Micah Walter

Yesterday Kendra and I went to a teeny-tiny shower for a teeny-tiny baby. The baby was recently adopted by its new mother and our friend Kristina threw the party.

I think Maile is an obvious natural at the picture taking! - More on flickr

In my search for the perfect apartment, I came across the CopyCat building, pictured below. I think Kendra and I may have stayed there once. Thanks to Patty Boh, for the photo via flickr.com.

The CopyCat building was built in the 1890’s by the guy who invented the bottle cap. No joke! Anyway, it is now set up as artists studios ranging from 500-5000 sq ft. I really wish I could afford the 4th floor 5000 sq ft place. That would be something!

These days I feel like one of those guys who talks in the third person all the time. Micah has this, or Micah is a great so and so….

The other day I sent in my letter of intent along with my deposit. So it’s official, I am going. Now comes the fun. This past weekend I spent some time with my favorite financial advisor and we went over my last years taxes. By the end of the day we had them just about finished! I was able to file for my FAFSA and this morning I sent in my MICA Application for Financial Aid.

the scholarship I received is pretty good, but I will still need to take out a loan for the balance of my tuition and some other expenses. Hopefully it will all work out.

So begins the search for a suitable place to live in Baltimore (The Greatest City in America). There was a really funny piece about Baltimore and The Wire on the blog “Stuff White People Like.” Check it out here. It’s so true! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say that very line: “It’’s the best show on television!”

So, I started looking for places to live near MICA and realized there is no real reason that I have to be within walking distance of the school. It would be nice, but I think some of the other neighborhoods might be more my style. So I am checking out the neighborhoods near Paterson Park and the harbor areas. Looking online from another country is pretty frustrating. So, I think I am going to wait to REALLY look until I get back to the states next month.

Wow, I can’t believe we leave here in less than 20 days! I have lived here on this island for nearly two years now! I hope my dogs don’t miss the beach to much.

And, speaking of the dogs, check out this short video I made of them to show my sister how much faster they can run than her two pups!

10 minutes of shooting video with Kendra’s point and shoot.

10 minutes of editing in iMovie

1 Stolen song from my iTunes library (c’mon Apple, you make it too easy!)

20 Minutes to upload to my .Mac Web Gallery

Enjoy -

PS - Yes, that is my current house and property. Man I am going to miss this place!

WIRED magazine has a really cool interactive piece about information art. They must be reading my mind or something.

“The principle of art is to pause, not bypass. The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke. This requires a moment of pause–a contract with yourself through the object you look at or the page you read. In that moment of pause, I think life expands. And really the purpose of art–for me, fiction–is to alert, to indicate to stop, to say: Make certain that when you rush through you will not miss the moment which you might have had, or might still have. That is the moment of finding something which you have not known about yourself, or your environment, about others and about life.”

-Jerzy Kosinski

I just received my acceptance letter to the Maryland Institute College of Art. I am going for my Masters of Fine Art in Photography and Digital Imaging. I start this fall, full time, for the next two years.

I received a grant, and now I need to apply for financial aid and other possible grants and scholarships. I’m pretty excited. I’M GONNA BE A GRADUAL STUDENT!!! Yay me!

Okay, there are a few things I WONT miss about this place…

Next month I am planning to pick up a Canon EF 24 f/1.4L lens. This will be my first fixed focal length lens I will own in the Canon EOS system. Needless to say I am pretty excited. In less than a month I will be heading back to the east coast permanently and plan to do quite a bit of shooting once I’m back. At the moment, my camera bag is pretty minimal. I have one prosumer body and three lenses. It certainly does the job for the amount of shooting I have been doing these days, but I plan to expand this year and so I have been doing some contemplating about what to get and why.

First of all, I decided to stick with Canon. I was very tempted by the new Nikon D3. It seems to be just about the perfect camera. But, there are plenty of other reasons to stick with Canon, the biggest one being the amount of money I am faced with spending just to make the switch.

So, my plan is to develop my collection of lenses, and eventually get a new camera as well. I had thought about picking up a 5D, but I think sometime this summer that camera will be getting a decent update that will probably be very attractive. The current 5D model seems great but lacks a few key features that I really want.

So I am going to hold off and see what the update looks like. I can always rent a 1Ds if I have a shoot that requires something like that. I can also always rent long glass if I need it, as well as lighting and all sorts of other things. In the area in which I live I have a great resource for rentals.

So for now, I think a 24 f/1.4 would be a great addition. It will allow me to do some of the low light photography I really like to do. On my 20D it will be around a 38mm equivalent. That’s pretty narrow for my style of shooting, but I guess I wont have to worry about softness in the edges. Once I have the 5D (or whatever the next version is called) it will be a great combo with the full-frame sensor.

I am also planning to update my EF 17-35 f/2.8L to the latest model EF 16-35 f/2.8L II. I figure if I can sell the 17-35 for a decent price the $1400 16-35 shouldn’t be too far off in my budget.

There are a few other accessories and items I am planing to pick up, but this is about it for now.

Can you believe the kid on the left made it to 32?