Thinking Man
Happy Valentines Day folks! Today, your post will come in RED. I apologize to my loyal friends and readers, it's been a while since I last updated. While it's been a real struggle for me to find time to make new work in the last two months, I did manage to link up with a very sexy, and explosively talented BBoy - Straw Hat Aaron Shinobi!! We met up for a short photo session yesterday, and tossed around a few ideas. Below are some highlights from the shoot.
No Shadow Kick
Leap Baby
Thank you guys for all the feedback and support you've given me in the last few months, I think this body of work is really starting to develop, and in a really cool way. I have a short list of volunteers now (that I need to set up shoots with). If anyone else is still interested in becoming a BBoy Monster let me know!!!
On another note, I have begun the process of trying to convert some bboy monsters into illustrations or cartoon characters. So if I come up with something I think is not embarrassing enough to show people, there might be some cool t-shirt in the works for the future (or if you can draw/actually like to do it, HELP ME!). Be on the look out friends!!!
This was the beginning of the end, the last sheet of 8"x 8" in., hand torn, squared paper piece of white printer paper was destined to become number 1000th of 1000 paper cranes. In some asian cultures it is believe that one who folds 1000 cranes, will be granted a wish by the gods. But of course the catch is must die in order to carry your wish up to heaven, for the gods to receive. In other words, blood and sweat must be sacrificed in exchange for your wish. Sounded like a good deal to me, so I thought that instead I would speed up the process and burn mine. 
This was one of my earlier ideas for the cranes. I knew already that so long as I had a larger number of them uniform size and shape, that they would look cool no matter how I photographed them. But I wanted to double check, so I folded a couple of small ones out of left over paper and took a picture of them on my mom's kitchen counter. 
This was the first pile of 100 cranes that I made. The first hundo were actually the easiest to do - because I was still motivated. That quickly changed, with the more that I did. I ended up working on this project very sporadically throughout the year. I would try to fold 10 a day (which takes me about 40 minutes) but that pace would only last about 4 days, before I got bored and stopped. Somedays I would feel guilty and fold 30 in a day. This all changed when my deadline started approaching, and I still had 400 left to fold in a month. Some people would call that "procrastination," I call it "gradual motivation."
Shortly after making that pile of 100, I realized I needed a way to store them. So I mostly kept them in trash bags and left them around my room. This system started out ok at first, but quickly became a problem as I eventually would have start storing multiple bags in locations.
Cranes detail.
Eventually when I hit 500, much in my life had changed. The project had also consumed my free time, so I created this image in celebration of reaching the halfway point. This was one of the early hits on my blog, where I actually got a great response from people about my work. From this point forward, I actually started to feel like I was onto sometime worthwhile.
A lot of people ask me about how I make my pictures, and the previous image in particular. While most of the work I do now is often obviously photoshopped, they didn't start out that way. Because I came from a documentary photo background, I originally tried to avoid using it whenever I could. To me, the process would be a lot more fun if I could do it in real life. So by utilizing the help of friends, some knowledge of lighting and composition, and a lot of scotch tape, we were able to pull off this in one shot. I sat still for about an hour while my friend Billy the Kim Strong Ill taped the cranes to my face. Eventually the sweat started to build up and we actually had to rush to take the picture before they fell.
There's a famous boston photographer named "Abe Morell" who is known for his mastery of the camera obscura technique. Abe is also one of my photography heroes, and a lot of my work around this time was heavily influenced by him. This technique is the principle that all cameras are based upon. In nature, when small bits of light enters a dark chamber, the image of what's outside that hole will be projected on the inside walls of the chamber, only upside-down. This effect was used during the renaissance by painters to trace outlines of subjects to ensure correct perspective. Here I photographed them with my good friend, fellow artist and blogger 
When the winter finally came, I had to rushing to finish the some 400 cranes debt I had left. While the first few snowfalls were more icy than fluffy, this was one of my first attempts at photographing the cranes actually in the snow. The light was a bit harsher than I thought it would be, and so I knew I would have to wait for an overcast day, with fresh snow to carry out my plan the way I wanted to.
