I think Antalya is most gorgeous first thing in the morning.

Most people sleep through it, except for me.

Well, me and the urban predator.

There are so many places where life is juxtaposed with death, beauty with blood.

Meanwhile I’m just trying to make my mark, like everyone else.

[This is my first real photo post with the new camera, and there will be many more— if ever you see any photo you like, please feel free to click on it and download a larger version for your own use. Everything I create in any medium is licensed under Creative Commons for the convenience of all.]

Wait— how do you know it’s the latest one if the urban fronts are unmarked?

They’re probably crying because they have to be on that shirt.

I’ve been making a lot of contacts on flickr over the past couple of weeks (add me!), and I’ve been surprised and delighted at the wealth and variety of stuff people are doing. I have contacts who are graphic artists, some who are street photographers, and others who use the camera to document their daily lives. I find it all very inspirational.

This morning I made a new contact by the name of byezdomny, who apparently lives in Vietnam. My first thought was, I bet they have a lot of good Engrish there, and sure enough, right on the first page of the photostream I hit the jackpot:

My favourite part is how the first commenter didn’t get the joke, and thought it was something about domestic violence. That made me giggle almost as much as the DVD cover itself. It reminded me of the time some of my high school friends and I got together for coffee to talk about the old days, and when one girl lamented that she’d wasted most of her teenage years doing blow, one of the other girls perked up and said, “me too! I didn’t really want to, but I thought it was the only way I could keep my virginity!” She was confused when we all erupted into laughter.

Why yes, I did grow up in the ’80s, why do you ask?

I don’t mind not having a new dark age project if I can get a quality used one:

Wow:

The D40 finally arrived yesterday, and it’s totally sweet, but I’m still a little scared of it. It has 7000 buttons and switches, and they all have multiple functions that I’ll have to get used to. We went out last night so I could photograph some neighbourhoods in the dark— Antalya has pretty lights and a lot of bright colours and it all looks especially nice after the sun goes down. I don’t have anything spectacular yet, just the above shot. Right now I’m working with a ratio of about 200 shots per 1 keeper. That’s the magic of digital, you can play around all you want and not feel like you’re wasting film.

Bear with me, this is the first camera I’ve ever owned that had a learning curve.

Ew:

Did I mention ew?

[You see what they did there, right?]

It’s too bad women can’t wear panties while they give birth, because these would be perfect.

I know I know I know, it’s a rugby thing, don’t e-mail me about it… the joke’s still there if you’re interested.