Friday, January 25, 2008

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Just Following Directions


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Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

How do I Get Out of This?


106of365
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic
Yesterday's self-portrait theme was "upside-down." Yes, I could have just hung my head over the edge of a couch or chair. Or even just bent over at the waist and peered through my legs. But no! That would have been too easy!

So I put my camera on my tripod, which I had threaded through the spindles of the upstairs landing rail. I then tied the neckstrap to the spindles. Set the camera to fire by remote, and went downstairs to contemplate how I was going to get on my hands.

Everything went really well until I got to this point.

I did get Nate to help me later. He stood me on my hands while I shot another photo. But I didn't really like those as much. I had wanted to use a moderate depth of field, with my feet in focus and gradually losing focus as you looked down toward my head. But instead I ended up with my belt in focus. In the end, this outtake seemed better than the original idea.

On an unrelated note: We are going to be parents of an Erskine student! Nate was accepted to Erskine College, which is a private Presbyterian College in Due West, SC. The setting and college is remarkably similar to our alma mater. Unfortunately, it is a private college, with a corresponding private college tuition. Visit Erskine online at http://www.erskine.edu.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

The photographer and His Subject


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Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic
Actually, his real subject was peanut butter. A tiny dab on the back of the camera.
Mensa Boy had the idea for this shot. I came in from Jazz and said, "I haven't done my self-portrait for today." And he right away popped out with this idea. I have no idea what I'll do today. Tomorrow is upside-down day in the group.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Wine Notes: Orleans Hill Cote Zero


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Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic
This wine definitely rated a big fat ZERO. In fact, below zero. I've never just poured out an entire bottle before. It was simply nasty. I probably should have taken it back to the store. Maybe there was just a bad batch or something.

When I pulled the cork, there were all these crystals on the bottom of it. The wine itself was pale and sickly looking. Holding the bottle up to the light, I could see sediment.

Sulfite Free. Organic, California Red Wine. 2006.

m-m-m These Dreams...

I've been having some pretty vivid dreams these past few months. For most of my life I haven't really remembered many dreams. But in the past several months I've had several that are very memorable. Probably because, for the most part, they've been about mundane things.

I dreamed once about pouring coffee into a cup. After the cup filled I just kept pouring. I was looking right at what I was doing. I was pouring from my little 4-cup pot and the pot never emptied. The cup filled and overflowed and the coffee just kept coming from the pot.

I dreamed about making scrambled eggs for my friend Rena.

But the really interesting one was yesterday morning. I dreamed we had a white armadillo living under our couch. I don't know how I knew it was even an armadillo. All I saw in the dream was a flash of tail. The dream centered around the fact that he got out into the main part of the living room and bonus room and pooped all over. Yup. The dream was about me having to clean up armadillo poop.