2007 vs. 1971

My '07 and Brandon's '71 Chevy.

I am increasingly jealous of Brandon's new, actually very old, truck.  It's in amazing condition and sounds like a beast, almost as good as mine.  I can't wait to drive it next time I'm home.

love triangle

For some time now I have been involved in a very dramatic and "passionate" love triangle...

Sara "Trampy Fish" Reinis. (She looks strikingly similar to the fish played by Angelina Jolie in Shark Tale)  Sara is an amazing person and 100% extroverted.  From Texas, when she kicks in her southern bell accent, she 'damn near breaks my heart'.  Her impressive British accent causes a similar effect.

Greg gets in the middle. Our love triangle can cause extreme tension between us, as well as a lot of awkward moments...  At times we both fight for Sara's affection, and at other times Greg and I stand together against her.  

I love them both!

Little Rincon

I tried out a roll of Ektar 100 film in my Olympus this week.

This film works really well with blues and greens.  I got off the freeway this weekend on my way home at this small inn near the surf spot Little Rincon to take some pictures.

I love the way film looks as compared to digital.  I have shot digital for a while and I can get some amazing shots that way, but there's just something very unique about using a film camera. Even editing a digital image to make it look like film doesn't come close to it.

71 Ford

My best friend Brandon bought a 71 Ford Truck last week.

I took some pictures this past weekend when I was home for the four day weekend with my Pentax K1000 camera with some BW Ilford film.  I tried on an earlier picture to do a double exposure and apparently my camera can't do that anymore. It still slid the film when it shouldn't have, and all the subsequent pictures were cut up onto two frames. But I think it actually turned out kinda cool!

film

I've been shooting almost exclusively film the past few weeks.  I've got two roles I will be getting developed tomorrow when I get back up to Santa Barbara.  In the mean time, here are two pictures I shot with my moms old Olympus a few weeks ago.

Video: John Page Hall

John C. Page Hall

81% of my dorm made me the proudest student at Westmont College!!

Wednesday night we had the Spring Sing Kickoff event, and the dorm with the highest percent in attendance got the second best spot in Spring Sing (right before intermission) and with 81%, PAGE HALL WON!!

Spring Sing is a massive dorm vs. dorm competition (guys and girls split up) that involves singing, dancing, changing the lyrics to songs, etc. Here's last years winning house: Armington Men.  The winning house gets bragging rights for the full year.  Page Men have not won Spring Sing in over a decade, and this is OUR YEAR!

I was chosen, along with my friend Scott, to be the Page Men directors.  We are basically in charge of everything!! It's going to mean countless of hours of work, and weeks of sleepless nights, but it's all going to be worth it!

Redondo Beach

I may live in Palos Verdes, but I spend most of my time in Redondo Beach.

Pedones and Burnout. There isn't a day I'm home that I'm not there.

Pedones and Party House, multiple times a day.  I'm craving Pedones Pizza right now, I'll probably go there before I even go to my house.  I'll go at least once every day, more likely twice.  Two slices of pepperoni and a Dr. Pepper, they know my order.

It's a one minute walk from Pedones to Burnout Beach.  I'll be there: day or night, rain or shine.

going home

I'm going home tomorrow for the first time this semester to the most beautiful place in Southern California (yes more beautiful than Santa Barbara).

PALOS VERDES

Leaving PV has made me appreciate it more than ever.  A year ago I couldn't wait to get out, and not look back.  But now that I've been away for so long, I love going home.

I'll have the entire South Bay at my disposal for an amazing five day weekend.

I can't wait to see these three guys, my best friends. I've only got Thursday night with them, and they leave for high school Winter Camp with our church.  But it's going to be a fun night.

faith and photography: my scream

I have spent the last hour contemplating my faith and my photography: how they work together, how they work apart, and how to use a gift from God.

I feel weird calling my photography a "gift from God", I know I have a skill and an eye but it's hard to think of myself as a "photographer."  Right now I'm trying to cram for a Studies in Literature exam on the book My Name is Asher Lev and I am far from finishing it.  Basically Asher Lev is an observer of a very strict sect of Judaism, and he is also an artist (drawings/paintings).  Being an artist is not what a good little Jewish boy should be doing, so he is struggling.  There is a quote from a book Asher reads that says:

"...every great artist is a man who has freed himself from his family, his nation, his race.  Every man who has shown the world they way to beauty, to true culture, has been a rebel, a "universal" without patriotism, without home, who has found his people everywhere."

I'm not sure why, but this has stayed with me and prevented me from really focusing on my studying.  Somehow it got me thinking about how I can use my photography.  I am a Political Science: Pre-Law major, not an Art major, but I have this 'gift' of photography that I love and want to use.  In class the other day we were talking about the great people of our time, our/humanity's heros (mine were Nelson Mandela, Ronald Reagan, MLK, Eisenhower, Gandhi...) and my professor said something like "greatness comes from a scream that needs to come out.  Most of us don't have a scream, most of us are not fundamentally going to change history like these people did" (referring to the great people of our time).

