NC Photography

I really don't know where to begin. It's been a long time since I have posted anything in here and I don't really have anything to post. My health is still fucked, I feel fucked in the head. I have been feeling so depressed lately upon my other problems. Pain in my stomach, pain in my side, feeling nauseated, dizzy, unattached from the world, spaced out, etc... I don't feel like myself anymore. I am not a happy person and haven't been for a while. It is mainly my health. Sure, I am upset and irritated with my job but that is the least of my problems. Work isn't really all that bad. It's the stress of everything else that makes it so bad. The thoughts I have been having. Not good. All I do is keep myself locked up in my room. I hardly eat, I sleep entirely too much. I have been puking off and on today for whatever reason.

This needs to change. I want to go back to my old self. I want to be happy again. I am tired of feeling suicidal, tired of feeling like not wanting to wake up. I won't hurt myself in any way intentionally, but all I want is for this to end. I haven't been able to really do anything that I like. My photography is pretty much non existent. I have lost the desire to to do anything with my camera. I have considered selling all of my gear and calling it quits but it is easy to think like that when you feel you have nothing. I feel that way a lot even though I know that it isn't true. It just seems that things pile up on me and keep piling up on me. I am lucky to have to good friends and roommates who genuinely care and have stuck by me regardless of my shortcomings or failure to keep promises when I haven't been feeling good. My girlfriend is amazing and cares for me so much and would do just about anything she could. My family is the same way.

But they can't fix this. I don't feel I can fix this. I know there are things that need to be done and I am doing what I can to do it. I am afraid of losing my job because of this.  If that happens, I have no idea what the hell is going to happen next. I don't want to move to Bend and start over again. I don't want to leave behind 3 great people, 1 of them being the woman that I love very much. I can't do this to her. But what do I do? It's so hard. I have been watching stuff on the internet about things happening to people wishing it would happen to me. Sometimes I look so hard for a reason not to exist that it disgusts me. I hate the number of pills I have to take on a daily basis when I feel they do me no good. The anti depressants I am on... I think they are doing me more harm than good. Ultimately I feel lost, broken, confused, sad, worthless, used up, and dead to the world.

There's so much that I keep to myself because I just don't want to burden people with it. I can't really eat much and haven't been eating much. I used to have problems sleeping but I have had a problem with sleeping too much. I have no drive, no motivation, no fight left in me. I really wouldn't care if I passed out and never woke up at this point. I know that is bad to say but I feel like I am at the end of my rope, my last nerve. I just want to feel better. I want to be happy. I want to wake up each day looking forward to what life has to offer me. I want to be able to get away somewhere and relax without having to use all of my vacation time being sick. I want to be able to go to the coast for a weekend with the girl and treat her to a nice dinner. I just can't afford shit right now other than paying my bills and it's been a struggle. I always find a way to make it work but I don't want to have to keep bending over backwards to keep my head above water. Either let me drown or pull me from the water, damn it. I've lost all of my faith in religion, I've been a wreck to say the least.

I don't know what to do anymore. I just want to be happy. Is that too much to ask? :(

Can't believe I over looked this shot. Found in my Archives, this scene is from the Portland Japanese Garden. Here's some info about the shot:

18mm
1/20s hand held
f/4.0
ISO 200
circular polarizer

You really shouldn't stop at a skate park when all you are armed with is a 70-300 for wildlife snapping, lol.

It's been a long time since I have posted here. Things have been put on hiatus for the most part. I haven't been out with the camera lately. Been busy with work, personal drama, and other bullshit that has been dragging me down. I did venture out with the camera today for a short adventure to experiment with infrared. I have had focusing problems with it in the past because it is impossible to see through the viewfinder with the filter attached but I am starting to get used to the IR scale on my lens. I will focus without the filter, attach it, put the camera in manual focus mode, and adjust the focus to the scale. Sometimes it is hit or miss but I managed to nail this one. Yay. Too bad I didn't make sure the image had no tilt with the house, ugh.



You can see it bigger here: http://metro.deviantart.com/art/Pittock-Mansion-79387070

My website/portfolio: http://www.capturetheclimax.com

Yeah, that user pic I had chosen was fucking atrocious. I apologize. :P

The user picture for my LJ is something extremely stupid that I found on DeviantArt. People linked to the user icons on DeviantArt which were really fucking odd animations of weird shit in which some of the users made tons of photoshopped recreations of the main icon.

I felt it would be funny to punish teh internets by using the picture of one such profile. I will be changing the background to black so it is more pleasing to the eyes. I am just a very caring individual, plus my eyes suck and my decision is way biased. LOL.

I posted a different shot that I took that has similar post processing to it, but I also took a night panorama of the city as well just for shits and giggles. I am so sorry that the preview is small as balls, but the image is extremely wide so the aspect ratio sucks. Here is a preview:



But here is the bigger version, be sure to view the full size and scroll way to the right, lol:

http://metro.deviantart.com/art/Cold-Portland-Nights-Panorama-73912124

Today was a wake up call. I have been a bit too carefree when it comes to my health. The only real issue that I have always had was my weight. I was always a bigger guy but had the personality to where that really didn't matter. I never had a problem when it came to meeting women once I get over my initial shyness but today... Today really slapped me in the face.

