Last Thursday I got a new toy. I finally decided to join the club and get an iPhone. Let me tell you, so far I love it. I am having no trouble typing on it at all. Maybe that is becasue I m such a poor typist on a keyboard that this is no different. Downloaded about a full page of apps. I’m pretty excited about this thing.

Happy New Years everyone! Of course, this prop was very soon consumed. That and it’s brothers. At least two of it’s brothers, possibly three. More than likely three. Or more. And a beer or two. But that’s it. Honest.

I’ve done another imge like this in the past. I wanted to take another try at it not because I didn’t like the other, Frankly that one is quite a bit better, but because I wanted to try out my new toys. I got a new light to help on the shooting side (LED, changes colors via a remote, awesome) and a Wacom tablet to help on the editing side. This used a bit more of the tablet as I need to figure out the correct settings for the camera light combo to make it work as well as I’d hoped. So there was a bit of post work done on it, and for that the tablet worked marvelously.

I also need an adustable lamp to house the bulb in(maybe like that one in the Pixar movies), there is only so much you can do with it in a fixed angle one. But that comes later. For now I’m happy with them.

Traveling for the holidays again this week. So I’m taking the week off. If you are traveling, do so safely. Hopefully everyone who wants to spend time with their family, gets to.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Blessed Yule, and if I missed anyone, you have a good holiday too or at least some nice time off.

I’ve started working out again. The doctor recommended it. Plus I’ve noticed the scale is reading heavy again. Maybe this will stop that. I added a bunch of effects in Photoshop for no real reason other than to dress it up. Normally I believe that effects should be used for a reason. But, I am a trained artist. There is a dirty little secret that I learned in art school. Sometimes the concept comes after the work is done. This is one of those cases. But I don’t have it yet. Maybe someday. Until then enjoy the picture. Maybe tell me what it says to you.

This is a picture of my neighbors’ christmas lights. It is a combination of the ones on each side of me. The sharp ones are the twitchy ones who seem to think someone is trying to blow up thier mailbox. Really. The soft ones are on Mr. Deep-voice on the other side. These I took while sitting behind a bush against my house. Probably looked like I was hiding in the bushes taking pictures of their house, and I guess I was, but only becasue there is not as much snow there. And I can lean on the house to steady myself. No really. Why does everyone always assume the worst?

This one was hard. Not the image so much. But or the concept really, it just took me a while to stumble onto it. I had a shot in my head that I thought of yesterday while watching the Packer game (grrr…) I was going to take a photo of the lemon, apple and watermelon drops I bought. Was ok. But not spectactular. I was looking for more. So I took a swig of my beer and started looking for things in my room that might make an intersting image. I took one of the head of my beer, one of a sock monkey, the beer bottle. Finally I grabbed the hat I was wering yesterday that never got off my desk. 85 pictures after picking up the camera, I got the winner first try. I took two more, but they were not as good. Focus was off.

We’ve had snow lately, then yesterday it got above freezing for the first time in a while. Today cold, bitterly cold. And getting worse. That is the perfect recipe for ice. I’m not a fan of winter, but if it went away, I’d miss the iciciles. Not sure what it is about them, the way they crach when they fall down, the memories of pretending to want to beat my brother with the really large clublike ones (you have to scare younger siblings somehow), maybe they are just pretty. Whatever the reason, I like them. Except when they are hanging off my roof, that means there is a possible issue.

The photo is blue because it was a cloudy day and I was using a setting to mimic positive film on the wife’s digital camera. I used it so that it would pick up the coolness of color that I always think that ice should have.