luck of the draw

chance © Laura Kicey

My head is too swimmy yet for cleverness tonight. I haven't even pulled the suitcase out of the nothing-room closet. Tomorrow night I am to meet Rachael and Gail for dinner. I should water the plants before they die. Oh! And happy birthday to Maggs, who 'turns 10' on May 31st... six years ago this day I adopted her. I will attempt to produce some cuteness before the last of the b-day tuna is swallowed. Owww!


Ok ok, new one of Maggs


beard © Laura Kicey

rain date

BBQ, corn on the cob, windows rolled down, sleeves rolled up, squinting, sunburn, sweaty napes of necks... Summer came this weekend, full force and without apology.


shore © Laura Kicey

The sweltering days had other sweeter, gentler gifts that were equally as unexpected.

breeze © Laura Kicey

And received every bit as warmly.

hood ornament © Laura Kicey

San Francisco is less than a week away. Thinking back to last summer, when I was at my wit's end, how Vancouver revived me. I wonder where this will *really* take me.

memorial

I left the Mercer Museum feeling slightly guilty as I didn't once stop to read anything about the mountain of random odds and ends collected by this man. However, he didn't appear to be very choosy about what he was picking up either, as he seemed to have thirty or so of everything.


deathbed © Laura Kicey

I've not ever really been a collector in my adult life. When I was a girl I went through the typical girly horse phase, wanting anything emblazoned with a horse's image to be mine.... which inexplicably drifted into birds and insects, but by then I had stopped collecting physical objects and collected more just knowledge. Though I spent many years catching said insects and building them Lego cages, feeding them and caring for them according to the sacred Bible of Audubon.


when my life began © Laura Kicey

Photographing people, places and things is I s'pose in a way is a rather efficient way of collecting...taking up only digital space, costing basically nothing (after equipment. hahaha!) and only taking that which you want and being able to make it exactly as you want to remember it.


cut off © Laura Kicey

On my way home from Doylestown this afternoon, I attempted to get lost... letting myself miss a turn or three. Seeing where I end up. Inevitably realizing I am always pointing towards something familiar.

making tracks

meander © Laura Kicey

I walked to some of my favorite places around town this afternoon. With the new lens, things I had chalked up to being out of reach became willing subjects.


guardian © Laura Kicey

And things within reach I had walked by, time and again, I gave another chance.


air dry © Laura Kicey

I wanted to walk down the tracks, but I had a bad feeling I couldn't explain and went home. I didn't want to walk alone today.

description v. recognition

lazarus © Laura Kicey

The District Attorney called me a couple days ago and I just had a chance to talk to her for the first time over lunch today. Just the ordinary rigamarole. The trial should go to court on the 19th but won't necessarily... who knows... wanted to touch base.... we'll talk again... any questions.

Yeah, one burning one. I start off with I thought I was deemed not a credible witness because I couldn't pick the guy out...

Wait, you picked him out didn't you, at the lineup?

I said I picked who I thought it was but no one ever told me if that was the guy.

Oh but it was, in fact.

At the moment of hearing this I felt like I was filling up with all these random emotions and a migraine shot in. It was a most unexpected revelation, all these months later to hear. I know I looked at him, but it didn't feel like enough. But it was.


bail © Laura Kicey

Accompanying these feelings is the thought of going and doing this again. Face to face with the guy, testifying in court. I don't know if I could conjure his face again. Which she said didn't matter. She said she would ask me to point him out, but if I couldn't it wasn't a deal, it would help, but since there are oh... 12 other witnesses, this doesn't hinge on my ID.

She said I might be surprised though. She said she has told juries about the gap between description and recognition. You can describe someone and be rather off with height and weight and details, but in person, it all falls into place and you just know without a doubt, that that is the person, even if your description has little in common with them.

So much of what I remember now is only stored in photos.
How much I lose with the making of so much...

brighter brights

International Paper ran a contest a few months ago. They sent out a mailer with one of those very-retro-grandma shower caps covered with colorful plastic flowers. You were to photograph yourself or coworkers or whomever wearing this cap in an image that shows how their new really-white paper shows off colors to their best advantage.

