Category Archives: music

Auld Lang Syne

Indie music blog, Sparkups.com has provided a free download of a compilation of 94 songs of what they have considered the best of 2009 Indie Rock. I’ve only listened to four tracks so far but consider it worth downloading already after hearing the second track which is a cover version of Death Cab for Cutie’s I Will Follow You Into The Dark, performed by Amy Millan, who I had not heard of until now. As the few of you who actually read this blog have noticed, we’ve recently made changes to the layout of my blog and are still working out the kinks of how to make it work and what to put where—please excuse the inconsistency of the last few/older posts. For me, the new year has brought a new blog, will bring a new portfolio website with my new name, and new work, and…that’s pretty much all I have figured out for now. I have high hopes that Jeff and I can build a strong husband and wife photo duo business in the near future but we’re just taking baby steps with what we have for now. Do let us know if you would like to have your portrait awesomely taken. We would be terrificly obliged. My new years resolution…to cook more and eat out less, to try to stay away from frozen foods and try to make things from scratch, and to take better care of myself, health-wise. I know it’s nothing unoriginal but it’s a start.

Happy New Year to you and yours, and may the start of a new decade bring you much love and happiness!

Huong Fralin Photography

Episode 1b

One day Huong stumbled upon a Macintosh computer. It had a built in webcam (see iSight).

Huong Nguyen Photography

Jeff saw that Huong’s interest had been peaked and came over to see what all the hub bub was about. The white balance goes out of whack.

Huong Nguyen Photography
Huong Nguyen Photography
Jeff decided to be silly/creepy. I decide to be normal.

Huong Nguyen Photography
Then we made a video. It it suggested that you load the video before playing. Enjoy!

Music: In the Hall of the Mountain Queen by Raymond Scott.

The PEN Story

The PEN Story from PENStory on Vimeo.

Description: “This is the Olympus PEN Story in stop motion. We shot 60,000 pictures, developed 9,600 prints and shot over 1,800 pictures again. No post production! Free download of the music at olympus.eu/penstory/.”

Makes my heart happy =)

Jenny Lewis and My Stupid GPS

Huong Nguyen Photography

Having a GPS is both awesome and frustrating when on a road trip in a town you’re not familiar with. Though it’s good for long distance directions, I find myself calling it unpleasant names when we’re trying to look up local directions and it tells us to take three rights just to get to a place that’s right across the street. And it’s been known to tell us to exit a highway only to get right back on and continue on it. We don’t have the same sense of humor.

Jeff and I saw Jenny Lewis at The National in Richmond on Friday night. It was pretty freaking awesome and was the third time I’ve seen Lewis in the past year (once with her other band, Rilo Kiley). I think it’s safe to say that she’s my all time favorite. She played two new songs which made me happy to know that she’s working on a new stuff already and played a bunch from Rabbit Fur Coat which made Jeff happy because he likes songs from that album more than the ones on her latest. Here’s one of my favorite tracks from her latest album, Acid Tongue…

See Fermando:

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Brooklyn Girl, You’re Gonna Be My Bride

Shannon Roddy Photography

Shannon sent us a few teasers from our engagement session but she leaves me wanting more, more, more! Won’t be posting any others until we get them all and organized in a gallery but I couldn’t resist in not posting any. I just used “and” in front of “organized.” But “an organized” doesn’t look/sound right to me. Exception to the vowel rule? I digress. I re-processed this particular photo a bit and love the way it came out. I think it’s a good prelude to the rest of the set.

In regards to the title of this post, Jeffrey makes mixed compact discs for me and calls them “Heart Beats.” Get it? Heart beats? Eh? Clever one, he is. And sweet. I think he’s currently working on Volume 9 of the collection. Anywho, while I was living in New York he sent me a compilation that included this song by Barton Carol. Made me smile every time I listened to it.

Barton Carol—Brooklyn Girl, You’re Going To Be My Bride:

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diamonds and gold


Meet George and Kristin.

George is quite literally my oldest friend in the world…not age-wise but number-of-years-being-friends-wise. He lived two doors down from me. Stopped by my house every morning in grade school so that we could walk to the bus stop together and showed up on our doorstep with an umbrella to walk me to his Nana’s car when the weather was too dreadful to stand and wait in. He was one of those people who never had to knock when he came over…my brother from another mother, if you will. One time we were riding bikes on the same sidewalk but coming head-on toward each other. I yelled “you go left, and I’ll go right.” He said, “I go right and you go left?” “Yeah, yeah,…you go right,” I shouted back. But of course my left was his right and his right was my left and we collided straight on and fell onto some stranger’s yard. That’s probably the most memorable thing I can recall during our younger years of friendship. That and him hacking a loogie (sp?) on a windy day and it coming back and getting on his shirt.

Kristin is probably one of the sweetest and most friendliest people I’ve ever met. She is George’s fiancée and significant other…they’re so great and supportive of each other. We’ve been friends on facebook for a while and when I first met her this past weekend, we felt like we already knew each other. Instead of a formal handshake, we immediately gave each other hugs and hit it off from the start. We had a photo session in NYC even though they’re from PA and I’m of course in VA. It was the first time I’ve seen George since high school. That was nine years ago.

George and I have a strange connection as far as numbers and dates. His birthday is only two days before mine. He and Kris have been together for five years. Jeff and I have been together for five years. Not only that, Jeff and I had our first date on April 7th…George and Kris’s anniversary is April 9th. They’re getting married the weekend after Jeff and I are…AND…this is funny…Kris even called George one day because she noticed that we even have the same amount of friends on facebook. I love it.

This past week has been nuts. And not enough sleep. I think that’s a good thing though. Roanoke to D.C. to Brooklyn to Lancaster to Roanoke…and possibly back up to Lancaster again this weekend.

I saw various musical acts last week—headliner was Langhorne Slim with The Whoa’s, some other solo guy from Indiana, and The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players who describe themselves as “Pee Wee Herman on acid.” I also saw Fuerza Bruta which is a performance art show that completely blew my mind. Everything happened above us and instead of sitting, you stood/moved around/interacted. There was a guy on a giant tredmill with people rolling by/falling off, running through styrofoam walls, paper pieces floating everywhere, people tumbling along the wall of silver billowing fabric, suspended every which way, an elevated pool with people swimming/sliding/pounding that moved closer toward us from the ceiling…so close that it was right above our heads and we could touch it. Check out the trailer on their website (might need to push play then pause to let it buffer in order to play without skipping). It reminded me of a rave towards the end sans glow sticks and pacifiers. Water was raining down on the crowd, lights were flashing, and we were all dancing…it was probably one of the best nights of entertainment I ever had. Highly recommended show if you’re in New York and need something to do.

Two of my favorites from Langhorne Slim:

Restless:

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Diamonds and Gold:

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