From this shoot I was able to get a pretty good idea of how I would want to frame my project. I knew that I wanted to integrate my cranes with the snow, like an obvious camouflage. Now all I had to do was wait patiently... 
When the day finally came, it was the last big snow storm of the season in February, 2011. If I had missed the shoot that morning, I probably would have had to wait another year. 
This picture is actually three pictures merged together, something I had initially photographed with this specific intention, but then forgot about. I found these pictures recently as I was trying to pull 20 images together in a series so I could apply for some photo competition. As I was looking through my images I thought to myself "wait a sec, there should be a picture here that I forgot to do." Now for the first time, this images has been released to the public. 
This was it. This was the moment of truth. You can't exactly burn 1000 paper cranes twice, no, that would require 2000 cranes, so this was going to be a one shot deal. Everything I had worked for added up to this one moment - and then the goddamn paper would not light. Even as I dosed the cranes in lighter fluid, it was simply too wet and too cold for them to burn. Instead, they simmered quitely. 
Fin.
2011 was a crazy year for me. My artwork really took off, and I've been producing more stuff more quickly than I ever have before. I finished two major projects this year, but it wasn't easy, and there were a lot of mishaps along the way. I would like to take this chance to celebrate some of my year's many failures. Although I had many success this past year, it took a lot of failure to get there. 
Florox 10th anniversary crew pose, I don't think I've ever tried to coordinate a single shot with a bigger group of people. I don't know why, but I actually thought it wasn't gonna be too hard. As with most things involved in Florox crew activities, we went in with a plan, and then chaos ensued. But in the end, the shot came out great and we had a hell of a lot of fun doing it. I felt like this was definitely a big achievement of mine this year, and has remained my most popular post yet.
For some reason, I didn't think that they had buildings in hawaii. Then when I landed in Honolulu back in April, I thought to myself "OF COURSE THEY HAVE BUILDINGS YOU IDIOT!" But then I realized, "that's because all the pictures I've seen from hawaii are landscapes and beaches." So I made it a point to take a some pictures of the city to bring back back with me to the mainland. Then when I got back I promptly did absolutely nothing with them. 
I was gonna sell T-Shirts through the blog earlier this year. I even bought a box of 100 of 'em, and then realized I have a plan for shipping and distributing them. I also had no packaging plan, so the people who did order shirts usually got them in chinese takeout boxes (leftover not from food! But from a previous failed art project). Then I decided I was going to add a webstore section to my site. But after looking at a few other retail sites I decided it would be a lot more complicated than I was ready for. 
But I think the idea of a webstore to sell some of my t-shirts, poster, and other media is still a good one, and promise to work harder in the new year to make it a reality. 
This was the start to one of my many projects that would never make it, or are taking a lot longer that I expected rather. My "Super Ego" project. The idea was to take portraits, print them out and let people draw on their own photo to complete the work. I was going to have something like 20 portraits done, and then I would throw a party to gather everyone together to see what we'd come up with. But I never quite made it to 20, so I never printed any of them.
After a year of people telling me that I look like Dae Han from the classic 80s action flick "Best of the Best," I decided to be him for halloween. But then nobody recognized my costume. This was the only picture taken of me that night. Problems Kru ninjas, this was taken for YOU!
During the time I was showing at the "New England Photo Biennial" My mom told me I was featured in a Chinese American newspaper the 
When I started the BBoy Monsters I had no idea what I was doing. I even told Liem that we were testing it out, and in all likelihood it would end it being a gigantic fail. But then it didn't, and I'm thankful to have friends that are willing try out my bad ideas with me.
Here's an outtake from step2's shoot. I thought this pic was good, but I'd just be repeating myself with the 3 arms thing. In dance, and in art, I have learned that with any creative endeavor, it's a lot more interesting when you don't repeat yourself. 
My last minute art making effort of 2011 now complete. Friends, I shall meet you in the future!!!