J. Jason Lazarus Blog

Early Saturday morning I got a call from my father crying on the phone that we were going to have to put down Razel. Apparently the night before as he tried to jump onto the porch (using the steps even) he tripped up and hurt his back enough that he couldn’t work one leg - by morning he had somehow crawled to my mother’s bedroom door in an effort to be closer to her and couldn’t move both back legs. Later that morning after a tearful goodbye my parents took Razel to the vets to be put down.

This is the first death of a pet I’ve ever had to deal with, mainly because Razel lasted so long. We got him back in November of 1991 from a no-kill Animal Shelter in Fayetteville, NC. Already having white in his muzzle from what we gathered was a few years of abuse, we placed his age somewhere around 2-3 years old - at that point. Fast-forward 15 years and I’m not only loosing a pet, but a part of the family for over half of my life.
My first memory of Raz was, oddly enough, hating him. My parents had just gotten him for me when I was in 6th grade in an attempt to lighten the load of a transition between three different schools in less than 2 months. I wasn’t fitting in, I hated myself and for some reason my parents thought a dog would help. I hated him because, as happy as he was to have a family, he’d jump all over you unrulingly, accidentally clawing and obsessively licking. I thought for a good whole day that this wasn’t what I wanted.
I could’ve never been wronger in my life.
In reflection, Razel grew on me quickly and I needed him every day to keep depression at bay. My Middle School years, although it seems frivilious in reflection, were horrid. Depression set in hard and through the worse Razel knew exactly when to come up to me and make me feel better. I swear that dog was impathic with his keen sense of human emotion and, not at all to discredit my parent’s attempts, he managed to cure my sadness much more effectively than my parents could. Their hunch that a dog would make things better was one of the best things they ever did for me.
Throughout the years he truly has been my best friend and has always been there, especially when nobody else was.
I unfortunately cannot verbalize how much he meant to me - and as crazy as it seems that I should be broken up about a Dog when people loose pets all the time - understand that this is the first pet I’ve ever lost. The only other dog we ever had we gave away before we moved to Germany. Razel went on all the family trips, was allowed in all the recliners, and was always considered in all family plans. Very, very rarely did we ever place him in a kennel because he always went with us.
Right now both my dad and I are pretty broken up about this. I couldn’t even muster the courage (if that’s what you call it) to go to the vets with the rest of the family to put him down - or to bury him on the family property. I just couldn’t watch anything like that - although I wonder if it would’ve been easier than dealing with the fact that here I was, watching television while my dog was being put down. I beat myself up about that as well. I have been beating myself up for not going over there more lately as if I would’ve known he’d be put down soon. I guess it’s the same things everyone says when they lose someone suddenly but I’m battling with the feeling that I shouldn’t be so broken up about this, thinking, at least it wasn’t a *real* family member - and then there’s nothing else to do but to correct myself because, by God, Razel was every bit a family member - and at times, as silly as it may sound, like the brother I never had.

So, even though I was pretty damned certain that I was going to go up into Hatcher’s Pass and to Bomber Glacier this last weekend, once again, Mother Nature presented a firmly planted “Don’t Tread on Me” sign right in front of me. For those of you in the state you know what last weekend was like - for those that don’t, it was the rainiest time in the Mat-Su Valley in, estimates say, 7-15 years. Two bridges were wiped out, mudslides were all around and it just kept on raining. Thankfully this didn’t cancel the trip - oh no, it just made it a bitch to get home.
Bonnie and I headed down in the anticipation of at least getting some photography done while we were down near Anchorage for the long weekend and, to be honest, we got a lot more photography done than I thought we would. Leaving at 11pm on Thursday we got into Anchorage just a bit after 5pm, opting to go ahead and drive down to Whittier, drive through the 2.5 mile tunnell and take pictures in the old abandoned Buckner Building - a old all-in-one military complex from the cold war that was left abandoned after the ‘64 earthquake. Got a ton of pictures done, walked back and forth, in and out of rooms, on over 5 floors worth of this quarter-mile long building. Most of our time was spent in the old movie theatre taking extended exposures of each other while shining light on each other once in a while to give the effect of multiple exposures - turned out okay, and even though at the time I thought I had wasted too much time, now I wish I would’ve taken more as by the last few frames of what we took we were finally getting the system down.
Headed back to Anchorage after almost 3-4 hours worth of picture taking and started the usual bit of shopping, although this time it was more centered around looking for and buying cameras and photogeek gear. I finally got around to actually picking up my own Twin Lens - a Seagull. Can’t complain at only $100 - especially not for a practically brand new-looking used camera. Bonnie tried to one-up me by buying a Fisheye point-and-shoot camera - though admittedly awesome, I made sure she knew exactly how much it paled in comparison to my utter coolness of a Twin-Lens. See… this is one thing I have to say I love about Anchorage - although they might not have many of them, the fact that they have any real photography stores is such a relief - Fairbanks has nothing like a Stewart’s.
By the time we did only a bit of shopping we were so completely dead tired mainly cause we both hadn’t slept since Wednesday night and it was getting pretty late on Friday by this point. Found a hotel and completely crashed - hard. I got up and got some food and came back to the hotel only to crash hard again - Bonnie, on the other hand, crashed hard for 14 hours.
Waking up the next morning, we finished our shopping and decided to get the heck out of Anchorage - thankfully. I say thankfully because unbeknowst to us the Parks was closed due to flooding and the lack of a bridge or two. Once we got into Wasilla we heard how bad it was and decided to take the long way back to Fairbanks - making our trip 450 miles rather than the usual 350. On our way back we went through rain, hail, snow, and sunny skies as we neared Glenallen. At this point, realizing that I never get down here that often, I asked Bonnie if she’d mind a detour.
Lodging no complaints, we headed for Liberty Falls - the most amazing waterfalls in the state in my opinion. We managed to stay for over three hours taking pictures of… water! Unlike the last time I came through here with my dad last September I was able to do extended exposures and boy did they ever come out great! Once again, although happy with the results, I want to go back and do more.
The trip home went by quick, somehow, as the 300 miles back to Fairbanks somehow flew by. I had a great weekend, even though I didn’t get to do the hike I wanted to, and my pictures came out great - even though I had four cameras around my neck at all times! Anyways, check out all the pictures I’ve got from this trip - all taken with a Digital Rebel that I’ve been playing with lately - there’s quite a few duplicates that I haven’t picked through, mainly exposure differences.

