Category: Uncategorized

Out the window

Sometimes when I get bored on long car rides at night, I like to stick a camera out the window and take blurry pictures of the lights passing by. Here are a few of my favorites.

New Website and blog! (again)

Welcome to the new stephenleowinsohn.com!

I went to visit Felix yesterday, but his office was gone. I asked some of the guys who work on the loading dock across the street what happened, and they said that “they” (the police?) had torn it down. Evidently it’s happened before, several times, but he always rebuilds it. I hope he does; there can never be too many strange and interesting things in the world and it’s really a bummer when one of them disappears.

Anyway, I had already paid for parking so I wandered around Chinatown and took pictures of some of the strange and interesting things for sale there:

: The office has vanished.

Corner Office

I was walking around downtown Oakland with my camera a little while ago, and I came across this strange little “outdoor office” situated in a little fenced-in area beneath a freeway overpass. There was a man working at the desk, so I introduced myself and asked if I might take some pictures of him and his office. He introduced himself as Felix, and gave me permission to come around the fence and take some photos.

I talked to him a little bit, and he said he was not homeless, and that he did not live here, although there was a bed in the office. He said he had an apartment nearby, and that he just liked to come here to work.

In addition to the desk and bed, the office also had a very old set of encyclopedias and an electric organ, which unfortunately wasn’t working when I visited. He said I should come back and hear him play sometime. I’m going to stop by today and bring him these prints. To be continued…

Resolute

Happy new year everyone! This year I’ve made some photography related resolutions, and I thought I would post them here. I’ve tried to make them measurable and realistic, so feel free to make fun of me if I screw up on any of these.

1. Go out and take more pictures for fun. Sometimes I get so caught up in taking pictures for clients that I feel like I don’t have time to take pictures for myself. But whenever I actually make the time to shoot for myself, I have a great time and end up with great shots. At least once a week, I’m going to just go somewhere and walk around with my camera. I’ve actually been pretty good about this lately, but it never hurts to set a specific goal.

2. Make more prints. These days a lot of the pictures we take just end up on the internet, and never become anything more than ones and zeroes. I think that’s sad. There’s still something great about holding an actual printed photograph in your hands (especially big ones), and I plan to make at least one print every week.

3. Post something on this blog at least once a week. Obviously I’ve not been doing a great job keeping this blog updated since, um, last September. But there’s no point in dwelling on the past. I’ve set a goal, and I plan to stick to it. If a week goes by without anything new showing up here, you have my permission to call me a big, dumb flake in person or via email.

That’s a wrap!

On Saturday, we finished shooting for my latest short film, Call Me Back. The shoot went really well, and we even finished ahead of schedule. The crew and actors did an amazing job, and it feels great to finally have all the shooting done. There’s lots more work to do (editing, voice-overs, sound effects, color correction, etc.) but at least the most stressful and expensive part is finished.

We started this project in December of 2008. We scheduled two days of shooting, which probably would have been just enough time if our generator hadn’t stopped generating at the beginning of the second shoot day. Eight months of scheduling conflicts, weather delays, and low-key anxiety later, it’s finally done. We may have set some kind of record for the longest production of a 10 minute film ever.

Huge props and thank yous to the actors, the crew, and especially Briana, who was an actress, production assistant, still photographer, and craft services on this shoot.

Here are some still frames from the footage we shot in December, as well as some of Briana’s production stills from the first two days of filming. I’ll put up frames and stills from the latest shoot soon.

Still frames from footage shot by cinematographer Jessica Fisher:

Production stills by Briana Miller:

Centerfold

I have another centerfold spread in the East Bay Express this week:

Video – Green For All – "A New Sound"

Green For All released this video today. I shot a little bit of B-roll and recorded the voice-over. The rest was done by Black Powder Media, and Ryan Dexter. Enjoy!

Pig Party

I went to Meat Paper‘s launch party for “The Pig Issue” at Camino restaurant in Oakland recently and took some photos. Despite the unfortunate timing of happening during the height of swine flu hysteria, the event was completely sold out.

The evening was centered around the butchering of an entire pig, which was performed on a large counter near the back of the restaurant where everyone could watch.

Parts of this pig were used to make pork sausages, bacon flavored marshmallows, corn-dogs, and even graham crackers (made with pig fat instead of butter). There were also pork-free cocktails, beer, and wine.