December 31, 2007 - Philadelphia church, same old theme, leaving Philly on New Year's Eve, car shot on the drive back to New Jersey below, blah blah blah, god, I gotta move on. Although you gotta admit that was pretty good light that day.

Well, I finally got a new roll developed today. I can't believe it took me half a year to finish a roll, that is seriously uninspired. So I'll blast through the rest of this roll and hope there's something worthy on the new roll.


This is probably still in Philly or in New Jersey before the Turnpike. It all looks the same.

I've had insomnia for a month, getting worse and worse. Now I'm either gonna cure it or accept it. I guess something's gotta change. It's weird. I'm not stressed, I don't have anything on my mind, I just can't sleep for more than 3 hours. But I did have this problem when I was working in San Francisco, so maybe the problem is work!

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Risky (Ryuichi Sakamoto)
2. Ripple (The Grateful Dead)
3. Not for the Life of Me ("Thoroughly Modern Millie")
4. I Never (Rilo Kiley)
5. Night On the Sun (Modest Mouse)
6. Driven to Tears (live) (The Police)
7. Fly on a Windshield (Genesis)
8. Other Side of the World (KT Tunstall)
9. Hey Ladies (The Beastie Boys)
10. El Flaco Funk (John Pena)

December 31, 2007 - Leaving Philadelphia on New Year's Eve. Urban skylines. Winter blue skies. Contrast to the sub-tropical Taipei drear, but it's all wonderful. What a great planet we have. Hope we can take care of it.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Symphony No. 8, II. Tempo di menuetto (Beethoven)
2. Five to One (The Doors)
3. Thinking of No One But Me ("My and My Girl")
4. Bodies (Smashing Pumpkins)
5. Sin in My Heart (Siouxsie & the Banshees)
6. Kathy's Waltz (The Dave Brubeck Quartet)
7. Listen to What the Man Said (Wings)
8. Tainted Love (Soft Cell)
9. Disarm (live, English TV 1993) (Smashing Pumpkins)
10. Them Heavy People (Kate Bush)

December 31, 2007 - Sunny, New Years Eve morning, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Victoria (live) (The Kinks)
2. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V) (Pink Floyd)
3. Dumbells (live) (Mission of Burma)
4. Love Love Love (Dreams Come True)
5. Custom Concern (Modest Mouse)
6. Where Am I Going? ("Sweet Charity" 1986)
7. Tremor Christ (Pearl Jam)
8. Pump (The Sugarcubes)
9. Burnin' Love (Sing Like Talking)
10. The Power of Crappy Music (A-Mei)

shadows and tall trees

December 31, 2007 - Philadelphia, PA. Random posts of random lomos. Furthermore I'm not shooting anything new. I might run out of shots to post, but actually I think I have a roll of black and white from last year that I never posted here.

I visited my brother, arriving the day before, and thought he had New Years Eve off, but alas he had to work so I didn't get to spend time with him before I headed back to New Jersey. I walked a bit around his neighborhood before taking off. I saw this shot as I walked up to it, and knew I was going to have a problem with the sun behind me, so, well, that's my shadow at the bottom of the tree. I stood behind the tree and wrapped my arms around the tree and shot, trying to be inconspicuous.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Call Me (Throwing Muses)
2. Milk It (Nirvana)
3. Mending King (Three Mile Pilot)
4. Tag Team (Noriyuki Makihara)
5. (Meet) The Flintstones (Dirty Dozen Brass Band)
6. Candle (Matisyahu)
7. Lola (live) (The Kinks)
8. Everybody's Got the Right ("Assassins" - Sondheim)
9. Another Nail in My Heart (Squeeze)
10. I Know a Girl ("Chicago")

street shots

October 11, 2006 - Back in Philadelphia for the second time that week, this time with my parents and uncle and aunt who wanted to see the new baby girl, Sarah, who was born in July. My brother and his wife were at work, so I didn't see them at all. My parents like to visit on Wednesdays, their day off, but they only go to see the kids and never see my brother. That always struck me as odd.

