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Good evening. Nice of you to join me for the continuation of this one-sided conversation. Not too much is new, but I figured I'd drop you a line just because this blog needs one last entry before the month ends (I'm cutting it pretty close).

Last weekend was busy. We attended three BBQs, a happy hour, and a dinner party. It's good for me to get out and socialize considering I spend so much of my time during the weeks alone. Not that I mind working on my own... I just need to cultivate relationships with others once in a while lest I forget how. And there are some amazing people to meet around here. Take this dinner party we attended in Summerland for instance -- everybody there was so interesting, successful, and friendly. The food was great too. We sat out on the porch after the meal and soaked up the dimming glow of the sky with a view of the ocean. It was my kind of scene.

I've been practicing with my video camera during a couple of the evenings this week. The still above is from some test footage that I managed to transfer to my computer in high definition (click on it to see all of its detailed glory, shadows and empty space and all). I've been shooting in HD since I got the new camera, but every time I transferred footage to the computer, I had to down-convert it to standard definition. So painful! This week I got a new, spacious hard drive and found a plug-in for my editing software, finally allowing me to edit in HD. It's yet to be determined if my PC can handle processing it for sure, but I'm going to give it a shot on my next project.

Speaking of my next project... it's beginning. I met with some people -- who's own art I really admire -- last night to discuss it. I'm sworn to secrecy for now, but I'll share some details in the coming months. This is an exciting one. It will feel good to dive into something I'm passionate about after exercising with a series of smaller projects recently. I'm hoping my practice with still photography will pay off now as well, as aesthetics will play an important role.

The project does not yet have a title. I'll try to think of some kind of code word for it soon.

Clash at Lost Lake

Here's another in my series of stop motion experiments. They don't get much more off-the-cuff than this. We spent about 15 minutes planning and shooting it. R snapped the shots while my little bro-in-law and I did our best gravity-defying kung fu maneurvers. I strung the photos together in Monkey Jam and then imported the resulting file into Adobe Premiere for some tuning. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out... all 22 jittery seconds of it.

Lakes and prairies and people

There's something about Minnesota in the summer... the long-lit days under big skies, the fresh air, the sounds of loons while we sleep... It's hard to believe this is the same place we visit each Christmas, when the world looks so gray. Our vacation this July was dipped in equal parts blue, green, and gold. If the weather doesn't worsen one of these years, our perception of Minnesota might become rather inaccurate, shaped by a streak of lucky weeks.

I really enjoyed seeing our families. As much stress, money, and travel time it takes to plan and execute these trips, they always end up being worth it. Thank you very much to our hosts for taking such good care of us! The rides, the food, the comfort, and the catching-up are much appreciated.

Many a photo was taken (801 to be exact). See some of them here. I would normally be more discerning and keep the gallery smaller/stronger, but I couldn't bring myself to exclude many shots of our niece and nephew. The little darlings are so dang cute. They remind me of why I like to take photos in the first place and make me want to have kids of my own (one day).

The Winnipeg Folk Festival -- our trip within the trip -- was awesome this year as well. It had the best line-up of musicians I've seen in my five years of attendance. My absolute favorite performance was by a band called Okkervil River (you've probably already heard me yakking or tweeting about them). I had been listening to a few of their albums off and on for the last couple of years, but their concert on Saturday night still took me by surprise. I've never seen a band win over an initially uninterested crowd they way they did. The front man's "this moment, right now" speech during the final stretch of tunes captured the energy of the night and cranked the volume. It brought people to their feet, rushing to the stage with hands in the air. My list of top 5 concerts needs to make room for this one.

One last note: My little bro-in-law and I shot a quick animation test during our time on Lost Lake. Sorry, Nate-dog, it's not ready yet. I plan to work on it this weekend and will post it shortly thereafter. I'm anxious to see it too.

My niece Elise

It was such a pleasure to finally meet my beautiful new niece, Ellie, this past weekend. While she was around, taking pictures of anyone/anything else seemed irrelevant. I have a bunch more and will be posting them in a gallery next week, after we return from our trip.

We spent the holiday weekend on the Iron Range, and I'm working from our parents' houses Monday through Wednesday of this week before we head up to the Winnipeg Folk Festival with R's family. We'll be back in California next Tuesday. Stay tuned for more in-depth coverage.