Tag Archives: photography

The 60-Minute Speed-Conventioning Challenge

September 12, 2015 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Lance Henriksen!

We had an idea in mind of how today would go. A small Indianapolis convention had brought in a handful of actors of varying levels of fame and importance. In my mind one of the biggest was Lance Henriksen — Bishop from Aliens and Alien³, one of several cops from The Terminator, star of the X-Files spinoff Millennium, costar of the southern-vampire cult classic Near Dark, and other stuff I’m forgetting. With a geek resumé like that, I anticipated waiting a few hours or more for the chance to say hi.

VIPs could enter the con at 10 a.m. When the general public was ushered in promptly at 11, we were third in his line. That seemed wrong. If we had known how quickly we’d finish the rest of my to-do list, maybe we would’ve taken a closer look at the photo, noticed his blinking, and asked humbly for a retake. Who knew.

Right this way for photos and a super-short convention round-up!

2015 Road Trip Photos #10: Birmingham’s Art Museum on $0.00 a Day

September 9, 2015 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Steelworker!

“Steelworker” by Luis Jimenez, 1990.

Our Day Two morning walk through the desolate streets of downtown Birmingham took us across the street from the north end of Linn Park and toward the Birmingham Museum of Art. We’ve visited art museums in other cities on past vacations, but we regrettably missed out on BMA admittance because they don’t open till noon on Sundays. We had a busy schedule ahead of us and not much margin for immersing ourselves in the local culture beyond the first few hours.

Luckily for us, the contents of the BMA extend beyond its mere walls and enjoy grassy display space all around the block. We enjoyed what we could on the lap we took. ADVANCE DISCLAIMER: Please disregard our situational example and give money to arts. Thank you.

Right this way for festive lawn arts!

Star Wars Celebration 2005 Memories, Part 3 of 3: Costumes!

September 8, 2015 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Jedi M&Ms!

Jedi M&Ms: they melt on Mustafar, not in your hand.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: a flashback to our four-day weekend at 2005’s Star Wars Celebration III in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. Part 1 was nearly three thousand words’ worth of anecdotes, bullet points, actors, friends, Star Wars creators, popes, and the worst line we’ve ever endured in our entire lives. Part 2 was a basic photo gallery of stuff ‘n’ things that were pretty exciting to us at the time. Now it’s all standard convention decor, but we were younger and easily impressed.

And now we reach the grand finale to this very special all-35mm MCC miniseries in a predictable fashion with predictable fashions. It’s vintage cosplay time! Here’s what the Star Wars fans of yesteryear were wearing before cosplayers divided sharply into two camps: those spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars on painstakingly self-tailored tributes; and dudes in store-bought Halloween costumes. Enjoy!

Right this way for Star Wars cosplay, 2005 style!

Star Wars Celebration 2005 Memories, Part 2 of 3: Stuff We Saw

September 7, 2015 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
X-Wing Fighter!

Life-size X-Wing Fighter! Working engine and hyperspace drive sold separately.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: a flashback to our four-day weekend at 2005’s Star Wars Celebration III in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. Part 1 was nearly three thousand words’ worth of anecdotes, bullet points, actors, friends, Star Wars creators, popes, and the worst line we’ve ever endured in our entire lives. Part 3 is the inevitable cosplayer roundup.

Tonight’s episode: more scans of 35mm ten-year-old photos, now with more Star Wars stuff than ever in them — a combination of official Lucasfilm props on display behind lock and key, loving fan-made objects, and Star Wars playthings writ large. If Part 1 is a long nonfiction book, Part 2 is the glossy photo section in the middle of the book apart from the rest of the content. More things, fewer words. Enjoy!

Right this way for a short, easy-to-scroll-through photo gallery of Star Wars things!

Star Wars Celebration 2005 Memories, Part 1 of 3: Who We Met

September 7, 2015 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Ralph Brown!

He was burnout concert promoter Del Preston in Wayne’s World 2, a victim in Alien³, and the big-bad Dr. Fennhoff in Marvel’s Agent Carter, but to Star Wars fans with advanced memories, Ralph Brown is best known as panicky pilot Ric Olie from The Phantom Menace.

So far my Labor Day weekend on the internet has been all about (a) toy fans reveling in the Star Wars “Force Friday” merchandise onslaught, and (b) longtime cohorts kicking around Dragon*Con in Atlanta seeing lots of SW-related costumes, actors, and at least one novelist. I’m happy for everyone enjoying themselves for those various reasons, but skimming through all this STAR WARS STAR WARS STAR WARS STAR WARS STAR WARS has put me in a nostalgic frame of mind about a relevant occasion from our own past that I meant to dredge up four months ago for May the Fourth but delayed due to distractions.

