Thisisdesmoines's Blog

It’s been a long time

thisisdesmoines — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:14:32 +0000

In case you’re wondering why this blog hasn’t been updated in a while it’s partially due to me being lazy, but more recently because I moved to London with my wife Lisa and have started a new blog called thisissouthwark. If your a resident of Southwark or know someone who would like to be part of my new blog, please let me know. Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you over at thisisouthwark.

Scenes from our trip to London

thisisdesmoines — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 19:36:54 +0000

Here are a few photos and video from our recent trip to London. For me, it was a vacation and I wasn’t worried about taking photos as much as other trips. The only gear I took was my Holga and my Minox Leica. I have yet to process my 4 rolls of B&W film, maybe I’ll attempt this later, but for now I hope you enjoy.

Queen Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace.

Parliament Hill

The tomb of Karl Marx at Highgate Cemetery

Abby Road graffiti.

View of Paris from a top the Arch de Triumph. It rained all day during this leg of the trip.

Stonehenge in the rain.

Looking west from London Eye

One and only time we saw the Union Jack.

Back from vacation

thisisdesmoines — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:33:27 +0000

Some of you may have been wondering where we have been these past few weeks? Well, we were out of the country enjoying a much needed vacation to the UK. We spent a total of fifteen days just running around London and parts of Scotland, with a side trip to Paris. Here is a sample of photos taken with the Minox Leica.

: A Scottish Highland cow grazes near Loch Achray

The London Eye

A memorial for fallen soldiers outside of Westminster Abby, London.

Urqhart Castle, Scotland.

Stay tuned, lot’s more where these came from.

Zombies go for a stroll thru Des Moines

thisisdesmoines — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:32:38 +0000

If you happened to be in downtown Des Moines yesterday around 3pm you may have seen an erie sight rumbling thru the streets. A group of over ninety zombies took to the streets, led by Dallas J. Moore or @mrDallasJMoore on Twitter.

Mr. Dallas J. Moore and his exposed brains before the start of the DMZombie walk.

The walk, part network part collection was a great success. Everyone who saw the group lumber around had a big smile on their face and a few even a good scare.

Jason Schippers with makeup by Dallas J. Moore

Both young and old participated in the walk, which stretched for about 3 or 4 miles. The group walked past such notable spots as the sculpture park, Des Moines Register building, Dos Rios, a wedding party at Hessen Haus, Simon Estes, The Village Bean, and the State Capitol. I really, really wanted to get a photo of the group in front of the capitol, but I failed to wait for them to arrive.

Click on photo to see video

and

Click on photo to see video

The Sackman Visits

thisisdesmoines — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 22:32:46 +0000

I was excited to hear earlier in the week that Chicago Bears great Richard Dent was paying a visit to Des Moines. I right away called my father-in-law Phil to remind him to bring some of his Bears stuff to get it signed, and of course he forgot. Number 95 was at the grand opening of the new Shoe Carnival at Merle Hay Mall. We took our place in line and waited to meet “The Sackman”. Every Bears fan knows the lyrics to that greatest of great songs, “The SuperBowl shuffle” I thought for a moment of asking Dent to sing ” The Sackman cometh, I’m your man Dent. If the quarterback’s slow, he’s gonna get bent”, but at the last minute I chickened out. As we waited, we ran into 3XWrestling commissioner Todd Countryman.

Todd Countryman holds up his Richard Dent autographed mini-card.

Turns out Todd is a big fan and he shared a memory with us.

Park(ing) Day 2009

thisisdesmoines — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:12:16 +0000

Not sure if you noticed parking spaces around downtown DSM and in the Drake area were converted into temporary public parks? Well, trust me it happened. I was coming back from an early morning visit to the Iowa Workforce Center when I saw this little scene developing across the street from the Register’s office.

Members of Urban Ambassadors turn a parking space outside of 801 Grand into a temporary public park on Friday September 18, 2009.

of course I had to stop by and see what was going on.

I was told that the other Park(ing) locations were outside Mars Cafe and the Village Bean. I was unable to pay a visit, so if you know of photos, share them.

Lee Wagner writes a message in the Zen garden created by members of Urban Ambassadors.

Park(ing) Day was orginally invented in 2005 by Rebar, a San Francisco art and design studio. Go here for a NPR audio report.

Trying out the new Holga

thisisdesmoines — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 16:37:21 +0000

I finally brought out the new “green” Holga last week during my one and only visit to this year’s Iowa State Fair. I picked up my roll of film yesterday and proceeded to digitize the neg’s. Pretty much shooting photos of them on the light table, yes very low tech, but it works. Out of 12 images, about 4 turned into a usable image. The rest not really. This Holga has a bulb setting and I tried it a few times just to see what I’d get.

click on photo to see larger.

I did try a footlong corn dog while at the fair, should’ve had the steak sandwich instead.

Click on photo to see larger

No state fair visit is complete without a photo of the Sky Gliders.

Our Chicago dog, Ginger was in for a visit, so we took her for a walk over at Water Works Park. Of course the Holga came with. Here is a photo of Ginger taken with a long exposure.

Click on photo to see larger

Working with film is great, except I don’t like the drive and the $5 I get charged for development. Maybe I should buy some chemicals and develop at home.

Old tattoo photos from Juice photoshoot

thisisdesmoines — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 03:12:45 +0000

I was given a DVD with some old Juice photos today by Caven and among the 676 photos were photos from the Juice tattoo issue. That was a very cool photoshoot, I had the pleasure to meet so many cool people with some great art done by some talented local artist. Since the photos were sized for the web, I decided to make a collage out of them. No thought put into it, just how ever they landed.

click on photo to see larger image

Erock

thisisdesmoines — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:10:04 +0000

I met Eric back in 2006, on assignment for Juice of course. I don’t remember where we met, but I do remember that we hit it off pretty good. This man is a very talented musician and has some pretty cool tattoos. I photographed him for the first ever Juice “Show us your tattoo” issue using my old school Polaroid camera with B&W film. Since I took this photo of him, he found his birth-mom on the Montel Williams show(follow this link to his MySpace and scroll down to watch clip), wrote a book about the meeting, got married, moved to Tennessee and started a new band called UnderTheSun.

Eric "Erock" Blumanhourst, plays his guitar in the bedroom of his East Des Moines home. 3/2007

Coach or DJ Timebomb?

thisisdesmoines — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 17:42:48 +0000

Timebomb along Ingersoll Ave in Des Moines. 2/2007

Some people call him DJ and others call him coach. I met Tyrone aka Dj Timebomb back in 2006 at one of the area clubs. He was on the wheels of steel and I was snapping away on assignment for Juice Magazine. He is a man of many hats, not only is he a awesome dj, but he is also a partner with VIPIowa.com. As if that wasn’t enough, he is also the head coach of the Iowa Lightning football team. Some of you may not know that prior to coaching the Lightning Tyrone “played for the Omaha Beef, Lincoln Capitols as well as the Iowa Barnstormers in 2001. While playing for the Capitols Tyler had 57 catches for 615 yards and an impressive 15 touchdowns.”

That is very impressive.