Facing South on the Luis I Bridge
To celebrate our birthdays this year, Britt and I decided to take a quick trip to Portugal. Neither of us had been prior. It rained most of the time, but we still had a blast. Read on for some spots I would recommend, as well as a lengthy photo dump.Continue reading
Welp, another really weird year in the books. In keeping with tradition, here is a video I made with photos that I dumped from my iPhone. Some were obviously taken with a real camera, then saved to my phone for sharing, etc… Each frame is a couple tenths of a second. Anyway, here is a link to some of the archives. And here is the recap from 2021–
It was kind of cool to wake up to the sounds of fog horns on the East River Saturday morning. It was one of those days where it never really rained, but everything was wet all day. It has officially been three weeks since surgery. I’ll be starting regular PT week after next. I have enjoyed the steady return of my mobility, and decided to capitalize on it Saturday after spending some time with PJ. I drove to the Tarrytown reservoir and took a lap on the reservoir trail. I wished so badly that I would have brought my real camera with me. Instead, all I have are these mediocre-ish cellphone snaps. The fog transformed the depressing dead-looking winter woods into a nearly silent ethereal dreamscape. I felt like I was walking through an Isabella Stahl photo.
Switching gears completely — One of my 2020 goals is to get back on the horse creatively. As a part of my end-of-year and end-of-decade reflections, I became painfully aware of how drastically my time spent being creative has waned over the past several years. One decision that I have executed to proactively kickstart said goal, is taking a break from Instagram. I disabled my account shortly before midnight on Dec 31. It was an idea that I had been leaning toward for a while (since the app was acquired by F@#$book).
When the app first came on the scene, I feel like it actually may have helped my creative juice via the inspiration I gleaned from the photographic works of my peers and acquaintances. In the past couple of years it seems to have devolved into the same torrent of internet diarrhea that is F@#$book. Having so much additional down time lately while recovering from surgery has intensified my awareness of how much time can be wasted mindlessly scrolling absolute nonsense (yikes!). Some people do dry January. I’m doing ‘gram-free January. So far I don’t miss it at all. I’ll re-evaluate on Feb 1. In the meantime, perhaps I’ll find the juice to expand the content on Jake.News beyond monthly playlists and the occasional book review, hehe. I realize that the ‘blog’ as a format has been dead for a while now … oh well.
For now, please enjoy this set of photos from my walk through the woods in the fog.
Saturday morning was one of those rides where I wish I would have had my real camera with me. I saw so much good stuff. It was a little hotter than ideal, but the visibility was really good and the sky was loaded up with cartoon looking clouds. Anyway, here are a couple of images that I managed to snap with my celly.
A few weeks ago I was reading an article about stuff to do in the city when it is so hot outside. One of the suggestions was a lobster cruise in the harbor. It looked awesome. The more that I looked into it, I realized that the cruise was on one of those giant clipper ships. I had seen the boat’s sister ship that leaves from North Cove marina. I worked in towers at WFC for 8 years. So I had seen it come an go a lot. I had just assumed that it was all tourists going for a sight seeing cruise on the Hudson (and as such, had no desire to participate). Not that there is anything wrong with tourists. They are awesome. But if I was going to be on a boat in the harbor, I want to be having fun, not listening to someone talking on a loudspeaker about the history of Governor’s Island, and indigenous marine life.
As it turns out (and it frequently does), I was wrong. The Clipper City actually has a multitude of options for on board activities that are not really geared toward tourists at all. I booked the “Lobster & Beer Lovers” Sail. It is catered by the Maine born Luke’s Lobster. We actually have one in our neighborhood and like it quite a bit. The outing did not disappoint. We even ran into one of our friends who just happened to be on the boat for an outing with her colleagues. The staff was friendly, vibe was good, weather was awesome, food was excellent and the beer was cold. I totally recommend it. We are definitely going to do this more often.
“Double Deuces” courtesy of B’s private collection
Being photographed is tough. Some people are so good at it. They look so natural and comfortable, effortlessly cool, etc.. I look basically the opposite of all of those things in just about every photo ever taken of me. I have always felt more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it. The above image is a perfect example of why. I am super awkward in photos, and have accordingly disliked being photographed for most of my life. In recent years I have thankfully come to embrace the awkwardness, and I have my little sister partially to thank for this. If there is one person who ranks on my levels of unnaturaltude when the camera is pointed in their direction, it is her. I should also mention that she is a woman who struggles with autism. Perhaps I too have some sort of social disability which causes me to lose my sense of “normalcy” when I find myself staring into the business end of a lens.
At any rate, I have her to thank for my decision to embrace my shortcomings as a subject in photos. A few years ago, I noticed that she had adopted sort of a signature pose for photos. She would hold up two fingers, peace-frogs-style and pop her hip out to the side. By doing so, she spun her discomfort of being photographed into her own brand of sassy protest (“okay go ahead and take my photo, but you are going to get this pose”). Amazed at how well this seemed to work, I took a page from her book and started throwing deuces in photos every chance I had. When possible, I will even incorporate double deuces. As ironic as it may sound, I have hated photos of me much less since adopting her approach. While the photos are ostensibly “worse” and certainly more contrived than before the advent of the deuce pose (not to be confused with the other deuce pose), at least I can laugh at them now, as opposed to just cringing. So while I will most likely never be able to look cool, natural or at ease in photos, I can thank my sis for helping me embrace a signature awkward pose.
A little Manhattan, a little Brooklyn.
We were at a House of VANS event, and saw a new take on the now-ubiquitous party photo booth. Instead of a static image (or even a phhhoto style .gif), there was an array of cameras setup for a matrix style gif. The outfit manning the booth was A-1 Array. The result is below–
It wouldn’t be a proper year without me recapping it in video form. These are all iPhone snaps that I pulled from my mobile. There were roughly 12,000 of them. Here they are played back at one third of a second per photo. Since I take a lot of sequential photos, the effect is flipbook-like. Check it below if you have about 15 mins to spare.
2015 in iPhone Photos from Jacob Breinholt on Vimeo.
I was perusing through a lot of old photos the past couple of weeks, trying to update my book. Here are some goodies from Alaska that I came across. I don’t think that I have ever posted the one of the guys in the skiff, right before the downpour (which happens hourly in Ketchikan). Some fond memories here.
