Vivid Narcissism

Matt v. THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD!

2010-07-30T10:41:00.000-07:00

Puppy thrown at German biker gang

A German student "mooned" a group of Hell's Angels and hurled a puppy at them before escaping on a stolen bulldozer, police have said.

The man drove up to a Hell's Angels clubhouse near Munich, wearing only a pair of shorts and carrying a puppy.

He dropped his shorts and threw the dog, escaping on a bulldozer from a nearby building site.

He was arrested later at home by police. The 26-year-old is said to have stopped taking depression medication.

After making his getaway on the bulldozer, he had driven so slowly that a 5km tailback built up behind him on the motorway.

After driving about 1km, he had abandoned the bulldozer in the middle of the motorway, near Allershausen. He continued his journey by hitchhiking.

"What motivated him to throw a puppy at the Hell's Angels is currently unclear," a police spokesman said.

The puppy is now being cared for in an animal shelter.

via The BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/1033

3211

Matt v. What's Been Done

2010-07-13T07:19:00.001-07:00

Matt v. "Divorce"

2010-06-10T09:40:00.001-07:00

Matt v. The Field Book

2010-05-17T14:35:00.001-07:00

Two West Culture Field Book

Matt v. St. Pat's

2010-03-17T12:31:00.000-07:00

Kansas City has one of the largest St. Patrick's Day parades in the nation. Naturally, it was cold and raining. Seemed to me that half of the people couldn't feel it anyway, except for those poor drum corps girls hiding behind a float to stay out of the wind.

Matt v. The Dog Market

2010-02-15T17:35:00.000-08:00

When companies market pet products, they focus on the pet:

"Keep your dog active and healthy by feeding it product X! Keep your puppy from going on the floor by using product Y!"

But here’s the thing — it isn’t about the dog’s joint pain or if it’s ashamed about peeing on the floor. It’s about the owner.

Pets fit into our lives and facilitate our actions. Running, walking, social interaction, all of it. It’s about the dog as a tool, as a means to a human end. Pets fall somewhere along a continuum between function and symbol.

Sometimes we talk about our pets as utilities and investment. Sometimes we talk in terms of love as if our pet is human. But no matter how much we love them, it is impossible to fully incorporate the dog into our social circle because of one simple fact; it isn’t human and can’t engage in the same symbolic exchanges that define human interaction.

So when a company sends a message about the dog it’s about more than Fido’s well being. It’s about what people do with the dog and why they do it that is important.

Matt v. ESP Challenge No. 2

2010-02-15T17:32:00.000-08:00

Citizen Anthropologists:

Greetings from ESP.

With the first ESP challenge being all about the love, the next is all about fear. We are asking contributors to capture images and video of the ways in which fear is used in media and marketing. How is the unknown and the sensational used to capture eyes and dollars? What is driving this methodology? Who succumbs to it? Who is profiting?

Just capture video, images or observations, and email them to: post@ethnosampro.posterous.com

That's it. The content should post within the hour. We ask that you limit video posts to about 2 minutes maximum and limit photos to no more than 4 images.

We are watching.

Go Forth,

ESP

Matt v. The ESP

2010-02-09T13:47:00.001-08:00

Join ESP @ www.Ethnosampro.Posterous.com or www.twowest.com/ESP

Thanks to Robert Paige!

ESP v. The World

2010-02-03T15:26:00.000-08:00

ESP: The Ethnographic Sampling Project from Gavin Johnston on Vimeo.

Matt v. The Wookie/Vulcan

2010-01-27T09:59:00.000-08:00

Matt v. Margaret Mead

2010-01-27T08:10:00.001-08:00

Matt v. Franz Boas

2010-01-27T08:08:00.000-08:00

Matt v. The SteadiCam (V1.0)

2010-01-27T07:50:00.001-08:00

"The SteadiCam" (v1.0) from Gavin Johnston on Vimeo.

Matt v. The Columns

2009-12-17T19:52:00.001-08:00

Matt v. The Little Black Statement

2009-12-17T19:07:00.001-08:00

Some outtakes and selects from the last studio sessions of 2009 w/ Clint Alwahab and his lovely emo friends.

Matt v. The Epson 4000 (Picture Story Final Project)

2009-12-14T11:59:00.000-08:00

SUPPLY & DEMAND: The Apathy of Infrastructure

The MU power plant serves more than 35,000 students, faculty and staff by burning coal, and has been from its current location since 1923. The plant, originally equipped with four small coal-fired boilers, and two steam turbines is today operating with six boilers, four steam turbine generators, two gas turbine generators with steam heat recovery, and five deep wells providing steam, electricity, and water to the MU campus.

The Energy Information Administration reports that coal produces 36 percent of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. and creates half of the electricity generated in the nation.

Recent protest efforts have been initiated on the University of Missouri campus by Green Corps. and The Sierra Club with the help of the MU Young Democrats Society. Most students involved in the protests associated with MUYDS did not know that Green Corps. is a subsidiary of a large progressive lobbying group. Few cared.

The university's new $60 million to $70 million biomass boiler, set to be running by 2012, will burn only biomass. Currently, the plant mixes wood chips supplied by a community member and tire shreds supplied by area prisons to cut down on coal use.

"The biomass boiler is going to cost more to run than a coal-fired boiler, but we're willing to do things to be doing the right thing," MU Sustainability Coordinator Steve Burdic said. "We just can't break the bank to do it."

Coal used by the university is trucked in from deposits mined in Illinois. Around 7 trucks arrive daily with more coal.

MU President Gary Forsee has been embroiled recently over comments regarding cap and trade. Truthfully, any cap and trade legislation will greatly increase the total cost of energy production, which will have to be passed on to students.

For the students and university themselves, little has been done to effectively cut power consumption. Lights are still burning at all times of the night, buildings are inefficient at heating and cooling and current upgrades will be outmoded within a decade.

Unless ignorance, apathy and a healthy understanding that the current infrastructure doesn’t allow for substantial green upgrades, the economics of the situation will still sustain a demand for coal.

Matt v. Last Week's Outtakes (Pt. 2 of 2)

2009-12-10T16:12:00.001-08:00

Matt v. The Lady GaGa Xmas

2009-12-07T14:12:00.001-08:00

Columbia's annual Living Window display. Shop owners import Stephen's girls to sell the CRAP out of the Christmas Spirit.

Matt v. Last Week's Outtakes (1 of 2)

2009-12-07T12:51:00.000-08:00

Here's some carrion from some of last week's shoots. Big round of applause for Phoebe for helping me/freezing with me on the roof of the Tiger Hotel. Also thanks to Brittany Archer for helping with some photo illustrations. I can't use the ones I've posted, but she makes a very pretty Chiefs themed milkmaid.

MU Meat Market (Wilbur's Last Day): First Draft

2009-12-07T07:25:00.000-08:00

I still need to fix the Quicktime conversion so the images are clear and not washed out. Final Cut Express is a fickle lover.

Matt v. The Undead Gangsta

2009-12-01T14:24:00.000-08:00

More from the "Cost of Death" VOX shoot. More to come.

Thnksgvng Pt II: Family v. The Candid

2009-11-29T12:49:00.000-08:00

Thnksgvng Pt I: Matt v. the Family Portrait

2009-11-29T12:45:00.000-08:00

Testing the camera before letting Gma take a whack at the "knees up family portrait." We hate this.

Matt v. The Gray

2009-11-24T12:19:00.000-08:00

Matt v. The Yawn

2009-11-24T10:22:00.000-08:00

I DARE YOU NOT TO YAWN AT THESE OUTTAKES!

Matt v. The Leotard

2009-11-23T11:19:00.000-08:00

Matt v. The High ISO (A night out in CoMo out of order)

2009-11-08T08:16:00.001-08:00

I checked out a D3 and had a 28mm f/2.8 attached ready to shoot for my final project in EPJ. The subject fell through, so I thought I'd take it with me to document our evening out; at 6400 ISO. Who doesn't love a little noise?

Chris Weyrauch: Chauffeur

Saint #1

(Photo by Phoebe Sexton)

Eric loves car bombs and being a bad role model.

Saint #2

The moment before I lost my eye.

Fat!

2009-11-07T14:36:00.000-08:00

EPJ Multimedia Critique: WATER IS LIFE

2009-11-02T06:34:00.000-08:00

http://waterlife.nfb.ca/

Water is Life

This project is about the Great Lakes and the problems affecting it; be it pollution, invasive species, shipping, etc. It also covers topics related to the Lakes’ statuses as on eof the worlds largest freshwater resources – namely bottling, tap water, and how international trade affects the waters.

This is a behemoth of a multimedia project. It incorporates tons of video, audio, still images, infographics, and interactive slides.

The site is easily navigated, with a hidden menu around the left margin, and a menu/timeline at the bottom.

Everything about this site is interactive and mimics the concept of water. The timeline on the bottom mimics waves, the index page is a mock-up of the Great lakes composed of all the individual video files – and is interactive and is used as a thematic device by transmographying into different pertinent shapes. Even the paper clips and paper notes in the background of some infographic pages will move around in response to the mouse.

The use of audio and background music is amazing. Water sounds, orchestral scores, and more. The interviews and b-roll audio are also well done.

EPJ SELF CRITIQUE - Flash Project

2009-11-01T16:46:00.000-08:00

This project was actually harder than I thought it would be. The problem being the importation of soundslides to Flash.

I also had trouble with getting the buttons to work. This was probably the most frustrating, as in the class assignment everything worked well except the dynamic preloader.

I chose the content for the two chapters as two of my final projects for my 3 photo classes. My big regret being I don't have much audio yet. I'm also unsure of the color scheme. I really need to settle on a personal "brand/style" before I really let this loose on the website.

I really need to figure out how to make everything flow better and work smoothly - particularly the audio and preloader as previously stated.

Multimedia Critique

2009-10-18T19:07:00.001-07:00

http://www.fotoclubef508.com/post.php?id=274

Jericos, by Anderson Schneider, is an exhibit from Projecto Lambe-Lambe.
I chose this for my multimedia critique for three reasons:
There are a many incredible images contained in this piece.
The excellent editing; both of sound and imagery.
The presentation.

All told, the images speak for themselves. There are a great many of them as well, from what looks like one event. I think that the editing of this multimedia presentation is both its greatest asset and its greatest hindrance to being more.
Clearly not meant to be a “photojournalistic” piece, Jericos opens with incredible audio of the garage seen in the photographs. The presentation of images in sync with the music, the way group shots are often shown in pieces and then as a whole, and the sequencing are all “pros.” However, It would have been nicer if the number of images shown were cut down, as each images barely has enough time to register before fading to black.
I’m a fan of Cake’s music, and I think that the song goes incredibly well with what you see on-screen, but information and audio letting me know who these people are and what they’re doing would have been a better choice. Again, I know it’s to keep the viewer engaged, but I just wanted to know more.

Matt v. The Palomino: Character Profile 1st Draft

2009-10-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

+ a fun song!

Photos at the Farm Fresh Stables. Subject: Shannon Bishop.

Website Critique #2

2009-10-04T18:05:00.000-07:00

http://www.torgovnik.com/

Jonathan Torgovnik is a photographer is currently a Newsweek photographer. His best known work is "Bollywood," a look into the Indian motion picture industry and culture.

His website is very slick, with an entirely Flash based interface. Navigation is easy with the two navigation tool bars. His work is also well represented; playing at the index page as a slideshow, rotating in the background of text based pages such as the biography section, and of course in his portfolio page.

One of the things I like most about Mr. Torgonivik's site is the visual themes and elements that are found throughout his website. Besides the color/style scheme, the most prominent of these elements is the recurring use of a vertical yellow line. It is part of every Flash navigation and loading graphic. It's visual and striking, exactly the image a photographer should convey.

I found the interface to be quite intuitive. I also like how he divided up his site. It's not just the standard about/portfolio/contact, but has different sections for different types of work, expanded menus, and he lists his most ambitious work, Bollywood, in its own page.

I very much like Torgovnik's work, and the same can be said for his website.

Rugby Conditioning in :30

2009-09-30T09:53:00.000-07:00

Matt v. The Outtakes (Pt. II)

2009-09-23T15:17:00.000-07:00

Matt v. The Meat Prep and Butchering Class

2009-09-23T14:57:00.000-07:00

Dr. Lorenzen lectures on the proper way to feed a pig to produce the proper body composition for butchering. A full skeleton of a sow is kept in the room for demonstration purposes.

Students watch meat being ground by the mixer. Several of those watching the process reported feeling nauseous.

Ground pork for use in chorizo, a spicy Mexican sausage.

Eric Allphin, a senior Animal Science major, prepares the mixer for filling sausage casings. Most sausages are placed in an edible cellulose casing.

Plant Manager Rick Disslhorst, Eric Allphin and Patrick Mallory fill ground sausage packages for sale at the Mizzou Meet Market. Students in Dr. Lorenzen's class won't be able to participate until the latter half of the semester.

Website Critique

2009-09-21T06:09:00.000-07:00

http://www.fwaphoto.com
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com

I'm a fan of both of these site, though the latter is the only one that can really be considered a multimedia site.

Let’s start with visible flaws with NYTLens. The layout is clunky. It isn’t organized well. It almost feels like a middle page in the Times itself – lots of text for a photo-oriented site. This leads to navigation issues. Where do I go next? Where are the archives? They are there, the just blend into the text of the page.

That being said, the content is routinely fantastic and often current. It’s remarkably interactive for a non-user focused webpage. Links aren’t too easy to find, as stated earlier, due to the fact that they look like the 12-point Arial text of everything else on the page. There’s also not much flash, but plenty of video and slideshow content that correspond with current newspaper headlines in the NYTimes itself. The text color is too close to the background color, too.

It looks as though it implements tables, but I’m not certain. Actually, it looks like a converted Blogger or WordPress site, which wouldn’t be a stretch considering it IS their blog. I think many of the style problems and layout crunch could be solved by a renovation with a much more coherent stylesheet.

Final Project (1/3) Blog Post

2009-09-21T05:17:00.000-07:00

My final story for EPJ is a character profile on a pig. A pig? Yes a pig. I plan to follow it from the MU Animal Sciences farm to the MU Meat Market freezer.

My sources are Dr. Lorenzen, Dr. Wegan, and others in the Animal Sciences division. I've also made contacts with several students and the plant manager.

Access to certain stops along the process could be difficult to obtain, and video is not allowed. These are the only real "roadblocks" that I can forsee. I think that, otherwise, this could be a great multimedia piece. There's plenty of interesting audio, certainly visual potential, and showing the real process of making chorizo or porkchops etc. is fairly near and dear to my heart. And stomach.

Matt v. The Studio

2009-09-18T16:09:00.000-07:00

Don't Ask

The Hair Net

2009-09-18T12:58:00.001-07:00

Matt v. MU Football

2009-09-13T11:22:00.000-07:00

Sweet Moses! I don't know this game. Unfortunately, what was once a benign indifference has morphed into a soul sapping decent into a maelstrom of ineptitude. I fumbled with the long glass. I lost my patience with the length of the game and the number of play stoppages. I was fooled on just about EVERY fake pass and dummy run. In fact, if they aren't pictures of pile-ups, it's a nicely composed image of a guy PRETENDING to have the ball.

Football = suck. However, I should probably shoot it more for the practice. Too bad it's not baseball season.

Matt v. The Tennis Outtakes

2009-09-10T13:21:00.001-07:00

Images from Rockbridge v. Hickman

Together Again

2009-08-25T07:28:00.000-07:00

Here you go Kim!

Millennial Activism

2009-08-11T14:56:00.001-07:00

Millennial Activism and the Quest for the Free T-Shirt from Gavin Johnston on Vimeo.

What's a Trillion Dollars?

2009-07-29T09:43:00.000-07:00

It's 3 am: DO You Know Where Your Demographic Is?

2009-07-23T07:47:00.001-07:00

It's 3am. Do You Know Where Your Demographic Is? from Gavin Johnston on Vimeo.

A Case Study: Palazzo 16

2009-07-23T07:46:00.002-07:00

An Ethnography of the Theater - Pt. 3: A Case Study from Gavin Johnston on Vimeo.

An Ethnography of Concessions

2009-07-23T07:46:00.001-07:00

An Ethnography of the Theater - Pt. 2: Concessions from Gavin Johnston on Vimeo.

An Ethnography of the Theater

2009-07-23T07:45:00.001-07:00

An Ethnography of the Theater - Pt. 1 from Gavin Johnston on Vimeo.

An Ethnography of Light Beer

2009-07-21T13:21:00.000-07:00

Let's Say You And I Go Non-Verbally Negotiate Our Self-Images: An Ethnography of Lite Beer from Gavin Johnston on Vimeo.

Fieldwork CAN be fun.

Even MORE Beer

2009-07-20T12:16:00.000-07:00

More Beer

2009-07-20T12:06:00.000-07:00

"I really loved whales as a child."

Beer

2009-07-15T14:39:00.000-07:00

BOMB THREAT

2009-06-29T07:51:00.000-07:00

Bomb threat at the IRS building: KCStar article

Yes, I was there.

S. Korea's Electric Car

2009-06-17T10:12:00.000-07:00

Seems our friends in S. Korea are looking at technology that would allow the kinetic energy buildup on roads to charge the battery of an electric car.

This might be a potential solution for charging stations and battery power issues.

TrendHunter

2009-06-17T10:10:00.001-07:00

Trends via TrendHunter.com.

Billboard Update

2009-06-05T14:52:00.000-07:00

BTW, the Farmer's Insurance billboard should be up soon. I gave them several selects. Excited to see what they chose to plaster along I-70.

California Dreamin' - John Mayer Trio

2009-06-05T14:50:00.000-07:00

The Trio on Conan the other night. My face didn't melt during the solo, but it should have. Mama Cass would approve. Y'know, between bites.

A Fighting Family

2009-06-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

First draft of our piece on the Hulett House MMA gym and their close knit fighters. More to follow.

NYTimes: Lens

2009-06-05T14:01:00.000-07:00

If you haven't checked out the New York Time's photoblog yet, do yourself a favor and click here: NYTimes: Lens

2006 (cont)

2009-05-22T10:59:00.000-07:00

2006 + Lightroom

2009-05-22T10:54:00.000-07:00

I received some new presets yesterday and figured I'd test them out on old pictures. Here, then, is a retrospective of 2006:

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Domer in the woods by Capen

Domer sleeping outside said woods. I got him up at 6, he was upset.

The view of our dorm room from the Gillette 1st floor hall.

Jenna and I at MSU. Notice how chubby and disheveled I am. NOTE IT!

Trevi Fountain - Rome

LEAD-UP TO THE BILLBOARD...

2009-05-16T14:10:00.000-07:00

last.one

2009-05-03T17:16:00.001-07:00

For now at least. (Image by Chuck Ludeke, Editing by me)

More Grace

2009-05-03T15:29:00.001-07:00

Meet Grace. She is a fiercely intelligent and quite striking girl who happens to be a Nintendo, LOTR, and Magic: The Gathering nerd. She's also a future NYC resident and current fashionista and hipster. She's like a walking Chuck Norris or Bill Brasky joke.

"Grace Clarke once made the entire Vivienne Westwood Spring '08 collection out of burlap sacks, a bag of oversize buttons and the entire contents of the dumpster out behind a Macy's."

"Grace Clarke defeated Ganondorf using nothing but an empty bottle and a Poe tripping on xanax and quaaludes."

A few selects from the first half of the shoot. Poor girl may have cataracts after shooting 5 strobes at her full power for well over an hour. She rarely blinked. Actually, should have gotten her with the Buddy Holly glasses. That girl is BLIND! Might explain the lack of blinking, actually.

Also, we kept the sensor noise and the backdrop wrinkles as the concept actually was photoshoot with this girl.

Meet Grace

2009-05-03T13:38:00.000-07:00

Listen, anyone who plays Magic doesn't deserve to be this smug.

This Day in History!

2009-05-02T06:26:00.000-07:00

1939: Gehrig ends streak. I've seen this speech so many times and paraphrased by so many people that it should be cliche'. But it isn't, it transcends cliche. Still get goosebumps with the "luckiest man" bit.

Interim Blog

2009-05-01T14:32:00.000-07:00

By the way, this is my acting website until I can finish the flash site. I don't get many opportunities to work on it with my work load. The semester is rapidly closing, so it may be finished soon.

Chuck v. The Ring - SAVE CHUCK!

2009-05-01T14:27:00.001-07:00

Seriously. Watch this show. How can NBC even THINK of leaving this gem on the bubble?

Time Photo Editing Sample

2009-04-30T16:38:00.000-07:00

What did I do at Time? Besides the editing of photos for the dotcom and print editions, I edited/assembled photo essays. The CGI video will be up early tomorrow folks.

- Time Essay Sample

Arthur Bryant's

2009-04-30T16:25:00.001-07:00

My ode to a classic. Quite tasty. Anyway, it may seem like it's clipping but it's published large here for a reason. Enjoy.

Color Blending

2009-04-30T11:57:00.000-07:00

How do you direct attention to a sign? Color blending. I know, this is during the day, but the point is LOOK AT THE SIGN. AEPi, ladies and gentleman. Give them $$$$ to cure cancer. Thank you.

Mizzou Rugby T

2009-04-29T14:52:00.000-07:00

My goal was to make images that could be easily integrated or converted into a Mizzou Rugby ad. Prob should have punched Billy in the face to get more of that "rough around the edges" stereotypical look.

Vids of the Day

2009-04-28T10:40:00.000-07:00

Bull in Supermarket

Hugs+Social Experiment

(Both via Hot Clicks)

Last Eric Post

2009-04-28T09:02:00.000-07:00

Last one, promise.

5 Giants Studio

2009-04-27T14:09:00.000-07:00

www.fivegiantsstudio.com - I want to work here. I'm fairly certain I'd fit right in.

An Ode to Yesterday (Heat Index Remix)

2009-04-27T09:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday certainly didn't go as planned. Things just didn't get done for one reason or another. Adding insult to lethargic self-imposed injury, the A/C wasn't on so the entire upstairs was way north of the 81 degrees idling in the atrium/kitchen. Apparenntly heat -> shirtless -> vaguely homoerotic pictures. I promise to rehabilitate ASAP.

More.

2009-04-25T15:51:00.000-07:00

Because why not?

Thank you Phoebe for laughing at me. And eating BBQ. And telling everyone I'm your gay friend.

Chuck: The actual gay friend.

Eric. You've met. This is his happy face.

Killing Eric

2009-04-25T15:47:00.001-07:00

Me: "Hey, guys, what do you want the concept to be?"
Ben: "He's already chained up. Let's just pretend to kill him."
Billy: "It'll be just like my dreams."

So we did.

Ben

2009-04-25T15:45:00.000-07:00

Ben: Prop and president of the MU Rugby club. No, this wasn't taken in 1976.

Eric.

2009-04-25T15:39:00.000-07:00

This is Eric, whom I'm working with on the Rugby team advertising committee. He loves the Royals, beer, socialism, beer, David Foster Wallace, beer, socialism, and beer. Also ska. He's fierce. FIERCE!

His dream is to be chained to a chair and force fed alcohol. He's also embodies the "q" part of LGBTQ. (Ed. note: This means he questions)

Yes, a regular Dionysus.

Crazy Girl on Broadway

2009-04-23T12:21:00.000-07:00

19th century period garb, driving goggles circa 1923, and a parasol. Nice.

Photography Tutorials

2009-04-22T18:54:00.000-07:00

Found a link to a neat tutorial site on PopURLs.com. Some of these make you think, "duh". Others, well, some are pretty neat:

"50 Incredible Photography Techniques and Tutorials"

- DIY Lighting Hacks

- Lighting Simulator

- DIY High Speed Photography

Multi-Flash SELECT

2009-04-21T11:59:00.000-07:00

Chris Schulz lines up a shot to the 5 ball as friend Mike Smith looks on. "If you run the table I'm not buying you beer," Smith said. Luckily for both of them, Schulz missed the shot.

So Chris Dunn and I, for various reasons, ended up without anything specific to shoot the night before the project deadline. A trip to Capen was a bust because SOMEBODY (not me) respects amorous privacy. Thanks to David Kennedy, we were using 3 strobes: 2 optical slaves and a Canon TTL strobe. Could have worked on the ratio more, but I don't mind the dramatic lighting an occasional hot spot because of the look on each of these guys' face.

Billiard Fail

2009-04-21T10:41:00.001-07:00

1

2

3

4

Should have done a shot where it's just a fill and key on the dude and a slave spotlighting the ball.

Balls

2009-04-21T09:24:00.000-07:00

Sony Bravia ad. Lots of balls in SF. No, that's not a bad joke. Okay, it is, but watch:

And how they made it. Again, lots more "balls" talk:

Cloud, Matt

2009-04-19T14:20:00.000-07:00

Matthew

English form of the name of the Christian evangelist, author of the first gospel in the New Testament. His name is a form of the Hebrew name Matt thia, meaning “gift of God”, which is fairly common in the Old Testament, being rendered in the Authorized Version in a number of different forms: Mattan(i)ah, Mattatha(h), Mattithiah, Mattathias, and so on. In the Authorized Version, the evangelist is regularly referred to as Matthew, while the apostle chosen to replace Judas Iscariot is distinguished as Matthias. A related name from the same Hebrew roots, but reversed, is Jonathan. Cognates (also of Matthias): Irish Gaelic: Maitiú, Maitias. Scottish Gaelic: Mata; Matha (a dialectal variant). French: Mathieu. Italian: Matteo, Mattia. Spanish: Mateo. Portuguese: Mateus. Catalan: Mateu. German: Mattäus. Dutch: Matthijs. Swedish, Norwegian: Mats. Danish: Mads, Mathies. Polish: Mateusz, Maciej. Czech: Matej, Matyáš. Russian: Matvei. Ukrainian: Matvi. Hungarian: Mátyás, Máté. Finnish: Matti.
Short forms: English: Matt. Dutch: Thijs.

Pet forms: English: Mattie. Polish: Maciek.

Russian: Motya.

Cloud Name Meaning and History

English: topographic name for someone who lived near an outcrop or hill, from Old English clud ‘rock’ (only later used to denote vapor formations in the sky).
French: from the Germanic personal name Hlodald, composed of the elements hlod ‘famous’, ‘clear’ + wald ‘rule’, which was borne by a saint and bishop of the 6th century.

BBQ

2009-04-19T14:00:00.001-07:00

I want some BBQ. Seriously. Last night I again put Gates' sauce into a bowl and ate it with a spoon. A SPOON!

HK

2009-04-19T13:43:00.000-07:00

My Dorm (Wei Lun, the blue building on the left)

The track and rugby pitch @ Stanley Ho

Quarry Bay and Oxford House, where I worked

And finally... The smog!

And that's not the worst of it...

Stuck in Customs: Hong Kong

2009-04-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

Trey Ratcliff is a traveling photog who specializes in HDR work. For the uninitiated, he brackets 3 to 9 images and merges them together to show the full range of light in the scene. Bad HDR can look too much like a pastel on canvas work, but Ratcliff's work just looks hyper-realistic; what you wish you were seeing instead of the UV glare filled and desaturated image your eyes reveal to you.

Here are some of my favorites of his from Hong Kong:

Hong Kong from Victoria's Peak - The highest point on the island gives a great view of the harbour and Central. Also, it has the only Burger King, which the locals were VERY excited about.

IFC Roof -This image is of the Red Bar on IFC roof. you know, the building Batman jumps off of in The Dark Knight? just below is the veranda that Morgan Freeman is seen discussing business and showing his cell phone. We spent quite a few nights up here. A great view of the harbour and the fact that you can bring up anything you want from the City Super! in the mall below = cheap yet classy. Also, this is where Denesha was dumb enough to throw her phone away. That's what you get for eating tuna salad.

POK FU LAM - This last one is of Pok Fu Lam Rd. I lived in a building to the right of the frame. Side note: the vast majority of buildings on the island are no more than 30 years old. Why do they look so old and run down? Neglect, bad maintenance, and odd stylistic choices. My dorm was built MAYBE 10 years ago but looked like a burnt out relic from the Cold War. The 1970's Cold War. Yeesh. No spiders, though, so I won't complain. They also let us on the roof, even during a level 10 typhoon. SAFETY FIRST!

All images Copywrite of Trey Ratcliff -www.StuckInCustoms.com

"Hey Ya" - Scrubs' Sam Lloyd

2009-04-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

This made my roommates stop arguing in the kitchen and wander into the living room. They were completely silent until this was through. I know Obadiah Parker covered it previously, but somehow that bald sweaty Ted injects it with more emotion than the song may deserve.

St.L Bridge Jumping

2009-04-18T06:13:00.000-07:00

I walk into the Alpine Shop in downtown Columbia to price some static line and a new harness. The employee does a nice job telling me about which brands/types they have and which he would prefer (I'm a Metolius fan but I let him do his spiel).

After that he pauses, then starts telling me how he and his buddies used to jump off of a bridge in St. Louis for funsies.

"None of us drank and we're all climbers, so we started looking for things to do with out gear. We eventually decided to jump this bridge. You have to climb a 10ft. fence to get down to a maintenance catwalk."

Here's what they did next:

Self Portrait... By Ivy Ashe

2009-04-15T14:01:00.000-07:00

My true essence distilled into a single image + text.

Commercials

2009-04-15T09:26:00.000-07:00

Listening to people in lab talk about their favorite commercials. Compared. I won.

John Mayer

Slash

Nike Rugby

Adidas All-Blacks Haka

Guinness

Random Desktop Images

2009-04-15T09:02:00.001-07:00

Have these images cluttering my desktop. I figured I'd throw them up and then delete the low-rez originals. Enjoy.

My roommate Billy.

The streets of Central, near Citi Bank.

Me. Pre-shower. Probably during a rice-diet induced manic seizure. Props to Adrian Spânu for his mad creeper skills. Work on that fill-flash buddy.

Some friends walking a beach on Lantau Island. The ginger in the foreground, Alice Drury, is the craziest fricking Aussie to roam the land. She once spent the night on the Great Wall, Chungking Mansion, an abandoned building in the New Territories, and once with Vladimir Putin - just to really feel the sharp tinge of danger.

Epic

2009-04-15T08:54:00.000-07:00

Prophecy #1

2009-04-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

The Kansas City Royals will go 85-77 and finish 2nd in the AL Central Division. You have been warned.

Terry Richardson Attempt

2009-04-15T07:44:00.000-07:00

My attempt to make a Terry Richardson photo pre-toning. No phalluses or other sexually suggestive content though, so that in and of itself makes in not Richardson.

Battle @ The Blue Note X: 1st Look

2009-04-15T07:09:00.000-07:00

Here's a few images I pulled off the first card. I'll pull more off later, but these seemed the bests looking right out of the camera. Can't wait to see what they look like with some toning. This was the MMA fight that my group shot for our final project. Will be looking at the second card now. Fingers crossed.

This guy above-right had a Russian accent.

This big man separated his patella about :20 into the fight. He went down. Hard.

Above is Hulett House kickboxer Kevin Croom changing back into his normal clothing (as normal as a graffiti t, a fedora, and a large mink coat can be considered) after his fight. Croom won in the third round.

A Rebel Club fighter watches as Mike Jones prepares for his bout.

Photos © Matt Cloud 2009

FILL + BALANCE FLASH

2009-04-09T12:13:00.000-07:00

HERE'S conditioning @ Hulett House Martial Arts. Rob Hulett on the left, featured fighter Kevin Croom on top in the center. Failed attempt at balance flash, as Rob's all lit up. Granted, all these images have are unsharp mask and some cropping, this one would probably look better B&W with levels, burning here, dodging there, and some curves. Love those curves.

Capen Park, ladies and gentlemen. Let's all give Tiff Craig of KC a hand for not dying out there on a windy day.