Ten years ago last April, my wife Anne and I attended all four days of Star Wars Celebration III (“CIII” to our friends), the second and final major SW convention to grace the Indiana Convention Center in downtown Indianapolis. As with the 2002 shindig (previously relived on MCC here, here, and here), our weekend was filled with costumes, props, things containing Star Wars logos, performers, crowds, terrible line management, and out-of-town internet friends given a great excuse to visit.

Sadly, my own write-up of the experience was atomized shortly after its initial posting due to a freak accident involving dumb stupid idiotic software that made it too easy for a trusting message-board administrator to delete dozens of threads with a single misunderstanding keystroke. Anne’s own version of events survived the purge and remains online as a minute-by-minute account more thrilling to those of us who were there, probably less so to outsiders. This, then, is the recap of her recap.

Right this way for Star Wars! Star Wars! STAR WARS!

2015 Road Trip Photos #9: Murals and Falls

September 4, 2015 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Murals Though Falls!

Sunday morning in Birmingham didn’t stay cool for long. We walked away from Linn Park hoping to see art. Before long we were dying for water. North of the park, nestled between the Birmingham Museum of Art and the Boutwell Auditorium, we found a tidy spot that offered and hid the best of both.

Continue reading →

2015 Road Trip Photos #8: The Other Birmingham Park

September 3, 2015 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Eternal Flame of Freedom!

In the last three chapters we walked through Birmingham’s Kelly Ingram Park, which hosted some of the most unforgettable moments in civil rights history and today commemorates those struggles and victories in a forthright manner. It would prove to be a solemn experience for us.

A few blocks northeast is Linn Park, which has the unenviable job of trying to compete against that weighty reputation for attention from the local citizenry. Not that their adjacency has to be considered a competition, but one certainly had more visitors than the other. Calling it the Jan Brady of Birmingham parks would be mean, so let’s not do that. We can instead highlight its prominent aspects, its own graven personalities, its own works of art dotting the downtown landscape.

Exhibit A, pictured above: the Eternal Flame of Freedom, a 1969 American Legion memorial saluting all Jefferson County war veterans, equipped with a gas jet for burning brightly. The flame was out when we happened by, so I’m taking the “burning brightly” part on faith. To me “eternal” implies 24/7 fire, but it’s possible in this context “eternal” means “three shows daily” and we were too early for the first performance.

Continue reading →

Wizard World Chicago 2015 Photos, Part 7 of 7: Why We Convention

September 1, 2015 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Jeremy Renner VIP Badge!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time of year again! Anne and I are at Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we’re so far having a blast even though parts of it resemble hard work and our feet feel battle-damaged after two days of endless walking, standing, lining up, shuffling forward in cattle-call formation, and scurrying toward exciting people and things…

My wife and I took an okay number of photos over the course of our three-day stay and will once again be sharing the most usable over the next several entries.

Tonight’s episode: the miniseries finale! The panels we saw! The comics pros I met! The winners of the Annual “Convince Me to Spend Money in Artists Alley” contest! The troubles with conventioning while old! And more!

Right this way for one last batch of photos, anecdotes from the weekend, and one (1) costume pic!

Wizard World Chicago 2015 Photos, Part 6 of 7: Cars and Other Objects

August 28, 2015 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , 6 Comments
KITT!

Anne Golden, a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the powerless, the helpless in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time of year again! Anne and I are at Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we’re so far having a blast even though parts of it resemble hard work and our feet feel battle-damaged after two days of endless walking, standing, lining up, shuffling forward in cattle-call formation, and scurrying toward exciting people and things…

My wife and I took an okay number of photos over the course of our three-day stay and will once again be sharing the most usable over the next several entries.

Tonight’s episode: famous cars and stuff! Every Wizard World show has a couple of recognizable vehicles from movies and TV, but this year brought in a few newcomers we hadn’t seen in person before. Exhibit A: KITT from Knight Rider. My wife saw many more episodes back in the ’80s than I did and firmly demanded photos with the greatest talking car in pop culture history. (Sorry, Speed Buggy.)

Right this way for more cars, more KITT, more caboodle!

Wizard World Chicago 2015 Photos, Part 5 of 7: Actors We Met

August 28, 2015 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments
Jeremy Renner!

Wizard World Chicago exclusive: two-time Academy Award Nominee Jeremy Renner sighted in public with a pair of flighty goofballs.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time of year again! Anne and I are at Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we’re so far having a blast even though parts of it resemble hard work and our feet feel battle-damaged after two days of endless walking, standing, lining up, shuffling forward in cattle-call formation, and scurrying toward exciting people and things…

My wife and I took an okay number of photos over the course of our three-day stay and will once again be sharing the most usable over the next several entries.

Tonight’s episode: RETURN OF THE JAZZ HANDS.

Right this way for more photos of other famous faces that let us within 100 yards this weekend!

