Hello Everyone,

April 2nd marked my meeting and breaching of the 5K threshold. I would really like to thank all of my watchers, especially the recent ones. Very much has happened for me photographically since my last journal. A series of serendipitous events have landed me a photographer position and a place in an advanced photography class at my university. I realize that this is a long post, and I hope you read it in its entirety, not because I like to be long-winded, but merely because the last two months have been an astronomically important period in my life—especially relating to photography.

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Last quarter, I met a phenomenal man, Bug Jerome, of Murder Mountain Records. He got me interested in local music and the photography of that scene. Subsequently, I've shot for many great groups, getting some images published. The acts include: Yogoman Burning Band [link] , Karate Kitchen [link] , So Many Dynamos [link] , The Growers [link] , Mount Eerie / The Microphones [link] , and the Bug himself [link] . Working with Bug has got my work published in West Coast Performer [link] and What's Up? Magazine [link] which is pretty rad.

Also during the course of last quarter, I made two video projects using still frames. The first of these describes my philosophies and approach towards life. The second is merely eye and ear candy. In both I used music from Revolution Void, a Creative Commons artist out of Seattle who has amazing work that is all free to download: [link] . I encourage you to view these two short videos, they took a very long time to make, each project involved roughly 600 frames that I shot, edited and sequenced. Here they are: [link] + [link]

Hope you enjoy them.

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A good friend of my recently joined DeviantArt. Her work is simply amazing and very inspired. I encourage you all to view her gallery and give her feedback


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Spring break was an interesting experience. I couch-surfed in Seattle for a week and a half, living as frugally as possible, paying my way with loads of dishes and the generosity of other people. I managed to spend under 55 dollars for the whole trip (most of this was food), which I'm proud of. I owe my hosts many thanks.

The Seattle Aquarium was a pretty amazing experience and I took some pretty interesting pictures there. I find the underwater world to be so much more vivid that the one that we occupy. I'll post some fish pictures as I get caught up. I also have some other perspectives on Seattle that I will post in the near future.

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This quarter I managed to squeeze my way into an upper level photography class despite having next to no affiliation with my university's art department, nor having taken the pre-reqs to the class. The class is an integrated film-digital class, so I'll be purchasing a manual camera this weekend. I really like the old Nikon Nikkormat bodies, and I want to see if I can lay my paws on one of those. I've been reading up on darkroom techniques and intend on scanning and posting film images in the near future.

One of our assignments is to shoot 70 self portraits (one for each day of the quarter). My recent piece “Week 1” is my first self portrait in about a year, prepare to be seeing more.

On the topic of self-image: I'm cutting my hair. I'm tired of looking like I'm 25—I'm not. Plus, hair is such a burden that I would love to be rid of (at least partially—full baldness is still a ways off).

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I've landed a job as a photographer at a student publication called Klipsun Magazine. The publication is pretty good and the pay is reasonable, I think I will enjoy it. [link]

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I've completed my final training to become a music DJ for my university's college radio, which is one of the only fully student-run radio stations left in the country. If anyone is interested in hearing me on-air, my show is webcasted at [link] 2-4AM on Friday mornings PST (-7 hours from Greenwich Mean Time). Feel free to tune in, I have eclectic tastes, but focus on good electronica and underground hip hop.

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I seem to have lined up employment for this summer as a board operator for Northwest Public Radio. The job should be interesting and get me some very real world experience with automation, sound editing, and radio as a whole. NWPR webcasts at [link] , listen for me this summer

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Thanks for reading that giant monologue. I really appreciate the support.

~JEmtman



P.S. To the people I watch: I really apologize for my lack of support. I've got a growing pile of 550+ deviations that I haven't had time to look through yet. But don't worry, I will look at and comment on them.

Hello everyone.

This post will serve as my 4k pageview update, even though I'm about 200 shy of that mark right now. As always, I'd like to thank the wonderful people who support my work. I really do appreciate this--thank you all. Since I generally only post less than once a month, please bear with me through this slightly longer journal (although you can skip the 3rd paragraph if you aren't somewhat of a photo-gearhead )

I am currently taking a photography independant study class at my college. The title of the class is Wide Angle Portraiture. I've pledged to make one image per week, so 9 for the quarter. I'll upload the images for this class as I finish them.

