now I am really regretting it.

I don't know how much I'll be adding to this blog while we're up here. It's turned into a bit of a work trip as we got picked up by the St. Pteresburg Times. You can follow that here.

The drive up was fun. Not as bad as you might expect. Sleeping in shifts took a lot of the pain out of it.


We saw a lot of wonderful kitschy roadside American. Below are some pictures you won't find on the Times blog: