a morning kitchen quiet

foxleaps @ 2009-06-28T12:36:00

2009-06-28T19:40:53Z

organizing my school locker pt.1

2009-06-07T23:26:02Z

Print Sale

I have five C-Prints of this photograph for sale at $25 Canadian each (~ €15 and just over $20 US).
The dimensions are roughly 12" x 12" / 30 cm x 30 cm and the paper is matte Fujicolor Crystal Archive.
You can contact me at kitchenquiet at gmail.com if you are interested!

foxleaps @ 2009-04-03T13:56:00

2009-04-03T20:58:50Z

This was a January winter morning in the apple orchards in Bad Nauheim, Germany.

twins

2009-03-24T03:17:35Z

Today I lied and said I hated Vancouver.
After three years, Vancouver, I like you. Even in your constant rain. As long as I can see your mountains once in a while!

p.s. forever flat fiber black!

foxleaps @ 2009-03-03T16:24:00

2009-03-04T00:26:23Z

Thankfully, the days of 10% Layer Gaussian Blur seem to be numbered.

sharkfin, cat tail

2009-03-02T09:20:40Z

glaciers

2009-02-27T06:15:30Z

I am documenting the sad/amusing icebergs up and down Ontario.

light dot

2009-02-27T05:50:16Z

early evening sun over a meadow outside of Nanaimo, Vancouver Island in late summer,
late afternoon sun (reflection) through fog over Vancouver in winter.

foxleaps @ 2009-02-24T01:30:00

2009-02-24T09:37:03Z

foxleaps @ 2009-02-02T11:42:00

2009-02-02T19:45:42Z

foxleaps @ 2009-01-21T10:19:00

2009-01-21T19:00:52Z

Eight glasses of plain yoghurt consumed over two days in Florence in December.

foxleaps @ 2009-01-14T10:11:00

2009-01-14T18:26:51Z

foxleaps @ 2008-09-15T18:24:00

2008-09-16T01:46:18Z

The pooled apples from my previous journal entry are invisibly present here in the small lake (see center right) within the large lake. Reaching the bottom is no small feat, as nobody actually has any business climbing around the area.

I am trying to collect a lot of photographs in order to turn them into a series on my favourite hometown quarry, which is located in the fields by my house. I first went inside (through a small tunnel which I was obviously convinced was entirely my secret) during elementary school in order to collect rose quartz and race down gravel hills. I love the traveling swamps and terrifying machinery and overgrown canyons. I visit it every half year or so, and every time it manages to look different. Today the deep canyon is filled with water, tomorrow it is shallow and dry. The quarry constantly shrinks and grows beyond the railway tracks.

The photograph above shows a part of the quarry during late summer late evening light. Its right walls are lined with a string of trees, which grow right at its steep edge. During winter time, the trees' branches are caked in frost and incredibly white against the turquoise or yellow glow of the canyon below.

foxleaps @ 2008-09-07T20:05:00

2008-09-08T03:12:22Z

the coal sack

2008-09-08T02:50:32Z

foxleaps @ 2008-07-17T14:28:00

2008-07-17T21:02:33Z

Three things I do not like, and three things I do:

1.
Lense flare in animation. It makes no sense! If a lense isn't somewhere involved in the creation process, there is no lense flare. A person overlooking a sun-drenched valley will not see it unless they are looking through a camera. Now, I realize that it probably has something to do with the fact that animation tries to mimic live-action film, with established camera movements,angles, et cetera, but this is taking it too far. Also, I suppose people just happen to enjoy lense flare (I understand, I do), but it just doesn't have any business in animation.

2.
Blankets over sheets. The concept of sleeping underneath a seperate sheet and blanket -- both usually tucked into the mattress-- horrified me when I visited the United States during my childhood. Who has a good sleep with their legs restrained? Having untucked sheet & blanket, I would always wake up either slightly freezing from having kicked the blanket off of the bed, or feel the horror of the scratchy blanket on my face. (The blankets seemed to always be scratchy. Possibly due to generations of washing?)
I deem the European concept of winter/summer duvets far superior.

3.
A material masquerading as another material. I have "stone" tiles in my kitchen, which reveal themselves as somehow synthetic upon closer inspection (suspiciously symmetrical patterns), and it drives me crazy. This is what I believe: If what you are aiming for is too costly, put in the effort of finding a substitute, not an imitation. I would much rather see simple white tiles in my kitchen. I also can't stand plastic toggle-fastenings on duffle coats (which is treated to mimic wood or horn). Somehow, the imitations always end up weighing less, which is a sad side-effect. I like weight.

1.
Marlene's fur smells like a sunny, dusty library.

2.
Letter knives, also "envelope openers", though I enjoy that term less. I like them crafted entirely of wood, which makes them feel airy, or of a particularly heavy material. As I said, I quite enjoy weight, especially in small objects. Like 100% brass belt buckles.
At any rate: Letter knives are beautiful (as are knives in general), and their dying out is a shame. A swift cut through paper is so satisfying!

3.
Kinou Nani Tabeta. Thank you over and over, New Treasures! I will devour any non-BL Fumi Yoshinaga. Sharing watermelons is fantastic.

foxleaps @ 2008-06-03T23:28:00

2008-06-04T07:10:48Z

Apparently, when overly exhausted, I start doing things that no longer make sense, and haven't made sense in years:

1. The other night, nearly falling asleep in front of the internet, I began typing nedstatbasic.net... in order to check my site tracker*. The tracker of my website which hasn't been online since 2003. Checking my site tracker for interesting links, along with incessantly refreshing my livejournal friendspage, was something that I would do when I was essentially too lazy to go to bed and sleep.

