What Can I Say...

...i love power poles. and the more wires and birds involved the better.


huh. also, Cooking With Pooh.

huh. she just looks so very miniature in this picture.



haha.


also, i may have gotten a sweet new toy last night. pictures of/from said toy coming soon.

Josh's Conservation Tip of the Day

i've come to realize that i'm not very interested in "recycling" per se (cans, glass, etc), but what DOES interest me is reUSING things. i've been reading This Old House in the bathroom at work for the last couple days and they have a section in there every month on 10 uses for commonly discarded items. the last two were plastic milk jugs and sawdust. i really enjoy learning those kinds of things. i guess i feel like i'm doing better by NOT throwing things away and reusing them.

so anyway, i've never been "big" on wrapping presents. to me, if you can't see what the present is, then job well done... it's wrapped. i've always caught a lot of flak for this from the "normies," but i stand by my work and probably always will. i've also always enjoyed being more of a "DIY" kind of guy, so last year i made my own wrapping paper using the printer and microstation. jesse loved it and it was fun. i was about to carry out this same thing when it occurred to me, why don't i just use all the plans that are already printed out about to be thrown away? sure it's not "personalized" like before, but i've got tons of it, the stuff is really tough (i can really man-handle it, unlike typical wrapping paper and even newspaper), and we're going to throw it away anyway. and thus began, today's bit o conservation...

PROBLEM: i've got presents that need covering! (normally, i'd just leave it in the shipping package and call it "good," but i was feeling festive.)






SOLUTION: use the MASSive amounts of soon-to-be trash paper we have here and wrap 'em up!



now, having wrote this and reading back over it, it seems, well, a stupid and fairly obvious thing to mention and i don't even have that many presents to wrap, but still, it makes me feel better. i like nicely wrapped presents as much as the next dude, but i've always thought purchasing extra paper to wrap something up in, just to have it thrown away immediately after opening, is... well, i can't get behind that.

(of course, this is just my opinion and i mean no offense to my lovely wife who enjoys nicely wrapped presents with pretty paper and who is actually a very good wrapper. :D)


on a side note: i'm currently listening to Steven Colbert's I Am America (and So Can You!) and it's so hilarious i can't work and listen to it at the same time. and tonight we're going to see Nickel Creek. at the Ryman. i love it.

Christmas Card Byproducts

Maeby Says, "Happy Thanksgiving"

but don't forget...

Early Morning on the River

i had to go in to work this past saturday so i decided to make an early day of it and go take some sunrise shots. i didn't know what to expect or look for beforehand, but i'm happy with what i came away with. i even met another nashville-ite. his name was steven.

Italian Spiderman

jon murphy sent me this. it's absolute gold. heck of a find, my friend.

STELLA!

here's a question: how many of you actually click on my pictures to view them big and how many of you just look at them the way they are and move on? AND if you dont look at them big, would you if i displayed them as a smaller thumbnail (one in which you couldnt see everything)? (my reason for asking is because i WANT you to see the full version. i dont take photos for them to be viewed as thumbnails. 95% of the time i'd prefer you see the original 3008x2000, but that's not as feasible. i ask because my wife just informed me that she usually just looks at the thumbnail, so...)

if you dont care at all about what i do, i'd like to hear that too. ...and go. (i really do want to hear from you, whoever you are, no matter what. you wont hurt my feelings.)

Blazing Clouds

something i've discovered about myself is that when i decide to try something and i want to do it, there's a very slim chance i'm going to fail. in fact, i don't remember the last time something i really wanted just didn't work out for me (not necessarily on the first try, but always in time). not that i've ever really doubted i COULD accomplish most anything, but it's certainly nice to come to that realization.

(some water on the lens caused all the flaring in the 2nd one.)

so yesterday's challenge was cloud blur. there were clouds in the sky, they were moving fast, i had my camera and tripod, it was time to go for it. these are the first tries so i'm really excited about combining it with an shot of nashville or something.

LOL Maeby

also, i made this. it cracks me up.

"Knoxville in the Fall." Colon, "Where Did the Hunters Go? The Jesse Hunter Story. By Jesse Hunter, with Josh Hunter."

