Paul Newman passed away today. He was a great actor, one of my favorites, and also a great philanthropist. I buy his Newman-O’s and his popcorn all the time. You will be missed.
Archive for the 'Personal' Category
My friend Katie sent me this and it totally blew my mind - what a brilliant idea! Julian Beever and Kurt Wenner’s art is amazing to look at and most of the time it is so hard to tell what is real and what is not.
I love animals and we have two cute kitties. This is one of them, Kofte.
Here are some photos I took from my latest trip to Puerto Rico. I was able to visit San Juan and Vieques. Vieques is one of the most beautiful places ever. The phosphorescent bay is unbelievable. Also, I was able to hike El Yunque Rain Forest and the caves.
This is the view from my window! How cool!!! Not the greatest shot by a long stretch but it was great to watch!I think (correct me if I am wrong) that is Saturn on the left around 7 o’clock and Regulus at almost 12 o’clock.
I decided that I will write some non-photography related stuff here as well. I hope that helps my clients get to know me better as a person as well.
Coming from a Mediterranean country, I am a food lover. Recently, I have been reading a lot about where food comes from, and I was surprised how bad the food we eat is. I think the awakening moment for me was growing food at my garden in planter boxes, and even though people have been doing this for thousands of years, being a city boy it was fascinating. I had basil, tomatoes, beets, carrots, cucumber, eggplants, peppers, beans, peas etc. (I think I had 20 different types of produce from three small boxes).
I had a chance to listen to Mr. Pollan at Bagdad Theater last week. It was pretty interesting stuff. I have been a big fan of eating healthier lately and dropped 28lbs even without exercising and found it to be not super hard once I cut down my white processed foods and things with corn syrup in them. I do not eat white sugar, I cut out white rice and most breads, and cut my cheese intake. I eat much more locally produced vegetables as well. I thought I could never do this, but it was surprisingly easy once I decided on it. I do not drink regular soda anymore, and use stevia instead of sugar. I also cut down my portion sizes - the first week was hard but now I do not crave much anymore and I have some healthy snacks like apples around (apple slicers are awesome!) I also took a knife skills class from a local chef (Chef Al). It was awesome and I cook more at home now.
Anyways, these are some really cool, but common sense tips:
Michael Pollan’s Tips
Another thing that was a new discovery for me, but should not really come as a surprise, was how big chicken producers like Tyson inject the chicken with salt water and the sea weed carrageenan (wow, I spelled that right the first time!). Since these are all natural ingredients, the chicken itself is labeled 100% natural. I want to see the chickens that have sea weed grow naturally in them but anyways. The bottom line is 8 times higher sodium content (bad bad for your heart) and that you pay up to 15% extra for salt water.
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2007/07/28/business/072907bizchickenlabels.txt
Crazy.
Robert Capa is one of the main reasons I got in to photojournalistic photography. I used to go to Powell’s bookstore and peruse all the photo books. Capa’s work stood out for me (along with Bresson, Doisneau, Brassai). I read with great interest that his long lost negatives are found:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/arts/design/27kenn.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
(ps. it didn’t ask a login for me, but if it does, use http://www.bugmenot.com to get a login for any website that requires registration)
Our good friends Deirdre and Michael added a cat cam to their super cute kitty Cooper. Check it out:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelbenjamin/sets/72157602652072917/