The Chores, The Stores. Fresh air, Times Square.

An update! Yaaaay! :-)

Well, here's life in a nutshell: Quarter is nearing its end, and Portrait 1 has turned out to be like photographic boot camp. Dark Haired Girl has been occupying much of my time, and it just keeps getting better between us. My house has no air conditioning, and my upstairs room has only a window fan for ventilation. Read: my room (which houses the computer) is a finished attic, the temperature of which routinely soars well up to and over 100 degrees. I'm sweating so hard as I type this that I'm sliding around in my desk chair.

I'm assisting a wedding photographer this Saturday in Zanesville. She is an OIP graduate, and was impressed with the thumbnails I sent her of my previous weddings. I also emailed my resume and cover letter to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base's newspaper. They're looking for a photographer. Cross your fingers for me, k?

I've been shooting with my new Canon like a mad man, and Dark Haired Girl and I went to her parents' farm a week or so ago in the late afternoon. Here's a few:







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My latest Photo Techniques class project is to express time. Lucky for me, the Great Ohio Bike Adventure passed through town last week. It's this week-long bike tour where people ride around 60 miles a day from point to point, and semi trailers haul their stuff and they camp out and have a jolly old time. Our city park turned into a tent city with hundreds of campers, and there was much action to capture. They had a concert on the square where I photographed people dancing to freeze time (much hair and clothing in mid-flip), and I photographed the spokes on a passing horse-drawn carriage.






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Last, but not least, my brother. He just recently bought his dream car: a 2007 Mustang convertible. If you ask why Mustang, his reply is a matter-of-fact "It's the perfect car." He wanted me to photograph him, so I used the time extrusion technique to make it look like he was zipping down the road at twice the speed of sanity. In all reality it was a residential neighborhood and we were going, maybe, 30:




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(and now, my [week outdated] joke of the day!)

NASA: Space Station Computer Crash May Extend Shuttle Mission
The loss of vital computers governing Russian systems aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has left the orbital laboratory dependent on U.S. gyroscopes and NASA's visiting Atlantis shuttle, and may lengthen the orbiter's already extended flight, mission managers said late Wednesday

Quote Atlantis Mission Commander Rick Sturckow: "Fucking Windows XP."

Hello all! (all two or three of my readers, that is) I've been saving up since about January or February, and after accumulating around $700, I've bought myself a gorgeous new camera to replace my busted old Nikon D70s. I called up Fairborn Camera and they had a used Canon Rebel XT kit for $500, which I pounced on yesterday. With that incredible price, I had enough left over to buy a battery grip this morning and a second battery. The new setup looks like this picture that I found off google images (but my gear is identical):



Sexy, isn't it? It's actually a tiny little camera, and without the battery grip (the added bit of bulk stuck to the bottom), my trigger finger hit the shutter button while my middle and ring finger gripped the camera body, but after that my pinky just kinda stuck out in mid air with nothing to hold onto. The grip can hold either two camera batteries or six AA batteries. With the grip it's an absolute joy in the hand, and I can now shoot pictures on the fly.

This is not just a step up from my D70s, but rather a giant leap. Of course, this post wouldn't be complete without the inaugural photograph:



Autofocus and TTL flash metering. It's a beautiful thing. Of course, this being a used model, a previous user/prospective buyer left it in black and white mode. This would be handy except that I prefer the control of converting to black and white in Photoshop.

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Aside from that, Dark Haired Girl and I are closer than ever, and I'm spending the night with her almost more often that I am here at my house. It just keeps getting better, and let me tell you I thought the sex was good when we were "friends with benefits." Now the lovemaking is so intense it warps time and space within the immediate vicinity of her apartment.

This, of course, is not the basis of our relationship, and I don't mean to trivialize anything. It's just that we've already been through that whole swooning Shakespearian love sonnet phase. It sweetly pops up again from time to time, but for the most part, our relationship is broken in like a super-comfortable pair of shoes.

I love it when I'm with her, I miss her when I'm not, and all the beautiful women I see throughout my day (yes, I'm still a functioning heterosexual) only make me want her more.

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Speaking of getting me worked up for Dark Haired Girl... the other day at work, a lady came through the drive through in a low-cut work blouse, and her right boob had almost completely popped out of her bra just short of the nipple as she reached for the items I was handing her. It was great.

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What is it with people who come up to a drive through window in the middle of an obvious mealtime rush and then turn their goddamned car off? That is so irritating, because they're nearly invariably the same people who take an entire minute and a half rummaging for the exact pennies and nickles on their $3.75 order.

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I love how the word 'wanker' has worked its way into the American English lexicon. Even though everybody knows what it means you can still say it on the air freely because it lacks the instinctive offensive impact of 'fuck', 'dickhead', or 'shit'. You'd never in a million years hear 'masturbator' or 'cock stroker' on the radio, but you can bandy 'wanker' about to your heart's content. This tickles me pink.

Fight the establishment, man.