So many days of nothing.
Very few days with everything.
That seems to be my days.
In the next few days, I have a lot.
Tomorrow, I work as a taco truck cashier man. It’s easy money. People tip a lot because it’s San Diego. And they feel bad for me because they think it’s a shitty job. It’s not a shitty job.
Then, a cool mission. A mansion in Ensenada owned by a bitcoin dude. That should be interesting. Dude doesn’t reply. But it’s a mission that I have to take care off and I should be fine.
And finally.
I need more gigs. Way more gigs. I had a couple food photography gigs and I was feeling lucky. This is going to be all. I’m going to do a shit ton of food photography. And I didn’t. I am horrible at knocking on doors. I am still afraid of rejection. 35 years old and fearsome of the world.
I searched for gigs on craigslist. That’s never very fruitful. I’ve search on Indeed before and it wasn’t fruitful either. This time it was. I wasn’t expecting it. I applied for a few gigs, and one hit me back up.
It went great. I can finally said that the person that interviewed me seemed awesome and we seemed to click. And it’s a photo gig. A well paid photo gig. Finally.
The only thing though, it’s a one time thing. It might be more in the future. But for now. It’s just next week. If this goes well… I might get more steady gigs like this. I’ll be set for a while.
Because… student loans + taxes and more of the real life is after me.
It’s like I’ve been digging a giant hole by doing nothing. And I’m finally trying to get out of the hole, but it’s still such a long way.
I did little things for the hole not to get that deep. It’s still fucking deep. Two books that are worth… well… nothing.
You can buy them here and here. Having books means nothing. You got to sell thousands of them a month for them to impact you economically. I’ve sold nearly a thousand in the 2 years they have been published. It’s nice to be able to say that. “I’ve sold a thousand books I wrote.” It means nothing financially.
Moral of the story, don’t write fucking books. Unless you don’t mind being dirt poor and scratching lottery tickets.
Time went fast. And it just came to an abrupt halt. After a thunderstorm last night. A literal thunderstorm.
Here’s the proof.
I’ve captured lightning before. Once in Oaxaca. But they were far away at sea. I’ve tried before. Never really succeeded. Not like this.
I wasn’t the only one.
All of the photographers of the area feasted heavily on the show of Zeus vs Pikachu vs Ness vs Tlaloc of some sort. Battle of the gods of the sky.
It took me 15 tries to finally got the first lightning bolt (the first pic posted). The first 14 tries lightning struck either when the camera was processing the picture, when I was moving the tripod, or when I was reviewing a picture.
When it suddenly happened. It was and “oh yes moment” I know I have it. I’m pretty sure a lot of photographers felt that way. We all saw it. We all knew what to do (at least most of you). Some even planned ahead for it.
I didn’t know it was coming until I was trying to watch the NFL over at Border Psycho. Their food still sucks, but their beer made a major improvement. It is now drinkable. I shall go back more often. But that food…
I found out the game was delayed because of a lightning storm in Los Angeles. We are close to Los Angeles. I went out to look at the sky. And I could feel it. It’s about to go down.
I went to go get cash and beers to go at Insurgente before halftime and got home to set up my tripod. Wish I went to a more idealistic location, but still… my balcony will do.
Fuck it. I went to print them poster size! They look alright for posters, real prints would look so much better. I can’t decide on my favorite, but this was the first lightning that struck and I think that’s the one.
All pictures were 30 second exposures on Tv which gave it a 10 f stop at 100 ISO mounted on a tripod and getting lucky.
Full quality pictures will be posted in my Patreon.
Subscribe to my Patreon for this picture and WAY MANY MORE and anything else you want.
And new surprise to my Patreons. I will be sending you goodies! More specifically, the posters with pictures signed and a personal message and what not. Just allow me to figure out the mailing system to know what is the cheapest and little to no cost to you and me and you can continue supporting my stuff. First person to mail was my new $20 subscriber, a friend from college. He will be getting books and prints and perhaps more. I was about to send him stuff when USPS dude told me it seemed like it was apartments and if I didn’t get a confirmation in which apartment, they would return the package. So I didn’t. But yeah. That coming soon.
Now.
To the rest of the shit I was going to do that mentioned in the beginning of the blog.
I did them all.
Everything went great. I even did the cashier at the taco truck twice!!! The school photoshoot went smoothly and the work was handled great. I have another gig with them and hopefully more, but for now, just one more gig. Ensenada went excellent. The cover comes out tomorrow. It could have gone better, it could have gone worse. But I accomplished much like hanging out with my best friend and drinking beer. So much beer. Fauna, Cardera, and more beer. And La Jurelina. Finally.
Here.
And Cardera!
The co-owner (wife of the brewer and Ra of CardeRa) recognized me from my YouTube videos. The drinking beer with Matingas shit!!
I should do more of that!
Holy fuck busy and not busy life is wild.
Anyway. She recognized me and gave me a free beer. Like always. Praise all their beers. Everything is excellent.
Here.
I should do more YouTube videos.
Before taking pictures of kids, I also had a pizza party with my brother’s first San Diego roommate and overall awesome dude (and pizza master) Joey.
And I won in Fantasy NFL. Finally.
A series of good news and I still feel a bit depressed. And hungry.
I need more gigs. Way more gigs. And it seems to be going that way. I’ll be making new landing pages with everything and working more. If you like my stuff. Keep liking my stuff. And I will keep giving you stuff.
This was from a little flight I did in Ensenada.
Halloween soon. Fuck. Then the year is basically over.
What a weird 2021. Better than 2020 that I barely have a memory of. But another shit year for the record.
The ending seems promising. And 2022… hope? Is there hope?!
Matingas 