MARC MONTEBELLO http://marcmontebello.posterous.com Most recent posts at MARC MONTEBELLO posterous.com Sat, 27 Mar 2010 09:52:08 -0700 apocalypse dao http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/apocalypse-dao http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/apocalypse-dao

it's difficult to avoid references to those ominous scenes in coppola's masterpiece when dealing with sand, sea and whirling blades (though the chopper sequences in 'black hawk down' were damn impressive too). shot this from the cockpit of my bicycle yesterday with the door off.

note: 'china beach' is simply used as a title here, not to be confused with its true namesake in vietnam.

'china beach' • qingdao, china

'china beach' • qingdao, china

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Sat, 27 Mar 2010 09:19:40 -0700 it's still out there http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/its-still-out-there http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/its-still-out-there

when home-bound with a sick baby and gigs of work to edit, it's easy to forget there's an ocean of inspiration just down the road..

'on water' • qingdao, china

'on water' · qingdao, china

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Fri, 26 Mar 2010 08:59:00 -0700 roadkill http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/roadkill-15 http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/roadkill-15

spring has sprung, the sand has stung.

'masked mess' • qingdao, china

'masked mess' • qingdao, china

'beijing air vs breathing' (stats from the 'beijing air' twitter page)

'beijing air vs breathing' (stats from the 'beijing air' twitter page)

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Fri, 26 Mar 2010 08:48:21 -0700 pâté chinoise http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/pate-chinoise http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/pate-chinoise

all this recent buzz about the habs* can make one feel a tad homesick, so i figured i'd serve up the best of both worlds.. from our last visit to montréal, a diner classic - pâté chinois!

* for the uninitiated, les 'habs' refers to the montréal canadiens who are currently on a winning streak.
pâté chinois is more commonly referred to as 'shepherd's pie' in the anglo world ;-)

'pâté chinoise' • montréal, québec

'pâté chinoise' • montréal, québec

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Fri, 26 Mar 2010 08:42:21 -0700 speaking of magpies.. http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/speaking-of-magpies http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/speaking-of-magpies

 

'bird on a wire' • qingdao, china

'bird on a wire' • qingdao, china

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Fri, 26 Mar 2010 08:36:32 -0700 from the bedroom window http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/from-the-bedroom-window http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/from-the-bedroom-window

even beautiful birds can be so annoying..

'magpies' · qingdao, china

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Thu, 25 Mar 2010 21:47:17 -0700 there goes the neighbourhood.. http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/there-goes-the-neighbourhood-1 http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/there-goes-the-neighbourhood-1

or, "my construction pit is bigger than your construction pit."
here's one from the archives but worth repeating, for it is certainly one apathetic recurring theme - the rebuilding of china-land. but hey, this is the local version and i expect it to reappear in this blog incessantly. stay tuned.
btw, can anyone in QD guess where this is (was)?

'there goes the neighbourhood i' • qingdao, china

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Thu, 25 Mar 2010 21:32:00 -0700 shut up 'n play yer guitar http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/shut-up-n-play-yer-guitar-2 http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/shut-up-n-play-yer-guitar-2

alternate title: 'the hidden camera tapes'.
i stumbled across this stuff online. sometimes you gotta wonder what else is out there in the wonderful www waiting to embarrass you..

completely forgotten and mostly forgettable, i was invited to jam with this japanese drummer dude named 'funky' (yeah, original isn't it?) at the local tv station during his tour of china. the event was wreaked with the usual - bad sound, lousy gear (the bass amp cuts out most of the time) and the most annoying 'famous' drummer i've ever played with, ie: no dynamics and one volume, 11 (you might also notice i had to crank up just to hear myself at the solo get go). ahh, memories.

you can view more HERE and HERE..

greg zhang (sax), joseph devera (bass), funky (the drummer!), moi.

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Thu, 25 Mar 2010 21:28:44 -0700 come together http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/come-together-20 http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/come-together-20

just sayin'..

'through the looking glass' • qingdao, china

'bove and mccartney' • qingdao, china

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Thu, 25 Mar 2010 21:25:16 -0700 through the looking glass http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/through-the-looking-glass-28 http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/through-the-looking-glass-28

what better time to take a photo than when you're driving a taxi during a snow squall with about a meter of visibility..