Today marks three years that Deanna and I have been happily married - and to the both of us, it truly hasn’t felt like anything near that. It’s amazing how much life does tend to become a whirlwind whenever your spending it with the one you love the most. I can’t believe how much things have changed, all for the better, since we got married - and amoungst all these changes, we still manage to stay as happy as we were the same day. Although the months that have gone by, floating away into years, we’ve grown accustomed to each other, as any couple would do, we still enjoy the simpliest things of each other - the simple company of one another during a movie and someone to always be there for each other. Thank you Deanna for all you put up with and thank you for continuing to be my best friend, my greatest supporter and the most amazing and profound love my life with ever have. Thank you.
For our anniversary I got new rings for the two of us - seeing that when we did get married we were pretty strapped for cash, the low-end rings from Freds was all we could really afford. Although our collective purse didn’t break on these either, they reflect more about our collective personalities than the other ones do. Both of us now wear Silver Poesy Rings, a historical token of love and fondness basically imitating a Promise Ring, but with sayings on it. Ours says “You and No Other” in Old French - both are gorgeous, simple, and perfect. Deanna and I have been taking about getting these for almost a year and I managed to completely surprise her with them when I got them on my last trip to Anchorage - completely by surprise to myself as well that I actually found them in Anchorage. Nonetheless, even though I wasn’t in the Doghouse, I definately got some Brownie points

Before I continue, this link is not completely safe for work - I have cautioned you.
For a few months now the big three gaming companies have been thrusting forth their new products and next gen stats, hoping that one will manage to easily come on top. Months after E3 and only a few months to go till the PS3 and Wii are released and there’s still, at least according to game reviewers, no definitive winner in the next console wars. 8-bit Generation (80’s) was won by Nintendo’s first major system, hands down. 16-bit generation (early 90’s) was a literal toss-up between Sega and Nintendo, but starting with the 32-bit generation, both Sega and Nintendo started loosing it’s steam. Sega disappeared in the midsts of the introduction of the Playstation and Nintendo’s N64, although competitive, really couldn’t muster what the Playstation had to offer. Running on older technology, a cart based system, more family-based titles, Nintendo lost. Nintendo continued to make the same mistakes with their Gamecube, loosing for two straight generations - but at this point, slipping to a very distant 3rd place after a newcommer - Microsoft. With the next gen right around the corner, and with prices skyrocketing ($400 for Xbox360, $600 for PS3) , gamers are forced to find their allegiance more than ever because there isn’t really any choice to buy all the systems for most gamers anymore. The video below (Video Not Safe for Work) breaks down exactly what Nintendo is going to do with their new system - make it fun. PS3 is packing as much system it can into the box before thinking of the average gamer and what they can afford - Nintendo may cheapen its abilities to perform at next-gen graphics, but damn, the Wiimote (interactive remote - in serveral ways - motion sensative, microphone, etc) makes it seem much funner. To be honest, as much as I don’t like the squeaky-clean look Nintendo always makes with it’s launch titles (Gamecube was a family-friendly system with NO M-rated games for at least the first year or two) I think I know where my money is going - although the vid is a little risque, it proves the point - Sony is going in the WRONG direction. Nobody wants to buy a Game Console that doubles as a PC. Nobody. That’s why we have PC’s.

So in what seems to be a blatant attempt to copy Curt’s own blogpost on Holga pictures, I’ve decided to post my own experimental pictures that I’ve been playing around with this summer. Although I have been working with a Holga as well as a Twin Lens Yashica-D during the summer, I thought I’d one-up most people and post pictures from my Brownie Hawkeye. Brownie Hawkeyes were apparently produced between 1949-1961 and are pretty much the standard at garage sales - problem is, as with many things with photography this day and time, Kodak has stopped producing the film that used to work in these cameras - Kodak 620 film. While researching the Hawkeye about a week ago or so I found out that 120 film, which is still produced, can be used in the Hawkeye as long as you have a spare old 620 reel to take up the film. So, after two dud rolls of 400-speed 120 film wasted on a Hawkeye that apparently has a slow enough shutter speed that it needs real freaking slow film, I bought a roll of 100 speed 120 film and came out with some… interesting results. After realizing this was such a massed-produced camera during those years I completely understand why standard family portraits from those years sucked so badily. Although the lens boasts a focal range from 5 feet to infinity it sure as all hell doesn’t look like it, although I do have to admit the overall haze around everything is kinda .. stunning. It’s an interesting effect but I don’t know how much it’ll force me to load up my Brownie again anytime soon - I’ve gotten better (and more interesting) pictures with my Holga. Though, I do have to admit finding out that one of my mother-in-law’s garage-sale finds are actually not just glorified paper-weights is worthwhile. Granted, I love having the cameras as decorative items around my office, but damn, it’s even nicer when you find out they WORK!