Untitled

Forgotten artwork in my small town's alley way.

Beauty in an abandoned lot.

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Chimes

Happy Friday from my back yard.

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Photo Week Challenge

I am in the mood for another photo week challenge, and I'd like to invite anyone out there to join me. Over lunch today I was reading over a few principles of photographic composition and I thought I would pick one to focus on this week. This challenge is WIDE open to interpretation. Pick ONE area to focus on this week, keep your camera with you wherever you go, and post your top 3 shots by next Monday.

Comment to this post with a link to your flickr page, blog, picassa account, or wherever you've posted your images online along with the principle you focused on and I'll compile the list of participants with my post next monday. Choose from any of the principles of photographic composition from the list below and have fun!

balance, of elements & color (symmetrical/asymmetrical)
light
point of interest
perspective
harmony
contrast
movement
rhythm
line and curve
positive/negative shapes
patterns


PS: this isn't an official list of photographic composition, it's just a collection of things I found interesting as I searched around for information. If someone has a nice comprehensive list, I'd love to see the link!)

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Summer

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#16

I decided it was time to take action and start chipping away at 'the list' this week. I've definitely been keeping busy this year, but I haven't made much of a dent into the list of things I set out to accomplish and there are only a few months left. It makes sense. Most of the items on the list are things that I really want to do, but for one reason or another I find an excuse to put off doing them. When I wrote this list in the first place I figured that if I include a few of my challenges and see them over and over again throughout the year as I check on my list, it might be the extra incentive I need to actually tackle them. I guess now I'm starting to feel the pressure of time to tackle everything, which seems to be the missing ingredient that I've needed to get these items accomplished.

Yesterday Alex helped me out with #16 on my list and it made for an amazing evening!

We tackled 4 different tapas recipes and spent around 2 hrs total chopping and prepping, running to the store for missing ingredients, and of course sampling a delicious bottle of Spanish wine. One can't be expected to make tapas without sharing wine, in our case it was a Tempranillo generously given to us by my coworker and wine blogger extraordinaire Jeff Lefevere. Thanks Jeff! It was delicious!
Amazingly, everything timed out right so that all 4 tapas meals finished cooking at the same time and we ate like kings, with food to spare (even after halving all the recipes).

I am so happy to be one item closer to completing my list, but even more so, I'm so happy that the list required that we make time to spend an evening together experimenting in the kitchen and learning about some amazing foods.

So now for the menu. After looking through recipes here we decided to make the following:

Ceviche using salmon - Fish 'cooked' by the action of acidic lime juice
Patatas Bravas - Crisp Spiced potatoes

Bread with Mushrooms and Alioli
and Prawn and Bacon Brochettes
All of the recipes were delicious, and so different. The shrimp and bacon was by far the easiest, but it was incredibly flavorful, it felt just as special as the other recipes. The bread with mushrooms and alioli tasted so refined, and I loved the garlic and mushroom combination. Next time we'll add more mushrooms per bread slice. The patatas bravas were amazingly seasoned and pure comfort food. We decided that we could probably lessen the ketchup/mayo taste a little by adding more of the seasoning and it would feel a little more gormet. The light fresh flavors of the ceviche was a nice compliment to all of the other rich foods. It was amazing to see how the lime juice 'cooked' the outside of the fish. It's basically raw inside though, so if you dont like raw fish/sushi, this may not be the thing for you. The bed of avacado and tomato with the peppers were a fantastic combination with the fish.

If there are any Spanish readers out there that could share information about tapas in Spain, I would love to learn more or hear your thoughts!

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100% Freshness

As I'm typing this my fingertips are sending up tiny little scent packets of basil left over from my harvest tonight, and it makes me incredibly happy. I'm a beginner when it comes to growing things. I dont have a giant garden, but I do have a couple of small pots growing little vegetable plants and herbs on my back deck.