'through the looking glass' • qingdao, china

'through the looking glass' • qingdao, china

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Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:39:00 -0800 hand-righting http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/hand-righting http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/hand-righting

amazingly, left hand usage is still routinely frowned upon within chinese academic youth circles. this can lead to obvious frustrations for students especially when their parents tend to align with the faculty in this matter (along with the many other 'forbidden deeds' of high school pupils). i met one student who took it all in very well considering the challenges involved in perfecting the strokes of han yu* with your natural hand, let alone with the non-dexterous variant. sort of like playing your guitar upside down (think: jimi hendrix) or riding a bicycle with arms crisscrossed on the handlebars.. you get the idea.
this mini-clip is my name (马可, ma ke) translated simultaneously in stereo-vision. thanks, crystal :-)
*汉语, the chinese written language.  to watch in HD click HERE.

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Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:30:00 -0800 learning to crawl http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/learning-to-crawl-3 http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/learning-to-crawl-3

ok, so here's the deal - new baby, new camera (and a nerdy blog post). in this case it's a panasonic GF1, a clicker that won't put my nikons out of business but most certainly out of my travel/day bag. indeed, virtually all of ottavio's pix thus far have been captured with this machine as well as most of the recent entries on the mm blog (not the clementines though.. micro-nikkor material). shedded pounds of walking gear notwithstanding, it was just about time to move into the age of HD anyways and pretend to be a video-grapher, like so many other deluded stills guys. hehe, who's kidding who (though this is awesome fun).

this clip was shot in manual focus @iso 100 with the 'standard' pancake 20mm f1.7 lumix lens - what a sweet little gem of glass this thing is. straight outta camera, just converted to .mov from the GF1's kickass AVCHD and uploaded to vimeo - no grading, colouring, editing, etc. (like i would know the difference).
to watch in HD click HERE.

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Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:20:00 -0800 no holds barred http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/no-holds-barred http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/no-holds-barred

the old and new still in evidence..

'no holds barred' • qingdao, china

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Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:13:00 -0800 be my clementine http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/be-my-clementine http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/be-my-clementine

the closest i get to composing these days..

'the future is orange' • qingdao, china

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Sun, 14 Feb 2010 05:13:00 -0800 happy valentine new year! http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/13925617 http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/13925617

..or as they say round here 过年好!

'be my valentine' • qingdao, china

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Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:00:00 -0800 behind the curtains http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/behind-the-curtains http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/behind-the-curtains

xmas eve in china (just a few days before our son came to be) but it was business as usual..

 

'xmas eve two thousand and nine' • licun, china

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Sat, 12 Dec 2009 04:20:00 -0800 shameless and self-serving http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/shameless-and-self-serving http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/shameless-and-self-serving

it's time for a plug, albeit a humble one. 'arteffect' is a new magazine in qingdao wherein i was featured last month and continue to collaborate in its creative process. as i intimated, a modest affair, but their hearts are in the right place.

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Sat, 05 Dec 2009 04:20:00 -0800 the gift of gulp http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/13923143 http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/13923143

some locals on a timeout for a lunch 'chi fan' in qingdao's old quarter. you'll notice the ubiquitous 'da qing pi' (large tsingtao beer) playing a prominent role at each table.

'the conversations' • qingdao, china

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Fri, 04 Dec 2009 04:20:00 -0800 which way to cookstown http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/which-way-to-cookstown http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/which-way-to-cookstown

'chef de résistance' • beijing, china

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Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:26:00 -0800 watching the watchers http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/watching-the-watchers http://marcmontebello.posterous.com/watching-the-watchers

somewhere between photographer 2 and 3 (from right to left), you might spot a snippet of THIS PLACE (photographed from a different vantage, but of the same rice fields down below).
all of the shutterbugs you see here momentarily popped out of their black-tinted SRV's and, whilst donning more gore-tex and mega-pixels than you could shake a stick at, basically captured identical snapshots. kind of strips the sentimentality of a creative moment doesn't it? meanwhile, with our best romantic wandering intentions at heart, kitty and i had coughed our way up the mountainside in THIS LIMO along the 'scenic' route before squeezing into a chauffeured TRICYCLE for the final push to the top.

'firing squad' • yuanyang, yunnan

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