I'm in the process of redesigning. That's a big word for "making things look different." The good news is, I have decided on a definate direction for my photography site; a move towards honesty. We're moving away from the average, and closer to something that depicts ...reality ...flavor.

To celebrate this move, we're going to recite a few lyrics.

Well I met her out at Murphy's restaurant,
She said she was fresh from the farm.
And I remember thinkin' for a country girl,
That she went pretty well armed.
We sat there talkin' by the lobster tank.
I ordered her a slow gin fizz.
And when them chicken fried steaks arrived,
She said I like living like this.

So I made her the queen of my double wide trailer
With the polyester curtains and the redwood deck.
Somtimes she's run off and I've got to trail her,
Dang her black heart and her pretty red neck.

Well a few nights later I run into her,
With some stranger on a park bench.
She said he rebuilds engines and his name is Earl,
He's the Charlie Daniels of the torque wrench.
I whispered honey let's just go on home,
And have some onion rings and watch TV.
And as I walked her to the truck,
Earl was cryin' don't you leave me.
I told him...

This is the queen of my double wide trailer
With the polyester curtains and the redwood deck
Sometimes shes runs and I've got to trail her
Dang her black heart and her pretty red neck.

Daniel Hale.

Yes.

Enough photography links to keep anybody busy for way too much time:

Photolink

(via photojunkie

Through photolink I found a nice article on winter photography, or snow photography, or how to take pictures when everything looks white, and your hands are cold, and your camera is dying of frostbite.

This guy duct-tapes a couple of the chemical heat packets to the bottom of the camera where the battery is located.

Lately I've been gearing up for a trip through New Mexico and Colorado. Several items have been bought in haste, and are all in the process of finding their way to my house in assorted packages.

Campagne-coloured Lensmate adapter (49 mm thread);
Step-down ring 49 to 43 mm;
Tiffen 43mm 2x telephoto lens;
Tiffen 43mm 0.75x wide angle lens;
Sunpak 49mm UV filter
Kenko 5X Super Tele Lens
2 67mm polarizer filters
Tiffen 49mm Close-up Lens
and yes, the watertight indestructable pelican case.

I am now in the process of hiring someone, ..some qualified person to fill the tasks of carrying my assortment of gear, and bringing me little platic cups of water, for whenever I get thirsty.

Ted Jackson The Times-Picayune

"Tiger Bayou" Jon Faslun, 66 enjoys the setting sun and the scents of cypress along Tiger Bayou where he spent his childhood picking moss for the local gin.

You'd like to be out taking photographs like that all the time. Thats all I've got to say about that.

Just for kicks, you'd like to be able to take interesting photographs, of people.

Although "interesting" is very subjective depending on who you talk to, for me it would be photographs of people who certainly don't know that they are being photogaphed - natural unposing people who are just going about thier business.

Where to do something like that?

Most likely its going to be a place where you can, umm, find people, ...lots of people, I guess in a public place, a place where you can sit back and watch.

Marc North does this very well. Obviously Mark North must live in a place where he can find lots of people, very easily. San Francisco is like that.

So the question is, where can I, living in Malvern, Arkansas find people in large groups?

The key is not to exhibit any mannerisms of a photographer but rather a shopper who is afraid to leave camera in car as it might be stolen. Thats right, the wife simply sent me over here to shop for tube socks, bell peppers, and a Merl Haggard cd. I'm carrying this camera around because it could get too cold in the car, or hot, or whatever.

Me: "Could you tell me where the tube socks are?"

Wal-Mart night-crew tampon stocker guy: "Yesir, they're right over there next to that display of Cannonball Run VHS casettes, behind the bean dip."

Hey, Walmart has cameras watching me up there on the ceiling, so this should just be a simple excercise of redemption.

I'm guessing that few people have done it, much less done it well.

I'll need one of those fl-d filters to avoid those greenish tints you always get when you take photos under fluorescent lighting.

And I'll certainly need research some words in my handy pocket dictionary; words like discreet, covert, alert, diplomatic, discerning, prudent, and watchful.

But most of all, calculative.