Wizard World Chicago 2015 Photos, Part 4 of 7: Last Call for Cosplay

August 27, 2015 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment
Daft Punk!

Half of Daft Punk welcomes you to the party!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time of year again! Anne and I are at Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we’re so far having a blast even though parts of it resemble hard work and our feet feel battle-damaged after two days of endless walking, standing, lining up, shuffling forward in cattle-call formation, and scurrying toward exciting people and things…

My wife and I took an okay number of photos over the course of our three-day stay and will once again be sharing the most usable over the next several entries.

Tonight’s episode: all the usable WWC 2015 cosplay photos I didn’t already post. If you’re not here, we’re sorry we missed you. We did the best we could on Friday; we spent most of Saturday in lines; and by Sunday I eased down because I was sick of living life through a narrow viewfinder.

Anyway: yay costumes! Enjoy more!

Right this way for WWC 2015 costumes, one last time!

Wizard World Chicago 2015 Photos, Part 3 of 7: DC vs. Star Wars Cosplay

August 26, 2015 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Freeze + Riddler!

Mandatory Bat-villains: Ms. Freeze and the Riddler! Incredibly, we somehow didn’t photograph a single Joker at WWC this year. Not one.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time of year again! Anne and I are at Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we’re so far having a blast even though parts of it resemble hard work and our feet feel battle-damaged after two days of endless walking, standing, lining up, shuffling forward in cattle-call formation, and scurrying toward exciting people and things…

My wife and I took an okay number of photos over the course of our three-day stay and will once again be sharing the most usable over the next several entries.

With the average con we usually have enough pics for themed entries of a solid size, but our WWC 2015 results turned out so fractionalized across a number of media, companies, and universes that not much else besides Marvel achieved a real consensus. DC and Star Wars each put in a modest showing, but after using up a few of those in Part 1, both universes fell short of supporting their own independent entries. Hence today’s senseless duplex of an entry. Enjoy!

Right this way for some DC and some Star Wars! Because they’re there!

Wizard World Chicago 2015 Photos, Part 2 of 7: Marvel Cosplay

August 25, 2015 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment
Ant-Man + Star-Lord!

Teaser pic from the set of Ant-Man vs. Star-Lord: Clash of Hyphens.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time of year again! Anne and I are at Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we’re so far having a blast even though parts of it resemble hard work and our feet feel battle-damaged after two days of endless walking, standing, lining up, shuffling forward in cattle-call formation, and scurrying toward exciting people and things…

My wife and I took an okay number of photos over the course of our three-day stay and will once again be sharing the most usable over the next several entries.

Tonight’s episode: familiar faces from the Marvel House of Ideas!

Right this way to Make Mine Marvel!

Wizard World Chicago 2015 Photos, Part 1 of 7: Team Cosplay

August 24, 2015 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Team Miyazaki!

Team Miyazaki: Princess Mononoke, Totoro, and Markl from Howl’s Moving Castle!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time of year again! Anne and I are at Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we’re so far having a blast even though parts of it resemble hard work and our feet feel battle-damaged after two days of endless walking, standing, lining up, shuffling forward in cattle-call formation, and scurrying toward exciting people and things…

My wife and I took an okay number of photos over the course of our three-day stay and will once again be sharing the most usable over the next several entries. Part One kicks off with clusters of themed costumes, because arbitrary categorization helps me organize my thoughts more clearly. I’m not the kind of guy to upload a hundred unlabeled cosplay photos all at once on the go. I’m all about pacing, parceling, staggering, and serializing our experiences for measured reading and perusing. Hence, chapters. Enjoy!

Right this way for more costumes! More cosplayers! More team-ups!

Five Shots from Our Convention Weekend in Progress

August 23, 2015 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , 1 Comment

WWC Artists Alley Comics 2015!

It’s that time of year again! Anne and I are at Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we’re so far having a blast even though parts of it resemble hard work and our feet feel battle-damaged after two days of endless walking, standing, lining up, shuffling forward in cattle-call formation, and scurrying toward exciting people and things. This year marks our first time splurging on VIP passes for a con as an experiment, and the first time in ten years that we’re attending three full days. We normally make a point of skipping Sundays, but we had multiple reasons for going overboard this once.

Pictured above: my haul so far from their Artists Alley, always an interesting place to scout out new comics and graphic novels. I’m annoying to a lot of folks in there that I tend to avoid prints, posters, sketches-while-I-wait, prose novels, zombies, erotica, amateur manga, and jewelry, but within my annoyingly rigorous shopping guidelines, I can usually find a few items to catch my eye.

Right this way for four more bonus pics while we’re away!

Indiana State Fair 2015 Photos, Part 5 of 5: Random Acts of State-Fairing

August 20, 2015 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment
Tractor Wife!