So I won. I get a plaque and an iPod Nano which I am giving to Patty as her's was lifted out of her pocket somewhere in Madrid and I doubt I would ever use it. I get nervous when I am out walking and can't hear the sounds around me. Tangents. Here is the photo:


pop © Laura Kicey

This means I will possibly be appearing on paper promos future which is nice. But I somehow doubt I will be credited. And ultimately kinda bummed about that, though I knew going in. Hooray for the second backward win of the week.

I feel like going to Asbury Park this weekend. Get some sand in my schlitz. We'll see.

police and thieves

growing pains © Laura Kicey

In my town, though I don't like to admit it, I've become 'that girl'... 'the one that walks around with a camera'. People I later meet properly tell me they have seen me around and 'always wondered'. I've never been good at being inconspicuous, so I ride on the ostentatious side. I don't look like I am sneaking. Ever, because I'm not. I lumber and wear loud colors. So far this has served me well and I have mostly stayed out of trouble.

Tonight I decided on the late side to go for a walk because otherwise I might have paced so furiously I might have worn a hole in the floor. Which would have brough me face to face with my Loud Neighbors, who tonight have reached a fever pitch. Ahem. I made a bee-line down to the SEPTA parking lot, which has a great but fenced off view of the one side of the power plant. Since it was an overcast day, I thought we might have a decent sunset (this was not to be though) and I had been wanting to recreate this shot with new zoom:


parted © Laura Kicey

The sun was already wimping out by the time I made it down, so I took a few shots and popped round to a couple other nearby buildings I had wanted to reshoot.


applies © Laura Kicey

I decided to check out the opposite side of the building. It is an ordinary public road to a point and then there is this strange area at the end that is sort of a cul-de-sac surrounded by commercial buildings that tapers into gravel and the open side of the power plant. Often I have gone down this street and seen cop cars patrolling, but always while I was well away from the mysterious gravel zone.

So tonight, of course, I am standing dead in the gravel zone. Staring longingly at the wall, thinking and composing while the light fades. And I see the cop car coming towards me. I feel everything deflate in me. Granted I know a number of Big People in Ambler (the scale of that Big is proportional). And I am a fairly upstanding citizen and actually have permission to be in the building. But it doesn't matter in that moment, because I can't think of those things right then. I can think of nothing but, am I trespassing right now?

I started moving towards the cop car and he pulls up next to me and I feel like I am about to crumble. I am abso-fuckin-lutely sure I am making giant google eyes.

"So, you takin pictures?"

Had not actually taken a photo at this juncture...

{whatistheanswerwhatistheanswer????}

"uuuuhhhhhesss?"

"So you a student... or....?"

"uuuuuhmatuer?"

(Big cop grin)

"Ok. Carry on."

"Jolly good. Have a good night sir."

huffpuffhuffpuff

I say the most retarded things when on the verge of soiling myself. I was mostly just frozen there for a few moments waiting for something bad to happen. For him to drive back and give me hell.

So I carried on.

I saw Mr. Mark, the local framing guy who is going to show my work in a SOLO SHOW IN AMBLER!!!

In Janury 2008.

Some drunken jerkface on the steps of the bar who sees me with camera in hand and yells "No pictures! No pictures!" and I mock paparrazi-attack him with the camera to his red-faced pleasure.


deep sea © Laura Kicey

Enough with the excitement already. On with the long weekend, I need to get my sulk on. Damn thunderstorms.

wildlife

Eight months ago in South Philly, I was out with three friends when we were robbed at gunpoint.

Gosh. I really did miss him, our robber. Though my passion for tacos has since drawn me back to the general hood (Tacqueria La Veracruzana people, their tacos make me cry, it is beautiful). Back then, we were told that the trial would be held about eight weeks after the hearing. That would have put the trial.... oh.... in January sometime.

So the D.A. called me today and said I should be looking for a subpoena in the mail. Again. June 19th. Trial! Oh yeah. Tickled all over again. I'm rather hoping that I can find a way to worm out of this seeing as I was that useless 'witness'. The one so concentrated on the $1500 worth of brand new camera equipment strapped to her back that she made a point of not looking at our assailant. While I would have been the 'most credible,' probably, being the only person among us who hadn't had anything to drink while we were out.

