Tuesday, January 27, 2009

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.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

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...

Monday, January 19, 2009

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:





Saturday, January 17, 2009

Out of the gate...

We're getting ready to hit the road so I'll keep this short. I took a bunch of photos of our supply run today but I don't have time to upload them.

We're actually doing this. We're actually taking the Kia up to Washington D.C. to witness history in action.

We got the ok to blog for the St. Pete Times while were up there so check us out there.

There won't be any internet on the road so I'll be using twitter to keep the story fresh. Keep up with us on our way north there.

I guess that's it for now. When me set up the command center in out hotel room I'll add some pictures and such. Until then. Ciao.

Friday, January 16, 2009

A day of questionable new media...

Now I've discovered Yelp.

I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I''m pretty addicted to the Internet as it is. The site seems more useful than Twitter, but still I just don't know.

Sigh sigh. I'm sure I'll spend too much time here putting in my two cents about everything Tampa.

Tweet Tweet

In order to offer the fullest up to the minute coverage of our journey into the frozen north I've joined Twitter.

I used to think it was silly and I didn't really understand the point of it but I've been hearing so much about it lately that I decided to get in on the action.

I'll try to add a little sentence to it at least everyday and then many more times when we hit the road via my cell phone.

Tweet Tweet!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Inauguration or bust

My friends Denver, Ian and I have decided to road trip to the upcoming inauguration next Tuesday. There's a lot of prep work involved.

We're essentially a trio of thin blooded Floridian yahoos daring to ride a '97 Kia Sephia into the icy north. We need warm clothing, we need supplies we need to make sure the car is going to get us there.

Time off has already been secured and the plan is in action. We started fixing the Kia yesterday. Check it out here.

I'll be documenting our misadventures here and on flickr. It should be pretty epic.

Time flies

Judging from the nearly 12 million views I'm going to guess that most people are at least sort of familiar with the Noah time lapse. It was pretty cool and the Simpsons even made a spoof of it.

Now self described "media dude" Eirik Solheim has also made a pretty interesting time lapse by photographing the seasons. Pretty interesting stuff. Check it out below.

One year in 40 seconds from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo.And in true gentlemanly fashion he shows you how to do it yourself here. I wish I had some sort of interesting view to try this on...

Monday, January 12, 2009

Panoramas from the archive.

One of the photographers from my job agreed to take a look at my work. So I was in the process of looking through the photographs that I had made over the past year and found a bunch of panoramas that I took but never assembled.

I had Photoshop put them together for me. Check it out:




More here...

Sunday...


...was a pretty great day, so great that I blew my streak of uninterrupted blogging.

It started with diner food at the Pine Grove family restaurant and ended with late night musical conversations that stretched into the wee hours.

The Pine Grove is a wonderful little place that I've always been curious about. I'd never been inside and was excited when I set foot in the door. This place has a full bar! Drunken old folks sipping whiskey on Sundays is priceless. The food was good too, typical greasy omelets and heavy duty itis inducing biscuits were the order of the day.

I fought off the post Pine Grove food coma with an impromptu road trip to St. Pete to fix my ailing 5D mark II.

My friend Denver and I have decided to start cooking for the week on Sundays. Yesterday was the maiden voyage in what I hope to be a series of culinary misadventures. Follow us here.

Saturday, January 10, 2009


Today I finally took the plunge and bought the Canon 5D Mark II. It's a lot of camera and I don't see it getting replaced any time soon.

I took it out on a leisurely bike ride down Bayshore Blvd. and eventually to Davis Island. I saw this blimp and it looked sort of lonely out there by itself on the empty airfield.

I'm pretty sure that this is the blimp that once upon a time wore the logos for the Outback Bowl. Now that's over and it's naked and waiting for another mission...

The new camera is wonderful right now. It can shoot crazy high quality HD Video in really low light situations. As soon as I find something interesting to shoot I'll upload some clips here.

That's all for now. Time to enjoy Saturday night.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Reppin'

I was sitting at Sam & Eddies enjoying a delicious slice of pizza when this beauty drove by. He was stopped at the light so I had enough time to calmly reach for my camera and capture this beautiful scene.

If you look closely you can see that he's hood tough. If you look closer than that you can see he's rollin' on 26s.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

William Eggleston and Stephen Shore...

Are two photographers who I've been turned on to recently. Apparently both of them pioneered color photography as an art form in the 70s. Eggleston's was the first one-person exhibition of color photographs in the history of New York's MOMA. He used dye transfers to get extreme saturation out of his prints, that combined with his ability to find interesting concentrations of hue in mundane places results in some pretty intriguing stuff. Stephen Shore was kind of doing the same thing. Both of them manage to create some pretty great images, stuff that I wouldn't think to capture.



Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Not the photograph I wanted to take...


Boring...
Originally uploaded by TristanWheelock
I got off work feeling good. The air was crisp and the crush of mundane duty wasn't so heavy today. I felt light on the two wheels that carried me home, I felt like taking a photograph.

I wanted to add to the lagging numbers of my 100 strangers project. I got back to my apartment, changed and set off by bike to find a subject. It was tough finding people and when I did for some reason I just froze up. I couldn't ask them if I could take their photograph. I felt awkward and a bit overwhelmed.

I kept going through different approaches in my head but when the time came to open my mouth I couldn't find the words so I just biked on by. I don't know what it was. I suppose rejection but when you think about it objectively "no" really isn't anything to worry about. Alas and alack.

I'm disappointed in myself but I'm going to use the feeling as a motivator. Hopefully there will be more faces up here soon until then I'm sorry you have to settle for this faceless landscape, at least the sky is sort of pretty...

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

There you have it...

Blur

The past week has been a blur and thus I haven't posted, as I am just now getting back into the swing of things.

Sitting in my apartment I no longer hear the shuffle of feet above me. My best friend has moved to Brooklyn for bigger and better adventures than this midsized Florida city can offer. And so an apartment that I spent so many years visiting is empty.

The New Year is here. It's a time for transition and new growth I suppose. I feel good if not a bit sad and nostalgic every once and awhile. There are big things happening and sometimes I even feel like I might be part of something.

I haven't made any resolutions myself but I'm inspired by the lofty goals and bravery of my peers. In four months I hope to be back in India, this time with a friend. As for the time being I suppose I'll just keep shooting and hope that I can get more of that kind of work at the St. Pete Times.

I hope the New Year brings good things to you as well. There are some pictures floating around here and there but I think most of them will be confined to my hard drive.On another note I have been digging through suitcases and dusty boxes lately. They're filled with treasure and some of it has been uploaded to flickr.

That's all for now. I'm off to watch elephants eat ice cream. Maybe I'll have a picture of it up here later...