before sunrise, a nice warm day, and some exciting trails.
we watched before sunrise on DVD last thursday night (and ofcourse, before sunset last friday), and darn, was it beautiful. i mean, the lines are so simple and so casual, yet so effective. the plot is as simple as it could get too, two strangers met on the train, talked, decided to know each other more by walking around vienna, tried out a couple of local attractions while continuing talking, exchanging opinions and views of the world around them, ended the day on the park, and had to bid each other goodbye the next morning, with a promise. i don't remember enjoying a movie like this before, two characters chatting, from start to finish. i just have to say this one's different, and i totally loved it.
we are having a very nice day today, +9 as i speak. and to think that it's just january 31, which means we are officially in the middle of the winter season makes me smile some more. i spent most of the day yesterday walking around town taking photographs, i'll post some of them later, and i think i walked for almost 5 hours, but it was a really great walk. with the desire to photograph the river upclose, i decided to follow the river valley trail, and though the whole path is still covered with snow, it's so damn beautiful. and to borrow a quote i read somewhere... "Edmonton is a runner's(ren: and biker's) dream city. The North Saskatchewan River curls through town and both sides are lined with an unbroken, 25-mile long greenbelt of two-dozen connected parks. The sprawling, forested wonderland is laced with 150 kilometres of riverside, ravine, and deep-woods trails." i will no doubt purchase a bike at the first sign of spring =)
it was -25 degrees outside...
...yesterday, and i was out there shooting. i froze my ass out! i can only shoot during daytime on weekends, so even with the friggin' condition i still went out. i started on our back alley but found nothing interesting, so i walked around the neighboring streets where i found this tree.
the lack of interesting subject prompted me to go to downtown again. the amazing thing about this place is that it's condition is the exact opposite during weekends, it is so quite and you could count the people you'd see walking around. maybe it's because of the wicked weather, but i remember it's just the same even during summer days. what continued to amaze me is my constant false thinking that i've already covered and shoot everything in this very small area. but everytime i try to walk around, i always manage to find something different.
yesterday's my first time shooting at extreme weather, and even i was wearing a flip glove, the short moment that i have to expose my fingers is enough to make them feel really cold and almost numb. i have to take cover almost every 20 minutes, good thing most of the building lobbies are open eventhough the offices are close.
Black's print is disappointing
Black's had a promotion in their prints last weekend. 29 cents for the 4x6" instead of the regular 49 cents, so i eagerly asked Nel to pick all of the pictures she like and we uploaded them to their site for processing. I have always wanted to try having my photos printed at Black's but they're rate is so high that i usually have mine printed at Save-On, they're not serious pics anyway. I'm not saying Save-On print is bad, i'm saying it's the cheapest lab that i'm aware of, and for prints to be given away to, or asked to be printed by friends, it's really really fine.
Back to my Black's experience. So yeah, I had my photos processed on Saturday but didn't get the chance to pick them up until last night. That same saturday night, I was asked a favor to shoot on a friend's daughter's birthday. I took around a hundred shots before my battery died on me. I wasn't expecting a full charge BP to drain that fast, but what i forgot is that I was shooting with my flash on all the time. That was a good lesson to learn. (note to self: secure a spare battery pack soon)
We're up till 2am that I didn't managed to download and process my photos until Sunday afternoon. Then Nel remind me that if I could finish on time, I might still be able submit them online to Black's and still avail of the 29cents promo. Great idea, this set of photos need to be printed on a higher quality so the girl won't be disappointed with her birthday photos. I spent the next hours looking at each photos, cropping, and adjusting exposure for darker images. I managed to upload and order prints at 10:30pm, an hour and a half before the promo expires. 26 bucks for 91 images, not bad a deal =)
Then came yesterday night, I went to their shop to pick up all the photos, 160+ in total. I was excited when I arrived home and eagerly opened one of the packages, only to be dissappointed. All my prints are dark, around 2/3 stop under! This is the least that I expected, the vivid prints that their bragging about is not evident in any of the prints. How can you possibly have vivid dark photos? The sales clerk was convincing me to sign up for their membership card which would give me 25% discount on their prints, i'm glad i didn't join yet. Even with the discount, Save-On prints are still cheaper and way much better.
is it too early to whine?
i know it's just the fourth day of the new year, but i just can't help it. i could barely find the opportunity to shoot the past days. it's frigging cold here in edmonton, and i seems it's gonna be like this until as late as mid-march. no more nice "a bit warm" weather for us=(
maintaining my dailyphoto log is starting to become toilsome. i'm now struggling to produce a photo for the next day. my trip at the mall yesterday yielded a couple shots i like, but that would only suffice until tomorrow. i need tiny bits of luck from time to time, to be able to come up with decent photos for the next two months of freezing cold weather.
i know not a lot of people who read this blog are aware of it's other half. i don't remember mentioning about it, so if you are one of them here's the link. i hope you'll like what you'll see.
-ren
movies i saw in 2004
after not seeing movies for 5 months(the whole time we spent at winnipeg), here's a list of the movies i saw in my 7 months in edmonton:
lord of the rings: return of the king
laws of attraction
50 first dates
van helsing
day after tomorrow
national treasure
the punisher
collateral
around the world in 80 days
i, robot
the notebook
bourne supremacy
mean girls
raising helen
hellboy
the whole ten yards
prince and me
the incredibles
the terminal
spiderman 2
troy
king arthur
dodgeball
hero
harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban
the chronicles of riddick
hidalgo
13 going on 30
kill bill 1 & 2
taking lives
garden state
wicker park
wimbledon
anacondas: the hunt for the blood orchid
surviving christmas
resident evil: apocalypse
cellular
without a paddle
alien vs predator
bridget jones: edge of reason
on DVD:
24 season 1
24 season 2
24 season 3
dark angel season 1
firefly season 1
city hall
silence of the lambs
stigmata
chasing liberty
uptown girl
the core
the last samurai
love actually
bend it like beckham
timeline
butterfly effect
girl next door
master and commander
lost in translation
man on fire
in america
sex, lies and videotapes
runaway jury
eurotrip
please don't tell me i'm a movie freak =)