Useless. Unable to pick him out of lineup or from photos.


climb © Laura Kicey

So. Anyway. The evening was otherwise pretty great: girl talk and camera nerd-out over 7 kinds of lentils. Intoxicated with the spices, I think I agreed to one or both of the following: playing ultimate frisbee and watching 8 1/2. I can't be sure if there weren't other security breaches.

So I did not get to take out my new toy, though I did sit in my purple-trimmed attic niche this afternoon and kick some awesome spy work, surveying walkers' pimples on the street below. So while I was taking an uncharacteristic TV break this evening (I have to get caught up on 24, c'mon), I was, naturally, spooning my camera on the couch and took a couple of shots. They're at 800ISO, but it is seriously dark in here and Maggs is, by no means, a steady subject. But whew did that IS nail it. No tripod!


wildlife © Laura Kicey

Sha. Zaam. Maggs, sitting about 15 feet away from me on the floor of the Nothing Room here, had been kicking her elbows, then became completely transfixed by the whir of the lens' motor and seem paralyzed while I focused. Then she had to come over and investigate.



Wow I am mastering the art of airbrush self-tanning on the news. Hush up, I'm concentrating.

phoenix

post haste © Laura Kicey

Things feel a little brighter today... though flickr is down/completely wonky so I can't post the photo I made last night specifically for this post, because it is unavailable.

Today was the first days I in the past two weeks that I hadn't considered wearing my winter coat to work. Warmed inside and out.... The lens I just ordered, a 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS, is more than likely going to be in the hot sweaty fist by the end of the day. And I think it may be perfect timing as I am having dinner with a friend who may want to play with some studio lights tonight.

My friend Sandra, aka Sexy Swedish Babe, had just gone through a similar ordeal with someone stealing her image (as I had with Nerve)... in her case a photo of her was used on a French Theater poster. She called me yesterday morning and we pondered our feelings on the situation at large, how we relate to our flickr audiences and how we might change to take the the attention we get using our self-images, and instead of making it a vulnerability, using it as our power. Though our images are provocative (not necesarily in the sexual sense of the word), they are at the same time the greatest chink in our armor. She advised that I send Nerve an invoice. To turn the situation around, from making us the little puny hobbyist that any random net surfer can take advantage of, to a paid professional, even if it was a symbolic sum of $1. I was prepared to do so. Then there was a breakthrough: I was contacted by the same photo editor and she asked to use this photo:


sunrise © Laura Kicey

It will be accompanying a non-fiction piece that is running later in the week. Oh oops. THIS JUST IN
IT'S ON.

God this is some weird ironic shit.

I think (thought? gah) it was a respectful act on their behalf. It cost them nothing and I come out with something that feels like a win. On that same note, Sandra has been working through her own situation, no great turn of events yet, but she has been putting up a brilliant battle, especially in the face of snide know-it-all commenters. I wanted to excerpt this statement she made in response to one because it sums it all up:



I wonder if me repeating this copyright violation matter over the past week and a half is provocative to you? Maybe you think I am whining?

Actually, your comment is a huge compliment to me! I plan my pictures, my texts, my uploads very carefully. Like I plan my professional work. What I try to do with my work is to capture a sense of closeness and lightness. A sense of doing everything in a spur of the moment.

It's quite hard to pull it off, especially for a perfectionist like myself, but if you think my Flickr stream is full of personal information and images -- then I think I've really managed to do a good job. Thank you.

I've been online since the mid-90's and I've also worked with online content. I've seen a lot. I've heard a lot. Internet is amazing. Just so you know ... that I know too.

The reason I DO repeat this copyright issue, is not because I am whining. I have a lot of people following my stream, and I want to inform them about the changes I'm making here. Like a ... public announcement.

I also want to warn the community, my Flickr friends, since some of them have also become my real life friends during this last year. I want to spread some light over copyright issues. People are free to like or dislike my pictures. To spit on their computer screens or jerk off all over their desks (I am certainly no prude, but I am not posting my most revealing work online, since I'm not naïve ... god, I wouldn't want someone ELSE get rich selling those pictures).

