fitness

a photo from a funeral I shot this morning, but I'm afraid of entering a Catholic church

Last time I updated this blog was more than three months ago.

A week ago I was in Austin, TX for the National College Media Convention. I came back on Sunday and went directly from the airport to work. And the next day, I felt that story of I was having fun in Austin is a long time ago.

And today is just a week from the Austin trip but I don't feel the distance is only seven days long. However, it makes me feel that's more than that.

Well, everything is going well, school, working at the Lobo, girlfriend and myself. Except our football team is 0-8 now, I dare saying they will be 0-9 tonight.

Sometimes happiness is really simple and easy, a 'Good night babe!' from girlfriend, a 'Good job!' from boss, a 'Thank you!' from a stranger...... something like that

I brought some photo ideas back from Austin. Will work them these days. Maybe I can finish one or two independent projects soon.

A day before my 365th day in the states

A Sunday without work, makes me feel a little empty and the heat of summer. It's hot in my house and every where else. I planned a lot of things to do, but didn't do any during the day. Finally I went for jogging on the Johnson Field to get rid of all the extra energy. And finished reading some of the books I borrowed from the UNM fine arts library.

There're a few I really like are Elliott Erwitt's 'Personal Exposures' and 'Handbook', Bruce Davidson 'East 100 Street' and 'Circus'. Well, looking at famous artists work always gives me new ideas. But on this lazy, it inspired me to look at my hard drive to seek some old stuff.

I do need to work on my portfolio to seek a job in a bigger newspaper. Since Albuquerque Journal is not hiring anyone. Santa Fe, Las Cruces,... or somewhere in New Mexico or in other state. Nowadays, photographers are just becoming cheap labors.

One good news, we are going to launch the new Daily Lobo website (http://dailylobo.com) very soon. This is the biggest thing I've done since I joined this newspaper. I am very excited about that.

And also tomorrow will be my 365th day in the U.S., which means I haven't seen my family in a year. I should cook some Chinese food to celebrate that I survived here. (Well, my mon once said 'If you can survive in China, you can survive anywhere.' She is probably right.)

football + yoga

When I got Issac's message yesterday, I laughed out.
The first request I received this week is to take photos of the UNM football players doing yoga. It would be fun to watch those people that are huge doing yoga which is the thing mostly for skinny people and they do it very slow.


A few players showed up, but the ones that attended were concentrated on doing yoga. Very soon, I figured out they seemed more interested in looking that the yoga teacher than doing yoga. ( This is the universal phenomenon but wouldn't been included in the reporter's article.)
Issac told me this lady is Mike Locksley's wife. And Mike Locksley is the UNM football head coach.


ps, Hope UNM football team could do a good job in the coming season. (At least, should be better than last year.)
Well, I really don't understand why the Mountain West Conference has a stupid preseason poll, which picked the Lobos to finish in the 7th place in the 2009 race. ( I don't want to deny the fact that the Lobos didn't do a good job before, but the preseason poll couldn't do any good to motivate the college students. Come on, they are just college kids.)

Renewal (finished project)

The final selections of this project 'Renewal'.
I shoot most of the photos at the beginning of summer.
(Look down from the top, two photos of each is a pair, hope you can find the connections)

lunch break

I used my the lunch break to shoot the UNM football team press conference. When I got there I couldn't believe they chose to have it outside. It was 1 o'clock in the afternoon and over 100 degrees.
Well, I got used to it. I'm just complaining.

ps, I just found the color of this photo is different from how it looks like on Photoshop. Even, with the same photo, but different color on the Bridge compared to Photoshop, the latter one is more vivid.

A family and a restaurant (a work in progress)

It is hard for me to come up with a better name for this series of photos.
Finally, I got the phone call from Brenda: she said the owner would let me take photos of his restaurant, which is one of my favorite Mexican restaurants in town. My friend Brenda's whole family works there.
Well, that's the reason I had access to the kitchen and free food~




ps, I find I always need to be ready to answer the question from people 'why do you want to take a photo of me?' Anytime, yeah!!

photographers are poor people

Have you ever heard of a journalist or a photographer that was a millionaire? I asked my mom this question when we were talking on the phone. Before I said that, she was telling me to save money so I will be able to buy a house or get married....which are the things she thinks are good for me but which also cost a lot of money.

She was upset when I told her the bad news--that the only one way for a photographer to become rich is to win the lottery. Hopefully, one day she will understand, why her son left the shitty country he grew up in and came here to get a job which will never make him rich.
But the good news I told her before I hang up is I am still buying a lottery ticket every week.

Well, I know I always have an excuse for why I am always lack of money, but at least I pay my rent on time every month. But I am thinking about to live in my car in the future, probably in November.

three portrait shots from the Rainbow Gathering 2009

ps, I'm still working on the audio editing(that's pain in the ass), hopefully I can finish the sound slides before the weekend

back from Rainbow Gathering

Finally I got back Cuba, New Mexico...Even though I was walking in the Sante Fe National Forest looking for my car for at least four hours. With my vocabulary, I can only use the words 'Great' , ' Amazing' and ' Fantastic' to describe everything, but I swear it is much more than that.

Honestly, my first time hearing about this gathering was last Sunday at the budget meeting. Then I checked their website and wikipedia page, figured it out it was gonna be very cool to go and join, though I'd heard there would be a lot of drug use and crazy people( definitely I won't tell my mom about those things).

There were two days camping out with a lot of people in the forest, a place without internet or cell phone service. People put their information on the bulletin board so their friends would be able to find them.

One hour after I got there, I turned my cell phone off.

'You are in Cuba,New Mexico, but here is not Mountain Time anymore. IT'S RAINBOW TIME.’

Third of July, it was getting dark, people were siting there with empty bowls and bottles, waiting for the food and water to be served. The upside-down national flag might seems to offend a lot of people...but they are hippies

Fourth of July. In the morning, it was all silent: no people talked, just gathered there, praying for peace...Then it started to rain.

I was hoping I could stay longer, but unfortunately I had to work on Sunday. I am going next year if I am still in this country.

get it started

I created this blog a long time ago, but whenever I have the idea to make things good( I mean to make it a serious business), I always have trouble to start it.

Finally, I told myself that, no matter what, I should start doing this.

Here I go...

Photos from the 2,700 miles driving across the South that my friend Nick and I did in June

The border of Texas and Oklahoma

Heavy rain in Missouri

In Kansas, old highways in America are confusing

the Picasa album link: http://picasaweb.google.com/max.hanjf/DrivingAcrossTheSouth#

most of the photos are taken when we were driving

Well, hopefully this is a very bad beginning. The project I am working on is coming soon......