Klyment.com - Journal

I ran into an old schoolmate while boxing day shopping. Matthew had been in my grade six class. He remembered me after I told him my name and when he told me his full name I certainly remembered him. It seems like his most vivid memory of me was me kicking him in the back at a schoolmate's birthday party. In retrospect, I was probably invited because the host felt bad for leaving me out as the only grade six student in the class that wouldn't be invited.

So many things to say
to someone in so many ways
the wrong person any day
but this.

Noone is right
to accept what I might
say without a fight
any other day.

Knowing what is true
but unsure of what to do
I'm being torn in two
so may we fight.

A song plays in my mind
my heart it can't leave behind
exit it may never find
only way is through

"So, what do you do for work," asks the tall man in an overcoat and fedora as I wait with him to cross the street.

"I shoot people," I reply, realizing the ambiguity of the remark but failing to elaborate as I was curious to see the inquirer's response.

"So do I," says the tall man, "so do I. And what do you do for fun?"

"I shoot people," I reply again, not satisfied with the tall man's response.

"You're a photographer," the tall man accuses. Then he offers, "I enjoy spending time with my family. I have a wife, a son, and a daughter all of whom I love dearly. I never see enough of them."

"A loaded reply," I observe. "Few have the opportunity of doing only what they want to do for both work and play and I am one of those who were blessed with the privilege. Yet I envy you for I have no one whom to love more than my work."

Another man beckons and the tall man crosses. I stall and do not follow. Soon after, I begin walking back to the studio from which I had emerged not fifteen minutes ago.

I just ran out of light magenta ink in the Epson 9600. If I go to bed now I'll just lie awake lamenting the worthlessness of my logistics, inventory control, and demand forecasting focused business degree and how it allowed me to run out of ink a day ahead of schedule. So at 3:09am with "California Dreaming" playing on my Treo, I walk out of the studio to do some window shopping downtown and to find a CIBC bank machine to transfer some funds betweeen a savings and operating account for the same company. I brought the F10 with me. All photos were shot at ISO 1600 hand held.

I don't mean any disrespect to Christians or other people who share Christian beliefs but for me, "Christmas Time" is the most irritating and depressing time of year. Here's why.

1. The snow: most Christmas' it's not all snowy or all warm and dry . . . there's usually this mix of ugly brown slush everywhere.
2. I can't be the only person that thinks green looks hideous with red.
3. My parents listen to EZ Rock 104.9 FM in the car and this station becomes "The Christmas Station" right after Halloween. I hate driving alone so I have to choose between two things that I don't really like.
4. On the aforementioned radio station, Christian fundamentalists preach family values and give unsolicited advice for living your life . . . more often than they do at other times of the year.
5. I know that everyone that I should be giving something to on special ocassions wants a thoughtful gift but, as I'm sure you all know, I have way too many friends and too few brain cycles to share with everyone. These people should just accept a useful gift and shut up about it.
6. Since CIBC's very public and very embarassing involvement in the Enron and Worldcom scandals, The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce has enacted policies in that any bank worker can point to and use as excuses for adjusting fees or bending rules thus preventing legitimate business people from attaining financing for the purchase of highly liquid capital assets. However, there are no policies in place that prevent all four people who are responsible for your business bank accounts at CIBC from simultaneously taking four week vacations or forcing these bottom-feeders of the finance industry to resolve basic banking issues in a timely manner.
7. There are a couple assholes that trespass through our acreage every year and top the nicest of our Colorado blue spruce. Little do these losers realize that I now have a firearms license, I can put five bullets into the area of a quarter of a dime at 250feet without a scope (hey, I'm a photographer), and, best of all, Chinese people eat anything.
8. Some (very clever and witty) motherfucker already beat me to the list. His reasons were written by a much more practiced hand he even has ten of them: http://www.angelfire.com/movies/oc/tirades/xmas.html.

5a. When I do come up with a truly useful and thoughtful gift idea, no one wants me to give it. Like my idea to give the universally-loved Hello Kitty vibrating massager to everyone in Leanna's family. Hey, if your dad wears Hello Kitty slippers he may as well have a matching vibrator.

Everything but #5 is more or less true. I actually don't have many friends and I believe that most of them are familiar with tradition and don't expect anything from me for Christmas. But if I do get/make them something, they are at least impressively adept at pretending to be grateful. Thanks, people.

The spending never ends . . . just after picking up the D2X I thought that I had every piece of photographic hardware that I would need for the next year or two. I should have known better. Here's a list of what's heading my way over the next couple of days:

• Balcar Iris 3200W/s head for Nexus
• Nikon 10.5mm fisheye for DX form factor sensor (180degree full frame)
• 250W modeling lights for Balcar heads
• Balcar 3200W/s heavy duty flash tube

Leanna agreed to pose for me so that I could try out some lighting and light controls supplied by Stephen Pilby of Lighttools. I can't say that the lights themselves were spectacular since they offer no additional functionality over the Balcar gear that I'm currently using. However, I'm sure that most photographers will appreciate the high end, high quality, digitally-controlled monolights. Drop me a line if you are interested in knowing more about them. Photos were shot with two lights, one with a 1000W/s monolight directed at the backdrop and controlled with a set of barn doors and a 20degree grid and a yellow gel. The other was shot with a 1000W/s monolight modified by a 60inch octagonal soft box which in turn was made more directional by a 50degree Soft Egg Crate by Lighttools. The Egg Crates created lighting that, to me, was nothing short of spectacular. It makes shooting in a very tight space feasible . . . like the shoot the next day at the K-rock 97.3FM studio where I was given effectively 6' x 11' with an 8.5' ceiling and told to shoot a 5'8" non-model. And to top it off, there was a reflective 20% grey curtain on one side of the 6'. And I was shooting with the equipment that I just listed.

