#28 - Shorty

I was walking by a co-worker's desk and he had his hard hat sitting on his muddy shoes. I first thought it looked like a really short guy, so I had to take a picture of it.

#27 - Crap-a-saurus

Wow! This one sucks! I admit, I was being lazy and just saw a pair of Conner's robot dinos sitting there and thought I'd take a picture of it. It was pure laziness on my part. I feel so dirty now. I'll try harder.

#26 - 4/26

This is the "other" side of my computer that I look at most of the day at work. The main thing is my clock. Several years ago when things started going to shit, I would concentrate on work and try to get through the day. For about a week, I'd look at my clock to see what time it is and about every day it said 4:26. Unconsciously was looking at my clock at the exact same time every day. I thought it was an omen or good luck or something. Then it dawned on my that 4/26 is my birthday. So, every time I looked at my clock, or I knew that it was 4:26, I'd make a wish. They never came true, but I still do it out of habit. Maybe one day it will.

Psst.... you can't tell, but the time on the clock says 4:26. I did that on purpose. But it didn't show up. So now I suck. Damnit!

#25 - Nothing

Well, I guess I'm the first one to mess up. Driving all day, then a movie and relaxing once I got home, I forgot to take a picture today. My bad.

#24 - Disco Night

This is Isabeau (Mirinda), who is Toen's wife. Tonight Toen was elevated to Pelican and in a humorous twist to his ceremony, a disco ball was involved. Anyway, everyone was in a dancing mood so I took a picture of Mirinda as we were packing up and leaving.

#23 - Road Trip

Went to Chieftans this weekend with Jenn and stayed the at the Ramada Inn in St. Louis. After driving all night, and busy with other things all day, I almost forgot to take my picture for the day. So this is the view from our hotel window. Exciting, huh? I do like the starburst effect my phone did.

#22 - "Son"set

We were driving down the highway tonight and I thought the sunset was particularly pretty so I wanted to get a picture of it. All I had was my phone and I was driving, so Conner asked to take the picture. So the picture above is what he took, I like it the best. I think he did a pretty good job. I like that it's tilted a little bit. Not bad.

[Ed. Note: It wasn't until the next day did I see that Jenn took a picture of the same sunset. This is twice we've done the same picture on the same day.]

Well, to be official and all for this project, I have to post something that I took. Although I took some sunsets as well, I decided to post this one of Conner being.... well Conner. He likes to make faces for the camera, for me, for friends, for Jack, for...... just about anytime.

#21 - DWMD

Bwah-ha-ha-ha!! My desktop catapult arrived today (aka Desktop Weapon of Mass Destruction). Soon I will be flinging projectiles all over the place. Today the desktop, tomorrow the feast table!!! You've been warned!!!

#20 - Scroll Humor

This is a snippet of one of my scrolls. I like the detail and artwork on them, but this one in particular I like. If you are in the SCA, you may notice where it says "Shire of Forgotten Sea". If you are not in the SCA, you could probably care less. But I thought it was funny. It's rare, like the upside down stamp.

#19 - Lantern

I am playing catch-up with uploading these pictures. I have stayed on schedule for taking them, but my internet connection has been wiggy lately. This is the third time I've tried to upload this particular post.

Anyway, this is a hanging metal lantern that is currently hanging in my front room. It belongs to Vaska and I like the pattern that is in it. I know now that I should of lit it so you could see the pattern better, but I just realized that. I guess that's what this project is for, to get us to think about stuff like that to make a better picture.

#18 - Chick Magnet

Behold the power in the cuteness of Jack! She had a bunch of the waitresses playing and cooing over her. Too bad the rest of us were invisible. Ok, that's not fair. I was invisible evidently. Oh well, I'm not going to loose sleep.

#17 - Reflected Con

We went out to eat at Bennigan's and encountered what will be remembered as the "Monte Cristo" evening. We were sitting next to some mirrors on the wall so I thought I'd take a shot of Con through the mirror. He caught me and posed.

#16 - Neon Lights

We (Heather, Jenn, & I) went to see Ghost Rider tonight. Above us in the lobby is a bunch of neon shapes to hopefully distract you from the big, ugly, empty space of their lobby. So I thought I'd take a picture of it. I was thinking of trying to capture all the colors but that would require a tripod and it was really too much work than I wanted to put into it honestly.