But according to the law, no one is allowed to use my work for commercial purposes, or without my permission. Not even a free-spirited Internet-anarchist can make me think otherwise about that. I like the thought of the Creative Commons licenses, as a tool to share my work and as a way to make people more aware of online downloads. The CC licenses do not take away my copyright though.

I can get into the details about the poster later. At the moment it has to be approached in other forums than the public forums.



Taking strength from this, turning around the worst and making a triumph of it... that is where I am headed. Though I am walking with a drunken stagger to get there.

Noted: cannot type for shit today, have updated this four times already to get rid of errors. oi.

seeing the future

Just what I needed: my father steamrolling through my apartment, huffing through his nostrils turning fuschia, to install my two air conditioners for what now totals to a collective five installations in one week. Saying nothing, looking furious. Alongside my mother telling me how to handle my relationship, or make that my lack of relationship, while watering my plants and sponging my counters.

At some point, when I signed up with my first online service, or got my first email address, I started giving up my privacy. I started building a public face, wittingly or unwittingly to a point where people I have never met or spoke to feel like they are intimately acquainted with my person, physically and emotionally. Where people can virtually obsess over or actively ignore any piece of information they choose, be it important truth or a completely random fiction for humor or drama's sake.

My breathing has returned to normal but so shaken was I to see in print, for public consumption one single word on a myspace profile belonging to one recently exed-boyfriend. A necessary shove I guess, which reduced me to a pathetic quivering mass of hyper-ventilated tears. Before I can fully absorb the word, I am being called and bombarded with emails. Moments after I have likewise changed 'my status' I can feel the collective waiting internet groins rubbing up against me.


outburst © Laura Kicey

I have known the greatest trust, the warmest love, the best friend, the truest equal I may ever. Those are things I have not yet lost, for better or worse. Trying to peel back the motley layers of sadness to find the core of that and hold on to the parts that matter. I am doing what I need to do to keep myself moving day after day. Hoping. Refocusing. I keep wanting to explain the intricacies of everything that is happening, draw out a giant map of emotions and actions and plot them over the course of time, to clarify it to myself. But I do this mostly everyday. I do it with photographs. And everything I try to hide I am in some way revealing on the other side. After the incident with Nerve, I felt like I wanted to erase my face. I make these things and then they stop being mine. 2,600 bastard children out there telling my life story for me.

insert another puffy-eyed imaginary photo of me here

Flickr afforded me so many gifts, meeting and exchanging with many brilliant and kind people I would have never dreamed of being able to meet. Giving me the best way to say without words, the things I need to blurt out sometimes, other things I need to whisper. But it has taken some things away from me, like my larger sense of control and my hope that I could grieve this broken heart in peace. At the same time as I want to hide and be alone, I need to empty myself into... something.

Which urge wins?

Currently sleep...

poaching

I went ahead and wrote directly to a photo editor at Nerve whose email address I got from a flickr-friend who had had his work used (with permission and credit) on their site in past. I got a very short apology with a pat 'designers clipped it for use... never was approved by photo' explanation and apology, asking if I would like a premium subscription to their photography galleries.

I said since the damage has already been done, I would feel less like I've been completely shafted if they would consider using an image - or the same image - elsewhere on the site, credited properly. Scratch my back a little people?! It would work out pretty nicely for both of us I think. Not holding the breath though. I'm still aggravated as I don't feel like I am coming out on top and I'm not sure how I might...


eavesdropping © Laura Kicey

This morning I was awakened by shuffling noises from across the room. I sit up and can see Maggs playing by my big cushy chair. Not her normal play, more determined and calculated. I call out to her and she makes an odd meow and continues with her work. I had the distinct feeling the mouse had made another appearance.

