Color. Colour. Significant Eye Candy, However You Spell It.

Eye Candy, to start off your New Year.



No, I don't have a Canon printer, no affiliation, etc.



Go here for more about these videos. Go here to be totally blown away by more of these incredible images.

A Photographer's Beads

Blogging has led to friends. This special friend always makes a point of seeing us when we come to New York City. She makes fused glass beads (showing them to Susan here) and is an extremely skilled photographer. Go here to see what I'm talking about.

Perfection on a Pumpkin: Meredith

At the end of my Sunday bike ride I stop by Whole Foods for coffee and a snack. Today I started taking a lot of pictures of the huge piles of pumpkins and squashes...squashi? .....squashs? ... anyway, those round lumpy things.

All of the sudden, as if by magic, this little girl wandered over and sat down on one of the pumpkins. There is no way I could have ever found a more beautiful model. Or planned a more perfect picture. Thank you, Meredith (and Meredith's Mom), for letting me take and post this picture.

A Valentine For You

Pink is not my choice of color, although when it comes to the question of discrimination based on skin color, it is always good to remember that we are all pink on the inside.

When we were in Washington DC in November we had to pick a color that would let Susan play with her camera. (In New York City it was funky green.) To pick the color we timed one minute and the first color that showed up around the corner of the Metro stop was . . . pink.

It was raining the time we were there and I'm very glad we didn't choose this week to be there. Here's what we learned about pink: Pink is the color of choice for every little girl under the age of 10. Susan actually got tired of looking for pink because it was too easy. See a little girl? Pink.

The one renegade picture we snuck into this collection was a little boy with boots that made us smile.

Other Worlds

Often I find someone else's blog photos inspire me to stop focusing (so to speak) on the technique of photography and just take the damned picture. The photos on Magpie's blog are one example of "Just do it."

Susan And The Doctor's Office (and Updates)

Susan speaks: It's been 16 months. I couldn't stall it any longer so I went. (Final score: Passed.) Doctor: "Slide down, please." ??? Excuse me, I'm paying -- you slide up.

Is this related in any way whatsoever to art? Yes. If I hadn't been so busy sketching I would have unrolled some of the exam table paper. Good paper. Free paper! What could they do if they found out I'd unrolled a lot of paper? Tell me to put it back? Next year, while I'm sitting there in that too-small paper dress. . . .

Update #1: The first and third pictures (front and back) of the Renner Books post are of Don's book (darker spine).

Update #2: Thanks for all the camera tips, both in Comments and in email. Unfortunately, most advice applied to SLR cameras and this is just a basic point-and-shoot camera, with a number of options just not possible -- for example, there are only two f-stops, both pre-set and unchangeable. The sensor is relatively small.

The distortion is called "barrel" effect or "pincushion" and it is fixable in Photoshop Elements 2.0 by using the Spherize and/or Pinch filter, which is how I tweaked the Renner book photos. Distort/Skew/Perspective actually can distort too much if you aren't careful. But none of the options do a perfect job and I hate to have to tweak every picture. The advice that seems to be working is this: Stand way back, as far as possible, from the object and zoom in to take the picture. A tripod is recommended. So instead of putting objects on a table and standing over them to take pictures, I'll be putting them on the floor. We'll see.

I have to keep reminding myself we bought the little point-and-shoot because I wanted just that: a little camera to snap quick pictures, no need to worry about a lens or any settings (although it does have a number of Scene options and ISO settings). And it was the best fit in my clumsy hands.

NYC Mellow Yellow

Susan is a big fan of Bill Cunningham's On The Street but fashion photography isn't very high up on her Top Ten List. So she picked a color -- yellow -- as we headed out to museums. Taxis did not count.



She quickly realized that taking pictures while you walk toward people walking toward you was difficult unless you like blurry pictures. She also realized that leaving the camera on all the time ran the battery down a lot faster than she liked. And the battery would die exactly when the perfect shot appeared.


My trek through the city that day was accompanied by my intrepid photographer muttering "Yellow, yellow, yellow...."

NYC 2008 - Part 2

Last year at the MOMA there was a strange room with different light reflecting off the walls. It was some famous (obviously) artist and although I don't exactly understand what was happening it did make taking picture interesting. Here, Susan is trying to see the camera settings, which she never understands anyway. But she really doesn't care, she just keeps taking pictures like the one below. I don't exactly understand her pictures either but it keeps her happy and busy so who cares?

Round Top Stories Untold

More shots from when we were at Round Top. Looking at the pictures now just makes me wonder what the history is. Some of the stuff sold is just made to look old but it still conveys to me that sense of mystery and abandonment.

Old? Maybe Not

Lots of stuff at Round Top and it's easy to be suspicious when you see large accumulations of similar items for sale. Poking around often yields the "Made in China" sticker but I don't care where it's made if it looks interesting for my pictures. I'm getting used to Susan's camera which she has yet to take a picture with, mainly because it's fast becoming "Don's camera."

Falling Leaves

I know you people up North will find this hard to believe but here in Texas we get to rake leaves TWICE every year. This picture was taken yesterday, not last fall when the other trees dropped their leaves. Our live oak trees like to drop their leaves in the spring which means Susan grits her teeth for at least a week straight while everyone and their brother uses those damned piercing-whine power blowers to move their leaves around. She hates the noise they make and is quite, quite, very quite ... cranky while it is going on all over the neighborhood. We use an old fashioned springy rake: Screech, screech, screech as we rake leaves.