Obviously, honestly, if we're talking about photos that depict people in natural, everyday setings, then we're going to take photos in walmart. All Arkansans have spent at least a full year of hours walking around in those community-killing death holes. Wal-Marts are usually square though, like borg ships, so I guess you'd have to call them death rectangles.

It is going to be big. These walmart photos are going put my little "Arkansaw Pitchers" photo blog thing on a map. Some kind of popular internet nerd map, of sorts.

I will start soon.
after work probably, late at night.
at the super center.

This afternoon I was painting alot and dealt with various quantities of paint thinner on several separate occasions. Maybe the fumes got to my head.

But we're still gonna do it.

Some important resources for Canon Powershots:

Canon Powershot G1 Information

http://www.botzilla.com/photo/G1links.html

I think this is funny:
Having web pages about "Canon Photography" or "Nikon Photography" have always mystified me. One might as well collect books written on Smith-Corona typewriters or symphonies scored on Hammermill paper.

Kenko Lenses

A chart for some 43 mm Tiffen lenses

Good stuff from Bugeye Digital

A sweet 5x telephoto lens. A nice demo page about some similar lenses, even though they've got'em mounted on a nikon.

The desire is always there, to have the better camera and the better lens and the better photo archival software. I've already saved a gargantuan amount of money by using a digital camera, because I don't purchase film or get prints made very often, but there are all kinds of things that I'd like to buy, addons for my digital camera.

Filter sets. All kinds of'em.
Macro and telephoto lenses.
Larger file storage cards. You can never have enough storage.
A nice dependable sturdy tripod. We're talking the "better than Wal-Mart" kind.

A Pelican suitcase-style camera case, you know, the one with the unconditional lifetime guarantee. The one thats watertight to 30 feet and unbreakable. The one who's incredibly light structural foam resin shell is unaffected by dents, scratches or corrosion. That one.

There will always be that extra piece of photographic equipment that you don't have and that you feel, ..limits what you can do. You desire the extras, so much so that you spend more time drooling over the stuff than you do taking photos.

Yep.

I think I'll purchase some macro/telephoto lenses soon, as soon, as I spend an inordinate amount of time thoroughly researching the matter. Then we'll go from there. Who needs two kidneys anyway?

There are alot of trees around the house. All those leaves that come down in the fall are given every opportunity to be blown away by the wind, and or most of the time we just mow up the rest when grass starts growing in the spring. But sometimes it gets to where the leaves just clog up everything, blanketing bushes and clogging up the gutters and drainage pipes, and getting all caught up in the vines and ivy that grow around the shrubs where the cats like to procreate and hiss. So sometimes we get the notion to actually do that relocation thing where the leaves get scraped up into gargantuan piles. Then we burn them.

I've probably stood around enough burning leave-piles to get some kind of certificate, or burning pile diploma, if such a thing existed.

The certificate would come from something like The Southern Arkansas Commission of Household Waste Disposal, and it would look like one of those Barber College diplomas that hang on the wall at that place where I get my haircuts for five dollars.

People who have lived their entire lives in places where you can set your trash on the curb every thursday and it magically disapears, may have a different attitude, about disposal, about burning things. Personally, if we're talking about sins against mother nature, I'd opt for the fire. I'd definitely opt for option A: fire, over option B: stuffing leaves in big plastic bags and depositing them in an eternal landfill, anyday.

Or just mow the leaves up. But burning is fun.

I don't think anybody likes these photos except me. Well thats just too bad isn't it. Nobody really liked my last school painting either. I'd bought one of those ready-to-go canvases from Walmart. It was packaged in shrink wrap, and i thought it would be fun to paint big stripes of watered down oil paint color right on the plastic. Gravity took over and the paint slowly runs and bleeds and mixes and erodes. I like the idea of just setting something in motion and letting nature take over. I got a C-minus, but its the only painting of mine that i'd like to hang on a wall someplace.

Maybe it is just an excuse for being lazy, but I like the way some things just happen if you watch, if you just let them run. ...better than some of the things that you can attempt to force or mold into place. Not all the time, but definitely sometimes.