Addis, My Hotel

Times Square

The Highline

I shot these early November during my trip to NYC and Philly. I finally got around to scanning and editing them.

Looking back…

Anyone who is close to me knows what an intense year ‘09 was. It was full of deep lows-getting laid off from a job I loved- while working for the institution in the Afar Region of Ethiopia, and a very messy break-up.

The loss of the job and income I had grown accustomed to over the years was a major shock. For a while, I think I was suffering with a loss of identity. Because, who am I if I’m not a photographer for the Natural History Museum?

But going through what I did this year, I’ve learned many things about myself. I’m very smart: a quick learner and adaptable. I eventually adjusted to not working a 9-5 job and find myself very much at home working for hours at my favorite coffee shop within walking distance from my apartment. I am a much better photographer that I thought I was: Once while assisting a local commercial photographer, and setting up lights for him, I thought to myself: “I can TOTALLY do this myself. I just need more practice.” And while setting up a haphazard studio to photograph objects for my new job, my new boss asked me: “Does this scare you?” I think to myself: “Dude, I lit and photographed an ENTIRE T-rex. This doesn’t scare me. However, I am uncomfortable with fact you make me compromise the quality of my work by forcing me to use inferior equipment.”

I did some things that surprised even myself:

I reacted pretty severely to the way a certain individual treated me. (To put things mildly.) I like that this is the highlight of my year to Bernard. But looking back at what I did and said, the only think I regret was the self-destructive behavior. Anything I did or said to my ex, still stands.

I was pleasantly surprised by how amazingly supportive my friends are. From the co-workers who stood up for me in order for me to get some freelance work, to my closest friends who were giving me advice and cheering me up.

One of the good things about hitting rock-bottom is you have nothing else to lose. And I found myself taking more risks-good risks that could help me. So, flat-broke, I traveled to the east-coast to visit B and interview for the masters program of my dreams. While in NYC, Bernard buys me a ticket and sends to Manhattan to see the play Circle Mirror Transformation. Which was kinda perfect timing for me to see it. The play was was in this intimate theater just off of Times Square. B got me a seat in the front row, eye-level with the stage. I could see and experience EVERYTHING. And because some of the scenes have the actors laying on the ground, I felt like I was part of the play. The setting is during a drama class in a community center in a small fictional town in Vermont. The characters kind of deal with changes in their lives. At the very end of the play, two of the characters act like they are meeting 10 years in the future, then you (the audience) realizes that we are actually watching these two characters meet 10 years in the future. (Brilliant!) They discuss what everyone from the class is up to, who’s married to whom and where they are living. Lauren (16 when it the acting class, then 26) mentions that her parents got divorced. Which leads to this discussion:

LAUREN

Oh. Um…my parents got divorced this past fall.

Yeah.

After um…after thirty years of marriage.

SCHULTZ

I’m so sorry.

LAUREN

Yeah. No. I mean, I think it was a good decision.

An awkward silence.

LAUREN

Hey. Um. This is kind of a weird—but do you ever wonder how many times your life is gonna

end?

Another silence.

SCHULTZ

Uh…I’m not sure I know what /you—

LAUREN

Like how many people you’re…like how many times your life is gonna totally change and

then, like, start all over again? And you’ll feel like what happened before wasn’t real and

what’s happening now is actually…(she trails off)

SCHULTZ

Uh…I don’t know.

I guess I feel like my life is pretty real.

LAUREN

Yeah.

Silence.

At this point, I think to myself that my life has ended twice in the past year, and I start crying. Which I’m notorious for when I see live theater. But what is discussed in this play was true for me. After being laid off and adjusting to that, when I was offered a similar-yet higher position at the Museum, at a time when I really, really needed the money, I turned it down. In part because I would feel like I sold my soul to the Devil or that I gotten back together with a cheating boyfriend, but also because after half a year, I felt like that part of my life was over and even if I did return, it would never be the same.

Looking back, even though very bad things happened to me, I can’t say it was a bad year. All of the endings were also the beginning of something better. The ending of the job was the beginning of a life where I am more creative, relaxed and confident in my skills. The ending of a bad relationship freed me up for a much healthier relationship with someone who is equally creative, ambitious and geeky.

While packing up my Christmas decorations, I couldn’t help but wonder where will I be when I pull these out next year? Will I be in a tiny apartment in Philadelphia? Maybe Colorado? Or will I still be in Cleveland? If so, will I have a successful photography business here?

I leave this post with a song by my favorite band of 09, The XX.

Cheers!

