it’s something…

This shot is inline with some of my other pictures and continues the game series.

I had a $25 gift certificate for Regal Cinemas, so we decided to use it to go see Cloverfield. We left a little late and were cutting it pretty close to get there on time. The closet Regal joint is Pointe Orlando. If you haven’t been there before, they have a box office on the lower level and the theaters are on the second level. Since we were running late we went straight up stairs to use the automated ticketing things. Punch everything in and put the card in the machine…no worky! Try again and again…GRRRR. Try the other one, same thing. So dude says “oh go downstairs they scan for you there.” Tick tock. Two open windows, two people taking forever. Tick tock. Get to the window…blah blah blah, total blah blah, here is my gift cert blah blah…sorry sir no worky you need to go to customer service….ARRRGH…so you are telling me that I am not going to make it to this movie. Chick at the other window says just punch it in…”didn’t work”. I am beginning to understand why these guys are behind 2 inch thick glass. The chick says let me do it…beep beep beep, done.

Bust ass back up the stairs and walk into the theater just as the movie starts…20 minutes after the “start time”.

Oh yeah…we all liked the movie, but I thought the monster could have been a bit more something…

I think I have started a new series. I know some of you are not big fans of the still life stuff, but with this shit weather I have to work with what I’ve got…you know what I’m saying. And like I was telling someone the other night, shooting still life helps me develop my skills and stuff. Just think of the still life as a miniature landscape shot…

So when I looked around for something to shoot, the idea hit me to shoot some games. So for the second shot of the series we have Parcheesi, “A Backgammon game of India”.

Yes the second shot…dominoes…der.

There is a bird in this picture…I swear. When I took the pictures I didn’t notice how much the bird blended in with the water…in fact I never noticed any blue in this body of water ever. I guess it is reflecting the sky, but that is kind or weird considering it was really overcast this morning when I took the picture. I am not sure what kind of bird this is, but I think it might be some kind of egret.

So…want to play dominoes?

Something a little different tonight. Mostly cause I am lazy. This shot was done entirely with things that I could reach from my lazy boy. As a result I didn’t have great lighting so I added a filter to the image to make it look artistic or something. The monochromatic thing helps with that a bit too.

I think it is pretty decent for like 20 minutes from start to me typing this here…

So today a couple of things came together to bring you this post…

First there is a friend of mine who has been encouraging me to take more food pics. Encouraging to the point of her buying me a book about taking pictures of food.

Secondly there was this. Which resulted in my overwhelming desire for a bowl of chili. In fact I had to make a special trip to the store to buy the supplies I needed to make it.

Anyway it is pretty tasty…just a tiny little bit too spicy.

*edit I reworked the levels on the pic a bit to make it less dark

Yesterday on the way home from work there was another great sunset, but I couldn’t get to decent spot to shoot it in time. It is very frustrating when I know that I am close enough to a spot that would make a great shot, but I can’t get there because the fucking idiot driving in front of me insists on going slow. This is more than me being an impatient lead foot…it is every fucking day on the same road I am behind some different person that is driving 10 MPH under the speed limit. Yes…UNDER! It is fucking insane. Actually that isn’t the part that makes me the most nutty though. It is the person whose speed fluctuates. The are driving the limit…then slow down…then speed up…then slow down…then speed up. On a straight road!! Nine times out of ten…once get to where I can see the driver it is a chick talking on a fucking cell phone.

Anyway I was going to try to get out and shoot something this evening, but the weather was shit so that was a no go. So I shot these flowers instead…

I have been thinking I need to make up some biz cards that I can hand out when I talk to someone who might want to see my pics or something. And Or to toss in when I send someone a print. Then when someone says to the person who has the print…”Hey the picture of the mexican shitter in your shitter is really nifty where can I gets me one of those?” The person with the shitter pic can say “OH…let me give you one of his cards!!!!1!”

So anyway…I am thinking of something like this. Maybe a couple versions one more like this one for the whackos, and one with my name on it for the less whacko whackos.

OH and the actual card will not have a white border that is just for internet clarifications or something.

OK…so I cheated. I had this shot that was a pretty good sunset, and there is a cow in the foreground. Kind of neat, but there is a problem. When I made the pic bright enough to see that there is a cow there the sunset went bye bye…and the vice is versa also…good sunset the cow goes bye bye.

If I had a “full kit”, one of the things in my bag would be something called a gradient filter. A gradient filter is dark on the top and lightens to clear at the bottom. This lets you kind of “fake” out the camera a bit. Since I don’t have one of those in my bag I had to add the filter in photoshop.

So now we have sunset and cow…