My Photography Hobby

I read a blog post or article somewhere in which the author was talking about the number of photos he took last year. That prompted me to start digging into my own photo activity. This reminded me about my first digital photos that I lost due to a hard drive crash in 2002. I started taking digital photos in 2001.

That was the year Meg was born and the year I bought my first digital camera. It was a little HP point and shoot camera, but it did the job very well. That was the start of my photography journey.

When Meg was first born I took a photo of her every day wearing an outfit that was bought for her. I was in between jobs at the time, so I was home every day. That was actually a blessing in disguise as I was able to spend a lot of time with her and The Queen after her birth. I was also able to stay with her in the hospital when she went back in because of jaundice.

I am glad that I now back-up all of my photos to an external hard drive. I should really put it in my fire safe, but I don't do that yet. I was burning them all to DVD, but I stopped that when I got the external hard drive last year.

Here is a breakdown of the cameras I have used through the years:

2001-2003 - HP (Some more in 2005)(I also used my work FujiFilm in 2003)
2003-2006 - Sony DSC-F717
2006-2010 - Canon Digital Rebel XT
2008-2010 - iPhone 3G (3G, then 4 in 2010)
2010-Current - iPhone 4 (using Hipstamatic a lot)
2010-Current - Canon 7D
2010-Current - Diana F+ medium format film camera

Here is a chart of my photography numbers through the years (These numbers to not include all of the work photos I have taken using a FujiFilm and then Canon PowerShot G9):

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First Change of 2011

I bought the 4-Hour Body at the end of last year. I started reading it as soon as I got it, but I was moving through it slowly. I read Tim's previous book and found it interesting, so I thought I would try this one.

Tim says that you should not read the entire book from cover to cover. Instead, you should focus on specific chapters based on your goals. My first goal is to lose weight so I read the chapters that deal with rapid fat loss. On Monday The Queen and I started our new eating plan, the slow carb diet.

We have drastically reduced our intake of sugar and carbs six days per week. On the seventh day, we can eat anything we want. We decided that our "cheat" day will be Sunday and we cannot wait. We have been thinking about what we will eat that day all week. It has really not been that difficult for me to stick to the plan, but The Queen has been struggling a bit. She is sticking to it, but she is not very happy about it.

I have been on this eating plan for three full days and as of this morning I have lost two pounds. At that rate I will be able to drop about sixteen pounds in a month. I have not even exercised at all this week and am still losing weight. That just goes to show you how damaging carbs are to your waist line. The only exercise Tim recommends at this point is the kettle bell swing. I hope to start that soon.

I will be travelling next week for business, so I am interested to see if both The Queen and I can stick to the plan while I am on the road. I have been cooking all of the meals this week and don't know if she will stick to it while I am gone. Our goal is the The Queen and I to both look good for our trip to New York next month. We need to stick to it!

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My Year of Forty

This is the year that I turn forty. I never thought I would be this old, but alas it has happened. I don't feel old, but I guess I am by most people's accounts.

I decided a few years ago that I wanted to go out of my thirties with a bang. I fantasized about going to Machu Picchu, Chichen Itza, Tulum or even Europe. I wanted to do something big for my fortieth birthday. Well, I have come to the realization that I need to take it down a notch.

My company has had a rough twelve to eighteen months. My bonus last year was negligible and I most likely won't get on this year. That was the money I was hoping to use for my big adventure. This just means that I need to get more creative with what I am going to do.

We decided at the beginning of this week that we were going to go to Yosemite this weekend. Park admission is free and I have always wanted to go in the winter, so the timing is perfect. I have been doing some research to find out what I want to photograph in the park. I have read that everything is different when there is snow on the ground and I can't wait to find out.

We will drive up on Friday after school and stay the night at the Tenaya Lodge. Actually we will be staying in the cottages. That is where we stayed the night I proposed to The Queen way back when it was call Apple Tree Inn. Tenaya raised the prices substantially, but they say that they remodeled everything. I can't wait to find out if they are right. It was pretty nice before.

Next month The Queen and I are going to New York to see American Idiot on Broadway. Billie Joe Armstrong, lead singer of Green Day if you didn't know, will be playing the part of St. Jimmy. The Queen has been a big Green Day fan for as long as I have known her. We even went to see them in concert at Pac Bell Park in San Francisco for the American Idiot tour. It was perhaps the best concert I have been to.

