Tripod Travels: August 2007

so, one of the most recent troubles that i have had was dealing with my passport. i applied for it a month ago almost to the day. purchased expedited service and submitted it to the united states postal service. a few weeks go by and i call to check on it. it is still in its processing stage. ok that is acceptable it has only been like two weeks. i allow another week to go by and then it becomes the 'within 14 days of travel' period. the person i spoke to this time said that it is still in the processing stage and that they will put an 'urgent' tag on it (which means absolutely nothing) and that i should make an appointment to go the the passport office downtown. so i do that and make an appointment at 9 a.m. on august 20th. the 20th rolls around and i wake up early call the passport agency again just to see if maybe it has shipped. of course it has not and the person i talk to informs me that if i went to the passport office downtown it would be totally pointless and that i should call later on in the day because it will 'probably' ship. so i cancel. go pick up my father from the train station and we hang out for a bit. then i give them a call around 4pm central standard time and the person i talk to doesn't tell me anything new and tells me to call at midnight or in the morning because it looks like it is about to ship. so i call in the morning and the customer service rep i talk to doesn't say anything i haven't heard except to call again in a few hours. i then proceed to ask if there is anything i can do in chicago or if there is anyone that i can call to speed up this process. negative. this ends up happening for 2 more days with the exact same answer and then last night i decided that it was futile to talk to them anymore so i made another appointment with the passport agency in chicago. luckily i schedule one for the morning of the 22nd [today] in the morning. at this point i am extremely upset with all of this because if i dont have a passport i cant go to ireland. bad news. cant reschedule and nothing i purchased for the trip is refundable. including the fee for the passport i might not get. so then i wake up this morning and with one last attempt i call the passport agency and get the same exact response ive been getting. 'we promise not to promise you anything' god i love this country. after that i leave my house in somewhat of a panicked fury with my state id, social security, student id any other form of citizenship (except my birth certificate because it is M.I.A. in washington with my passport application) and my travel itinerary and march down to the federal building at 230 s dearborn in chicago IL. get there at 9:23 and i am greeted with armed guards and a metal detector. pretty standard for a state government building. i proceed through that to the elevators and begin my ascent to the 18th floor where i am then greeted [rudely] by four armed [doormen] guards treating everyone and anyone that walks by them as if they were a potential terrorist...what? for the sake of speeding things up i waited in line explained my situation to someone through 1/2 an inch of bullet proof glass. they told me to fill out another application and to get back in line. get back through the line and am then handed a numbered ticket DMV style and i am told to go sit in a seated area and to wait for my number. about 45 minutes go by and my number finally gets called, i go up to window 5 and talk to a very nice lady who informs me that all i need now are passport photos...shit, i already took care of that with my last application though. it doesn't matter we need new ones. so i run downstairs to the nearest Walgreen's get my passport photos taken run back through the metal detectors joke with the security guard about america and get back to the passport office (the lady i was with said to skip the line and just come straight back to her =]) after she processes everything she hands me a receipt that instructs me to return the the building at 330 that same day to pickup my passport. i thought to myself 'way to good to be true' so i asked if this would be for a temporary passport and she informed me with a laugh that it would be temporary for 10 years. so i leave slightly relieve but still skeptical of everything and return to the 18th floor at 330. confront the armed doormen about what to do. they take my slip and tell me to sit down. about 3o minutes later they call my name and a woman hands me a blue envelope and behold its contents are a brand new navy blue with gold text PASSPORT TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. god bless chicago. 'what the fuck?' is the only phrase that comes to my mind. the chicago passport agency did in 3 HOURS what washington d.c. couldn't do in a month...? once again 'what the fuck?'. and even further the six people that i talked to in washington told me that it was impossible to do anything about it and i would have to just sit and wait for my passport to come from them... 'what the fuck?' i am now very much in relief of this because it was the final step towards the travels to ireland...whew. in other news the fuji S3 pro rules.

as i mentioned above dad came to town this weeked.
he gets confused about the city ^^

i photographed him awkwardly talking on the phone

and seriously talking to me.

and eating like an idiot =p

and then him peacing. we had a good time.
we even killed it at the bean.

since dad was in town i decided to become a tourist.
i've never really looked at chicago from the perspective of a tourist.
but since im about to be one i figured i would try it out.

it rained a lot this week.

as casual as it gets

im not always as sneaky as i think. =D

millers pub yo.

the self

im not explaining myself

fancy

passport suprise for matt!

she was nervous about something

and he was upset about something...

i like finding these things

bean-tography

i swear it was really elvis.
he drives a black mercedes now.
i think hes mafia now too.

by the end of it this guy had me wondering what life was all about.
good thing his shirt told me step by step everything.

.end.

To prolong the countdown, we now have 6 days until Ireland. Pretty exciting, the government let me know that my passport is on its way so the days of worry and pant-wetting are finally over. We still have to deal with airport film hand-checking though, we're keeping our fingers crossed.

In light of our close departure, it was obviously time for Irelan-ventory.

Trev: 107 rolls of 120 film, 38 rolls of 35mm film, 16 gigs of cf cards.
Matt: 90 rolls of 120, 45 rolls of 35mm film, 40 sheets of pack polaroid.

Central Camera made some extra bucks off of us this month.
Yikes.

I processed two rolls of slides from the Bessa, they look beautiful.

That lens is so sharp.

The crazy thing about having a rangefinder is I guess I shoot a lot more, I've had the camera for a week and I've put 19 rolls through so far.

While I was waiting for the Bessa to get here, and my other camera had broken, I went out to the suburbs to visit some friends and only had the digital. So here's what came from that fun night:

Aside from that, I decided it would probably be a good idea to show some images from a place I've spent some time at over this summer, behold...

"the Bean."

At the beginning, I thought this was a project idea waiting to happen. However, I think this might just be a fun and enjoyable experience every now and then.

I simply enjoy watching the interaction with this piece of art and how the normal self-conscious hesitations we have as people seem to disappear around this object. I'm fully aware the images easily appear condescending, however I'm looking at the situation with a plain curiosity: what makes this massive difference between the apprehension of the way people act under and around this artwork and the apprehension of the way people act when they are far away from it? I'm impressed by the artist, Anish Kapoor, and his achievement of creating a piece of work that changes the way people act. I don't think I could imagine accomplishing that with a photograph, let alone any other type of art.