Wasted Continuum

My friend, Linh, came back to Minnesota this weekend. We spent the bulk of Saturday together. We started with lunch at True Thai in Minneapolis. It was good. The price was also not bad compared to other Thai restaurants around the Twin Cities. After lunch, we took a walk through the Uptown Art Fair. I haven’t been to it in maybe three years. I think the last time I was there it was also ridiculously hot. I had my camera with me and finally gave my new Sigma 10-20mm lens a good break in. There were plenty of cool artwork to be seen. I really didn’t see anything that I wanted to purchase though. After the Art Fair, we went our separate ways for dinner. I had a large family dinner to go to.

After dinner, I met up with Linh and a group of her friends at the Imperial Room. It was my first time there. They have a slightly strict dress code. Luckily I was presentable. I had a fair amount of alcohol, but wasn’t able to get drunk without breaking the bank. That was a bummer. I still had fun. Worked the dance floor a little. It was all good.

All in all, it was a great day. I really needed it after working like crazy lately. It was mentally relaxing.

Uptown Art Fair Flickr set

I am once again flying out to California Thursday night. This will be my fourth time there this year. That doesn’t sound right in my head. My best friend, Mai, is showing her some of her work in a fashion show. It’s her first show and I want to be there to support her.

It should be fun. I’m renting a Canon 85mm 1.8 lens from LensProToGo. I’m really excited about that. I’m renting it for two weeks so I will be able to play with it more after I return Sunday night.

You regular readers probably know my drill when I’m out in Cali. I’ll have limited internet access when I’m there so I probably won’t blog while I’m there. I will as always twitter all the time, like I do. Those will be summarized and automatically posted here everyday at midnight. If you want live “coverage” of my trip you can follow me on twitter (JavaJunky)

Fashion Show
June 14 at the San Francisco Design Center

Follow me on twitter @JavaJunky

I have officially survived my first photography showing at the Saint Paul Art Crawl this weekend. It’s been quite an experience. Everything went great. I got a couple inquiries on purchasing some of my photos. That’s always good to hear. I also had an interior designer ask me if I can shoot water towers and make poster size prints. The best thing about being at a gallery showing of your work is meeting people who are so excited and interested in your work. I heard a bunch of people make comments like “that’s nice” or “this one looks cool.” Those are great comments and I it good to hear that, but what I really loved are the people who were so intrigued that they had to flag me down and ask me a bunch of question about my photography. That’s the main reason why I put my photos out into the public. As long as I get people psyched about my work, I’ll keep doing it.

There are a few things I would have changed knowing what I know now. First thing is that I need to prepare a lot earlier. I literally left everything to the last week. Second, I should of prepared more support material (i.e. business cards, postcards, more informative website, etc.). Last, I think I should of promoted it a little more.

Overall, it was a great experience despite all the sleep deprivation. I also walked around the Art Crawl myself on Sunday. Saw quite of bit of great work. I’m sometimes fearful that art is not as strong as it used to. I’m feeling more that it is okay and that is good.

I have quite a bit of photos that I took from the whole weekend. I will slowly add the ones I like to my Flickr. I have a Art Crawl 2008 set created already.

I’m officially done with my little piece of the Art Crawl. It went way better than expected. I’ve learned so much from this experience. First is that it takes an immense amount of time to prepare for a photography showing and because of that, I’m way too tired tonight to tell you all about it. I will be exploring the Art Crawl for myself tomorrow afternoon, so I can talk about that too. I just poured the little bit of energy that I had left already into this and now I need my sleep. I took a lot of photos of the Art Crawl and I will be posting them on my Flickr account. I have already started a set for it. Right now I have some shots from my setup process. I will try to post more tomorrow. I also have a bunch of photos of my friend, Star, and her magic performance. Special thanks to her for letting me use part of her space for my showing.

Saint Paul Art Crawl Flickr set
Magician Star
Saint Paul Art Crawl

I’ve spent the last seven days really getting ready for the 2008 St. Paul Art Crawl. This is my first time participating in it. I will be showing a small selection of my photography. Today I finished hanging all my photos. I will be showing Friday and Saturday. If you want more details visit wilchow.com.

I’ll probably be twittering on the downtime. Follow me on twitter. I’m @JavaJunky.

The Saint Paul Art Crawl is next weekend, April 25-27. I will be showing a small sample of my photography this year thanks to Star, who is letting me use part of her space. Being the procrastinator that I am, I have more or less waited until the weekend before the showing to actually start preparing for it. This is the major reason why I haven’t been blogging much. If you keep up with my Twitter feed, you can kind of see what I’ve been doing to prepare. I finally ordered my print from Mpix Saturday night. I really like Mpix. I’ve used them several times for my photos and every time, they have came out brilliantly.

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