First post in two years. Swept out the spammers, cleared out the backdoors planted in the php (how really embarrassing), and am breaking out the mothballs. Hope everyone’s doing well. I’m great. The Times hired me on after my internship.. and that was cool. Follow me on my tumblr as I raise bees on my roof and other things. http://beeschool.tumblr.com

It’s been a while since I shot an event. I missed it. I also miss a calibrated monitor–I suspect this macbook is too bright, too cold, and too punishing of the highlights. I’ve been doing internal stuff at work; check back Monday or Tuesday for an update. Enjoy the parade!

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Schizophrenia and the Brain – You are the scientist!

Get Smart – Did you know it was a TV show first? My first solo project.

Well this is exciting. Michael (who was the previous intern) put together most of the framework, Miki (producer) found the content, and I finished the framework with a lot of help from Gabe, Tom, and others. It’s fantastic to be able to jump right into a project from day one of the internship; it’s amazing how different the culture and workflow of the NYT are from other places I’ve worked–in a very good way.

It’s been an exciting work week at that. Controversial art exhibits across the street on day three, illegal climbers scaling past the windows on day four, and nervously ohgod-are-you-sure-I-should-do-this clicking “publish” on day five. I’m assured that climbers assault the building every day, but this is probably a lie. Incidentally, the photograph of the second climber on the cityroom blog was taken by the guy who sits behind me. Pretty cool, and fie on me for leaving my camera home that day.

This is very exciting. Starting in June, I’ll be interning at the New York Times with their multimedia department. Not exactly the guys who put together the videos, photo slideshows or whatnot, but the guys who put together the tools for those other guys who put together the videos, photo slideshows or whatnot. They also do stuff like this and that. Tools for the “normal” things, one-offs for the extraordinary. Guess that computer science degree paid off in the end.

Let me know if you’re going to be in New York this summer, if you have a place to sublet in NY this summer, or (maybe) if you need a place to sublet in Austin this summer! Have a good one, kiddos.

Greg Ruedas is in trouble again. After months on monitored probation, paperwork snafus were keeping him from having his ankle monitor removed. Two weeks later, he got frustrated and cut it off.

Greg and his brother Gabriel are still technically on parole, but they’re now in a facility in Dallas that holds non-serious parole violations. If nothing else goes wrong, they’ll still be freed men soon enough. In their absence, their family keeps going. Toby is off parole and holding a job at a sign-making plant. Grandma goes to church alone. Izabelle is turning 15, and the family is busy preparing for her quinceanera.

Have some photos.

Toby has a $8.50 /hr job working in a sign printing shop with his cousin.

Toby and his wife commute 100 miles each day from Marble Falls to Austin so that he can find work.

Toby moves emulsion-coated signs to the enlarger.

Toby's cousin, who got him the job. He's helped many members of the family find employment.

The neighbor raises a flock of always-crowing roosters

Izabelle is celebrating her quinceanera next month.

Her dream is to be a doctor and her biggest dream is to meet Hannah Montana.

His dream is to work in an auto shop and have a "cool car"

Lunch with the Ruedas: chicken and rice.

Bridget

Grandma and Toby

Playing with friends

Toby and Izabelle in the yard

Gabriel's wife and child. Gabriel, like Greg, is in a facility in Dallas for a parole violation.

Reading together

Toby

Toby and Blondie, one of the new puppies.

Toby's girlfirend is five months pregnant.

Steven Hesch, assistant brewer at the North by Northwest Restaurant and Brewery, leans against one of the eight giant cylinders that fill the restaurant’s brewing cage. The rising price of wheat and other grains has forced the brewer to both raise prices and cut margins. According to Brewmaster Donald Thompson, their primary grain supplier has also been fraught with shortages and has stopped accepting new customers.

Part of an article on the rising cost of wheat and its impact on college students; in the original article, the captions were cut to about ten words each. Hurray for the internet!

Arthur Leighton tosses pizza dough at the Slices and Ices. Like many other restaurants and bakeries, the off-campus eatery has raised prices to compensate for the increase in materials expenditures.

Ben Willcott, co-owner and baker at Texas French Bread, stands by a pallet of high-gluten flour, which he said has more than doubled in price this year from $12 to $25 a bag; a magnitude of change that he had never before experienced. “Imagine if this had happened to the price of cars,” he said.

Baker Ben Willcott empties a bag of flour into a mixer at Texas French Bread. Willcott is making ciabatta bread with high-gluten, high-protein wheat, “which is the flour that has gotten really expensive,” he says.