Elecia scouted Mona out of her group of high school friends. We were both surprised that Elecia hadn't discovered her earlier. I was privileged to be the first photographer to shoot with Mona professionally. I was pleased with the results as was Mona, Elecia, and Mona's fiance, Jo. Elecia once again did an excellent job with the makeup. We didn't have the benefit of a hairstylist for this shoot and Mona's hair was quite short making some shots difficult to do.

I managed to triple book myself in studio today. I didn't even realize Kreesha was coming in . . . Maurice just said he wanted to shoot but he brought someone that I had been meaning to shoot for a while. Needless to say that I didn't get any real shooting done and was disappointed with the results. At the same time, Tara Lynn came in for a headshot for a commercial (Maurice didn't do hair and makeup for her . . . I'm not happy with the results of the headshot either), Andy and a friend came in for printing, and Bert also came in for a trading card print run. I guess that's kind of like quadruple booking. This day prompted me to replace my defective phone with a Palm Treo 650 . . . probably the best business productivity decision I've made in a long while. Incredible makeup for Kreesha done by Elecia . . . too bad that it was sort of wasted. Here are some photos from Kreesha's "shoot" . . . I can't even remember if I took these photos or someone else took them with my camera while I was doing other stuff.

Vicki's agency, Model Management International of Vancouver, BC, referred Vicki to me to start her portfolio. This was her first shoot ever and though she was very nervous at first things eventually started going smoothly. Maurice was a big help when we visited him at his workplace to get Vicki's hair done. Elecia did an excellent job with the makeup and we sensed that she was kind of like a big sister to Vicki for the shoot. Vicki later booked Maurice for hair and makeup for her graduation photos. Here are some photos.

05/01/2003 10:44PM - Jon Kwan

let me tell you abolut the funniest dumb shitty thing i did for the past ywear with your power supply

instead of having the second fan on the power supply facing downwards so it would suck air directly from inside the case,

i had it facing upwards

for the past year

a whole year

and i only noticed the other day

lol

08/01/2003 9:49PM - Jon Kwan

dammit

it's off ebay now

anyways

what happened was some guy put up an auction that was titled "SOCK O QUARTERS" and bascially what it was was a sock...full of some change, not even full, just got some change in there. He had pictures of him, with a paper bag with a face on it (9it was a big paper bag) swinigng it over his head, playing with is dog with it, and even him kinda sticking it in his groin area lol. "look at all the things you can do with sock o quarters!".

sold for about 40 bucks last i checked

what's even funnier is the paper bag was put up for auction too later, though i don't know how much that sold for, and it was signed by him haahaha.

23/02/2003 11:24pm MST - Jordan Shaw

heh, the speedy 1x (CD-ROM Drive) bastards. Woo, try booting an OS off one of those. It's painful. |

It's like trying to suck the ocean through a straw.

24/02/2003 1:32AM MST - Jordan Shaw

Hm, it's amazing how much weird shit you can buy in Japan. As opposed to the miles of weird shit you can buy here, but don't think about because it's normal.

(In response to http://sexylosers.keenspace.com/)

 

Akash Khokar - February 25, 2003 12:16am

Klyment: I know you want one of those "Hello Kitty Vibrating Massagers". =P

Akash: oh god, yes, so i can be gay and a fob at the same time sounds to me like smth to please most of the osa crowd

K: ROFL!!!!!!!!!! HAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A: you know you're included, why are you laughing haha

I met with a young couple on Wednesday. I photographed them along with their children and several relatives from the woman's side about three weeks ago and we went through the family photo shoot to select photos that they'd want edited and printed. After going through the photos, the lady and I talked. We talked for an hour or two and the subject of marriage and raising of children came up. This couple was very open with the status of their relationship. They have been married for about five years and before getting married it appears as though they came to the mutual agreement that as much as they would like to believe that marriage is forever, in reality such a relationship is finite. In twenty years, her father and mother went from a loving relationship to one where neither could stand each other and they parted on good terms. This woman and her husband felt similarly and even noted that they'll stay together as long as they can but they didn't feel that once the marriage "expires" that they should try to prolong the suffering of their partners and those around them, including their children.

I spoke with Gary Regester, photographer and designer of the Plume Wafer line of soft boxes, regarding a Canadian dealer for his Jumbrella product. He directed me to the owners of Vistek Toronto and Lighttools in . . . Edmonton (*gasp*). The same day, I scheduled a visit to Light Tools in the south side of Edmonton. Stephen Pilby, owner of Lighttools, was a bit under the weather Tuesday so we met Wednesday. We spent about four hours together. I spirited Leanna away from work in part because I didn't want to go alone and I enjoy her company and in part because I wanted a model and a second eye to take snapshots of us playing around with this gigantic umbrella. Almost all photos taken with Fuji F10. The three sample photos were shot with the Nikon D2X and 17-55/2.8 lens. A big thank you to Stephen Pilby for his generous donation of time and knowledge. I still can't believe that I had been oblivious to this place's existence until two days ago.