About the movie. It was ok. I did not read Ghost Rider enough to be able to pick it apart like I can with the X-Men movies. It was decent entertainment. Plus it had Sam Elliot, always a bonus in a movie. Plus copious amounts of cleavage.

#15 - Furry Poser

I'm sitting here trying to think of a clever way to describe the following picture, and how I came about it. But I can't really so I should just state it simply.

I've had a squirrel around my house for some time. He's quite visible, and loves how my trees and house is arranged. He can go from the street to the the backyard neighbor's yard without touching the ground. On most days I can hear him jumping to and from my roof, sometimes missing and falling onto the metal awning over my porch. What a racket!

When it snowed, this last time, I've seen him in my yard digging in the snow for food. And he's been pretty intent, and no very afraid of us to run off like most squirrels do. So I took out my camera and tried to get a picture of him. With my camera, I couldn't get close enough zoom to get a good shot of him. So I kept getting closer and closer, waiting for him to run, and he didn't. Eventually I got too close for his comfort of about 10 feet and he ran up the tree.

But he was very interested in the flashing of my camera, or at me, or was pissed that I was interrupting his hunting & gathering session. He climbed out on a branch that was over my head by about two feet and sat there, talking to me. He was chirping and clicking up a storm, trying to get a better look at me. I kept taking photos. It was like he was posing almost. I choose to add this one for today's entry. I'll add the others to my Flickr 365 spillover account later.


He eventually got tired of me and ran up onto my roof and off to his home. It's a good thing cause my fingers were getting too cold to take anymore pictures. You can see in the picture his path in the snow on my roof.

#14 - B/W Test

I thought I'd try some tests with portraits and black and white. Not too pleased with any of them, but of them all, I despised this one the least. One thing this project is going to do is make me think about how to take pictures again, and give me the opportunity to try different things.

#13 - Fat Snow

We got a nice snow last night. It was one of those wet snows with the big fat snowflakes that just muffle sounds, and just turn the place white. The first shot is of icicles off my front porch awning, and the second is the branches of my tree drooping under the weight of the snow. It was very cool to see it fall last night. I love those types of snows.

Although I took them last night and they don't count towards this project, I did want to share them. Here is one of a bird taking refuge in my upstairs awning:

More images of the snow can be found at my 365 Spillover page on Flickr.

#12 - And....?

Chief giving me one of his "What?!" looks. He is getting old, but when he puts his ears up like that, he still looks like a pup. The black patch around his eye is mostly gray now.

#11 - Freak Show

Taken at KC Children's Museum. We were at the museum and they had this mirror you were to stand by. I had Conner do it and took this picture. He was a little too excited to stand still and cooperate to get a better picture, but I still thought this was funny.

#10 - Light & Shadow

I was at dinner tonight and noticed the lights above were being shown through wood slats, diffusing it. I thought it was interesting as it also gave a nice shadow pattern on the wall. I do so love patterns and light and shadow.

#9 - Being Negative

Whoa! Ok, I have to admit I was really stretching to find something to take a picture of. This one was the toughest one yet. The others always presented themselves but this time, it was reaching midnight and I had yet to get a decent picture. So I was playing around with my camera on my phone and found out that it had a negative setting and ta-da! Kinda eerie but I think it's pretty interesting too. Not bad for last-minute, although I think you can tell it was last-minute.

#8 - Floral Dream

When I was taking pictures back in high school, I discovered that I had a knack for taking floral photography. Granted, it isn't my favorite, but most of what I took, turned out pretty decent. And for me to say that about my own work says something. I was on the school paper and yearbook taking pictures of sports and candids and such. That's what I enjoyed, but they rarely turned out on any consistency as my florals did.

I took this at a local hobby and craft store. They had a bunch of fake flowers on display in various colors and sizes. I thought the explosion of color of the flowers would be a good shot. I picked up my phone, not sure why I didn't use my camera. As I was taking the shot, I was not happy with it. I couldn't crop out the store in the background, or the harsh lighting and was just pretty much unhappy with it when I initially took it. I wished I got my camera out and used it instead. But when I looked at them later, I thought they had a really cool effect going that I had not expected. It kind of looks like a dream or something in a fog. I liked it. And if I did use my digital camera, I probably would not of received the same effect. So there it goes that sometimes the best things started out as mistakes.

#7 - What'd you say?