The rapid rise in food prices is probably the most important news item that most people don’t care about. It’s unprecedented, huge, most likely permanent, and below the discretionary spending radar of many first-worlders. Hatians are eating clay, food riots are destabilizing countries, and to quote the Economist, “fill up an SUV‘s fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year.” Biodiesel subsidies are not the only contributor of course, or even the most important, but it’s a lot more controllable than curbing demand for meat in Asia and a good example of the different way this crisis affects the rich and the poor. Also, corn biodiesel takes more energy to produce than it releases.

Feel free to write your representative.

Ben Willcott, co-owner and baker at Texas French Bread, stands by a pallet of high-gluten flour, which he said has more than doubled in price this year from $12 to $25 a bag;

Baker Ben Willcott empties a bag of flour into a mixer at Texas French Bread. Willcott is making ciabatta bread with high-gluten, high-protein wheat, "which is the flour that has gotten really expensive," he says.

Ben Willcott tosses dough into a bin.

Aurthur Leighton tosses pizza dough at the Slices and Ices. Like many other restaurants and bakeries, the off-campus eatery has raised prices to compensate for the increase in materials expenditures.

Slices and Ices

Steven Hesch, assistant brewer at the North by Northwest Restaurant and Brewery, leans against one of the eight giant cylinders that fill the restaurant's brewing cage.

The brewmaster at North by Northwest

Alexis Blackman plays in the street near the future site of Park Place Village, a new residential area for the chronically homeless. Her father, Greg Blackman, is opposed to the development. “I wouldn’t mind if they could tell me there wouldn’t be sexual offenders and violent offenders there,” he said, “I’m not a rich person; I can’t afford to move away like other people.”

Mobile Loaves and Fishes, an Austin charity group, had at long last secured a location to resettle the chronically homeless, including ex-felons and sex offenders. A noble cause that I personally find appealing–you can’t make problems disappear by ignoring them, especially if the problems are also people. The assignment was to shoot a photograph of the future site.

When I got to the site, there was nothing there. A packing depot, a few homes and a lot of trees. No bus station, no grocery store, not much of anything. I knocked on a door to ask where the new site would be, and ended up photographing Mr. Blackman’s children instead as they played on the street.

It’s true that the photograph doesn’t show you where the site would be located, but I think it tells the story better than a photograph of trees and some dirty asphalt. The site’s on the street, and the street is where Mr. Blackman says he’ll no longer allow his children to play.

It’s a conundrum: people have to live somewhere, but why here? The people who live here say it’s because it’s far away, poor, out of sight and without a neighborhood association that is able to legally protest. “Why do you have to put all the homeless people together anyway–wouldn’t it be better if they were spread out through the city?” I can’t say I disagree; I hope Austin is making n opportunity, not a ghetto.

Here’s the photo we actually ran. Not sure which one I like better.

Speaking of boring-sounding assignments, another notable one this month was photographing a “video game club.” Imagining people staring slack-jawed at monitor was bad enough; what’s worse was that the club wasn’t even meeting that week. I ended up going to a LAN party that just happened to have some of the club officers attending–I decided before I went inside that I wanted to take a photograph of faces, not televisions. Everyone knows what a television looks like; I wanted to show what fun looked like.

I softened them up by playing games with them for two hours. Like to say I held my own. Okay, I had a blast and it was a lot more fun than the standard hang-around-till-they-forgot-you-are-there. Then I got in real close, waited for a moment of high Pokemon drama and did some faces. The game controller is the obligatory “these people are not watching The Simpson’s” prop.

From left to right: Bryan Kuhn, Erin Lenth, Brad Stein, and Daniel Aguilar enjoy a round of Super Smash Bros. Brawl on the Nintendo Wii.

I went ahead and shoe-horned in a few random photographs that won’t deserve their own entry. I have a lot of catching up to do.

UT Tennis: Sometimes I wish sports photos could occasionally omit the ball.

Andrea's pipe cleaner camera

Izabelle and Alexis Blackman play in the street near the future site of "Park Place Village," a new residential community for the chronically homeless. Their father, Greg Blackman, is opposed to the new development. "I wouldn't mind if they

Alexis Blackman plays in the street near the future site of "Park Place Village," a new residential community for the chronically homeless. Their father, Greg Blackman, is opposed to the new development. "I wouldn't mind if they could tell me there wouldn

Angle would have been better, but I was holding the reflector!

Assisting Larissa with lighting; car as chariot.

Courtney Dudley

Jen and James Tsou Wedding

Jen and James Tsou Wedding

From left to right: Bryan Kuhn, Erin Lenth, Brad Stein, and Daniel Aguilar enjoy a round of Super Smash Bros. Brawl on the Nintendo Wii.

“What’s the difference between a Turkic and a Turkish? Turkic people are many different people across the Balkans. Turkish people are just people from Turkey.” A short soundslides from the first UT Turkic festival.

Photo-Illustration for Oil Is Dumb, an environmental student company. It’s not the most original of photographs, but at least it actually was about a lightbulb contest.