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Dec 16, 2012

Scuffles

Angie indicated these scuffles are as simple as it gets to make, but they are one of the favourite things I have tasted this year. You cannot go wrong with cinnamon and sugar.


As usual, my mother brought a lovely spread of baking with them for their visit this weekend. I will see if I have time to get some photographed before it mysteriously disappears. I say "if I get time" because this week is very full with one shoot planned, five or six social events then just a few days and it is Christmas.

Tomorrow I plan to join the 21st century by spending some Christmas money on a smart phone. I may be crazy for going to Costco this close to Christmas, but here's hoping I'm in, have the phone, and am the first one through the checkout.


With that, in case I do not have anything more before Christmas, I wish you a Merry Christmas, blessed holiday season and a Happy New year!

Dec 10, 2012

Christmas Sugar Cookies

Angie, Arleen and Karen spent a nice day baking together. These sugar cookies are the first of their efforts.


Their other work will be photographed and posted soon... then eaten. ;)

Dec 5, 2012

Christmas Decor for 2012

We don't go all out in decorating our house for Christmas but we have finally found a tree that we really like, that fits nicely in the corner without crowding our limited living room space, goes up easily, and still has plenty of room for all of our favorite ornaments. The half wall dividing our living room from our kitchen is seldom cluttered during regular months but becomes a lovely place to put out our favorite things in December.


Even though we were not sure where we would store it, I am really glad that we got our little light up Rudolph that you could see in the bottom left corner of the top photo. If I ever found an equivalent scale sized abominable snowman from the classic Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer movie I would buy it and make a place for it. The lamp that usually sits in the corner where our tree is was moved down the wall so that we still have light when we need it though I really enjoy having nothing on but the Christmas decorations at this time of year.


I always enjoy going through the boxes of decorations, most of which my parents gave me from their tree when I was young, finding new ones that I forgot we had and old ornaments almost as old as I am. I discovered a pair of new ones this year that were stuck to other ornaments and I realized that they were magnetic. Those two snowmen are now nicely stuck on the shaft of our living room lamp. Angie hung Mrs. Clause's clothesline tonight and I am happy to have a plush, dancing Christmas tree that I received as a gift 10 years ago, sitting on my desk. Thankfully there are no batteries in it because as much as it is a cute little ornament it is one of the most annoying when it is powered up. :-)



The last few years have not felt terribly Christmasy to me despite trying to get into the spirit. I did miss the Festival of Trees this year but have already watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation once, listened to two Boney M Christmas albums and have the Christmas cartoon playlist all ready to go. Mom and dad are planning on coming in two weekends which will stretch out the celebrations over a greater portion of the month and, best of all, I have a gift for Angie that was not on her list and I hope to really surprise her with.

I hope you all have a very pleasant Christmas season and that the following winter does not seem too long even if we are starting with 3 feet of snow on our deck.

Dec 3, 2012

Eleven Days and a Whole Lot of Snow


I knew that my camera had been sitting on the desk beside me for a while now but I had no idea, until I checked the date on the photos still on it, that it had been 11 days. That is a long time ago without making a photograph.

It was time to post something new but I really had little to nothing new or exciting to post for a few good reasons. I have received recent print orders that required my attention and took some time to get in order, printed and delivered. Angie and I have had a few days of not feeling spectacular and now I think I am getting the cold that she is just getting over. Three mornings last week were spent at the track getting much-needed exercise to help kick the "blahs" caused by the remarkable amount of snow and cold that we have already received this year. (The above photo was taken early this afternoon and as you can see we have more snow on our deck already than we did all of last winter.) But beyond that I have been feeling like I have been carrying on on a plateau, photographically speaking.

I have been spending a lot more time reading material that I have read in the past to see how much more I can absorb, purchasing new material to dig deep into to see what else I can incorporate into my abilities and really wanting to spend these inopportune times for shooting to learn, instead.

I can hardly complain about wanting the next big piece of equipment to help me improve my photography because I have great equipment and I know that equipment only makes a photographer better when they have maximized their effectiveness with what they already have. I know that one of the best ways to get better is to simply use what you have and shoot, experimenting and trying new techniques as you go. However, as much as I have had the desire to go out somewhere and photograph in a completely unplanned way, the opportunities and locations have not been ideal. Therefore my alternative has been to attempt to increase my skills through study.


It's not that I haven't made a few nice photos recently. It was a few weeks ago that I did some more staff photos for our church, my favorite being directly above. But as much as I have been enjoying the projects I have been working on and the places I have been able to use my camera to help, I feel like my style has reached a standstill. So many photos have the same perspective, similar setups and similar restrictions. Our dining room has made an excellent place to arrange my photos but it has also added some limitations. That is where I need to take the other options available to me and start using them such as the posing platform my dad so expertly constructed for me and was used for my very popular nuts and bolts photo from last year.



What really encouraged this post, or at least made me take the time to put it together properly, was the amount of interaction I have had with a lot of other photographers online lately. Nothing generates traffic to your website like someone who has a lot of followers referencing you for referring their followers to your site. I do not know how much traffic will be directed here in the next little while from those recent interactions but I thought it might be nice to have something fresh for them to look at as well as have something new for my regular visitors to see.

Just a few more gifts to buy and my Christmas shopping is done so I cannot use that as an excuse for not posting new material. Hopefully this cold does not latch on and I will have the energy to continue producing something worthy of sharing in this space.