I went to my doctor for my annual check up because I had a list of things to hash out. The major one was my weight but I wasn't expecting what I saw. They weighed me in and my heart just sunk. I can't explain why I have gotten this bad other than procrastination and laziness. I look at pictures of myself back in the day and look at myself in the mirror and feel sick to my stomach. Seeing how much my weight was today made me want to crawl in a hole and die.

The more I think about it, the more I question a lot of things about myself. How could anyone find me even the least bit attractive? I don't have an ugly face but to me the rest of me is just disgusting. I think the main cause of my decline was when I lost my wife and got divorced. At that point I really quit giving a shit and part of me still doesn't care. Sometimes I wake up and feel like I have nothing to live for, sometimes I go go bed and wish that I would never wake up. I would never do harm to myself, but now that I think about it, my habits have done me harm in many ways.

I have let things get so bad and I just wish I could close my eyes, open them up, and have it all be gone. The most difficult thing will be finding the motivation to start bettering things but I am starting to realize that either I start doing something soon or I may just fall over dead one day from a heart attack or other health problem. But even then, part of me still doesn't give a fuck anymore and I hate it. I sat there in the doctors office waiting for the doctor to come in and was trying to fight back tears. I am so disgusted with myself and still at the same time have thoughts of "whatever, maybe I'll be dead in a year". I really wish I knew what to do, where to start, how to do it, etc. My "girlfriend" always tells me that I am too codependent when it comes to that aspect of things, that I shouldn't need anyone to help motivate me and that it is all up to me. While she is right for the most part, I don't think she fully understands or cares. It just gives her a reason to bitch at me for something.

So with that said, I really am at a loss of words or what to do. Something needs to happen one way or another. On a positive note, I got a little curious and did a spell check on this. No errors. At least that's one thing I have always been good at...

One of my very best shots of 2007. I was saving one of the best for last to post in 2007 so I hope that you all enjoy it.



See a bigger version here: http://metro.deviantart.com/art/Staring-Into-Peace-73469766

Essential gear. Items that I feel should be part of what everyone has in their line up who is serious about photography. One of the most essential items? Tripod with a good head.



It doesn't matter what kind of photography you do. A tripod is an absolute necessity and it never hurts to buy the best you can get. I have my eyes set on a Gitzo carbon fiber tripod right now, but the price makes my wallet cry.

A trip to Mt St Helens one September afternoon just happened at random when I saw how sunny and clear it was outside. I filled the gas in my car and headed north to Mt St Helens because I have never been there before and I figured it was definitely worth taking my gear up there to photograph. This is what I was blessed with:



Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D70s
Shutter Speed: 5/300 second
F Number: F/11.0
Focal Length: 24 mm
Date Picture Taken: Sep 1, 2007, 4:48:47 PM

Tripod: Dynatran AT-877
Head: Manfrotto/Bogen 804 RC2
Filter: Cheap ass Quantaray circular polarizer.
Post processing? You bet your ass! LOL.

An exterior HDR shot of a favorite building of mine close to where I live. I love the way that the lighting focuses the center of the building, more importantly the cross at the top. This building is moving to me in the depths of my heart with the way it is illuminated at night.



Sorry, no EXIF data other than this piece was done with a Canon Powershot A620 mounted on a tripod and in Manual mode. Yes, this was taken with a consumer end $200 point and shoot camera, LOL. BTW, I know that I need to crop this a bit. This was taken before I really learned a bit about composition.

Twenty one dollars is quite an interesting title, don't you think? Well, amusingly enough that is the amount of the parking ticket that I received that evening while set up and snapping shots of the Portland skyline from one of my favorite parts of town.

I figured the title was fitting.



EXIF Data:
Camera: Nikon D70s
Exposure: 1/45s @ 0EV
Aperture: f/11
Focal length: 18 mm

Blended from 9 exposures.
Tripod: Dynatran AT-877
Head: Manfrotto/Bogen 804 RC2

A cityscape of Portland, taken right at the end of sunset before twilight started to begin:



EXIF Data:
Camera: Nikon D70s
Flash mode: --
Exposure 1: 1/15s
Exposure 2: 1/4s
Exposure 3: 1.0s
Aperture: f/3.5
ISO: 200
Focal length: 18 mm

Tripod: Dynatran AT-877
Head: Manfrotto/Bogen 804 RC2

Well, well. What do we have here? My name is Nick. I am 26 and reside in Beaverton, OR. I am a tech geek during the weekdays and a camera warrior on the weekends. I mainly do a lot of landscape work but am hoping to get into portrait work shortly and expand on that. Ultimately I would love to do a little of everything to expand on my creative side. I love being behind a camera and the thing that I love the most about landscape work are the road trips to various places. I am also big into cars so it ties in with what I do.

So far I have been on a little of a break from going out with the camera. Work and personal life things have interfered a bit, as well as working on a few projects for a couple clients and working on the layout of a website that doesn't seem like it will get finished any time soon. I will use this journal as a place to post some of my work and to get involved with different communities of people that share similar interests.

So with that said, let's start getting this show on the road. :)