30,33,43 and 46 of 366

      While it is true I have been known to abandon projects as soon as the next sparkly idea grabs my attention; and while there were indeed a few weeks where I fell off the grid; Mexican access to the internet being spotty at times, I have been continuing this epic journey on Google+ and thought I had better drop in here and prove that I have a bit more of an attention span than a flea.
Vacations are such rich sources of images and offer not only the benefit of exotic settings and subjects, but more importantly, the time to wander at will. Now that I am back to reality the challenge is to look around at the common and put it in a frame.

24, 25, 26/366

The winter has been mild, yet a potted plant makes me long for spring.

 The cold snap was unpleasant, but brought it's own beauty. I huddle indoors.

I tire of seeking things indoors to photograph.. do you see a common thread here? I think I need to get outside!

21, 22, 23/366 Cabin Fever

It has been too cold, it seems, even for Jack Frost to linger outdoors. I searched my windows for a panorama of icy ferns or crystalline spires, but all he had left me was this..

and this..

Obviously not a sustained effort on his part.

Stuck inside, I wander around trying to see my familiar surroundings with new eyes, from a different perspective. 

Is it spring yet?

18,19,20/366

Nope.. I have not given up, but in the interest of not deluging folks with daily examples of my attempts to capture my surroundings for a whole year, I have decided to limit blog posts on this topic and batch my efforts every few days. Submissions are also posted to the project community on G+ and I am finding it awkward to post daily on both sites.

20/366   Work is cutting into my leisure time, dammit.

19/366 A piece of history; a chunk of the Berlin Wall.

18/366  My personal SOPA blackout. It didn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, it just felt right.

15,16,17/366

    17/366


Yes.. the days and photos are piling up like rush hour motorists on the first slick winter day on Disraeli. I thought I would spare monitor space and lump these all into one post.
Photo 17 also is an example of why I cannot just lay around, eating grapes and idly snapping fantastic images all day.
I am finding it easier, with a bit of thought, to find different things to photograph; although there are some trends developing already.

16/366

15/366  Bling II

14/366 Waiting for Warm

One shot; 2 looks. I can't decide which I prefer..

12/366

I wonder if my pond fish spend the winter dreaming of wide open spaces.

11/366 Aqua-doodle

No idea, really.

The insipid original did not even come close to what I anticipated, so into the doodle hopper it went!

10/366 Yellow

       "How wonderful yellow is. It stands for the sun." ~ Vincent Van Gogh

9/366

Mannequins now rarely resemble real people.. perhaps that is for the best.

8/366 Raw Fruit

I have a strange affliction. I find artificial fruit attractive.

It is embarrassing; I think of myself as a person with reasonably good taste, and in my mind fruit that requires periodic dusting falls somewhere between a black velvet Elvis painting and prints of dogs playing poker.
I have had, through the years, glass fruit, wax fruit, papier mache fruit and wooden fruit.

The current resident bowl is filled with the most authentic looking plastic fruit I had ever seen, I was amazed when I saw it, and had to buy one of each variety. The apples look crisp and delicious, the banana even has small blemishes, the rubber grapes look juicy... this is top quality kitsch!

Anyway.. this photo is presented as it came out of the camera; no tweaking .. raw.

7/366

While I love my DSLR.. there are just some times my handy point-and-shoot is a much better choice. This shot of The Sturgeons belting it out at a local watering hole is a good example.

6/366

A visit to MTC gave me an up close view of one of Leo Mol's wonderful works. I liked the fresh snow caught in bronze creases and folds.

5/366

There is something almost eerie about a spring-like day in the frozen north in January. Faces usually wrapped against the cold turn towards the weak sunshine, and towards each other and smile.

4/366

Only 4 days in, and I am already encountering a day with not enough photo time in it! So.. I grabbed the camera on the way out the door to work and found a whole new way of looking while there...

3/366

Today I found that while winter does come with muted tones, it is not all drear and drab. Perhaps, if I keep looking, I will even find some glitz.

2/366

There is a battle within once the holidays are over between the desire to put away all the trappings and trimmings so life can resume as normal; and to hang on for just a while longer to the color and glitz, before it is replaced with the muted tones of the heart of winter.
For today at least, the color will remain..

1/366

A challenge in the winter will be finding subjects/objects when stuck indoors. Finding a new way of looking at the nearby. This is where the "inane" comes in.

From the Inane to the Sublime: My 365 Photo Endeavour

January 1
I have debated beginning this commitment having been made aware of some of the drawbacks of taking it on:

-Fear of failure; not staying with it.
(So what.. like you have never quit anything before? That is no reason not to start!)
-Being less than completely satisfied with the quality of photos presented when quantity becomes a factor..
(Maybe time to lose Polly Perfect sometimes)
-Diminishing the joy of my hobby when it becomes a chore.
(Hmm.. well we shall see)

On the plus side, a little discipline in my life can't be a bad thing, and I sincerely would like to get better at photography. Practice can only make better even if perfection remains out of reach.

My tools for this adventure will be my 2 year old Pentax K-X and my Panasonic DMC-TS3, with the possibility that my Blackberry will even be used for some entries, although the quality there would have me cringing.

I use paint.net for post processing, although I should take the leap and attempt the quantum leap to Photoshop.

Feedback is welcome anytime.

Here we go....

Edit: Oh Geez.. forgot this is a leap year!!

Chasing the Future

I must admit, here and now, that I am no visionary. Even with knowledge of the current state and an awareness of past development in any given technology, I have never been able to foresee the evolution of it.
Growing up, I was fascinated by future visions.I loved The Jetsons, although even then I could imagine mid-air collisions of folks whizzing around wearing jet packs. Agent 86 and Inspector Gadget were my heroes. I longed for a Dick Tracy watch; how cool would it be to hear your friend's crackling voice coming from your watch!
A sci-fi nut from early on; I devoured novels by Jules Verne, amazed at his foresight. Some of the rocket man type fiction predicted in novels from the 50's had already been realized by the time I read them. By that time, hell; men were already leaving footie-prints on the moon!
Sure, I knew all about computers; my dad had used one at work. It filled a climate controlled room with mysterious metal cabinets, whirring sounds and spinning disks. Wearing the rose-coloured granny glasses of optimism, in the late sixties the future was now, with limitless possibilities. I watched "Here come the Seventies" eagerly and dreamed of living in my Domehome.
On a side note, it is interesting that, in researching this topic I have found that designers of futuristic cars through the last fifty years really have not changed up the vision. Their models all look like elongated drops of water, beautifully aerodynamic but 3 inches off the ground with zero trunk space. C'mon guys..
Anyway..You would think that all this attention I paid to it, that I would have my finger on the pulse of the emerging face of technology.
Yeah; not so much.
In a college advertising course in 1980,we were instructed to design an ad campaign for one of the following: a personal computer, a personal video camera, a compact disk player or a mobile phone. Admittedly that year was pivotal, with development at a peak in all those products which, unlike myself, my instructor was apparently aware of.
There I sat, shaking my head. You gotta be kidding, right? What would anyone want with a personal computer? Why do we need CD players; I mean look at the history there.. 8-tracks were a monumental failure, as evidenced by the stack of them I had collecting dust. My cassette player was just fine. A video camera would be great, but who is going to want to lug around 30 lbs of equipment?
And a mobile phone? Pfft..never!!
I do not at this point even remember which I chose, or how I promoted my product; but I am pretty sure the names PC, camcorder, CD or cellular never came up.
I hang my head in shame.
The upside of this is that I am continuously amazed and surprised at developments in science and technology, which is a wonderful thing. I cringe at my hindsight, and try to nurture my foresight.. but it sure ain't easy.