Project 365, Day 88. It's alive!

I didn't post yesterday, but I did shoot.

I got up fairly early yesterday to have the most important meal of the day with my wife before she went off to work.

That meal would be....coffee.

While I was wandering aimlessly about the kitchen waiting for the coffee to finish brewing, I noticed that one and only one leaf on one of Emily's plants had a single drop of water on the tip, just waiting to fall.

That really wasn't the interesting part. The truly fascinating part was that the plant was still alive.

When we moved in together, I noticed Emily had a had a particularly bad habit of, well....killing her plants. It got so bad at one point that I started calling her Ms. Brown Thumb. (She didn't like that. Still doesn't, now that I think about it...)

I think she killed a cactus once.

Not only is this plant still alive but it is still sprouting new leaves. There are actually two other plants in the house that are growing on top of that.



You can see the frying pan I used as a backdrop completely in the drop if you look close enough.

Yup, it's looking good for the flora around here. Maybe in a few more years, maybe we can let her have a garden!

Music today:
Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin
The Show Must Go On by Queen
Love In An Elevator by Aerosmith
You Might Think by The Cars

Project 365, Day 87. A photographer and his....chickens...

Not ours mind you.

Not that we wouldn't love to have chickens here, but with all of the traveling we do, it's hard enough to get the folks to watch the dogs for a couple weeks on end. Can you imagine Emily's phone call?

"Uh, hey dad, I'm meeting Brian in some fabulous, exotic overseas locale for a vacation. His mom is going to watch the dogs. Would you watch our chickens?"

Of course, knowing my father-in-law...he'd be all over it. He'd have them laying on the sofa with him watching drag racing and eating potato chips by the end of the first day. By the end of two weeks, they wouldn't want to come home.

No, not our chickens, but rather David Tejada's chickens.

I had the great pleasure to work for Dave again today as his photo assistant. It's a little extra spending money in my pocket and a wealth of information on how to use small strobes to light people for portraits. As always, I learned tons!

Here's a shot of Dave to test out his set up before shooting his clients...

Not bad, huh?

After I packed up all of the gear, he noticed that I missed a five dollar piece of equipment and teased that I might lose my job for that.
I told him I fired my last photo assistant for the same thing. He was surprised until I told him my assistant was my dog, Tess. I mentioned that the only thing I could ever get her to do on a shoot was wag her tail.
"That's more than I can get out of you." he quipped. Everyone is a comedian.

After the shoot we went back to his place only to find the chickens chilling out on the sofa in the sun room.



Huh. I'll bet they would indeed dig my father-in-law. Watch out Pop, you may be babysitting new animals as soon as your daughter sees these pictures....


By the way, not only did I take a few years off Dave's face in Photoshop, but I cleaned up that embarrassing piece of chicken shit off of the floor next to the sofa. Ever the invaluable photo assistant....

Music for tonight:
The Unforgiven by Metallica
Mother's Little Helper by The Rolling Stones
Welcome To The Machine by Pink Floyd
Hear About It Later by Van Halen
Brown Sugar by The Rolling Stones
No More Tears by Ozzy
Trampled Under Foot by Led Zeppelin

Project 365, Day 86. To yak or not to yak.

I didn't do much shooting today.

I did packing instead. I thought I might have a pretty good shot at a two week job in Mongolia.

Yeah, Mongolia the country, not the BBQ place down the street. I was pretty excited to be headed to the country that has more yak herders per capita than anywhere else on the planet. (I'm totally guessing, don't quote me on that.)

And why not? After sitting around the house, watching paint dry since September, I'm ready to go back to work! Mongolia, how bad can it be? Genghis Khan fucking loved it there. Afghanistan redefined what I would consider acceptable living conditions and working in Louisiana completely altered my view on what is considered "edible food".

The motto there seems to be if you can kill it, you can eat it. The method doesn't seem to be important. Shotgun, bow and arrow, cage, boat propeller, pick-up truck. If you can stop it from moving in some fashion and slather it with enough spicy seasonings that you could light a cigarette off of it, you can shove it in your mouth. They're a little more fickle in Afghanistan. Who saw THAT one coming?

How bad can yak be compared to crawfish?

Well, it turns out they filled the spot, so I'm getting up bright and early to watch paint dry again tomorrow.

Since I didn't have much time to do any shooting today, I went out back with Emily and shot the lilac buds. I love lilac. The smell is amazing. I have a lot of great memories of summer and childhood associated with that smell. I know shooting the buds is kinda cliche at this time of the year, but there you are.

I wonder if they have lilac in Mongolia. I wonder if it smells like yak shit.



It was snowing while we were shooting. That's frost you see on the buds.

Music tonight:
Better Than You by Metallica
Dreams by Van Halen
Don't Stop Believin' by Journey
Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac
Layla by Eric Clapton
See You Tonight by Kiss
You Really Got Me by Van Halen
A Lil' Ain't Enough by David Lee Roth
Remember Walking in the Sand by Aerosmith

Bonus Post: MASH at Castle Rock*

You didn't really think I was going to take pics of Brian's kitchen table stitches and NOT post them on the blog, did you?













Please note the careful preparation for surgery, including, yes, actually cleaning the wound, and the all-important beverage component. I think this was already Beer Number Two, Beer Number One disappeared before I could get a picture of it.













Here you can see Brian's commentary on my entirely non-sympathetic picture-taking....trust me, that finger placement is NOT accidental!






