July 2025
July 28th
Just switch the site colors to this green, black and cream palate. The previous one was popsicle orange, electric blue and cream but got tired of it. I like pure white but to use it on a site causes too much eye strain. Cream has a warmer tone like reading on a kindle.
July 27th
Prince of Broadway by Sean Baker
This is the last week of the Criterion Collection 50% sale so I went to B&N in Georgetown yesterday to use the credit I had on my membership to get Prince of Broadway by Sean Baker (Director of Anora). I saw this film a week and a half ago on the Criterion Channel. Everything felt too real, more raw than a documentary (I guess that’s what neorealism is cause that’s what Baker’s films has been categorized in). It was as if Baker wasn’t even using actors and picked random people off the NYC streets to do a Day in the Life video project. I bought the physical blu-ray to watch the two commentaries and cast interviews how this film came to be.
It’s too hot to be shooting street photography. Once you start sweating, it’s like a broken sink faucet that you can’t turn off. I tried my best walking around for two and a half hours but you feel gross, the unpleasant smells are exaggerated even more in the heat. Then when you take the metro back home, they blast the cars with A/C, which sounds nice, but when you spent the entire day and now drenched in sweat, you’re shivering and actually want to be back outside. I would love to bring my sunbrella but it causes more inconvenience with photographing and then potentially having one of the ferrules hitting someone or poking their eyes.
Really looking forward to August and September finally arriving.
Today is Sunday, it’s tempting to go out one more time before the work week starts. Street photographers get jittery the same way a person thinks they’ll win big this time at the slots. I might get my next big photo and won’t know unless I go out and willing to endure the heat and sweat if there is that chance.
I didn’t eat anything all day. Once getting off at my station, I drove to H Mart to get some Baldak Noodles and fried dumpling and threw in a box of Pocky sticks. On my way home, I saw a dead baby deer on the side of the road next to a school. I parked in the school lot and crossed the street to see it up close. I must’ve been hit less than an hour ago. I’m used to seeing adult deer dead on the side of the road but this was the first time seeing a baby deer that had its life cut off short.
Just finished listening to Sean Baker’s commentary on Prince of Broadway. Even though you aren’t going to be a filmmaker, to hear directly from the director about his creative process is extremely valuable to anyone trying to create. When thinking about his next film, he wanted it to be in this particular part of NYC but didn’t yet have a cast nor did he have any idea about what the story was going to be about. You learn how he found Prince Adu who plays Lucky in the film and through him gave Baker and his film crew access to several people and locations which is what made the film feel so authentic. You hear Baker talk about several scenes where he made technical mistakes (overexposure, camera wobble and lighting inconsistency) but instead of doing retakes, he kept those mistakes in there because the performances in the scenes were better than the other takes. Had he not said anything, I don’t think anyone would have noticed those mistakes. But it’s kind of nice to know that mistakes are part of the process and they sometimes end up in the final product even from the most experienced in the field.