Tonight, I came home to three bright red tomatoes peeking out at me from the middle of the plant. They're just little guys, but they sure taste delicious. To accompany the tomatoes, I also harvested some basil, oregano, rosemary, tomatoes, chili peppers, and peas. What a satisfying feeling!

Here are a few shots of the produce photo study I did of my humble harvest this evening.

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Train Graveyard

So Saturday night I went with Steph to this train graveyard. I have no idea how long it's been there, but the tracks were overgrown, it was covered in rust, and the interior was rotting and stinky. I wasn't creeped out at first, not until I climbed inside.

(Photo courtesy of Stephanie)

Once inside I saw that I definitely wasn't the first person to venture inside the train, nor was I alone. I stepped carefully, making sure that the floor could support me and as I moved I stirred the smell of rotting wood, urine, and birds.

I kept hearing muffled rustling sounds inside the train, then I noticed that the overhead luggage compartments were lined with bird nests. I didn't go past the first car. We were pretty far away from any civilization, and I figured if all I encountered were birds in the train, that was enough. I had a feeling they weren't the only ones living there.

Before we left we managed to snap a few shots in the evening sun. You can see the entire set here.

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Hazy Summer

This weekend 3 of my sweet friends and I got together for an afternoon to play around with our cameras and attempt to take some editorial style photos. Of course, before we got started, we had to enjoy some fantastic home-made cheese filled crepes, zuccini bars, and bloody marys. Not only can these girls shoot, they can cook too!

The idea for taking editorial style photos came out of the fact that most of the photography I do is more still life. It's hard to set up a time to organize a shoot where you're more in control of the way the set and subject matter looks that also involves people in some way. This was a fun challenge for me to take photos of people without taking portraits per se. We grabbed a couple props for some extra color, but didn't really have a theme of any kind. The main things I tried to focus on during this shoot was composition and color, playing with soft focus, lens flares, and movement. We tried to use props that could demonstrate movement in the photos like the dresses, hair, balloons, bubbles, and a scarf. We were lucky to have a nice breeze most of the day. It was definitely fun to put time aside to do a shoot like this. I know that I personally learned a lot. Especially after looking through the other girl's photos and critiquing what I liked about them. They're all so talented (and pretty too, aren't they)! I put a sampling of the photos we all took together up on my flickr site.

Thanks so much for an awesome afternoon girls! It was a great time on a muggy summer day.

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Just playing around with the alphabet.

Here's a work in progress. Once I find something I'm happy with, this might be good subject matter for another gocco run.

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Dug up some old stuff...

Here's a Lichtenstein-esque version of my sis-in-law that I did a few years back. It was long forgotten, but somehow came into conversation recently so I dug it up and decided to throw it up on a post. I think she may end up using it as a facebook profile pic instead of an actual photo of herself if she decides to part ways with the stock icon they provide. We'll see. :) Well, happy Friday everyone!

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July Desktop

Time for me to switch up the 'ol desktop background. I tossed a few different sizes up on my flickr site for anyone who wants it. Viva July!

Download the size you need here: 1024X768 | 1280X960 | 1920X1200

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the carnival is in town!

I'll tell you something, Lebanon does it's patriotic duty when it comes to celebrating the 4th of July. The entire town comes alive for a week long festival. Live music plays at the bandstand every night, teams of family relay race participants make their way to the park in matching brightly colored t-shirts, red white and blue decorated golf carts put along the streets, and from the open window of our 2nd story office we can hear the muffled sound of the carnival til late into the night. Compared to the usual quietness of our small town, the sound causes an excitement and kind of haunting all at the same time. The wind brings the sound in waves of silence, then screams, unintelligible shouts of carnival workers, and bursts of music as the rides begin, followed by more silence as the wind carries it away. I'd been aware of the carnival for an entire week without visiting. I'd seen the employee's campers from the road outside the park, and the tops of the tallest rides over the trees. But I hadn't gone in for an up close look until the 4th had come and gone. We rode our bikes down to the park on the 5th to see what we could see up close, and here are a few of the things we saw.

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