I have a scream.  I have a scream that I want to shout to the world in any way I can, maybe through politics or maybe through photography... or maybe through both.  The trouble is, I don't know how to articulate my scream.  I can feel it in my bones and in my soul, something important, something profound.  I just can't put it into words.  Maybe that's why I love photography so much, because it doesn't involve words but rather emotion, feelings, and interpretation.  Books have been written on single images.  Could photography be my tool for letting out my scream?  The only words I can educe for my scream is "justice" (hence my decision to be Pre-Law) and "humanity".  I want to change the world, I want to further the Kingdom of God, but do I want to be 'great'?  Ronald Reagan wisely said "there is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit." I have tried to live by this quote since I heard it many years ago.  Maybe I am meant to change the world, but I am not supposed to be a "great".

It's unclear to me where to go from here, but I know the ending of My Name is Asher Lev and I know where he ends up.

first 5

Here are the first 5 pictures taken from my new 50mm lens.  I bought the lens, went back to Westmont and went to dinner in the DC.

Wesley

Greg

Noah

Andrew

Benjamin

friend

This is Wesley, he made me a sandwich today.

I'm really sick and haven't been able to get out of bed.  Wesley, being the great friend that he is, went down to the DC and made me a sandwich and brought it up to me.  It was so tasty that I thought I would post about it!  WIthout him, I'd be very hungry right now.

This picture was taken with my mom's old Olympus with Ilford xp2 400 film.

bella

I have a 130lb St. Bernard named Bella

She is the cutest dog in the world, and I am prepared to fight anyone who thinks their dog might be cuter, because they are wrong!  She's a pure, short haired St. Bernard around 4 years old.  I miss her like crazy!  I was talking to my mom tonight and she put the phone against Bella's ear and I got to talk to her.  I could hear her flipping out from the sound of my voice, it was so sad but so funny.  I can't wait to see her the next time I go home (but who knows when that will be though, probably not until spring break).  She'll sleep in my bed as usual, and crush me as usual.

a few moments of solitude

I really enjoy just taking my camera and going for a walk.

Last week I took my camera and walked from coffee bean to my grandpa's house.  It's only about a 15 minute walk, but I really enjoyed the solitude.  Even though I had the sound of cars flying by me on the freeway next to me, I felt a kind of peace.  I don't get a lot of time to myself to just stop and think, especially living in Page Hall when there is never a moment of quiet.  Usually I love the noise and the fun social atmosphere, but sometimes it's nice to get a way, even if it's just for 15 minutes. 

...all about

This weekend we took my new 50mm lens to in-n-out.

There's really nothing better at 1am than a double double, with grilled onions, and fries.

Wesley was happy about it.

the gipper

Yesterday, February 6, 2011, would have been President Ronald Wilson Reagan's 100th Birthday.

I meant to write a long post about it yesterday, and I still intend to write it this week, but for now I just want to say this: President Reagan's life is a huge inspiration for my own life, and I strive to learn from everything he accomplished as the 40th President of this great nation.  

55mm

I got a 55mm lens yesterday, F/1.8

It's a great portrait lens, and we spent hours last night playing with it.  Many more to come.

der Kaffee

I, David Dry, am fully addicted to coffee.

I didn't have any coffee this morning, and now I am not happy.

defining notions

notion: a belief, opinion, theory, or view, held by a person or (now more usually) a group of people.

I don't want this blog to just be another place I post my pictures, nor do I want it to be some kind of online journal, because frankly I hate those.  I don't normally just point my camera and shoot at things that look cool; I try and capture images with some meaning, at least meaningful to me.  With my photography, I'm attempting to freeze moments that capture my own "beliefs, opinions, theories, views..." about my life and about this world.


In essence, I want to capture my notions in an image.  Here is where I will post them, and describe what they mean.  

the bisson

enter benjamin bisson

My friend, my RA, basically my favorite person at Westmont.  Benjamin is the epitome of why I love Westmont and my dorm.  A sophomore originally from Maine, he's a spectacular snowboarder, surfer and skater. Benjamin is an amazing artist: drawing/painting/photography.  I haven't surfed in years, it's almost impossible with my back, but I love going with Benjamin and all my other surfer friends here.  I relax on the beach and take pictures of them shredding.  Santa Barbara has some world class surf spots (this was taken at Rincon), and has the most beautiful scenery.  I cannot imagine myself living anywhere else.  The other week we went to the beach for 10 days straight, in mid-January.  Life is great.

Check out Benjamin's blog, he's an amazing film photographer.