Well, one week down, and I made all of the deadlines. But there is a LONG way to go, I know. I took this with my phone. I tried to make a odd look, but also one not too unimaginable me making. I'm not sure if I ever make this face to this extreme, but sometimes I feel that I do. Most of the time it involves Emrys or Miguel writing checks again, I feel. The light above is way too harsh for what I wanted, but it was a spur of the moment type of thing. I did play with the contrast balance a little to make it look better. I don't think it's half bad considering I couldn't see what I was doing when I took it.

I know I already did a self-portrait (kinda). But one of the benefits of this project is to see how you may have changed throughout the year. And I just got my haircut and beard trimmed today and thought I should have it documented. Not that you can really tell in the picture anyway.

#6 - Fish Cancer

Well, we welcomed our newest additions to the house. Con and I went out and got him the fish I promised him. I didn't know how these would turn out. I tried a few different things, and nothing spectacular, but this was one of the best ones. I thought the detail on the scales with the light flicking off them was pretty cool. At first I didn't use a flash in fear it'd reflect back into the camera but I couldn't get a good shot without it. To my surprise, the flash worked. The fish are still freaked out about the move so I probably pissed them off more by shooting a flash at them while they were trying to adapt. Probably have some sort of fish cancer now.

#5 - First self-portrait

I was standing in the lobby of my work and thought I'd take a picture of the floor tiles. Again patterns. See a pattern here? Ok, that was a little overboard. Anyway I took a picture of my feet to get my self-portrait out of the way. I know these self-portraits are going to be the toughest.

#4 - Ice & Patterns

I went out onto my porch this morning and noticed how the snow and ice have melted pretty much off of it, except in the shadow of my railing. I just thought it was interesting so I took a picture of it. A nice line of ice, in perfect match to the shadow. Not very exciting. But it's also a nice pattern of the shadows.

#3 - Full Moon Bloom

I was outside taking Chief out for his nightly business and noticed the moon. Also to test out the camera on my new phone I took a shot of the full moon on a perfectly clear winter night. I got a nice bloom effect. Not the greatest, but I kind of like it in it's simplicity.

#2 - To my right...

This is what I see to the right of my monitor every day at work. I kind of took this idea from Jenn. I guess that's why we are all doing it so that we can "inspire" each other.

In the picture:

• Several photos of Conner including my favorite when he was about three.
• My Star Wars M&M characters that Conner begs me to let him play with.
• My mini-bat that I use to threaten people at work with. Very effective.
• A handmade Valentine's card from Conner last year.
• A favorite picture I took of Vaska and Dallas at an SCA event several years ago.
• My blue Bawls bottle.
• A candy tin for Jones Soda Co. carbonated candy. Yum.
• And my K-State cup that I drink my iced tea from every day.

I'm a pack-rat and I like personalizing my space. So this is what I look at during the day when I feel a need to de-stress.

#1 - Untitled

Taken at our Shire Meeting. Jenn (ska Maerwynn) is working on her loom. I like to get in close on things I shoot. I think you will see more of that as I progress.
This one of Conner is extra one I took tonight. He was singing in the car and I tried to capture him while he was singing and dancing in his seat. I didn't get it really, but I got a good close-up of him.

In the Beginning....

Welcome to my 365 Photo Project for 2007. I have a friend (hello Kendra) who is part of a group that is doing a "Photo-a-day" project and I thought it was a cool idea. I heard about it a bit too late to start on New Years. At one time in the distant past of my youth, I was wanting to be a professional photographer, and I still love taking pictures now. So I thought this was a cool idea.

So anyway, I was talking to Heather the other day and we thought it'd be a cool idea to do our own. So hence this site. Her site is here. In our planning for this, KC and Jenn thought it was a neat idea and they are going to join us. Maybe we'll get others as well. We'll see what happens.

Now, the "rules".

1. Take & post at least one photo a day for a 365 days (that's a full year kiddies).
2. One picture a week has to be a self-portrait of some kind.
3. Have fun and be creative.

Heather and KC have set up further rules or restrictions like one has to be of their daughter, one can be an animal, one can be a stuffed animal or toy, etc. I am not going to put those restrictions on me right now, but I will try to follow them nonetheless. I can see a whole series of "Where's Spud?" pictures.

Well, I guess it's February 1st, so I need to go out and get my first picture taken. I hope you like it. I'd love to hear any comments on anything I've taken. We'll see what 2007 has in store for us.