done

i think

final prints

video bonanza

new prints!

here are some

talking about the posterization in the shadow areas of bridget

framed with plastic covering

opening the rest of the prints in school

test printing

test printing for the final prints on monday. the top row is the original luminosity, and the bottom is a brighter version in case my monitor is actually calibrated wrong, and the printer prints too dark. let's hope that's not the case so i don't have to do any more damn photoshopping.

40 x 50 cm inkjet prints on real paper. exhibition quality, water resistant, with original inks so it should be archival. all for $18 a print. let's hope it's worth it.

fiction #10

She slipped on last night’s shirt and sat upright, pulling the sheets closer as she did. She watched him walk naked to the bathroom, the cold morning air never affected him like it did her, and she remembered why mornings never suited her. The chill, the eerie spectral light, that earthy smell of rising dew, none of it sat well with her. The only sunrises she saw were from long, sleepless nights, and the first signs of daylight meant it was time for bed. He, on the other hand, loved mornings. The bathroom light flickered on, a yellow glow piercing the blue-lit room, and she could hear the hiss of the shower while he hummed a tune, oblivious to the world.

Last night had been one of his better performances, and she learned never to expect good sex after he’s had a few drinks. He was surprisingly alert, he even tried to pull all the same moves he used to when they first got together. It never worked the way it used to, but she wanted to play along to spare his feelings. She remembered how he struggled to put on the condom, hovering over it like a surgeon, she felt almost sorry for him. He wouldn’t have bothered with it if he’d known, but he probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the sex as much as he did, either. She’d know exactly how he would’ve handled it, the panic, the disbelief, he’d ask her to take the test, just to be sure. But she knew her body, and it didn’t take long for her to know that something was, different. She didn’t need to piss on a stick to tell her that. And she’d know exactly how he’d handle that news, the miracle that so many desperate women waited for. She’d know the look on his face, the mix of terror and nervous joy, a madman’s elation. He’d make promises she knew he could never keep. And that was why she would never bring herself to tell him.

fictions #9

There was a heavy stink of piss in the air, and he could feel it sticking to the inside of his nose and mouth as he breathed heavily. Beads of sweat dribbled down his clammy forehead. His throat felt parched and itchy. He held tightly to a wrinkled resume, the grease of his fingertips smudging the ink. It was a mistaking coming here, to suffer through it all again, but the options were scarce, and fleeting. This was all he had. He pictured all the others that waited outside, the pimply faces, the crooked teeth, the fine little black hairs sprouting at the corners of their mouths. He was the only one out there who came in a suit.

That morning he had taken a handful of his mother’s medication, hoping it would steady his nerves, to calm the waters he now felt unready to tread. But what was circulating through his body was weaker, diluted, like a drop of blood in a bathtub, and it turned his stomach even more. The pills had never failed him in the past, when he would swallow a few and everything felt just a little less heavy, a little more buoyant. It was what allowed him to so easily quit his first office job, and charm his way into a second. It gave him the courage to take all that petty cash from his third job, and to spit in the face of his last employer. Now he prayed for the effect to kick in, the numbing warmth, the blissful indifference. But there was nothing, just the aching normalness of reality stinging like a thorn in his side. He listened as a man was shitting uncontrollably in the far stall. A wet, sour gurgle echoed in the back of his throat.

pastels

i know there's really nothing i can do with these, there's just raw negative files from the scanner. but they just look so damn beautiful.

and this is only half of them.

shots wrapped

all the fictions have been shot.

now comes the tedious, mind-numbingly long post-processing, uh, process. and writing the remaining fictions.

crunch time