So a few hours later I'm up getting ready for work and decide to look under the chair. Low and behold, Bug-Eyes McMouse comes shooting out, hiding there since his distressing wee-hours encounter. He freezes by my bookshelf and I decide I could probably nab him. So I look for something to put him in and immediately see a chunky hourglass-shaped ceramic vase. I manage to chase him out from under the shelf but he is making a bee-line for the door to the living room. I call to my faithful Cat Daughter and she comes running and spots him immediately in the doorway and redirects him with careful paw back into the room. She chases him under the wardrobe towards me. I get him cornered so that he is facing directly into the vase. I paused and blew hard on him and he shot right into the vase, securely.


camouflage © Laura Kicey

When I left for work this morning, the Maggot was still guarding the wardrobe, convinced Mouse was going to reappear and she needed to continue to man the fort. An awesome team effort, nonetheless. I took Bug-Eyes to work and asked Bossman if I could go to the park and free him.

I should have just stayed in the park for all the work that is being done today. Current dry spell has been going on for quite some time. Perhaps I can sort out my CSS issues or go home and sort out my clean socks.

Time better spent.

off-road handling

If there were any possible way to completely avoid using cars, I would. I don't like them. Celebrating them and fussing over them is totally indulgent. Walking, trains, bicycles, rickshaws, being carried around piggyback. All preferred. Today I submitted: I went and shot the Ambler Auto Show, much to my complete lack of pleasure.


candied apple © Laura Kicey

Only so many times in one day does one need to hear from old crusty men that one is more attractive than the cars. Like, zero. Ms. Pantalones and I wandered around together, dodging questions about what newspaper we were from, feigning interest in car owners' ramblings and I spent most of the time laying on the ground, trying to find a more compelling angle on probably my least favorite subject to date. Once, upon rising, I found myself eye to eye with a man who was sat on one of those motorized scooters. He stared open-mouthed at me and then started clapping. Titter nervously.... run away.


burning bush © Laura Kicey

It was in this way that I almost totally avoided taking people photos. Though the initial plan was to be chatty and photograph people with their cars, hand out business cards, networking and such, but I did not. Alas in the wake of numerous crummy circumstances of the past couple of weeks, I've been feeling more like hiding altogether than chatting up random stangers or even people I really like and know well. Counterproductive, yes, but I need some time to work out this gigantic knot of emotions and uh... legalities before I have desire to deal with the outside world and my 'public face' as it were.

Fortunately a certain Ms. Fotogail is on the list of people to meet while I am in San Fran in a couple weeks. She works for Salon and seems to have a vested interest in seeing this work out, and also has some notions on how to resolve this without going to court. Whether or not Nerve decides to budge tomorrow (I foresee them handling this well), it will be good knowledge to carry on in future.


flight © Laura Kicey


In other news, my mumptastic Brother in Academia departs tomorrow for three months in Madrid, living with the sensational Patty. I got to see him for the first and last time in months on Saturday, whilst shopping for exciting necessities, and also while our mother unwittingly attacked strange men in dressing rooms.


tongue © Laura Kicey

nerve endings

I awoke this morning to find this in my inbox: a newsletter from Nerve promoting their latest monthly photography contest. Funny how I never submitted a photo to them for anything EVER, but mysteriously, there is my face in my photograph promoting a photography contest on a website that has no business using my all rights reserved photograph featuring my own face without my permission, model release, nor giving me any sort of credit.

Funny how I am not at all amused.

I wrote them a little email to tell them how very displeased I am and urged them to contact me. I am more than a little unhappy about this, more so if I find that someone is passing this off as their own work. I have long been familiar with the site and always admired their photography galleries and, even in the context of articles, how careful they are to credit the photographer. An all too similar thing happened just barely a week ago to my friend Sandra when a French theater company stole her photograph and used it on a poster for a play, without crediting her or asking permission.

Sidenote: I am looking at this blog for the first time in IE on a PC and find that my sidebar does not, in fact, appear as a sidebar... instead as a horrific tail at the end of the page. I have no idea how to fix this or even test it as I am not normally ever on a PC.

Overall: gggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

neither seen nor heard

gust © Laura Kicey

only felt and known.

an offering

offering © Laura Kicey

absence makes

lifespan © Laura Kicey

still life

still life © Laura Kicey

I did what seemed like the most horrible, hurtful thing today, to someone I am very close to. I said something true. And pointed. With absolutely nothing to soften it. And banged it in with a 2'x4'. And for about an hour, most of which I spent sobbing at what I had done, I thought I had lost them.

