Parade Day

I stopped by the St. Patrick's Day parade yesterday. Unfortunately I wasn't up for making a day of it, having been out late/early the night before at A.J.'s studio party. My friends were watching the parade from a second floor apartment on Delaware Ave. The weather was in the mid 50s and sunny which is the best weather anyone can remember for parade day. I took a few iPhone photos:

The Zoo at Night & The Kitchen Window

My former employer had the office Holiday party at the Buffalo Zoo last week. As part of the evening's events we were given a tour of the newly constructed rain forest exhibit. It was strange because the exhibit is normally lit by natural light, and at night there was only minimal illumination. We ended up peering into dark enclosures hoping to spot something. I was told that the lights that are there are to help the Scarlet Ibises, which fly free in the building, to avoid getting eaten by the small caimens. I took the above iPhone photo of a Basiliscus lizard, it captures the weird (and wonderful) fakeness of zoo environments.

Speaking of fake environments, I created one of my own a few days ago. We have a window box over our kitchen sink that during the warmer seasons we fill with plants. Unfortunately, in the winter it becomes a plant killing point of major heat loss. In the past we have done a half assed job of tacking plastic over it, which creates an ugly and depressing scene to look at while doing dishes. This time around I decided to do it right with the plastic that you tape up and then blow dry to tighten. I had the idea that I could replace the plants with a diorama of branches and $2. craft store birds. I also threw in a real bird's nest, rocks, bones and rubber animals. I'm pretty happy with the effect, it's considerably better than nothing.

The Fairs

We got back from Miami yesterday afternoon. We had a good time and saw a tremendous amount of art. I skipped the Miami/Basel convention center (A.J. went), but we both attended NADA, both Aqua Fairs, Art Miami, Photo Miami, Scope, Art Asia and the Art Positions Containers on the beach. It all gets a bit repetitive after a while. Most people seem to feel the need to judge fairs as a whole, this one was good, that one was bad, yadda yadda. I have a hard time looking at the fairs that way, I basically just try to to remember individual artists that I like. I will, however, say that the containers were awful. The one exception was Martha Friedman's huge rubber bands in Wallspace's container (and I'm not just saying that because we are both in the Armand Bartos show, the giant rubber bands were cool). The whole thing seemed more low key than last year (Recessionista!), although I heard that Jay-Z and Shakira were among the celebrities spotted at the big fair, and that has to qualify as encouraging.

Some of the ephemera collected over the course of three days of intense art tourism

This is the dreamiest, weirdest iPhone photo I have taken so far, a cloud and its reflection on the Gulf of Mexico.

Low Rollers

View of Miami from the art shuttle as it crosses the MacArthur Causeway

The Aqua Hotel, home of the Aqua Art Fair. I had work here with Black & White Gallery. I've only been in the hotel during the art fair (each room is taken over by a gallery), but I'd really like to stay there under normal conditions sometime.

A.J.and a new friend at Aqua Wynwood.

me

This lucky guy snagged a hammock outside the NADA fair. It was a very pleasant scene in the NADA garden. While we were sitting there drinking beer, Brian Eno's Here He Comes from Before and After Science drifted out of the sound system.

iPhone Travel

I'm really starting to like the camera in my iPhone. It is just a bit unpredictable which makes it nice for casual travel documentation. Below are some shots from trip to NYC for the Armand Bartos opening.

By the way, I have nothing to do with those carts, they are by the sculpture Arman (1928-2005)

Getting an iPhone / iPhone Photography

Anybody who has been around me for more that five minutes over the course of the last year knows that I have been dying to get an iPhone. At first I was willing to buy out of my Verizon contract but then I decided to wait until the 3G phone came out in July, at which point it made more sense to wait until my contract expired in October. I finally have my iPhone and I have to say, it totally lives up to the hype. There are too many good qualties to list but overall the touch screen interface is amazing, it makes all sorts of functions easier to perform.

The camera on the phone is pretty good (amazingly good compared to the one on my "Motorazr" phone). I've been taking pictures with it over the last week and a half and I'm still getting used to the way the camera behaves. All of the following pictures were taken with the iPhone.

This is a self-portrait taken in the women's shoe section at Marshall's. With email, text, and internet, the iPhone has totally changed the experience of waiting for Mrs. Projects outside of the fitting room.

Because of the very limited depth of field the iPhone camera pictures can have a hazy, Holga like quality to them.

The Adam E. Cornelius pulls into Buffalo Harbor

A.J. Fries holds up his self portrait at Casa di Pizza after the Bills lose 25-16 to the Dolphins

Mrs. Roper, note Mr. Roper coming through the door.

We went to a party on Halloween night. I made our costumes an hour before we left the house. At first I was going to make them into masks but I realized that it would be too difficult to wear them for more than a few minutes. The level of commitment is lower with this solution, but that's probably for the best.

I was lucky enough to see this Gorilla pushing a stroller down Elmwood Ave. The woman on the left, in the background of the picture, was a startled when the gorilla overtook her.