The entire process was a bit gruesome...but don't worry, there are no suspicious new "ketchup" stains on the table to wonder about.







Somehow he managed to keep a smile on for most of the process - though that's probably just the booze at work there. And if you're thinking that Doug looks like he's really enjoying this.....he is.













Of course, the booze was also the reason that I had to stop Brian from arguing with Tess later on in the evening because he said that she was looking at him funny. She didn't mean it, honey, I promise.

There's got to be a moral in this story somewhere, but I'll be darned if I can find it. If anyone sees it, please let us know. At any rate, it made for an interesting evening of good clean family fun.

What? What do YOU do on a Thursday night?



*With special thanks to Carol, from whom I shamelessly stole the title of tonight's post.

Pic O' The Week #13

Yep, you came all this way to look at one more cliche "springtime bud" picture. However, I like the pic, so there it stays.

Project 365, Day 85. You'll never be this happy with...what's in your mouth?

I have this dog.

Her name is Tess. She's named after one of the wiseguys from the book The Godfather. She's not what you would call wise, though.

In fact, she's never been the brightest crayon in the box. I bet she probably would be if we'd gotten her as a puppy. Instead some asshole got her first and beat her. Badly. As a result, she never really developed as she should have.

Yeah, a special needs dog. She rides the short bus to the park. What flavor are your windows, Tess?

Then one day, it was like a light bulb popped on in her head. Mind you, still a dim one. She helped us potty train our pup, Eddy, she barks at Emily and I when we get...frisky... She even supervised the move from Poncha Springs. And out of all three of the dogs, she was the happiest to see me come home from Afghanistan. That's saying something considering Angie would chew her own leg off just so she could be next to me at all times.

She's gotten better over the years. She still has a few oddities though. She'll fake an injury to get out of taking a bath, but she'll go nuts until you spray her with the vegetable sprayer in the sink.

Before I go any further, do you like duck? I like duck. I cooked one for Thanksgiving at the station one year, it was a big hit. It made everyone happy.

Tess likes duck too. Her duck. And it makes her happy.

She has a stuffed duck that none of the other dogs play with. It's hers and hers alone. And what does she do with it?

She sucks on its butt.

Oh yeah, you read that right. She gets as much of that duck butt in her mouth as she can and starts sucking on it. Then she'll hold it with her front paws and knead it.

Why don't any of the other dogs play with this toy? There is so much doggie slobber in this thing that it sounds like a rotten watermelon hitting the floor when she drops it at your feet. Would YOU play with it?

Did I forget to mention that she likes to play fetch too? Normally other toys are involved, but if she's wound up, she'll bring her duck to you to throw. It's safe to pick up by the head, but if you get the business end....it's like grabbing a crunchy sponge full of dog spit. And if you DON'T pick it up? She'll throw it at you. Again, that's rolling the dice of months of accumulated dog drool.

But hey, nothing makes her as happy as having a mouth full of duck ass. You'll never be as happy as she is when she's sucking away.



Be careful. Don't make eye contact. Otherwise, she's likely to come throw soggy duck butt your way!

Music for tonight:
Hero of the Day by Metallica
Close My Eyes Forever by Lita Ford
Deuce by Kiss
Back In The Saddle by Aerosmith
Walk of Life by Dire Straits
The Show Must Go On by Queen
Shoot To Thrill by AC/DC

Project 365, Day 84. A long lost lens.

Well, I didn't really lose this lens. But I kinda found it again.

In fact this lens is fairly new. I purchased it in Bath, England while on leave from Afghanistan.

However, it's interesting in this day and age, very few people have this lens.

The day used to be that when you bought a camera, you would automatically would get a 50mm f/1.4 lens to go with it.

It's what is called a "normal" lens, meaning it approximates what the human eye sees. It's a prime lens, meaning it doesn't zoom in or out, prime lenses tend to be sharper than zoom lenses, so you're more likely to get sharp photos with it. It's a "fast" lens, it has an aperture of f/1.4, which means it lets in a LOT of light, making it more useful in low light. It's also very small and very light, it fits in the tiniest corner of any camera bag not to mention you can carry it all day and not get tired. Since it won't zoom, you really have to concentrate on your composition, move around to get the shot framed right. And to top it off....it's fairly inexpensive as far as lenses go.

It also has a lot of creative potential as well. Since it has f-stop of 1.4, you can blur the foreground and/or background, leaving only the smallest bit of your subject in focus.

It almost sounds like the perfect lens, doesn't it? It is, if you're just getting into photography.

I had this lens on the very first SLR film camera I had in high school, but only now am I realizing the potential of this lens. I kinda found it again.



This is a shot of Emily's dragon that my buddy in England scored for me to give to her on a birthday.

I love how only a tiny bit of his face is sharp, the rest just fades out into a blur. Don't get me wrong, by stopping the lens down a bit I could get all of him sharp. Tack sharp.

If you shoot and don't have this lens, get it. If you shoot and do have this lens, use it more. If you're going to start shooting, make sure this is one of the first lenses you buy.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go wrap my fingers back so I don't pop a stitch and bleed all over everything. That's what my doctor recommends. Well, ok, my vet....


Music for tonight:
Takin' Care Of Business by BTO
Mr. Roboto by Styx
Bales Of Cocaine by Reverend Horton Heat
Funky Town by Lipps Inc.
Dreams by Van Halen
Rag Doll by Aerosmith
UHF by Weird Al