Stereotyping people by their favorite Indie bands

According to this site…

…I am a blog enthusiast who thought wearing a keffiyeha was awesome.

I am a bro vaguely interested in listening to music and very interested in having sex with their girlfriend; who tries to make out with girls at concerts by relating to them via old Nickelodeon shows. “Remember Pete & Pete??”; who, at one point in their lives, have tried to grow a mustache.

I am a girl who bought checkered sneakers in the 8th grade; who purchased a guitar, buys flannel from the Salvation Army, wears glasses that I don’t actually need, and still can’t get the guy; who got my boyfriend to watch Me and You and Everyone We Know; who throws up at every party and doesn’t understand politics.

I am a hopelessly patchy beard grower that doesn’t listen to enough music and is an avid doodler, with self-esteem issues and probably hates Ben Gibbard, no I actually hate Ben Gibbard.

I am a lesbian (or a guy) who firmly believes that when there are two girls on stage together, there is a 63% chance of them making out.

I am a feminist.

I’m offended and entertained!

Concessionaire

I quit one of my jobs last night. I was working concessions at a cultural institution here in Cleveland. I had a feeling that this job might be kind of rediculous when I had to be interviewed. INTERVIEWED! By not one, but two people. They asked me the usual questions one might ask for a real job, why I want to work there, what might I bring to the job. I gave some schpeil about wanting to challenging myself and excited to work for a cultural institution where it may turn out to be pretty interesting. Then they made me take a test to see if I can do math.

Interesting it was. The first day I was there, a girl, younger than me, and still very new herself, trained me. But since the job consists of salting and warming pretzels and running a register, I had no problems. I was surprised to learn that at the end of the day, they count our product and our money and our money has to match the report-or we have to pay them. Then they check the count of our product and if the count doesn’t match the report-we have to pay them. Now I was already disappointed in my lack of tips. I wasn’t selling beer and mixed drinks-the impression I had from my interview and test. I was just selling pop, candy, and pretzels and who tips for these things?! But I quickly learned that what little tips I was making was being taken from me. Nothing is more disheartening then working hard for someone, earning them over $1000 over the day, getting paid minimum wage, then having them turn to you and tell you you owe them 50 cents or $3. Seriously?

The next day I’m on the phone with my brother and I bitch about the counting and paying. He informs me that that is a pretty common practice. “That’s exactly what Kevin does.” A owner of a concession business and a friend of the family.

Later, I’m on the phone with my mom and I’m bitching to her. She tells me about the time she worked in a bank and she was off by one cent and she had to stay until until she could account for that penny. My response: What happened to the penny?

My second day there, I was supposed to continue being trained. However, they were down a person and I was thrown into the fire. I was given the stand that is responsible for making coffee. The three stands sell cups and there is a communal coffee station. So second day there, still trying to figure out what is going on and where everything goes, and make coffee and I have a manager not helping me but standing and barking orders to me “you need to put your money in the bank right away, you need to put pretzels on right away, you are responsible for coffee.” Finally, one of the assistants feels bad for me and jumps in and finishes making the pretzels for me and shows me how butter and salt them super-fast. Running my own stand also means running the register-having never used their register. I did good! I almost messed up a credit card transaction but caught myself and told the manager standing by.

Manager: “What did you do?”

Me: “I forgot to press the Credit Card Authorize Button.”

Manager: “Why did you do that?”

Me: “Because I, um, forgot.”

It was my second credit card transaction and I’m still figuring out the system. The mistake was easily and quickly fixed, but that exchange was just silly.

At the end of that day, I only owed them 50 cents.

Second Week:

I’m working a Friday Night and I’m partnered with this girl, she seems kinda ghetto and doesn’t seem to like me. Thoughout the evening I notice I’m bringing in the most of the tips, because I’m actually talking to the customers and saying things like Thank You.

We cash out and we are $5 off so we don’t get our credit card tips. Also, the manager turns to the other girl and said she didn’t charge for a pretzel so she (just her, not we) owns $3. She throws a fit and throws the money down. I don’t know what’s going on and mention it could be my fault since I’m new and I offer to give her $1.50. She refuses and mumbles something about it’s because she’s black. Then she storms out.

I’m back the next day to work a double. (My manager was surprised I returned.) Same stand, different partner, this girl is cuter, friendlier and knows how to work the customers. We rake in the tips. We worked twice the time and we were off a quarter. I then realize the previous night’s issue wasn’t because the girl was black, it was because she is bad at her job. I consider asking the managers not to put me with her ever again-not because of what happened, but because I make less money when I work with her.

