The Future Will Be Boring.

No Cruising Zone

2011-07-02T18:03:00.004-04:00

Just posted a new, in progress series over on my site (andrewjmerrill.com) called No Cruising Zone. I hate driving, so I end up being a passenger most of the time.

someday, i will.

2011-05-07T20:13:00.002-04:00

hello, summer.

now monthly?

2011-02-02T16:19:00.004-05:00

so i got a 35mm point and shoot camera in a charity shop for carrying around every day, and i threw a roll of ektar in it. It's a canon "autoboy II"/AF35M II and i'm pretty impressed with the results.

from the archive

2011-01-01T19:57:00.004-05:00

I know i haven't posted in forever. Grad school and moving across the pond has kept me engaged. New year's resolution though?

slumbertimesummertimesummer

2010-06-25T00:34:00.002-04:00

photos i've been taking

my friend drew came to visit recently

from a new series i'm working on entitled "shangri-la" about my relationship with new hampshire

my friend, hannah

it's been too long

2010-04-26T10:33:00.003-04:00

so it's been a while since i posted anything, i've been a busy little boy, i came back from florida and went to white river junction, vt. But i've been back for a while. During this hiatus, I have made andrewjmerrill.com which i suppose is my excuse for letting this languish.

so here's some new photos/old photos that haven't made it's way public yet.

Florida is the Weirdest

2010-03-10T13:31:00.002-05:00

So I'm in florida right now and these are the pictures i'm taking.

liminal space

2010-03-04T21:57:00.002-05:00

matching components

2010-02-16T14:37:00.002-05:00

old

2010-02-07T13:11:00.001-05:00

so i haven't been shooting as much as i'd like recently - so here are some photos from my ill-fated photo tumblr, photos from flickr that never made it here and some more from my slides.

as promised

2010-01-17T12:06:00.003-05:00

Here are some of the slides I shot in LA, SLC and Bryce Canyon. I'll post more in the next couple of days.

Also, If you're not reading James Danziger's blog, you've got to fix that. He has a great little feature on "Tsukasa Yokozawa" up over there. Yokozawa's work is really inspiring.

(From his series Parallel Lives)

counterfactual conditionals are always true.

2010-01-10T15:05:00.000-05:00

so i'm a little liar and I didn't get around to bring my slides in to get scanned until yesterday - they should be back by the end of this week. what i've been up to instead:

slip n slide

2009-12-14T00:27:00.001-05:00

SLIDES FROM LA/SLC/BRYCE CANYON GOING UP THIS WEEK!

stand up, i wanna see you.

2009-11-26T20:02:00.002-05:00

so i feel like i'm in a bit of a rut, but whatever, i got to shoot melt-banana for TeaParty Boston. Look for the photos from that up at TeaParty in the next few days. For all my noise dorks, here's a photo of Agata's pedal board that i grabbed after their show, there's more on flickr.

days like television

2009-11-18T11:48:00.001-05:00

GHOST OF THANKSGIVING PAST

2009-11-10T00:18:00.000-05:00

PRAGUE AND BERLIN:

So I shoot for this site now...

2009-11-03T18:55:00.004-05:00

TeaParty Boston! and my first photos went up the end of last week in a story about Sherman Market, a great locavore, organic extension of Sherman Cafe in Union Square in Somerville. I shot a bit of The Whigs/Dead Trees/Mean creek show last week so look for that too! Also, the cast/boot thing may be coming off this week so look for this to be updated more regularly as I am able to be out shooting more. (IMAGE LINKS TO THE ARTICLE)

Someone got a diffusion filter

2009-10-11T16:36:00.002-04:00

something old, something new

2009-10-03T13:56:00.002-04:00

so i finally pulled my most recent pictures off my camera, but there's not a lot so i decided to include more old shots that i liked but never made it.

"Give me yours money you stupid fools or I will pay my policements and they ewill get it."

OLDIES BUT GOODIES

2009-09-28T20:36:00.005-04:00

So I haven't been able to go out and shoot much recently, and have been a little preoccupied recovering after getting hit by a car to remember to post what I have taken. BUT I wanted to post some photos I really liked but never made it to the blog.

I Keep Busy

2009-09-10T01:43:00.002-04:00

I'LL TELL YOU WHAT I WANT, WHAT I REALLY, REALLY WANT

My Night

2009-08-22T19:13:00.002-04:00

the things i find.

2009-08-10T22:47:00.004-04:00

There is something so wonderfully surreal about that little guy.

that's it for now, does anyone have any tricks for scanning slides? do i just have to throw in the towel and take them to a photo lab?

boys are back in town

2009-07-30T23:25:00.000-04:00

Also, I've been meaning to blog this dude for a while. Check out Branislav Kropilak. He does a lot of ambient light, long exposure stuff and I'm in love with his work. Easily the most inspiring thing I've encountered this year. His work is so ethereal and almost surreal, and such an interesting re-imagining of critical facets of the late modern, industrialized landscape.

my personal favorites are his billboards series

and his landings series

WHERE HAVE I BEEN??? PT. 2

2009-07-23T15:16:00.000-04:00

So I just got back from a trip to Salt Lake City and Los Angeles.

THANKS JEN, SHANA, MICHAEL. More on my Flickr and more to come, including three rolls of Velvia. Get hyped.

WHERE HAVE I BEEN??

2009-06-18T10:38:00.000-04:00

So I've recently moved to Boston,

and also, recently made a trip down to new bedford to see Skin Lake and visit friends

goodbye dc!