(done using the gradient layer mask in photoshop. i like it.)

went to knoxville this past weekend. for what reason? well, i'm still not really sure, but it was a fun trip. i felt it was one of our best efforts when it came to spreading a limited time out amongst friends.



we got up there about 11pm friday night and went straight to mandy's where we caught up on her time abroad. (it's so funny seeing someone in the exact same place i was 3 years after coming back from Hungary. you really know what they're going through (withdrawl-wise).) jordan came over, we went out for some serious carbohydrates (beer and frieds), came back and crashed.





got up the next morning and headed over to our old college church (the one and only CSF), walked around some, took some pictures, felt nostalgic, and waited for todd's girlfriend, murry, to come pick us up. saw this:

(this guy was driving around on game day. clearly he has too much money.)

then it was off to todd's new employment residence. (and not to be outdone by murry's mom, say hello to The Adventures of Todd & Stella: You Ask Us for North Face One More Time and I'm Going to Let Stella Have Her Way With You... or something like that. i'm still working on the subtitle.)



or, the classic zoom. (i've really been enjoying this whole "fade between layers" thing.)



here's another. i think he's about to drive into the Take On Me video...



THEN while everyone was watching football, we went to see The Darjeeling Limited. although it's the most "irregular" of the Anderson films, i do recommend it. (Wes is always good for a few tragically hilarious moments.) but before that, walked around the greenway over near farragut, i believe. i love this next picture...





i enjoyed photographing the tiny stella. (there are several more pictures where these came from...)



and finally, we all gathered 'round the panera bread for unlimited caffeine and slightly limited breadlets. with steven. steven reed. who took two of these pictures.

Triptych Maeby Has Cheezburger

this is a triptych and it cracks me up. the more i look at it the more maeby looks like the icanhascheezburger cat.



yeah, i couldn't resist...

The Secret to Cat Photography

as you may know, i am a bit of a cat enthusiast and from time to time dabble in amateur cat portrait photography. well recently i borrow an external flash from my uncle tim (it functions with my camera but apparently doesnt communicate, so i have to do everything manually.) and last night discovered that IT is the secret to successful cat portraits.



this guy has been a very big inspiration to me. and i always wondered HOW he took such wonderfully lit shots. well, i took these last night in our apt with nothing but the bathroom light on in the background... THAT'S how you keep they're pupils so big! so wonderful!

(dudley hides from maeby... a lot)


look at this towering inferno of kitten!



(maeby may or may not have initiated this flight.)

(i see this view a lot in the mornings)



anyway, they aren't all amazing, but it's definitely a start! so who wants pet portraits??

My Office

there's not really a good angle to get the building from. i liked this one though. made from 5 exposures.

From the Archives

i took this first one a while back after i'd gotten the fisheye. it wasn't anything fancy, but i had fun with this post-processing and it's pretty much exactly what i was wanting to do. not necessarily from the start, but sometimes it's hard to figure out how to produce what you see in your head in photoshop. not that there's not a way to do just about anything, but that it can be challenging to just figure out how to do something for the first time. photoshop just has so many options everywhere.



i took this one the same day at the one above. trying a slightly different more advanced approach to the gradient change (color -> B&W). this time i did the fade from one layer to another instead of just within a layer (got help from this tutorial. super helpful.



this 3rd one was from the Bloc Party show. it's not incredible either but i really enjoy it. somehow at 10x zoom i got Kele shaking his hair to come in very sharp. and of course the people's hands up add another dimension. it's fun, but it's part of my life.



i think there are a couple more pics that have caught my eye today. i'll be back with more.

i'm back. this is from Paolo Nutini at the Wildhorse Saloon. that place was like a rock-opera concert hall. and with 3 floors, it was just pretty dang awesome.



saw this sign on our way back to our car.

My 10.5mm Fisheye vs. the Sigma 10-20mm

so lately i've really been considering getting this Sigma 10-20mm. so i went to try it out the other day at wolf camera (those guys crack me up; they actually think i'm going to buy something from them at full price right when i walk in the door... funny guys). i was rather surprised at how LESS wide it is than my fisheye. i guess that's my fault and that IS the point of a fisheye (to grab way more than any regular lens), but i didn't see that coming.

standing in the same place, i took these...

Sigma 10-20mm


Nikon 10.5mm


when i overlap them, i get something like this...



crazy, eh? so the 10mm is wide, but not NEARLY as wide as the fisheye. however it still stands that it produces much less distorted images than the fisheye. oh well. not sure what to do now.

My Gmail Changed...

did yours?