Last night I’m partnered with this older lady and I felt sorta guilty that I was leaving so I offer to do things like make and carry the big coffee canisters upstairs and I offer to stay and clean the stand if she wanted to leave and get in line to be counted out. At one point in the evening I told her that it was my last night. There is a pause while we are putting out our candy. “This isn’t what you expected is it?” I said no. Then we go on to bitch about how we are treated. I ask her how long she’s been working there. She says 2 years. I ask her why she doesn’t try to be a bartender. You have to be there for six months before you can get promoted to bartender. But they have it made: They only count cups, they show up later and leave earlier and they make way more tips. She said she used to do that and she thinks she just has to formally request that job up in HR. I hope she does.

So last night, after working my last shift, after being counted out, being off $4, going down to the warehouse to recount our bin and in the end still being off $1.25. I told them I’m quitting, they were genuinely sad to see me go. I told them it’s because I took a server position where I will make more money, which is true. But really it was a disheartening job. You work hard for what little tips you get-only to have it taken away from you. You get bossed around by people who know less about what’s going on.

I will miss some of my co-workers, with some exception, they were the nicest and the craziest group of people I’ve ever worked with.

Multimedia Portfolio

I dropped off the face of the earth the past couple of weeks because I’ve been busy working (3 jobs) and finishing up my multimedia portfolio for grad school.

This portfolio LOOKS pretty sweet and is interactive. I created it in flash and learned some actionscript to make it work. CREATING the portfolio sucked. I would spend an entire day at Pheonix working on it-straight almost 7 hours designing and looking up code. No emailing, no blogging, no surfing. Okay, maybe a little twittering. I was the girl with the messed-up hair from holding her head too many times with the computer open, my actionscript cookbook open, my notebook open and Adobe.com and lynda.com open in my browser. I took a class on Flash and it was mostly about designing and animating things in flash and very little actionscript. But what I did learn from the class was to search for code and tutorials online. In my searches, I ran across some gems:

The first being Adobe’s site itself. They have tutorials, an actionscript dictionary, videos and they just launched a cookbook for actionscript. They really have an amazing and very helpful resource.

I knew about lynda.com before this project, but I used it for this project as well. I learned how to load a swf into another swf and have them communicate with each other. I’ve learned a lot of my photoshop and illustrator skills from this site. Fortunately both my jobs have subscriptions that I can utilize. I’m also a fan of their creative documentaries, they have one on the designer behind Tokidoki!

But I also learned about visual-blast.com. Where they post about all kinds of resources for photographers and designers. I found a flash photo gallery that I used, but when it wasn’t working with my project, I scrapped it to create my own photo gallery that worked the same way. (Here, I learned how to make a movie play backwards with code). Also, I found links for free illustrator artwork. I downloaded some to use in the navigation for my interactive.

I also found WIX. A site where you can create a flash website-for free! I didn’t use this because I already have a flash site and this didn’t offer what I needed for my interactive. But I may use this when I create my brother’s site.

I also found an Actionscript iphone app. It is really just a dictionary of Actionscript terms, but still a helpful resource when you are at work and obsessing about a project and feel the need to do some research. Your co-workers will just think you are texting.

This was the most intense, mentally challenging project I’ve ever taken on. After the marathon at Phoenix I was exhausted. I couldn’t think anymore. I even told Ted that I never thought so hard in my life.

Fortunately my friends have been totally supportive. Me to Ted: “I can hang out, but can we have a working date?”  Plus, he gave me helpful feedback on how I can make it look a little bit better.

Kristin to me: “I read your post on Twitter (about not being available to hang out last week), I hear ya’. Let’s hang out next week.”

Most importantly, Wendy let me borrow some software so I didn’t have to drop $400 just to finish my portfolio!

Finally, Mike, my new favorite guy at my favorite coffee shop plays the best music that could be played in a coffee shop. Part of my being able to work for an extended period of time is the music I am working to. At Phoenix, I am lucky to hear an eclectic mix of Hot Chip, Neutral Milk Hotel, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Feist, The Strokes, and New Pornographers. All music that I completely enjoy and keeps me dancing in my seat while I work.

At the end of the day, I have a portfolio that I am proud of, that is the sexiest thing I’ve ever made. And even if I don’t get into the school of my dreams, I know I can make a bad-ass flash interactive.

Photo in the Media

One of my photos appears in Indiana University’s site. Check it out.

Photo in Journal of Anatomy

I think I shot the photo in this article about a year ago… It’s figure 2.

Photo in Cool Cleveland

One of my photos was included in a blurb about the All You Can Eat Event! Check it out here, look for BizTech NEWS.