I didn't want to hang out with a bunch of old people speaking Taiwanese, so I took off on a walk and to study at Starbucks, and ended up in the rain. I think this is Chestnut Street, headed back over the Schuykill River.


October 14, 2006 - West Side Highway, New York City. I drove into New York on Saturday morning to pick up my sister-in-law's sister, Peggy. I was in the lane to get off when I saw this darndest thing, and you probably have to enlarge to see it, a Corvette with "Student Driver" in huge letters on the back! I always thought East Coast people took themselves too seriously to do something like that. Or maybe it really was a student driver. Or a student race car driver.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Bullet With Butterfly Wings (Smashing Pumpkins)
2. Alarmed (Built to Spill)
3. Yo-Yo (The Kinks)
4. Vera (live) (Pink Floyd)
5. Sour Times (Nobody Loves Me) (Portishead)
6. Lord, Is It Mine? (Supertramp)
7. Just Phrases (Kenwood Dennard)
8. All My Love (Led Zeppelin)
9. No Backrub (Bikini Kill)
10. You Were the Long Way Home (764-HERO)

Philadelphia II

October 8, 2006 - U.S. visit. The building on the right is the famous 30th Street train station. Actually, I don't know if it's famous, except that my brother identified it as the one where there's a scene in the Harrison Ford movie "Witness". I saw the movie, I liked it, I don't remember any train stations.

I don't know what the building in the middle was, the one I was shooting. From certain angles, it looks like a Jawa Sandcrawler, but I don't know if anyone in Philly has noticed that or if anyone calls it that. They should.


The Schuykill River. I pronounce it skwee-kel, but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be skoi-kel. Between that and the Sandcrawler building, I'll probably never be allowed to live in Philly. Even though I think their cream cheese is pretty darn good.

My brother lives off the river, and he has close access to this really nice riverside park that goes quite a way. It's much nicer than the riverside parks in Taipei, but mostly because outdoor activities in the sweltering near tropical heat of Taipei is pretty preventative. I don't mind it, but in the Summer, I could go kilometers on the bikeways in the middle of the afternoon without seeing a soul before passing out from heat exhaustion.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Crayon Sun (Throwing Muses)
2. Añoranzas (Sukay - Andean pan flute)
3. If Only You Had Cared for Me ("Me and My Girl")
4. Man of Our Times (Genesis)
5. After Today (David Bowie)
6. Mystic Rhythms (Rush)
7. Butt in the Meantime (Black Sheep)
8. I Can't Get My Head Around It (Aimee Mann)
9. Positive Vibration (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
10. Two of Us (The Beatles - Anthology)

Philadelphia I

October 8, 2006 - Trip back to the U.S. in October. It wasn't until I got to Philly to visit one of my brothers that I found chromogenic black & white film for my SLR, so it wasn't until then that I also bought color film for Bebe. I found Kodak BW400CN at Rite-Aid of all places. I crossed the street and straight away loaded both cameras. This is the film advance frame at the beginning of the roll. There were two guys in that car. Probably doing drugs. On a Sunday morning.


Chestnut Street? Walnut Street? It's a short walk from my brother's condo to U of P, where they both work at the hospital.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Samba de Orfeu (Ray Anthony - ultralounge)
2. Someday You Will Be Loved (Death Cab for Cutie)
3. Symphony No. 9, III. Adagio molto e cantabile (Beethoven)
4. Dirty Movies (Van Halen)
5. The Man Who Loved the Earth/The Hand that Sold Shadows (Peter Gabriel - "OVO")
6. Dirty Fingernails (Modest Mouse)
7. Home is Anywhere You Hang Your Head (Elvis Costello & the Attractions)
8. Still Water (The Four Tops)
9. Twentieth Century Fox (The Doors)
10. So What? ("Cabaret")