Photo 365 - Day 140 (Squawkmas)

Day 140 (November 19th, 2010)
Title: Squawkmas


For day 2 of sharing some of our Christmas decor, we have Squawkmas, our Christmas Parrot.  He's a small hand-painted parrot that we got back in 2001.  You'll start to notice that we really like animal ornaments (another bird tomorrow!)  We try to get at least 1-2 small ornaments each year, and we usually like strange animals (see yesterday's fish!). 


Enjoy! 

Photo 365 - Day 104 (Chalky)

Day 104 (October 15th, 2010)
Title: Chalky


First, let me go ahead and give you the answer to yesterdays last "Name That Thing" spice, it was: CINNAMON!  I hope that everyone enjoyed that little trivia fun, because I know I sure did!  I've already got the next contest lined up!


For today's picture, I wanted to do something simple and fun.  Recently, a friend's daughter had her 4th birthday and a HORDE of folks came.  Now, there were many, MANY games and contests to be had (both for the kids and the adults).  One of the games was an art-based game on decorating a kite (which was just a blank, white, plastic kite).  A table was covered in kite-making stuff, and a box of artsy stuff, including pens, more pens, bigger pens, small pens, and did I mention pens?  Also in the box was a small tub of colored chalk.  I, in my genius way, thought: "Heck, with all these pens I should totally use chalk because THAT would be cool and different.  'True' artist are different!  Yeah!"  So, I began my kite-beautification-ritual using the multi-hued goodness that was chalk.  I'll go ahead and skip the next hour and a half "fun" that was me attempting to write on, what was essentially a snazzy plastic bag, WITH CHALK!  Only later, our friend mentioned: "Oh, sorry about that chalk, that got put in the box by mistake.  That's for drawing on the sidewalk.  Here, try some pens, they work great!"


It seems 'True Artist' means 'complete moron'.  Still, at least the photo of the chalk (pre-me-trying-to-grind-it-into-plastic-mode) came out well.


Enjoy!

(Click picture for larger view)

Ps: for what a COOL like looks like, here is what Theresa did:

(Click picture for larger view)

Photo 365 - Day 84 (Boat Race)

Day 84 (September 26th, 2010)
Title: Boat Race

I saw these boats just skimming along the water and I really loved the colors (is also turned out that the trees were sporting some nice colors as well, so double bonus!).  I'm not sure what kind of boats these are (I'm sure there is some cool nautical term for them, rather than - Small one-manned sail boat), but watching I was reminded of kids who build "wooden block racers" and spent so much time painting and customizing them before racing them (for what turned about to be like 30 seconds).  I'm picturing these guys doing the same thing: spending weekend tuning and tweaking the boats, getting the sail just right, finding the best widget to use, so in the end they can race for perhaps an hour.  Then, go home and start again. 

It kinda exemplifies the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Life is a journey, not a destination" (or perhaps finish line, in this case).

Enjoy!

Photo 365 - Day 69 (Crepe Helix)

Day 69 (September 11th, 2010)
Title: Crepe Helix

Sometimes you can see the most mundane/boring thing, but for some reason you are intrigued by it.  I saw these two lengths of crepe paper twisting around each other in the wind with a perfectly blue sky as a background and I thought it was a great example of both simple, pure colors and of textures. The separation and then mixing of the red and yellow to create a nice green tone at the point where they overlap was something that I didn't even notice until I was looking at the picture.  I imagine since the paper was constantly moving in the wind my mind didn't have the chance to see the subtle hues of green. 

For this picture, I kept the photoshopping to a minimum.  I increased the contrast and saturation slightly, but mostly left it alone.  I know its a simple picture, but sometimes there is nothing wrong with simple.

Ps: I was going to name it "DNA of Colors", but I thought that might have been a bit too geeky. 

Enjoy!