• All About a Boy

    On March 3, 1978, in the only hospital in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I was born into this world kicking and screaming, and my parents often remind me that I haven't changed much since. I choose to take that as a compliment. My kicking and screaming isn't a vulgar retaliation against the injustices of this world that have caused me great suffering and misfortune, for I've lived a truly blessed life. Wonderful parents, wonderful siblings, wonderful friends. I even had a wonderful dog once, but he ran away. And I've had my fair share of wonderful experiences. My kicking and screaming is a celebration of life, a manifestation of the joy I feel for being alive. It's a manic urge to express myself through a number of mediums in loud, bright colors that say "Thank you God for blessing me with so much!" Not to say that I don't paint gloomier themes in darker colors sometimes, as manic urges are just one part of an alternating cycle of highs and lows. I'm sure a graph of my life would alternate erratically back and forth across that central axis that represents "normality", but I can say truthfully that I'm happy the curves of my life have never become lines, especially ones that rest flat on that central axis. I plan to go on kicking and screaming when I can, and when I can't, in those periods of self-reflection and soul-searching that I sometimes desperately crave, I hope to learn how to kick harder and scream louder. Not to lash out, but to be heard. Not to hurt, but to help. To change. And to create.

    That's my deepest desire, my one true driving energy. To create. And a tortuous, sometimes agonizing path it has been to discovering how best to create. It's a path I'll most likely spend my entire life stumbling down, discovering new outlets for my creative urges as I go. I see a lot of Vincent van Gogh in me. Not that I'll ever have his talent (although he'd be the first to argue that talent can be a very subjective thing), or necessarily find that one medium of expression to so faithfully, and painfully, pursue, but I feel that same feverish drive to create at times, and I've seen how it can lead me to both great joy and misery, often simultaneously. And to think I was once an aspiring engineer. Oh, the roads we travel in life. Never knowing the way because we never know the final destination.

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Rock the Web Semifinals

Posted on 07/08/2012
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Categories: Asia, China, Photography , Tags:

Two weeks after returning from the incredibly exciting Las Vegas training camp, Rock the Web held the semifinals of their singing competition in good ol’ Beijing.  Originally the semifinal competition was scheduled to take place in Las Vegas at the end of the training camp, but since three of the twelve contestants couldn’t get US visas, in the end the event was moved to a Beijing venue.  The venue was pretty awesome, but the most spectacular thing to me as the photographer was the lighting system being used.  There was another photographer shooting the event also, and I found it curious that he focused on shooting the lights as much as the performers.  I struck up a conversation with him afterward and found out he had been hired by the light manufacturing company to come take pictures of the event.  Evidently these were some new models of lights and they wanted some publicity photos to show them off.

The event came off without a hitch, and the contestants were all at at peak performance.  There were six judges for the event, three of them American musicians and a music producer that had worked with the contestants in Las Vegas, and three of them Chinese music moguls.  In addition to their votes, the contestants gained points from a live online voting system that was really well implemented.  At the end of each performance the large screen on either side of the stage would should the online votes adding up in real-time as the judges votes were given.  In the end, I found it a bit ironic that of the six finalists chosen to advance to the final competition, three of them were the ones who couldn’t get US visas and didn’t attend the Las Vegas training camp.  The other six semifinalists that weren’t selected for the final round had all gone to Vegas.  I was a bit sad to see them knocked out of competition, but also happy to see that the American judges that he built relationships with these young talents didn’t show them any favoritism.

Now that the finalists have been chosen, there is only one week until the finals, to be held at the same venue with the same awesome lighting setup.  Maybe my new photographer buddy will be back to shoot more promotional photos of the lights…?

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