New solar panel (scape)  array at Emerson Electric in St. Louis, Missouri, photo by Erik Lunsford

Via Mark Edelson, who finally let the cat out of the bag.

Just make sure to write-in “Erik Lunsford” for president.

I promise no old taxes, just new ones.

Please vote for me!

]]> http://www.eriklunsford.com/blog/2008/10/14/vote-for-erik-on-election-day/feed/ 2 http://www.eriklunsford.com/blog/2008/07/21/back-begs-for-mercy/ http://www.eriklunsford.com/blog/2008/07/21/back-begs-for-mercy/#comments Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:13:40 +0000 erik http://www.eriklunsford.com/blog/?p=817 Over time back pain creeps up after long days of schlepping those anvil Canon batteries around in a Domke bag. I believe this pain coincides with my receding hairline and the general progression towards “middle-aged.” Plus, my loveable Domke is basically coming apart thread by thread so it’s time to look for a replacement. The sad part is that several years ago I could haul everything and a sink around without trouble. Now, well, no more sink.

So I’m curious to know what kind (if at all) belt systems you use and if you would mind explaining why you like it. The ThinkTank and LowePro gear has piqued my interest. Are they a hassle to get on and off, and what is the smallest “bag” per se that can fit on a belt pack and not get in the way.  Lastly, does your employer pick up the cost of a bag or do you just pad the mileage? Oh wait, no one does that.

Please write in, my back begs for mercy.

Also, it hurts me intensely to see this. For all my former co-workers and friends at the Palm Beach Post, I wish you all the best. Good luck.

It’s like we moved here to be with our families and better our work, but everything just seems to keep us from getting ahead. The greed of unscrupulous Florida investors and the housing market crash and credit risk crunch has absolutely crushed our Florida home value to the point we can’t compete with other sales. Area mortgage companies in Florida call our region a “high risk area” and kill any potential sales. Renters low-ball every offer on the house like they were leasing a slum. I feel like we’re in a hamster ball playing on the losing side of a hellish game of Monopoly, just a dice roll away from hitting a hotel-adorned Park Place and painfully paying up.

I listened to Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major with Julia Fischer on violin in the car yesterday morning, and if you listen to it you’ll notice how it builds, almost angrily, into a crescendo of frustration and anxiety. The sharp violin cries out for mercy, like an animal stuck in a trap. I couldn’t listen anymore, it was too much — I didn’t want to crash my car.

So here it is, time to mortgage my properties. I’m holding cards and ready to fold. Who wants in, because I’m ready to deal.

At least on the positive side, if the problem is only financial, then there are plenty of other things that could make life a lot worse. It’s sickly comforting to know that at least one industry colleague that I call a friend is in the same boat with me. I’ve personally seen plenty of sicknesses and habits that drag people down into a distant hole. At least with money, said my friend Steven Martine, you can’t take it with you.

I had to vent, back to the art, which is going well, I hope.

eff the art scene, I’m so done with it. I’m going to try Miles and mood stabilizers.

However, it stings knowing that Rupert Murdoch, new owner of the Journal, has went and as planned messed with a beautiful thing. I don’t curse the owners of Dow Jones for selling — that’s life and business — it’s the fact that the paper is now newscorp-ed up and, well, that’s never a good thing fox news. Read this Columbia Journalism Review Audit op-ed and get the salve out. Just a question — did anyone really think Murdoch was going to uphold his word? ppff.

And, see, newspaper readers are pretty stupid, we all know that. But even they will sense some disconnect when they see the newspaper holding leaders to account, matching what they say today against what they said in the past, sorting through spin and attempts to misrepresent the record—doing what newspapers do all day, every day—and the news organization misrepresenting the record, avoiding accountability for what it said in the past, doing the opposite of what it said it would do.

So, what I’m saying here is that l-y-i-n-g and j-o-u-r-n-a-l-i-s-m don’t go well together.

A Photo Editor thinks blogs are the way to finding good photographic talent uncommons…talent like Nick Knight, who does a tremendous job of thinking far outside the box. His 24HRS short films stemming from his 24 hour live broadcast fashion shoot in July is unique and different.

For completely random and enticing visual ideas, check out Monoscope. There seems to be an unspoken guarantee of random curiousities that is certain to excite the visual senses.

Chair in my grandfather’s backyard, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2005

Swamped with archiving and dodging metro, I wandered around the department looking to kill time when lab tech Tim Stepien told me that there was a class of high school journalists on their way upstairs to learn photography in the Post studio.  Judging quickly that having fun with students far outweighs watching the DVD burning progress meter tick down, I joined the fray and got involved. We decided to pull all the props from our storage room (which has a delightful chemical-mildew smell), let the students have a dress-up free for all, then made portraits of them role playing. We had the statement maker (top), the cross-dressing cheerleader (easily found above), the border guard (bottom) and the fiesta-lover making out with a pinata. There’s a few more, including Santa Claus and a ping pong player and the usual shy ones, but I think these are strong enough to hold some attention, if just briefly.