Today we shot at an old abandoned school. Not kidding. Toatally cool (Im drunk). So we had like a zillion kids come in and do shootz, most of whom were cool and excited, some of whom were either annoying or their parents were annoying. BUT nevertheless, a very good day. Also i am drunk.

Here is the awesome shoot in the awesome gymnas\ium/theater:

Here is the awesomest kid and his girlfriend that ive ever seen (sorry i dont have a better picture of him) that we ran into at a bowling alley later on:

More to come: more pictures, i promise? and also posters, you know those cool old cliche ones that have a picturte of an orangatang on them that say “hang in there”?? yes/. those.

Okay, so we weren’t in Walker the whole time… we were all OVER the place. Bemidji, Cass Lake, Park Rapids, you name it. And YES we went to the Eelpout festival. It was disgusting.

Here is one of the many things I am proud to say that I did today: photographed a 12-year-old girl in a Versace dress on a frozen lake… (who probably has THE MOST beautiful big doe eyes I have ever seeeeeen) observe:

Also photographed: a cop, his drug-sniffing dog, little girls in cheerleading uniforms, a church youth group member named max who is all punk-rock. Needless to say, I had an interesting and wonderful day. Especially since I got to see Alex for 5 mins while I was at dinner at an italian restaurant in downtown bemidji.

More to come: abandoned high schools? hippie teachers? flamboyant new york men in fur-lined hats?!?! Stay with us!

Alright guys first of all, i have a bandaid on my finger, so if i type weird its cuz i have a bandaid on my fingewr. Second, here weeee GO! I am officially on a W magazine shoot. We (Josh, Phil and I) just arrived here in a fancy red rented dodge durango. At the super 8 motel. And I have a room ALL to myself?!?@!

Look ther is my stuff so you know its mine! On the bed! Exciting! So, seriously, if i am this excited already and we havent even met high-profile W people yet, or started shooting aything, i am going to be a mess when they get here.

More to come: basketball games? dinners at bars? pictures of my classy co-workers? Stay tuned!

PS: sorry if i over-shadow everyones’s posts this weekend, but i think i will make a post everyday. soooo. there.

Today, Emma and I visited Bryan in the hospital. In case you didnt know, Bryan fell and bumped his head (sorry Bryan), but he is okay… Emma and I went to the hospital to make sure. AND we made him delicious cupcakes too, maybe because WE wanted cupcakes, we’re not sure. They were Funfetti (“AWESOME-FETTI”) with chocolate frosting. The best. And here they are:

Also, we were a little excited when we were handed a card by the cute, old information desk-lady with Bryan’s room number on it. Cute. It was much more hepful than the ladies at the cardiology ward reception desk who just peered at us from behind their computers, not wanting to help us. And here it is: (PS: Notice the last elevators on the list. We wished we had taken those!)

In other news (or lack-of-news really), the semester is going fine. Albeit a little slowly, but fine. I have already started my senior project, which is scary. And I am starting to realize that this project will be what I exhibit next semester when I graduate, whether I like it anymore or not. You know how it goes with work (well, all of you artists out there), where you could like it one day, but hate it the next. Hopefully that wont be the case. But besides the semester going slowly and the heavy and intimidating work-load, I have been in high spirits lately! For those of you who know Alex, my boyf-o, I am happy to announce that he finally got the internship that he wanted at DigiKey (it was a long and arduous interview process)! Despite the semi-dumb-looking website, they are an awesome company. UPSIDES: The will be paying Alex handsomely (like $18/hr) for 12 weeks this summer, including 4 paid vacation days AND he gets his own cubicle, not to mention he will be working with a few of his buddies that had the internship last summer and now WORK THERE (cool!). Camping anyone? Hiking? Biking on the SIDEWALKS?!? DOWNSIDES: I will be moving to the middle of nowhere this summer to be with my wonderfuls (you will have to zoom out quite a bit). I expect you all to visit me on the weekends. Im serious. Of course, I will be coming home for SES. So we will be fine. And I will get to do a whole lot of shooting while I’m up there, as well as get a gigantic change of scenery, which I think coud be a very good thing. Plus, I look forward to making dinner for my baby and playing cute little housewife for once! BARF!

Some of you may have heard already, but I am so cool. I recently (and when I say recently, I mean last fall) scored an internship with the photographer I most idolize on this entire planet… well, in Minneapolis at least. His name is Alec Soth, and this is his website. So, in the last few weeks I havent gotten to work with him personally because he has been in LA, Paris, etc. shooting fashion of all things. He is not a fashion photographer, but apparantly it is a new cool thing for big magazines to commission famous artists to do fashion spreads for them. For instance, Roger Ballen’s shoot for The New Yorker or some such magazine. (Sorry I couldnt find the images online) You can go to Alec’s Blog to read about his encounter with Cat Power during his latest Paris fashion shoot.

ANYWHO… here is the exciting part: Alec has been commisioned to do a fashion shoot featuring locals from Walker, Minnesota wearing couture for W magazine, and he’s asked MEEE to come along!!! I get to ride in an RV and stay in an awesome Super8 motel with his entourage, therefore BECOMING PART of his entourage, and help him shoot! He expressed sympathy for me in thinking that I might be bored the whole time, but I dont think driving around in an awesome rental car doing errands for Alec Soth on a professional fashion shoot will be at all boring, do you? No.

PLUS, we found out that the annual Walker, MN Eelpout Festival will be happening on the exact same weekend. For those of you NOT from Minnesota (which I guess is all of you), the Eelpout festival is NUTS. Its this really ugly, kind of disgusting fish, that a whole crazy festival is built around. People jump into a hole in the ice naked and all kinds of wierd things. We will see how that goes.

And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is my big news.

As I promised, dear shambles, I have returned to post more. I dont know, would you like to hear about my schedule as per a usual first shamby-post? Or perhaps something more interesting… with pictures! I think pictures.

I am taking advanced photography this semester, as mentioned before. And today I had my first real ADVANCED crit. It went surprisingly well, considering I didnt have to size of prints he requested. Whatever. (OH, also I should mention that my professor for this class is a man named Paul Shambroom and he is a photographer and he is famous and I like him! He had a lecture and show open just today at Katie Nash. OH WIERD.) He liked where I am coming from, and I got some very goooood feedback. Excited!

Here are some of the images I’ve made so far. The first one is from last semester, the next one is new that I made for this class, but as a continuation from the last project…

So hello. I told Joel that I originally did not want to write posts particularly on the shamby…. but I suppose that may have been because I didnt have much to say. Now I will. I am taking an internship as well as being in my final full semester here at MCAD, and so I’d like to share it with you all… But alas, my login wasnt working, and Joel had to fix it.

And now, as I bask in the glory of making my first shamb-post, I wait for my noodles to be done, and anticipate nervously my first official crit for Advanced Photography (SCARY), I will wish you all a happy friday!

More to come… I promise.