Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Academy of Sciences, San Francisco - A Visual Tour

What are the chances that the weather be so friggin nice in SF on a January-still-wintery-day? Well I'd say slim but damn did it feel good to lay on the grass.
I told my girlfriend I'd be a good model. Case in point.
Lunch was brought by me: homemade sandwhiches--pastrami and provolone laid on romaine lettuce in between wheat bread. The best part is the fresh spread I prepared: bell peppers, bread, walnuts, olive oil, cumin powder, salt and pepper. Yum-O. And oh, cold Dr. Pepper too.
We begin our journey.
The first stop were the African penguins. They're attention seeking missles. Kept going by the pane and making all the kids cheer and excited.
Remember that hall when you were a kid? Well it's reincarnated for sure.
The living rooftop as they call it [i believe]. All California native plants planted on the roof making it a comfortable home for birds and butterflies to whizz by. These windows provide natural sunlight for the building as well as heating/cooling.
My girlfriend said the place looks like a skeleton. It's very silver steel indeed. But all materials are recycled to keep up with the green movement.
That dome is the state of art digital planeterium. Crazy ass show indeed with the screen as large as your eyes can see. You really have to turn your head in each direction to see what's coming.
Enter the Rainforest. Humid and all but a wondrous land.
The architecture is amazing here: mixing metal and earth is very pleasing here.
She really didn't touch it. We pretend.
Before you leave they make sure there's no 'flies on you. It's funny because people automatically pat themselves down as if they'd feel them on them. And even if they did, they'd pretty much kill them. We're automatic it's so funny.
People sit too long and don't give up their seats.
Right across is De Young. San Francisco makes visiting places quite easy.
This lady at first was posing right in front of this. My girlfriend and I wanted to take our pics but she just stood there. So I ended up taking photos of her until she moved.
Our souveneer was quite unrelated: astronaut ice cream. My first time ever tasting this treat.
I said "Wow. That's reeeally good!"
My teeth blanketed with the melt in your mouth ice cream.
We done did it.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Moleskine #14: "Inspiration"

"Legendary notebook of Hemingway, Picasso..."?! Damn, you better write something worthy in these notebooks.

My friend asked what's so good about these and I'll explain briefly.  Everything that we use for function worls as it is.  A pen works the same but why do some people pay $money$ for a pen such as Cross or some other brand [the only name I can think of].  Clothes too fall in this category--jeans costing more than $40, sunglasses more than $100, etc etc. Basically, it either just feels or looks good.  A person can justify why they spend so much money on their personal clothes/accessories on their own.

The same for these types of notebooks. And yes, I do have 14 total--1 used as a pocket portfolio, 2 filled out as a notes journal, 1 filled out daily planner, 1 as a scrapbook with my girlfriend, another as a sketchbook, 1 as clinical journal [for nursing], 1 as a workout log journal; as of now I'm on my 3rd notes journal, another daily planner for 2009, and this one right here is a new category: visual notebook where I cut and paste things from magazines. The remaining are on my shelf unopened and waiting to be used.  

Price wise, they are pricey for my a notebook but in my opinion, they are built very nice. If you pay attention to detail then it does matter. The ones I like are the hardcover notebooks so that it'll protect the pages and not get bent. There's a cloth bookmark to keep your place for the next entry and there's a pocket in the back to keep things [for me, I keep blank checks and business cards]. The most important of them all to me is that the pages are stitched to the notebook's spine. Meaning, unlike other cheap notebooks, the pages will not fall off.

So figures now: small notebook is about $10.95 and the larger ones are about $17.95. Pricey but just do it. Scroll down at the end of artcle for how to get it cheaper.

Cut and paste. Cut and paste. Annotate. Repeat.
"Inspiration"
The first page of my visual notebook.
I include anything that inspires me--photo clippings, articles, tutorials, and quotes.


Article "The Art of Selling" featured in Professional Photographer Magazine. Opposite photo is from an article from American Photo Magazine covering commercial photography Austin Bradley.
Snips from American Photo's annual Image of the Year. I took clips from photographers including Annie Leibovitz and Maki Kawakita--two of my favorite photographers.
A clip taken from American Photo Magazine where a short article covers Matthew Ralston's book beautyLight. He has two versions available: one in trade ($50) and the limited edition version [which is also massive and includes a signed print] selling for $2,500.  Amazon it.
I write "I hope one day I'll have a book that will be in both deluxe collectors edition and trade version."

So back to the price and getting it lower somehow.. the answer is BORDERS! They occasionally come out with 20, 25, and 30% coupon on items over $10. So wait for these coupons [google "Borders coupon"] and be on the lookout.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Sydnie's 18th Birthday Dinner Party

photos by jj casas

My friend asked if I can cover his younger sister's 18th Birthday dinner and so I did. It was held at MC Skewer Sushi & Grill in Daly City. It's basically an upscale buffet [around $25/person!]