2. Yesterday, getting off my bicycle after a day of riding all over the place, I attempted to kick out its non-existent kickstand -- I can't remember when I last owned a bicycle which wasn't a roadbike and actually had one of those things. At the end of elementary school?

I'm fine with a bicycle kickstand being ingrained into my subconscious, but a website tracker? That's just low.

* motigo webstats? What the hell?

2:24 AM Attack of Nostalgia Edit: I miss livejournal. I want to show up here more often again. Maybe.

a morning kitchen quiet

2008-05-28T18:39:11Z

So, I have a small show of my photographs here in Vancouver at the moment, in a small tea house. They have been up since May 2nd, and will be taken down on May 31st. I suppose I could have mentioned this in here sooner? Well, just in case there is somebody here who lives in town and would like to have a look -- there are a few days left, and I am very happy and grateful to anybody who makes a visit. Thank you for the kind opportunity, Ruriko.

Location information!

SAWA tea & gallery
a map: http://sawatea.com/contact

hours: Monday to Friday 11:00 - 18:00, Saturday 11:30 - 18:00 (however, I will be removing the prints in the late Saturday afternoon)

There are a few handfuls of handmade prints, as well as a batch of polaroids and a large digital landscape print.

grey on gray

2008-04-06T20:30:04Z

Printing matters! It matters nearly (or equally?) as much as the photograph itself. It's true that a good print won't save a lackluster image, but it can certainly ruin the good and improve the lousy.
I spent the last fall semester leafing through stacks over stacks of envelopes, unearthing old negatives and taking them to my school's colour darkroom. A lot of the material I printed dates back as far as 2004 -- but working on the images myself, with all the ridiculously minute colour adjustment that comes with hand printing, they felt as relevant to me today as they did back then. They still feel like my photographs, and now likely even more so than before.

To illustrate the first point of this paragraph:

That first print? It's a pretty terrible print. That's how it came back from the printing lab several years ago. There isn't much to this photograph apart from its subtle shades of colour, of which practically none translated into the first print. The wall is a dark drab mess and my favourite part -- the pale chimneys against the pale sky -- fails completely. Where's my white on white? Where's my teal gutter?
I have always liked this image (enough even to post it on this journal back in the day), but I feel that printing it myself allowed me to actually bring out what I felt was buried below.

I actually have a handful prints of these four for sale, if anybody is interested. They are printed on 11x17 inch (~28x43 cm) Fujicolor Crystal Archive paper. The image itself is not quite this size, as the 35 mm format won't fill the entire sheet without cropping. The actual size, I would estimate, is therefore around 9x16 inches. I think I'd ask for $25 (Canadian and US), or €15, for one print. If you would like one, write to me at kitchenquiet at gmail.com!
This is my first time doing this, so I'm just starting with a few ... but hopefully I can offer something a bit more substantial soon!

foxleaps @ 2008-04-01T01:47:00

2008-04-01T09:15:39Z

I recently moved into a new apartment, and this apartment has a mystery heatsource in one of its bathroom's closets. Hidden radiator?
One of my favourite things in life has always been to place my pajamas on top of the radiator in the winter evening, so that they are warm and smell nice (why is it that clothes always smell so nice when they have been exposed to this particular kind of dry heat?) when I step out of the bath.
So now? Now I keep my pajamas in this mystery radiator bathroom drawer during the daytime, and have toasty pajamas EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.

This journal entry is now already so thoroughly lame, that I might as well emphasize just HOW MUCH I enjoy the scent of fresh laundry. I cannot stand perfumed detergent, but somehow clothing washed with supposedly unscented detergent smells to me like morning air, wind and dry wood, shade, and so on and so forth. The detergent my mother uses at home is, of course (since this is all perfectly irrational and tied to nostalgia) the absolute best, and I have many times considered bringing some over on the airplane. However, in the end I always end up deciding that it's a scent that has no business being here, and absolutely needs to stay where it is. Also, my suitcase would probably just end up being held up for cocaine suspicion.

What an enthralling entry this has been. Perhaps next time I could talk about I enjoy arranging stacks of linen by shade of colour in my white wooden linen closet.
Good night!

afternoons

2008-03-07T03:55:25Z

This is Marlene's new enemy, Pamphlet (named so after Jarrett misheard the name of a cat named Panther a long time ago). He flops and begs for attention, and has a beautiful tail which was covered in tar when we took him home from the shelter. This morning, he was bathed in baby bubble bath and then spent the afternoon drying his coat on our bed.

So much more cat fur all over my future. So much.

foxleaps @ 2008-02-18T12:41:00

2008-02-18T20:44:27Z

Last night when I was leaning against a fireplace, playing Phoenix Wright on my Gameboy and eating Animal Crackers, it occured to me that the last and only other time I had ever eaten Animal Crackers had been roughly 18 years earlier, while playing Super Mario Land on my Gameboy on my cousin's porch.

This morning, I crossed the Lionsgate Bridge for the first time in thick fog. This is something I have been anticipating ever since I came here two years ago, so it was incredibly exciting.
Instead of distant mountains and sea (which I'll gladly take any other day of the year), today the view was such:

Further fog sites:

Glass reflecting light into the haze!

foxleaps @ 2008-01-20T12:17:00

2008-01-20T20:18:43Z

foxleaps @ 2008-01-09T19:01:00

2008-01-10T03:07:08Z

foxleaps @ 2007-12-30T15:58:00

2007-12-30T14:59:59Z