2009-06-02T13:52:00.000-04:00

Have we talked about how much I like...

2009-04-14T18:22:00.000-04:00

Stephen Schuster's work?

Oh Hey, Other People Publish my Photographs Sometimes

2009-03-30T21:11:00.000-04:00

So Saturday I attended Capitol Punishment and shot it for my friend Bobby, who works at the City Paper for an entry he was writing for their blog. It was my first time ever really shooting a band, I'm pretty pleased with my results.

Ponytail was great as was to be expected...

Screaming Females was the other highlight...epic riffage forever...

More on my flickr, and more in the coming days.

NEW YORK CITY SPRING BREAK '82!

2009-03-23T08:16:00.000-04:00

Can't Stop, Won't Stop

2009-03-01T22:01:00.000-05:00

So the friday before last, my good friend Farley Miller had a recital for his senior thesis, and one man 8-bit/experimental project, Cannot Be Stopped. He held it in the recital hall at the Katzen Arts Center here at American, and it was great and interesting to hear him in a really different space (both acoustically and physically).

Also, I recently decided to try out my new scanner with some old prints I just found, so expect more of that soon. Here's one of my favorite prints i've ever made and my first scan with the new scanner. I think it came out alright. This is a shot I took of Jose De Lara from Protokol l that I took back in the summer of 2007 for an assignment for a class.

Submitted for the approval...

2009-02-25T01:02:00.000-05:00

of the Midnight Society...

nomenclature

2009-02-19T22:09:00.000-05:00

So I figured I should mention something about the new title of this blog. It comes from my English translation of a Spanish translation of a quote by Sci-Fi Novelist J.G. Ballard, author of the book Crash, adapted to the David Cronenberg film. In Spanish, it reads "El Futuro Será Aburrido" and it was the title for an exhibition at CCCB. I latched onto this phrase mainly because really the future will be boring. Where is my flying car? Where is my hover board? But more seriously, perhaps I identify with this phrase differently than Ballard meant it when he said it, likely because I encountered it decontextualized. I identify in that our futures that actually matter, our foreseeable futures, will be boring. We will keep going to work, keep driving our same cars, keep going to the same stores, eating the same things, seeing the same buildings walking to our homes, the list goes on. But I feel this may be where the power of photography lies, and I know there is nothing radically new in this statement but I feel it dovetails nicely with the Ballard quote, photography allows us to radically reimagine the spaces we inhabit on a daily basis and gives us the tools to elevate the banal to the academic and artful.

"I would sum up my fear about the future in one word: boring. And that's my one fear: that everything has happened; nothing exciting or new or interesting is ever going to happen again ... the future is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb of the soul."
-J.G. Ballard, Interview

everything is everything else

2009-02-18T21:31:00.001-05:00

So those of you who have been keeping up with my flickr will have seen my recent uploads of a spate of double exposures. There's a kind of interesting story behind this. When I was home over winter break, I found a roll of Fuji Superia. I have never bought or shot Superia, but my parents and I figured I must have picked it up somewhere. So, I shot it a few weeks ago. When I first got these photos back I thought I got someone else's. Then I looked closer and realized that this roll was first exposed at least ten years ago, back when we first got my dog. The result is, I think, an interesting juxtapostion of how 10 years can change what a definition of home is. Unintentionally, almost all of the photos double exposed on my roll are of some of the most important people in my life or places in my life at both times. I am beyond pleased with the results. Below are my favorites. What a lucky accident.

I love the eye peeking out here from the burner.

Like father like son. The exposure with my dad is from decorating the tree this year. Both exposures are from the same room in my home in new hampshire, 10 years apart.

I really like the way the trees disintegrate the bottom of the frame in this one.

AmLit Submission!

2009-02-17T16:46:00.000-05:00

Today I submitted a few photographs to American Literary, American University's student run literary magazine. It's the first time I've ever really submitted my photography to the judgment of anyone else's eyes so fingers crossed. Here are the photos I submitted:

La Boqueria on a Winter Afternoon.

Baby Beluga at L'Oceanografic in Valencia

Graffiti in Berlin

More Berliner Graffiti.

resurrection?

2009-02-17T13:55:00.000-05:00

So, I've decided that I wanted a space to tell stories about the multitudinous photographs that I post to my flickr. Also, I wanted some place to pick out my favorites, and talk about my journey in finally embracing my long-standing interest in photography. follow me, don't. whatever. I originally started this as a blog for my travels in Spain and Europe, then it was going to become a photoblog of those travels, then I started that tumblr some of you have probably looked at, but that was too burdensome to use. So now I'm here. Just as gatorade came back as G, i'm coming back.

ELS CASTELLERS

2008-09-22T09:07:00.000-04:00

MORE LATER....

Forgetting things, like hats, and learning new things, like that swiss air serves complimentary croissants

2008-09-02T15:49:00.000-04:00

So I embarked on this journey at 9:30pm on sunday night and arrived at about 12:30pm Spain time. I did not sleep a wink on the flight and lost my beloved Pittsburgh Pirates hat somewhere along the way. So after quickly discovering that my hotel's airport shuttle stopped running at noon I hired a cab and we haphazardly drove our way around until finally finding my hotel.

I proceeded to sleep and watch tennis the entire day. The next day I headed back to the airport to meet with IES adminstrators and get all of my housing information, etc. I then set off in a cab again, this time with a decidedly surer footing to my homestay with Sra. Francisca Vidal. Thus far, my homestay has been nothing, if not delightful. Expect more updates soon.