But somehow this was not the case, though the mascara clinging to the chin told a different story. I've felt what seems like a huge shift in every relationship in the past week. Talking with people I don't normally, not talking with those I normally do... when I go out for a walk, I feel like I can't see, I come home without a single shot. I stay in and try to do something creative. I pace around. Try cleaning stuff up. Exhausted. A frantic standstill.

Perhaps in my flickr blackout I really did turn out the lights.

foresight

fractured © Laura Kicey

The Unholy Redheaded Trinity of Cuteness has been unleashed upon ye this day. Despite the thunder and lightning, the light was very pretty after work today... briefly a pinkish patch of Maxfield Parrish-eque clouds peeked out.

This weekend D's car was broken into and some of his and his friend's things were stolen out of it in North Philly. I am standing by, useless but enraged, as it brought all too freshly to mind the shit that happened to me and my friends back in October*. I'm relieved that they are all ok... we just keep on walking that line between overly-wary and totally aware.

I just want to wrap my people up in cotton wool and protect them...


kicey kitten © Laura Kicey


*not part of the original post, but transferred to an appropriate time frame from another blog at a later date.

puppygasm and happy endings.

large size puppygasm © Laura Kicey


For those who need it most. You know who you are.

Relish it.

chance of rain

I went into the city to get m'hair did this morning and it was a gorgeous day. As soon as I stepped out of the salon it began to pour. I drove home via Broad Street and, for something different, Germantown Avenue.


raindrops © Laura Kicey

I think I may need to hire a driver. Though today I didn't do too much to endanger others on the road. That I am aware of. These were both taken at stop lights, by the by.


on teh horizon © Laura Kicey

I really wish I knew how to be drawn to photographing stuff not located in either the ghetto or where, at any given moment, someone may leap out of the woods with a shotgun.

ch-ch-ch-ch-CSSes

I would like to note that I have also made some changes around this here joint. I do not know CSS at all and so what you see is part elablorate guess and part very untrained study of some other pages source stuff... this noted, I realize that my post margins are hideously close to the left edge. Using trial and error I may eventually figure out what exactly I can do to fix that. Or I can beg one of my awfully well-outfitted interactive genius friends.

Thanks for not throwing rotten fruit at me in the meantime though.

self-supporting

I went out looking for air in Ambler this evening. Skulked about down by the train tracks, visiting what I consider one of my sacred photo history places, not looking for an answer, and really not finding one, but instead finding that the washer/dryer unit that was dumped there to replace the cushy chair was starting to vine right over. Talked to Bruce lask weekend about spots like this, revisiting them is like seeing old friends.


organism © Laura Kicey

This is the start of my second year spent 'really with the camera.' Things I felt so acutely the first time are maybe a little dulled this time round... year one: every hour, the changes in the quality of light and each day, the flux of the seasons effecting the shifting clouds and breezes, shaking the leaves from the trees and toussling the hair. I'm working to avoid the I've-already-done-that-before sort of things. There are only so many genies, couches on lawns and chandeliers in trees in Ambler to get the juices surging.... and really they really only look great in certain light (or not at all). Which is why I am going to San Fran for a week at the beginning of June. Partly. I am to meet a mile long list of SFlickrers. Also, this should help to chip away at the current sulk-factor {sidenote: D is going on cross-country safari and we are taking our own routes... no one's legs have to be broken, really, unless someone wants to take a bite outta my downstairs neighbors whose chronic volume is set to YODEL}.

I'm taking a breather from flickr public posting for a spell too. These photos will appear publicly in due time, but until then, you get the little squishitty Blogger versions. The below photo is only half the photo I wanted to take. The one in my mind's eye involved another pair of hands, ones that weren't holding me up, but were strong and present nonetheless. Alas tomorrow somehow wins out as the best day to do such things....


self-supporting © Laura Kicey

Slap. Stop being sad! I really need to stop eating spaetzle. I feel sleepy, stiff and disjointed and I blame it entirely on what mom calls the Rivels. The photo of me is kinda eh... but it is everybit how I feel, wobbly, wan, and like I have a big hairy green monster lurking behind me that I am not aware of.