SI = St. Ignatius. It was nice seeing the younger generation from my high school all bond and such. I saw my other friend's younger brother and he has his own "SI Boys" like us. Cutes.

The celebrant and I. The entire night, I bugged her and she avoided me and asked why I had to take her picture and I said, "Well, I was hired to do so."

My face was stuffed with food. Can you tell? [photo taken by Cherrymae Jumoc]


That's my friend's younger brother. Man do they remind me of my own boys. Fun times indeed--brought me back to high school for a good 2.5 hours.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Can You Make This Possible For Me?


designed by jj casas

I need a web designer who can make that text clickable aaand implement it into a blog's banner [through blogger.com]

Basically, if the visitor clicks "home" it'll go to the home page--main blog entries.

If the visitor clicks "design" it'll go to list of blogs categorized as "design". So it's a link to grouped blog entries.

Same for "about." I'll create a post regarding myself/bio and it just needs to be linked to that entry.

If anyone knows how to achieve this through blogger, let me know!

Thanks

I Need a Bigger Shelf.

Thanks Catherinee for the wonderful Christmas gift.
Read it in 3 days. Truly inspiring. And did I mention the person who I sat with in the plane coming back to SFO from LAS got Annie to photograph her [model] book? Nice.
Smithsonian's take.
This book I've been looking for quite awhile. Frida Kahlo's dad Guillermo Kahlo was a photographer in Mexico and was commissioned to photograph the monuments and places of Mexcio. It's been selling on eBay for under $100 but I waited and got it directly from Mexico.. and bought TWO of them for the price of one. Shrink wrapped and all. I opened one and the other I'm saving. Supposedly, only 2000 were in print. I want to believe that so it makes it even more special.

George Lois. You've seen his work but just don't know. Famous for his Esquire covers. Google this genius.



He has a book published by Taschen that is selling right now for $4000. Seriously. This? It's a snippet of his work and it only costed me $10.
My favorite artist.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Design.Layout.Inspiration.

The oversized books are not here. Instead, they're on the floor. One day, I will get those shelves that line the walls from floor to ceiling. That's sweetness for my personal collection. [I have photography instruction books but that's not included/counted in my personal book collection].

Copy and Paste

At 8:45a, I head over to Java Beach Cafe right in front of Ocean Beach [SF] with my cousin for our "laptop sessions." These sessions basically alot each other time to be productive--doing whatever what we need to do. We're in each other's presence but barely interfere with each other. Weird. I know.
This time around though I brought my stack of magazines. I think I brought about 15 or so--mainly photography magazines. Ever since I've subscribed to magazines I've taken the time to take notes from particular articles or at least jot down names of photographers or any notable products.
I don't know how much I wrote into my Moleskine notebook [get one btw. you just got to. feels great. really] but I damn well know I put in a lot of valuable information on photography, relations, tips, etc.
A small snip of the stack of mags I brought to the spot.
As you can see, I take note photographers and their websites.

Now why again? Magazines take too much space. Solution? Write down in a handy dandy notebook the things that are important. Next thing you know, you'll have in your hands a priceless notebook containing countless information and most importantly inspiration.

EDIT:
check out my cousin's blog for the review of Java Beach House coming soon at LiveItBuzzed.com

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Hot from Macworld: Macbook Wheel

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/06/macbook-wheel-debuts-on-the-onion/

Bureaucreative - Issue 02 - Janurary 2009

Vegas and Back

Went to Vegas with friends from my high school: The SI Boys & Girls. Unfortunately it wasn't complete really since there were 2 members missing from the trip. Nevertheless, we celebrated for them with non-stop actions. Yes, action with an s because there was barely any downtime in this trip.

Crazy weekend and loved every moment.

If anyone is on Facebook, feel free to search my name and find the albums--it spans just over 3 albums. tee hee.

beautiful mems.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Checking out

Just finished our (high school buddies) Vegas trip. Checking out of MGM Grand Signature and now waiting for a decision to eat someplace. My stomach is hungry.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

2009: The New Year

Excerpt from Bureaucreative Issue 02: new year.

Happy New Year's to all! With a new year comes a new beginning for many. If not, a continuation to all the goals and resolutions we keep making year after year. Personally, I'm excited for this New Year. I'm starting it off with a trip to Vegas tomorrow with my high school friends [Jan 2] until Jan 4 and then later in the month I'll be traveling with my girlfriend as well.

Besides personal trips, I have a lot going for this year and I have the entire January to ensure it takes off positively before school starts. I have jjasef.com to work on, my personal design site; a new photo project book alongside my editor and writer of introduction Catherine Abalos; and the bi-monthly newsletter Bureaucreative which I just created.

There's a lot of things I want to be done this year and I want this year to be my most productive. I'm increasing my work ethics photographically and working client-relationships more than ever.

With all these projects, I have a long book list on queue. Still finishing up "Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty" and many many others right after.

Hope you make your lists and stick with it.

All the best,
JJ

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