Bringing a friend to Hayden Run Falls

One of the reasons I like photography so much is how personal it is. Not only do you create a record or image of a particularly memorable moment or beautiful image but you also get to add your personality to it. Not only do you invest your time and expertize in making it but like those early movies of native americans who are afraid having their photograph taken will steal their soul, it seams more of the reverse, you invest more of your soul in taking the photograph.


Either way I like to take photographs by myself. I have taken photographs with my fiancee. She is not a photogragher (in the sense that does not like to take photos at all!). Generally after 10 to 15 min she gets bored and that makes me feel bad. She does not want to be there and I'm keeping her from something else.




For the second time I went out taking photos with my friend Megan. She has a lovely Cannon SLR and is still in the process of learning how to use it. I took her to Hayden Run Falls. The pervious week has been frigidly cold but the previous day had warmed up. I was expecting it to either been frozen or completely melted. Instead it was half way inbetween, which is nicer than the previous time I visited it when it was bone dry.



Either way it was an hour and a half of fun. Not knowing the full way the Cannons work, I could not help her as much as I could have. Either way I think we learnt something. She learnt a few new things about her camera and I learnt that although I can teach chemistry, teaching photography is much harder!


Please enjoy a wintery Hayden Run Falls

Halloween and coins

So, this year my fiancee and I carved Pumkins for halloween. We sat outside on a chilling evening with a bowl full of "candy" and as we carved pumkins we handed it out to children tick or treating down the street. The really funny thing that happened, happened next morning. As I drove to work I saw that "youths" had be out and about that very evening. It seems that they took people's jack 'o' lanterns and either smashed them or placed them in roads for cars to hit. Now here is the interesting part. They left mine alone but took my fiancee's. Im not saying hers did not look as nice as mine, but she has a tiny bit less patience than me and so it did not take as long. I find it so interesting that kids out there who ARE destructive, can still recognise effort put in to carving a pumkin and have the respect to leave it alone!

The English Mint released last year a new set of coins for use by the general public. Together a 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 pence pieces display the Royal Standard. Now if anyone finds a 50 pence piece. Please send it to me! The bottom is sorely missing!

Odd Knick Knacks

I have a thing about taking pictures of people reading books! Plus I seem to sake random phots which I just think are kinda cool.

Picture Book

Wordy Book

The Golden Highway

A digitally enhanced Aligator (contrast and saturation)

My nieces

are growing up. I rarely see them as they live in a different country. Every time I see them I make sure to get just a few really niced photos. Lovely photos that my family could hopefully cherrish. Here are a few I took at Christmas.

A homage to

To my friend Jeremy. Im sure he was not the first to do this, but I learnt the trick from him.

I hope you like it!

Fire.

Its great!

Looks awesome and functional (cooks things!) . Very.... Elemental!

Cats are cute! (IMHO)

Its true! I will fight anyone who says otherwise. Now Ok there are a few d-bag cats out there! I will admit that. However generally cats are GREAT! If my fiancee was not so alergic to them I would get one. Instead, I do not touch them when we are around them and I wash my hands 50 times a day.

It almost feels like having an affair. Imagine this:

You are over at a fiends house. They have a cat. The fiancee is in another city or zip code (whichever rule you use) and you can stroke the cat! These times I enjoy, yet feel like I am being bad.

As long as I was my clothes and shower straight afterwards its ok! Isn't it?

Here are some of the cats my fiancee doesnt know about.


There's a few more kicking around my hard disk somewhere...



Here they are!

Fall arrived and then went

Yes, it is true. Fall came and went all in the time between 2 blogs. How can this be so? Is it some strange quantum paradox that caused time to disappear like sand down an obsideon bathtube?

No. I got lazy and didnt blog for 3 months.

My Bad!

Anyway, here is a selection of the autumnal colours that you may have missed!

I never know what these things are, but the ants love them!


The fall leaves covered the ground one morning before I left...

...then a few days later after a hard frost.

I guess this is becoming one of my signiture shots. Looking at leaves on a tree. I will try and put some older ones up later.

I really liked these trees! I felt it was like a stoplight of colour. It was so hard to get a deep enough depth of focus, so I went for not trying at all.

New Years Resolution

To get my blogging back up to speed!



So from my last blog in October. I have been quite busy. Up to Christmas I was preparing for my General Exam in my graduate carrier here at OSU. Unfortunately / Fortunately I has a discussion wih my supervisor the day before Christmas Eve and during this time 2 points were raised.

1. My decreasing level of productivity

2. My increasingly depressed outlook on life here in graduate school.

I had to deciede whether a PhD is really worth the pain, because in organic chemistry it is really pain.

I decieded it was not.

Only a small percentage of people get a doctorate and although I feel I am bright enough. In America that is not enough. You have to WANT it enough. I am now writing up my Masters thesis, (this will be my second) applying for jobs in Columbus and planning my wedding. While I have a lot on my plate. I already feel much happier.

I didnt stop taking photos. I can only appologise for the 3 or so months since my last blog. I will trying and show the best of the last 3 months in a relativley chronological order!