As If It Matters

I’ve been spending all of my copious free time going through my old photos and uploading some favorites to Flickr. Here are some of the new sets of old photos:

• Random photos of my brother
• I lived in Queens for almost 3 years, and here are some of the photos from that period: New York (2001 to 2003)
• Way back in 1999 I got an early webcam and took a photo of myself. Then, entranced with the wonders of the old shareware app PaintShop Pro, I went to town and created a fun slideshow that I call “Nicco the Thug“.
• My aunt gave me a bunch of old family slides from the early 1950s. I’ve scanned the first four slides and thrown in a much later scanned photo. Most of these photos are of my father, Nick Mele, and his parents, Nick and Dorothy.
• In 1996 or 1997 (I can’t remember exactly when), I got a grant from the Charles Center at William & Mary, where I was in college. The grant was a special cross-disciplinary scholarship, only to be used for something totally unrelated to your major or minor. I was particularly entranced by Dale Chihuly at the time, and so I applied for a grant to study glassblowing. I received the grant, and spent part of my summer at the Corning Glass Studio in Corning, New York. My obsession with glassblowing continues to this day.
• I’ve also got a a random collection of family photos… This is pretty interesting – a scan of William P. St. John’s obit from the New York Times, not sure the date. Born in 1849, so probably early 1900s. He’s an aged ancestor of mine – my maternal grandfather had this obit.
• Speaking of my maternal grandfather, here’s a photo from a trip to his childhood home, Hellhole, California. I’m not kidding.

Besides the sets, there are a bunch of random photos that aren’t in sets. Some of my favorites:

• Breakfast with Adam
• Sailing with the older Bubb Brothers
• SupaKristi
• My grandparents used to have a house in Placerville, California. We would spend the summers out there, and there was this bar in Placerville.
• Here’s a random photo I scanned from my high school life in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. As memory serves, my buddy Shi-Hao Kuo took the photo – you can almost make me out, climbing the tree, about mid-way up.
• And my favorite Zippy the pin-head cartoon
• An old photo of my beloved Marta from when she was a puppy! Massey, can you believe she was smaller than a basketball?
• Some people may or may not know that I paint occasionally. I’m in the middle of a painting now, but this is my favorite painting that I’ve painted.
• My childhood hero was Frank Buck.
• My adult hero is Matt Keller.
• Matt introduced me to Joe Trippi.
• Obelix, anyone?

More photos to come.

Harish went to Lebanon and left my digital camera there. After a few weeks of using my cameraphone with varying levels of success, I finally gave in and purchased a real digital camera, SLR, the new Canon Digital Rebel XT. First, I spent Saturday at the Georgetown Garden Show. Then spent Monday in New York (still in New York, actually…) at the Personal Democracy Forum, where I took not only photos of participants but specialized in their neckties. I’m in a bit of bind: Flickr is the standard of the day, but I sell prints of my flower photos through Smugmug. So, for now I guess I’ll post in both places… but be sure to buy some of my prints. This one might be my favorite, but I like this one, too. Oh, and comments don’t work yet. so you’ll have to comment on Flickr or something. Let’s complicate this process as much as possible, shall we?

My love of photography has suffered as of late. I’m just not taking many photos, and not spending the time I used to spend (hours!) reviewing and considering my photos. Instead I’m slowly becoming a Flickr Zombie. Consider this photo discovered today on Flickr — it’s brilliant. I love it. I wish I had taken it, and I’m not a man with many regrets.

A few years ago I had this idea — or maybe Chris Massey had it — where you would subscribe to Nicco for a year. I figured I didn’t need much money to survive, so could I get enough people to pay me $30 or $40 to pursue a random assortment of art projects, everything from writing to painting to large land art installations? The Nicco Subscription never got off the ground, although a number of my friends who remember the idea still seem to think it’s absolutely hilariously funny to revisit every time I talk to them… “remember that time you had that crazy idea? man, that was dumb! ha ha ha…”

Anyway the point is I have been contemplating a Heather Champ Print Club. It’s a subscription to her photos, where once a month she sends you a print from her work. On your birthday you get to chose your favorite photo for an extra-large print. See? Not such a crazy idea.