The picture above was taken with Susan's new camera. We are sort of at a dead-lock on that new blogging book she gave me. I've offered to learn all about how to use her new camera in exchange for her doing all the photo work (Photoshop Elements 2.0) and blogging for me. I'm just pretending The Book hasn't been sitting there on the table, untouched. She's just pretending I'm going to start getting on the computer once in a while. And she's starting to talk about a new version of Elements. In the meantime, she fiddled with the color on the picture.

SXSW

SXSW is here. If I didn't live here I'd have no idea that it was actually pronounced "South by Southwest". Don't call it anything else or you'll reveal your ignorance. It's really 3 different events over 10 days: live music (the original SXSW), interactive and film. If you're under the age of 30 you are here now, causing huge traffic jams, crowding every restaurant, wandering across streets in a daze (chemically induced or fatigue stupor or just youthful stupidity) and completely messing up the check-out counters at Whole Foods. And, just to make sure all bets are covered, the Rodeo is here with its lineup of country music.

It may be Southwest but the scope is international. SXSW started in 1987 with about 700 people attending. This year they have over 1900 bands performing live and 594 of them are from outside the US. Where? For example, Australia (28 acts), Ethiopia, Slovenia, Faroe Islands, Palestine, South Africa, Turkey, and so on. Click here to see the map.

The great thing about SXSW is that some really good music floats to the top here and then goes on to make it big on to the national scene. Norah Jones was at SXSW before she got that Grammy and Bon Iver was here last year. Big names, like Quincy Jones and Erykah Badu, come to visit. Late edit: Last night, Friday, they had a surpise appearance of Metallica, a band that gives me a headache just to think about.

The weather this week is incredibly perfect: high 70s in the day, cool low 50s at night, cloudless blue skies and no mosquitos (yet). This is bad. It makes everyone who is just visiting here for SXSW want to move here.
No.
Don't.
Please stay home.
We have enough people here.
Especially enough slackers.
Remember that movie from 1991? " ...Presents a day in the life in Austin, Texas, among its social outcasts and misfits, predominantly the twenty-something set ... "

Susan and I try to just stay home for the crazy SXSW week but this year she had a brief brain-fart and thought she wanted to go to the SXSW Interactive. Thankfully she regained her senses and I didn't have to navigate all the closed-off streets downtown to drop her off (Yes, Austin closes off streets for the events. Think lots of $$$ coming to Austin, thanks to all those trust-fund-baby slackers.)

There is a meme out there floating around in cyberspace where you put things together to make a record album. Susan found it on other people's blogs (here and here, for example) and was ready to get pulled into that big time-sucker but successfully fought it off. There's no reason to try to randomly generate a band name when these names are already taken by REAL bands:

Wild Beasts

These Are Powers

The Shaky Hands

Attack! Attack!
Abolone Dots

Eat Skull

Naked on the Vague

Meat Puppets

Tub Ring

Dirty Projectors

A Hawk and a Hacksaw

Stars Like Fleas

Turbo Fruits

So how does this all tie in with the picture above? That's the little stone from inside Peevey's head, rephotographed with Susan's NEW camera that she hasn't used yet but I obviously have. The words written on it are my misquoting from "The Littlest Birds" by The Be Good Tanyas. A way cool song.

Tuba Christmas

Yesterday was my favorite day of the whole holiday season: Tuba Christmas. Over 200 tuba, sousaphone and euphonium players entertained us with a one-hour noon time concert on the steps of the Capitol. I really don't know what anything but a tuba is; the other instruments are smaller but they still do the oomp-pah sound just fine.

Mike and Janis and Susan and I arrived in plenty of time to get front row seats with our folding chairs. Then Janis and Susan abandoned us to play paparazzi as they both buzzed all over the place with their cameras -- Susan with her taped-up little camera and Janis with her heavy artillery.

Some schools bus in their band students from over 100 miles away so we get little guys and we get the old guys too. They practice for just one hour and then walk in to the Capital grounds and group up casually for the concert. Everyone has a great time, especially the spectators. Because the event never seems to get any publicity, other than word-of-mouth, the crowd isn't too big.

If you've never been to Tuba Christmas, GO! You might still be lucky enough to find one near you or at least plan ahead for next year.

Here's a picture Susan caught of Janis. The pictures following this one are all ones Janis took.

Both Susan and Janis were fascinated with this guy's tuba, which he bought on eBay.

Nothing says Christmas like Jingle Bells played on a tuba!

Gathering Stuff

Susan and EJ went to an Estate Sale last week even though she was pretty sure everything would be picked over because it was late on the 2nd day. Fortunately for me she only had $40 cash with her so that kept her from buying more than one of these cool school posters at $15. It is about 3'x5', has some water stains but still looks great.

The Belgian story book intrigued her because instead of the characters having word balloons over their heads so you know who is talking, they have little character heads next to the text. Or maybe that's the way all story books are now. What do we know? We grew up with Dick and Jane.

Once she photographed the poster she had to go crazy with Photoshop. She told me she had planned to cut the poster up (it's paper glued on heavy canvas) to make book covers but now she's liking it the way it is.

Other loot acquired included old velvet-covered record album books, children's silverware, wooden weaving shuttles, a china doll head, a weird Kewpie doll with one (broken) arm, and some mysterious old tools. All in all, a good haul.