Quality V. Density of pixels

Melody, originally uploaded by lotusduck.

This was shot with the old Gateway digital camera. The over exposure is interesting, I think, but the image is no good for blowing up, really. There are many situations similar to this one, where I like the capture in every way except that the fidelity is not where I want it. So I choose one of the correct answers, and forget about it. The other digital answer is the vexel, with curves and gradients making a labor intensive photorealistic illustration. However, I have been so loathe to use the pen tool, that I never realized that my home Photoshop Elements does not have it.
So I've decided that the "path selection" tool is close enough to the pen tool, although easiest of all would be to just project this image on a big piece of paper and splat ink in the appropriate areas.

Hip junk

clutter, originally uploaded by lotusduck.

If there's anything I seek in life, it's more junk.
Maybe deep down I want a career, but on a day to day basis, I spend a lot of time thinking about things, in my relationships, I spend a lot of time talking about things.
My love of food is largely my love of cooking, which really comes back to thrift store junk: pasta crimping wheels, cast iron pans and kettles, relics from things people used to care about.
Miniatures are one way to have hundreds of design and retro household items while only owning one full size house, then there's digital junk, like the fake flashes and lenses to collect on the iphone hipstamatic, or gui skins, or in-game items.
And photographs.

The Weather

PICT1444, originally uploaded by lotusduck.

With Photography, every day is a unique and perhaps irreplaceable opportunity. It won't be as clear tommorow, it won't be as beautifully hazy by noon, soon there won't be another opportunity for winter photography when the snow melts, but it needs to be warm enough for a digital camera to work. It forces me to place myself in time and space.

Fake lomo temptations

skyride cars, originally uploaded by lotusduck.

We recently shot a roll of film at a class with a pinhole camera, which requires a little guesswork with regard to the viewfinder. I shot the rest of the roll after class and got it developed.
The whole roll had someone's vacation pictures on it, with some interesting results, but now I have some interest in getting similar results without the crushing heartbreak.
And I have, of late, become interested in finding some use for my very large collection of pictures that have some quality that I like.

Arisaema triphyllum

CIMG0586, originally uploaded by lotusduck.

For a brief while, we could blame every smell in the kitchen on this fly pollinated plant, which is understandably not a common ornamental. Probably only one strange smell originated from the plant. We do not know how it got there, but seeds, you know? They get around. It's a deep forest plant, which makes it strange that it probably got inside the house due to an industrial mistake at a garden center.

Snapshot v. Good Photo: Cathead series

Cathead series, originally uploaded by lotusduck.

This is from a "photo shoot" at Lisa's house. I use quotation marks because everything was staged for the camera, but the backgrounds were not really considered, hallways, tables and televisions.
I don't know whether I am penalizing myself for not being more spontaneous, or for not being more carefully staged.
This is another shot by my now-and-then functional gateway camera, so some amount of my thought was devoted to keeping the thing on for 10 seconds at a time.

That serendipitous find: decapitated lawn ornament

decapitated dog statue, originally uploaded by lotusduck.

This was in the days of my Gateway camera, the last days.
You had to press on the bottom door just hard enough, otherwise it would think it didn't have a card. It took pretty shitty pictures, also, I might have taken ten pictures of this sad little scene and this is the only one that turned out. But my concern for max megapixel definition is probably a bit silly most of the time, most things are more tastefully printed at under a square foot.
There was a big storm the day before this happened, but now that I think of it, someone probably kicked the statue or hit it with something big, as it appears to be concrete and nothing else in the yard seems broken.
The next day, the statue was gone.