In June we have a few trips planned. I want to go to Yosemite again around my birthday and hike Half Dome. I think that is something that I will remember for a long time. It is not Machu Picchu, but it will do just fine. At the end of the month we are going camping at Dinkey Creek. We did that last September and it was a lot of fun so we decided to do it again this year.

That is all we have planned at this point, but I may try to lobby to go to the biggest trade show in my industry this year in Dusseldorf, Germany in May. I will just have to wait and see how the company is doing as the show gets closer. It only happens every three years, so it is a big deal.

It would be great to go to Mexico again, but the drug wars that are currently going on are enough to keep me away this year. I love visiting, but I am not about to risk my life and the lives of my family. I with they would just get the situations under control.

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Out of Control!

We, in the United States, often look at the messes in other countries and laugh at them. We believe that the struggles they have are because they are not as civilized as us. We believe that the things that happen there could never happen here. We are jaded. We are arrogant!

Politics in this country has gotten out of control. Obama was elected president based on a campaign of change. The people bought into this change agenda, even though we knew that it is virtually impossible to change politics in this country.

Obama and the Left pushed through health care reform, which I think is a good thing. I have said before that I don't believe health care reform was marketed correctly. It is really insurance company reform. The Right was angry and they got everyone all riled up about reform. The Tea Party started whipping everyone into a frenzy by making them believe that this was going to be bad for them. It was going to turn us into a socialist country. Even people on government health care, Medicare, were furious that we were implementing government health care. A lot of hate was being directed at the Left from the conservative Right.

The Tea Party gained some control back in the elections last year. The first agenda from the Right was to reverse health care reform. That is the last thing we need in this economy. It will cost us hundreds of millions of dollars to reverse what is already being changed. That money could be better used to create jobs for the massive number of unemployed workers this economy has created. Or, it could be used to pay down the deficit that has been increased in order to help spur the economy along. Instead the Right is forcing this reversal of health care reform as a direct attack on Obama and his supporters.

Sarah Palin created a frenzy in March of last year when she released her target map of congressional districts with cross hairs on them. The map pointed out districts that her and John McCain had won in 2008 whose Congressmen voted for health care reform. She created hate among her followers for anyone who disagreed with her and the Right. I believe that her and some other politicians from the Right have gotten out of control. They are not trying to solve any problems, they are just trying to force their agenda down the public's throat. And I think that there carelessness contributed to the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona. She was one of the Congressmen in the cross hairs and Jared Loughner, the shooter, took her words literally.

I don't blame them for the actual shooting as it appears that Loughner was mentally ill. What I do blame them for is dividing this country and creating anger and hate. They are just fanning the flames of unhappiness instead of trying to overcome the issues we are all facing and improving our situation. They are creating a bad culture in the United States and that can be blamed on poor leadership on their part.

You can look at countries as larger versions of companies and we all know how important culture is to the success of a company. Without a great, or even good, culture, a company will not thrive. It can limp along and be somewhat successful, but it will never be a great company. The same goes for countries. The culture of the United States needs a severe tune-up. We need to stop the hate and fighting amongst our politicians and focus on trying to make positive changes. I don't know if Obama's health care reform is the answer for the problems in the system, but at least he is trying to change it for the better.

We need our politicians to be leaders and focus on being positive and inspiring us to do great things. They need to help us embrace change and realize that it is necessary if this country is going to survive. We need to stop all of the hate and fighting and move forward so we can make this country great again.

Read this good article.

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Slow Start to 2011

I have been a little busy so far this year. I had a wisdom tooth removed Monday and have been out of commission a little so far. I really intend to be more regular in my postings for 2011

A few weeks ago my dad pulled out his old Polaroid Automatic 104 Land Camera. I ordered a battery and film for it online. I just got the film yesterday and decided to take my first photo. It is a black and white image as you can see below.



I ordered both black and white and color film for the camera, but decided to start with the black and white as an experiment. I think this photo turned out OK, but the second one I took turned out a little dark. I thought I adjusted for the darkness of the first photo, trying to make it a little lighter, but I failed. I will play with it some more soon to see if I can perfect my process before moving on to the color film.

I think this is just a continuation of my obsession with photography that started at the end of last year. I really like the results of using old film cameras. I am about to send off a bunch of the film that I have used in my Diana+ as well. I can't wait to see how those photos turn out.

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