To add to the Spammers List of Amazings:

Puberty G. Aiken
Genuflection M. Blacklisted

pause for thought

Maybe I knew something was coming or perhaps I have always just lived up to the moniker I was bestowed by a former coworker from my perfume days: Dark Cloud.
The last couple of posts (if not more) make me appear as though, in real life, I might be one of those (Ancient Greek? P, help me out?) women whose job it was to wear black hooded cloaks and weep inconsolably at funerals, lachrymose cheerleaders for the dead.


quarrelsome © Laura Kicey

I have been wearing black, but that is because it is the only thing not in the laundry basket. I have four weeks before me: time to sort things out for myself, alone... really the best way to look at it. Time to see friends. Perhaps reply to emails that I should have three months ago. Fix my weird hair (important things, indeed). Take out the trash in a timely fashion. Buy the freeeeeeegin lights I have been putting off purchasing, and actually learn to use them. Send the portfolio to the place that might actually give me some freelance photo work that will pay me. Or shrug off responsibilities and relax, or vacation, even. Novel, yes.


rocking chair © Laura Kicey

It has started to rain. It will continue all weekend. I am very sad, I won't deny... but it feels like I've almost contained it... or at least reorganized it in a way that seems less painful... at least in comparison to the last two days mess. I thought I had lost that which is most precious to me. My tired head is trying to see this as a way to save this, albeit passively.


deserter © Laura Kicey

Not dwelling on sad stuff. Really! Sad stuff does get lots of hits though.

It was ages ago that I moved past the point of spouting off one or two exciting updates!! and onto a place where I can even keep track of all the stuff that happened an hour ago. So here, a list of old news, accomplishments that should be tallied somewhere.

The show at Nexus went well... I think. I didn't hear any one trash talk it at least, but I wasn't really inside to eavesdrop. I got to see a girl I went to school with who I never really knew at all, and we talked for quite some time. I felt like I missed getting to know someone really great, years ago. But I was glad to know someone was doing well in photography who I KUed with.

Seeing my photos in a magazine (my head on the cover as well), a book, and a fairly well know photography website in the space of hours was fairly bizarre.



I am going to shoot my first event next weekend, the car show in Ambler, in hopes of making a few good portraits and getting a few people to buy prints of themselves with their cars... or just their cars.


taking off © Laura Kicey

In my wanderings I have met a few interesting characters quite randomly, including Turtle:


turtledove © Laura Kicey

A place I had been meaning to check out for some time, willingly opened its doors to me. My mom and I explored it together. Lancaster County's Rocky Springs' now-abandoned amusement park.


springs © Laura Kicey

Oh and while I am at it, Happy Mother's Day, to my mom and to all moms at large.


the waiting room © Laura Kicey

To end this on a light note to both counter the morose splendor of my last post, and fulfill the request of someone who really wanted to see this compiled:




I obsesso-check my inbox and I've been getting spam for months from spammers who either have a fantastic sense of humor or a completely maniacal automated way of generating names. It is with this I leave you, a list of those I have grown to adore:


Golfer V. Geraniums
Basu Willoughby
Hollowed B. Roof
Dis E. Disheveling
Iolana Crabtree
Daylight T. Scorpio
Boutonni U. Contingency
Kenned M. Smokestack
Transliterate S. Schlitz
Sassafras O. Amber
Bilateral F. Cartographers
Balancing K. Shaved
Weakens B. Flounders
Bullhorn J. Muddier
Lulu D. Luger
Wimpled C. Playwright
Overtake U. Caravans
Combed O. Complexion
Warpaths V. Putrescent
Plastics E. Spankings
Thrusts V. Underacted
Boggier R. Ruffianed
Amputation Q. Resoundingly
Surliness Q. Gunboat


character © Laura Kicey

Ok, so now everyone is up to speed. With this I begin what I hope to be more regular postings, instead of sudden incoherent bursts. And lastly, thanks for all the kinds notes and comments I received, it meant very much to me.