Thursday, April 17, 2008

The Occasional Odd Crop

Several weeks ago we were sprawled out on the Bare Mattress of Love and going through some interviews that were ready for publication when we noticed that nothing in The One Eyed Man's interview matched anything we knew about him.

"Canada?" we said in unison, "We thought he lived in San Diego." We read on, "One eyed? We thought he had TWO eyes but was odd!"

It then hit us that we had confused our GITS!

We figured out what had confused is is that both titles are 4 words, start with The and have capital "O"s in them. That is enough to throw anyone. We also confused the two with The Wizard of Oz, and The Story of O.

Fortunately for us, and you, both gits are highly talented and active gits and they interview quite nicely although we can't speak for how they might clean up.

Who are you and why are you doing this to us?

I'm a print journalist, one of many editors at the big newspaper in San Diego, California. I make my living mostly by reading the news, rather than writing it. I have a lovely wife, who is a journalist and a painter and is far more interesting than I am, and a fluffy, off-white dog who is almost too joyful.

I've shot photos on and off for decades but didn't get serious about it until a couple of years ago. Once I bought a digital camera and didn't have to spend money on film or processing any more, I was off to the races. After seeing a few interesting photoblogs, Chromasia and Daily Dose of Imagery chief among them, I thought, "Hey, I could do that." So I did.

Do you know Kerrin? Do you know The One Eyed Man we are always confusing you with? ARE you The One Eyed Man We Are Always Confusing You With?

I don't know Kerrin. I've seen that question in your other interviews and have always wondered, sometimes for as long as a couple of seconds, just who Kerrin is.

I have seen The One Eyed Man's fine photoblog and am delighted that anyone would confuse us. Although no one has ever seen us in the same room, I can assure you that we *are* two different people.

What are you wearing?

The same cargo pants and brown sport shirt I wear at least once a week. A pair of sneakers that have nearly outlived their usefulness.

Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects?

My handle is MarkDM in several places, including Flickr and JPG magazine. My Flickr photostream now includes a couple of videos, so some members of the site no doubt think I'm a minion of the Evil One.

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdm/
JPG: http://jpgmag.com/people/MarkDM/

What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?

I dabble in Web design. I designed and maintain my wife's site, DaniDodge.com. It shows her paintings and some of the stories she wrote when she was a reporter, including a bunch from Iraq near the beginning of the war (I told you she was more interesting than I am).

The bathroom scale tells me that I spend less time than I should on my bicycle, a 20-year-old Cannondale, but I still like to think of myself as a cyclist. I have the ugly shoes and lycra shorts to prove it.

That's about it, unless quoting dialogue from "The West Wing" whenever possible is a hobby. (I'll do that one time later in this interview; see if you can spot it.)

What's the coolest thing you've found and kept?

When I was growing up, my mom had a tiny, plastic figure of a construction worker on her desk. I never knew where it came from. It's about an inch tall, and the little man is sitting down, breaking for lunch maybe. After Mom died in 1996, I was going through some of her stuff, and I stumbled across the little construction guy. Now I keep it at my desk.

What equipment do or have you used? Are there any manufacturers you'd like to praise or bad mouth here?

The only camera I own is a Canon PowerShot A620, and it's fantastic. It's a point-and-shoot that fits into my pocket, but you can manually set the shutter speed, aperture and focus. The viewscreen swivels, allowing me to shoot photos of people without being incredibly obvious about it, and to shoot from angles that would otherwise be impossible. Also, it shoots decent video.

What is the best photo that you missed?

Man, there have been so many. The one that leaps to mind right now is from a couple of days ago: a guy dressed like a Prohibition-era gangster (wide-pinstripe suit, white fedora) standing on a street corner in San Diego's hip Hillcrest area. Maybe he was an actor, maybe he was best man in a cool wedding, but that dude looked sharp. He also looked about 18, which added some incongruity to the sight.

Tell us your worst habit.

No, I don't think I will. I'd hate to bore you. (Too late, I know.)

Have you ever done anything heroic? (i.e. solved crimes, saved someone from a burning building or untied them from railroad tracks, fought injustice, donated organs) If not, why not? If so, please include press clippings.

Never have. Bad timing, I guess. And all of my press clippings - from my T-ball exploits in Hastings, Nebraska, in 1970 - are lost to the ages, I'm afraid.

If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.

Professional travel writing would be fun. Covering New York City as a travel journalist would be fantastic.

Do you wear glasses? If so, describe them, if not, why not? Don't you like glasses?

I've worn glasses since fifth grade. (Actual quote from a friend on the first day I wore my hornrims to school: "They don't look too bad. Just ... terrible.") My current frames are oval, beat-up metal and about eight years old. The lenses are about five years old; the UV coating is pretty much shot.

What did you have for breakfast?

Trader Joe's vanilla-flavored cereal and orange juice. The orange juice wasn't vanilla flavored, just the cereal.

Anything else we should know?

If you do a Google search for "odd photo blogs," my photoblog comes in at Number 5. I'll always be proud of that.

His Blog and tagline:


The Occasional Odd Crop (http://dodgemedlin.blogspot.com): Photos of whatever catches my eye

1 Comments:

Blogger kmm said...

Honestly nobody knows me.

Cheers Kerrin

9:46 PM  

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