Let's not forget about the flowers

Bee, originally uploaded by Breathe in Digital.

In the euphoria that has resulted from all of my new lighting toys, I nearly forgot how great it can be to just walk around and snap shots of things you see. Yesterday I had the opportunity to search around the Matthaei Botanical Gardens for photo opportunities with Kathleen. The flowers there are not in full force yet, of course, but there were some great sights to see. This was my favorite capture of the trip.

In the meantime, I recently did an engagement shoot with my friends Sam and Jenny, and a couple of photos from that session will definitely end up here once I work some more on the set (650 photos, egad!), and tomorrow I'll be doing a shoot with Holly. A proper shoot, not just a shot at a bar like last time, though I really did like that shot.

Until then.

UPDATE: A big shout out to my roommate, David Wizard, for putting together my new banner! Much better than that pile of rubble I had picked out before.

That Squirrel Would Be COVERED in Makeup

David and I were out on the back porch the other day when a very nosey squirrel decided to come up and investigate. I ran back inside to grab my camera, but squirrels don't pose, and when they do, they don't pose in visually interesting places (these are the rules that I've just made up). However, I managed to get a couple of visually interesting shots.

Bonus points for finding both Eddie Izzard references.

I liked this one because of the lattice being in sharper focus than the squirrel. It's just a bit different than usual. I've also gotten into the habit of cropping things down to emphasize the most visually interesting elements in the shot, so this one is a standard 8x10 crop.

I tried cropping this one in all sorts of ways, but the most interesting version was the original. Unfortunately I don't have a better zoom lens . . . something I'm going to try to correct some time this summer.

The Gods have Forsaken Us

And here's how I know. Last night, David yells to me, "What the hell, come look at this right now!" He showed me something . . . something terrifying. He had been unpacking some things that he had taken to his parents' house the week before, and among those things was a portable USB drive for his XBox 360. When he opened the case (seen below), something moved. But no, moving does not accurately describe what we saw. Something pulsated and undulated. Something writhed. What was it? Inside a small, silk sack, a spider spun and kicked, as if this sack were some sort of unhallowed womb. After staring at it for a moment in horror, mouths agape, he commanded me to "do something about it." At first I just took the case in my hand, dumbstruck by the command. Then a more precise utterance issued forth from his lips: "Either kill it or shoot it with your fucking camera."

I immediately chose the latter. Here you can see its abdomen and back leg. Please click on the picture to see it in more horrific detail.

Here you can see the legs coming out from underneath the case. Apparently there was a small hole there, and that hole was the exit from its damnable encasing. As you can see, I was so afraid that I couldn't get a very clear focus on this shot. Verily I say unto thee, I thought it was going to eat my face.

Once it evacuated its prison, I considered David's two commands, and I decided, my job as an artist done, that the former of the two was now in order. This spider is no more. But be warned, for the next time you open some innocuous case, who knows what you'll find pulsating inside.