Man Marries Virtual Girlfriend

I couldn't resist this. A Japanese man reportedly fell in love with a virtual girl named Nene Anegasaki and held a public wedding reception in Tokyo.

Since the girl doesn't really exist, "Sal9000" reportedly took his Nintendo DS to Guam for a legal ceremony and honeymoon, and broadcast the reception online.

"Sal9000" met his bride on the video game "Love Plus," which requires players to take out the virtual girl on dates, buy her gifts and make their girlfriends happy just as they would in real life. If the two are compatible, they advance to the next level which is the more "physical" level with touching, kissing and even having sex (huh!).

More info. on YouTube under "First-Ever Marriage Between Man and Video game character in Japan: Nintendo DS Love Plus"

River Rocks: A Vietnam Vet's Refuge

This is a multimedia piece I started last month for a journalism class. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out as I had hoped. A Vietnam veteran who lives near my mother in Southwest Virginia has erected a shrine to fallen commrades in his yard. He pays neighborhood kids by the wheelbarrow load to go to the river and haul back rocks. He paints the rocks and builds monuments around his yard along with neighbor's discarded junk. He lives alone with a cat and doesn't like contact with strangers. I was estatic when he allowed me to film and shoot stills of his work.

My plan was to weave his war stories along with the art work using a high def video camera, audio field recorder and Nikon DSLR camera. My plans went south when he refused to give me an interview during my visit. He did come out and talk with me briefly after an hour or so of shooting. I'm hoping that I can build a bond with him and finish the project at a later date.

The music in this piece is by bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley, who I did a photo shoot with several years ago, in Franklin County, VA. His music was featured in the film O'Brother, Where Art Though? starring George Clooney. I could hear the song playing through a kitchen window as I was in the yard. It gives the piece a haunting effect.

Jeff

Alice by Pogo: music video

We have studied in class about how the Internet allows us to share information and ideas with people from all over the world. In April I posted a homemade music video on YouTube and it has become very popular overseas.

The song is an interesting story in itself. A 19 year -old Australian experimental video editor cut and spliced sound bytes from Disney's Alice In Wonderland to create a two -and- a- half minute psychedlic sample-fest complete with a animated video of singing poppies and dancing dandelions. The song and became an instant hit on YouTube.

Using public domain footage from 1960's 8mm home movies, I created my own version of the experimental music video. The footage reminded me of my childhood when my father would shoot home movies of our family vacations. The old super 8 cameras didn't record sound and the footage was always grainy. The film had to be spliced for editing and always came off the reel and tangled during rewinding. It's amazing how far technology has come. We now have high definition digital recorders that are the size of a palm. The footage can downloaded by USB directly into our computers for editing.

Recently, my version of "Alice" has been getting responses from viewers as far away as Berlin and Amsterdam (it seems to be popular with European teens). The last count was over 3,400 hits. I thought I would share.

Postmodern World

We are a generation
of sentence fragments
and acronyms.
Poetry lost in space.
We are singles bars filled
with nouns and verbs
dancing out of rhythm,
scoping the Black Hole
for drunken conjunctions.
We are dangling participles
nursing Twitter hangovers.


Jeff Reid

Shenandoah Cover

The anticipation is over. My cover for Washington and Lee's Shenandoah magazine was finally released last week. I have done many photo covers over the years but this one is the most rewarding. Actually the shot wasn't even planned. It is what photojournalists' refer to as a "grab shot." I shot it last October while walking back to my car after taking photos of the Virginia Tech Corp of Cadets at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, VA.

I was amazed when the images came up on the computer screen. The autumn colors and the veins on the ivy were so vivid and expressive. It was also the first time I used my new Nikon D1x. Well, I wouldn't say new...it was bought used from KEH in Atlanta. When the D1x was first released in 2001, it was one of the most innovative and expensive cameras on the market and retailed for about $4000. Now you can purchase a nice used one for under $500. I just love the feel of the older cameras.

It was on a whim that I sent it to the editor of Shenandoah. As I was looking for a submission to the school's annual poetry contest, I decided to email the editor and ask if he would be interested in the photographs. He gave me the okay and I sent it not thinking much about it. (Magazines very rarely buy unsolicited manuscripts or photography). He immediately emailed me back and offered to purchase it for the fall 2009 cover. Sallie Mann has been featured on the cover of the magazine and I didn't think I had a chance. My father used to use the idiom "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" all the time. Thank you Dad for those words of advice.