Tractors! Farming! Farming accessories! Farming science! Giant things!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides and big-ticket concerts by musicians that other people love. My wife and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context. We’re not as thrilled about carnival rides as we used to be, and the State Fair almost never invites musicians I like. In between snacking experiments, our day at the fair tends to be all about sightseeing…

…and now it all comes down to this: the grand finale, in which we lump together a bunch of photos of other whatchamacallits to finish defining what the Indiana State Fair experience means to us aging Hoosier geeks.

Right this way for one last round of photos with animals, crafts, mascots, and slightly more!

Indiana State Fair 2015 Photos, Part 4 of 5: The Art of the Fair

August 20, 2015 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

State Fair Clonetrooper!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides and big-ticket concerts by musicians that other people love. My wife and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context. We’re not as thrilled about carnival rides as we used to be, and the State Fair almost never invites musicians I like. In between snacking experiments, our day at the fair tends to be all about sightseeing…

ART! It’s everywhere at the State Fair! It’s in the buildings or along the streets, it’s made by kids or by adults, it’s made of traditional media or of food, it expresses a thought or teaches a lesson or celebrates an idol or all of the above. These, then, are random examples of those very things that caught our eye.

Naturally we had to lead with Clonetrooper helmet. Its display-case roommate looks vaguely Legoesque, but I could be wrong.

Right this way for more things made by people! For things’ sake!

Indiana State Fair 2015 Photos, Part 3 of 5: Canned Characters

August 18, 2015 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Aminion Gothic!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides and big-ticket concerts by musicians that other people love. My wife and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context. We’re not as thrilled about carnival rides as we used to be, and the State Fair almost never invites musicians I like. In between snacking experiments, our day at the fair tends to be all about sightseeing…

Another fun annual event is the Canstruction contest, which isn’t necessarily intended for local 4-H youngsters. Canstruction is a charitable organization that holds nationwide events in which engineers and other clever planners compete against each other in building the best sculpture made entirely from canned goods, preferably in recognizable shapes and not lazy Impressionist piles with titles like “Cleanup on Aisle 6”. After the judging and the public displaying are over, all those meticulously planned figures are torn down and the components are donated to local hunger relief charities, who in turn forward them to needy families totally unaware their next few meals used to be Art.

Exhibit A, picture above: Minions recreating Grant Wood’s “American Gothic”. The makers called it “FARMinions” as if the farming were the most important part. Begging to differ, I must insist this piece’s true name is “Aminion Gothic” whether they accept it or not.

Right this way for more familiar faces…in cans!

Indiana State Fair 2015 Photos, Part 2 of 5: The Year in Lego

August 18, 2015 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Lego SHIELD Helicarrier!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides and big-ticket concerts by musicians that other people love. My wife and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context.

We’re not as thrilled about carnival rides as we used to be, and the State Fair almost never invites musicians I like. In between snacking experiments, our day at the fair tends to be all about sightseeing, particularly in the area of Stuff Young People Made. As you’d expect, year in, year out, those young craftspeople love them some Lego.

Under the auspices of 4-H, kids statewide have the chance to compete in building competitions of varying categories. Sometimes it’s all about what they can create from scratch. Sometimes it’s about who can follow manufacturers’ directions best. Sometimes I wonder if kids put together sets like this Lego SHIELD Helicarrier, tell the non-geek judges they totally made it up, collect their purple Grand Prize ribbons, and look like construction wizards to everyone they know. All I know is on Lego.com this set is priced twice as much as my used PS3 was. Gotta admit, though, it looks much cooler.

Right this way for lots of blocky goodness!

Indiana State Fair 2015 Photos, Part 1 of 5: Our Year in Food

August 16, 2015 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , 5 Comments
Lamb Parfait!

This is not ice cream. That’s not chocolate.

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides and big-ticket concerts by musicians that other people love. My wife and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context. Usually, 70% of our quest is food.

Each year the State Fair announces the annual theme of a single ingredient and holds a contest daring all the vendors to create a new dish around it, like a sort of Food Network cooking show except I think the grand prize is just “for exposure”. Recent history has brought us the Year of the Tomato, the Year of Corn, the Year of Soy, the Year of Popcorn, and last year’s disappointingly non-food-based Year of the Coliseum, in honor of the longtime event venue that had reopened after a two-year closure for extensive renovations. This year’s theme was “the Year of the Farmer”, a.k.a. “the Year We Ran Out of Food Themes”. For anyone who thought “the Year of the Coliseum” wasn’t directionless enough, 2015 had only a handful of the many vendors offering a random, disconnected assortment of ostensibly new dishes, at least one of which was flat-out pretending to be new.

We tried to make the most of it anyway and found a few items worth actual dollars.

Right this way for pics of our 2015 in State Fair food!