Parkour or l’art du déplacement, translated as “the art of displacement” is an activity in which participants or “traceurs” perform daring moves to get from one place to another. They use a combination of gymnastics and martial arts in what often resembles the stunts in chase scenes of action movies. Now that description may make it hard to view parkour as a form of art, which is why you have to see it.
There’s something special about viewing these stunts as still images as opposed to live action; I think it adds a certain tranquility and really shows that it is an art. Check out the rest of this photo essay from TIME. You can see that the traceurs take their art seriously planning out the moves and noting precautions they need to take.
Of course there is also some pretty awesome live action videos of parkour online.
Though do be aware when searching for these videos that you will find some pretty lame ones as well. Actually, you’ll find mostly lame ones on video sharing sites, but do a google and you’ll find some good parkour sites like American Parkour.
I’ve probably mentioned before how I don’t photograph well, it’s like the camera makes me nervous and I end up making a weird face or looking completely frightened. In fact, last fall, in order to get a decent head shot (or mug shot as we call them) for the The Gull’s Cry, I had to take the camera with me to the bathroom so I could look at myself in the mirror while I took the picture. While the bathroom method does work sometimes, I get some pretty strange looks coming out of the ladies room with a Nikon D50 in my hand. If I were in New York this would not be a problem, I could just contact MethodIzaz.com and have him (them?) take my picture covert ops style.
From the site:
Using information provided earlier about their weekly routine, the photographer will arrive on the scene, and unseen, take shots of the subject. The subject will be photographed walking through the streets, going about their daily business. Without posing and artifice, the camera captures only the natural beauty of the person.
How awesome is that. Who knows though, even that might not work for me, it’s possibly that I make even stranger expression when I’m not being (knowingly) photographed. I’ll just have to settle for telling people “I’m really incredibly good-looking, honest!” Or, “Here, watch me look at my own reflection. See, hott (with two ts!), huh?”
Thursday was the last day of classes and I spend Friday cleaning up and getting rid of some papers. I actually keep all of my graded work, because I’m a dork and organize it according to class and semester in my filing cabinet.
Thursday morning was my AMH2020 (US history 2) final. I was actually sort of excited about it because I got to answer an essay question on “The Lost Generation,” which includes some of my favorite authors (Hemingway, Fitzgerald). Anyway, I’m sitting in the class room before the test begins, going over my notes, when the girl who sits in front of my comes in. Now I don’t think she’s said a word to me the whole semester, but today she wants to talk, actually, she wants me to talk. First she says, “what’s ‘buying on margin’?” So I tell her. Then, “what’s the Schiefflin Plan?” and I say, “I don’t know,” even though I did because I could see where this was going. Then she says, “What about laissez faire economics?” Now I’ve had it, is she going to ask me about every single term on the study guide? So I say, “You know, I’m trying study for myself here,” and give her an ‘what are you, an alien?’ look.
The nerve of some people!
Now onto University! (hopefully). Still no word from UF, but I did get accepted to USF and it seems more appealing every minute.
In other news, here’s a pic of another new (old) toy I got. I had to replace all of the seals in it as well, but now it and the AE-1 are loaded and ready. There seems to be dust or lint trapped under the focus screen though, and I can see it through the viewfinder, really annoying.
the AE-1 has some light leakage. Since the local shop wants $125 to replace the foams, I found a kit and some instructions on ebay and will be re-sealing it myself.
A few of the shots turned out fairly okay though. I was also using expired film, which may account for a little of the color weirdness.