Recently I bought a 50mm f/1.4 that I got for a killer deal at a used camera shop. At the time, I didn't know much about AI and pre-AI, so I got lucky that someone had modified the lens to be compatible with my camera, otherwise I probably would have ended up damaging it. As far as I can tell (from the thread I made in the photography forum) the lens is a Nikkor dating back to sometime around 1970. The lens is obviously a manual focus and it gives me good mental metering practice by only working in manual mode with my camera. I really like the authentic feel of this lens and having a manual aperature ring. It reminds me of shooting with my dad's old Minolta. If you're interested, you can see a picture of it here: [link] mine is the second one down. According to this site, it's "one of the best...prime lenses ever produced" wow. This is the part that makes me happy: I got mine for $70 bucks, ebay tends to sell these for about $100-200.

Next, I did not get the photography job that I had been trying very hard for. This was a pretty big dissapointment, but I think that it just provides me with an opportunity to move on to better, more ambitious positions, instead of being pinned down by working for the university. However, I do wish that they hadn't taken 2 months just to tell me that they had no interest whatsoever in hiring me. I just hope that the person they hired is REALLY amazing, that would allow me to regain some faith in the beurocracy that is this university's convoluted idea of "art".

Next, I got featured on a small news feature. While this is hardly news, it's a first for me. Feel free to check it out: [link]

Finally, If you are interested, you should check out some of the artists that I have met and know in real life. They are all wonderful people that you should support too (I hope I didn't forget anyone):


Thank you all,
~JEmtman

Hello Everyone,

Again, I'll start off by thanking all of my recent watchers as well as those who have been supporting my work for some time now. I really do appreciate the comments, favorites, and watches.

Next, I'd like to sincerely thank for donating a subscription to me for Christmas. I really appreciate his generosity and his continued support. I suggest that everyone check out the good stuff on his page.

Also, I got a Christmas gift of a Sigma 10-20mm lens. I've been shooting with it for a couple days now and have been very impressed with the quality of the image that it produces. Despite the prejudices that many people hold against this lens (like Ken Rockwell, forum knowitalls and assorted photo elitists) I've found the image quality to be quite good. The distortion with this lens is quite strong, although only around the edges. The image quality in the center is much better than I expected, even shooting at f4 (fully open). I had read reviews complaining of heavy vingnetting, but I think those people are crazy--really. I have not been able to make it vignette at all, even with a standard thickness UV filter on it.

I will be posting pictures from my winter vacation very soon, once I get back to my computer that has the ability to process RAW files.

I am going to pursue photography more actively this quarter, since I was busy with my GURs this last quarter. 2007 was a good year for me, photographically speaking. I have now been actively pursuing photography for about one and a half years. I hope that 2008 will be another year full of learning and gaining experience.

Cheers,
~JEmtman

As I near 3,000 page views, I'd like to thank you all for the continued support.

I'm nearing the completion of my first quarter of interdisciplinary studies at my university. The experience has thus far been extremely valuable and I'm developing my critical thinking skills quite rapidly. While I am not taking any photography courses this quarter, I do plan to do an independent study project in a yet undetermined method of photography next quarter.

In other news, the university's art department turned me down, so I'll have to look to less formal means for studying in the realm of fine arts. I'm currently pursuing a job as a publicity photographer for the university. I know that I would learn a lot and enjoy this kind of work, so I'm pursuing it quite actively--I'll let you all know how it turns out.

Have a good holidays, everyone,
~JEmtman

Actually there is no bad wolf. At least not at the moment. It was merely an entertaining title that I had to toss in.

I'm nearing 2,000 pageviews and I'd just like to take a moment to thank all of my recent watchers who've helped to give me feedback on my images. I honestly appreciate the favorites, but even more so the comments.

I've survived my first week of classes. For those of you that don't know, I'm attending an interdiciplinary college at a public university. This quarter I am taking a lot of philosophy related classes as well as a introductory drawing classs. I've really like my classes so far and I'm hoping to get a lot of awareness out of them. In the spring I'll be able to take my first classes with photography, so in the meantime you'll have to put up with my hap-hazard, undirected style.

In other news, I've fell into anothor salvador Dali phase. Enough so that I've printed out a giant picture of him holding an ocelot and posted it to my dormroom wall. Quite enjoyable.

Again, thank you for all the support,
~JEmtman