TNMC

My son Aiden needed a family portrait to decorate something for school.  Perusing my photo archives I found precious few photos of all of us together.  And the most recent was about three years ago.  So it was time to take a new one.  And I didn't have very much time to do this.  So I cobbled together a quickie lighting set up, cleaned off the futon and set everyone down.  Except me of course.  I had to push the button and then run for it before the timer went off.

It's an okay shot.  I certainly hope to do better in the future.  But for a quick job, it's fine.  And the best part is the personality in the picture.  You can tell a lot about this family, most notably where most of the maturity is located, from this picture.

And before you ask, yes, we let the kids put their artwork on the walls in the living room.  This particular wall is for Colin.  The opposing wall is for Aiden.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled photo blog to talk about some actual writing.

No, really.

One year, six months and nine days after I started working on my original script Hive, I finished the first draft.  That is a personal record for a sluggishness I believe.  To be fair, I actually stopped working on it for about nine months to concentrate on polishing She Hates the Idea and Natural Tendencies.  I had this crazy idea that since I'm trying to make a living at this, the smart thing would be to finish some projects before starting a new one.  When those were done I went back to Hive.

This was a tough script.  It featured a female main character who was not at all crazy.  That is kind of the polar opposite of my previous scripts.  And it had a non-linear story line, which I had never attempted before.  And when you don't tend to outline, a non-linear storyline is a lot more headache inducing.  This script forced me to try outlining for the first time, a process I don't much enjoy.  But after months of getting nowhere, it became apparent that I needed to sort out the timeline of the story so that I knew exactly all the beats that should be included.  With that solved I could start plugging things in.

One of the reasons that I don't like to outline is that system makes the writing feel stiff and too regimented, which my brain rebels against.  But here it was essential.  It freed me up from constantly trying to figure out where in the story I should be working.  And when it came time to write out each beat I found that my original note on the subject wasn't good enough and wrote something different.  Those new ideas would spawn other new ideas and the story went in a different direction than I was thinking but still ended up where it needed to be.  So, strangely, structuring my writing gave me the freedom to ignore my plans and wing it.

Anyway, now I need to print off some copies and give them to (hopefully) willing alpha readers.  Now I get to find out if the long wait was actually worth it.

It's fair time.  It's the sort of thing you both love and hate.  It can be a lot of fun but at the same time, it hasn't changed much since I was a kid, so it is pretty repetitious.  The kids love going though, so watching them have fun is a pleasure.  But the fair sort of takes over the area for a week, which is a pain in the ass.  I love the endless choices of things deep fried on a stick.  But it's too expensive.  You get the idea.

But a county fair is a rich photographic environment, so that should really stop my from griping so much.  It won't, but it should.  I'm an awful grouch some days.

Today my main goal was putting motion blur to good use.  The basic idea is give the camera a fairly slow shutter speed, then physically track your target with the camera while shooting.  Done properly, the target is sharp and the background is a blurred streak, giving an impression of motion and speed.

I came up with a few good photos but I need a lot more work on this technique.  And that's the fun part.

One member of our household has been repeatedly ignored and passed over for inclusion in this 365 day photo project.  We can now consider that gross injustice corrected.  Meet Drago, my sons' goldfish.  As you can see, Drago's hobbies include eating, swimming and eating.

A friend of mine is obsessed with demolition derbies.  He competes in several every year.  For months now he's been bugging me to make a documentary about derbies and the guys who take part in them.  It's not a bad idea actually.  But there was a small problem.  I'd never been to one.  How I've managed that is unfathomable, considering I grew up two miles from the county fairgrounds.  So this year, I finally went and enjoyed it thoroughly.  My kids loved it too.

My friend?  He was in it.  And my expert on the subject, the guy I'd rely on to give me all the good information?  He lasted about 30 seconds in the derby.

I might need a new expert.

A few weeks ago I noticed something new, or seemingly new on one of the nearby roads.  On further investigation I found out that it was a public conservation area.  So this morning I set out for this spot, figuring it might make for a good subject for taking pictures.  I greatly underestimated it.  I spent two and a half hours hiking through the area and taking hundreds of photos.

Last week I spent twenty minutes trying to get a decent picture of a distant heron.  This morning I nearly walked right into one.  The trail ended at the stream, but the height of the plants to either side of the path was such that I didn't see it until I was right on top of it.  The heron was pretty surprised too.  I quickly retreated so that I could swap lenses and then sneaked back to get some shots from fairly close by.

I said stream but stream bed would be the more accurate description for most of the way.  It was a bit startling actually.  This was a stream I regularly mucked around in as a kid and I never recall it being so low.  The spot I found the heron in had water but there were lots of spots where I could walk right down the middle of the stream bed and not get even vaguely damp.

The shot I chose for the photo blog gives a real good idea of this.  It was taken from pretty much dead center of the stream bed and all you see is a puddle.  But that's what makes the photo cool.  The stones, contrasted with dried leaves really caught my eye.  If you're interested, you can go here to see the rest of the shots from my hike, including the heron.