How do you get your blog fix?

My reader-of-choice is bloglovin'. The interface is clean and easy to use. You can follow anything with a feed, and it arranges all unread posts at the top, with a large picture (if there is one in the post) and the first paragraph or so of text. You can easily mark a post as "read" to skip it, or "like" a post to come back to later. You can sort blogs into your own categories and read whole categories at a time (or skip whole categories by marking them all as read).

Bloglovin' is one of the permanent tabs open in my browser and I have yet to see any other blog reader that comes close for my taste. But that's the thing. My taste is mine, and your preferences for reading blogs may be very different.

Some blog platforms, like WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr make it easy to follow other blogs on that same platform, with convenient follower tracking methods. This is great if your blog is on one of those platforms. Mine is not. You can still follow me the hard way, though (click below on the appropriate icon to see how). I'll figure out how to calculate my followers later...

I hope you'll find a way to follow not just my blog, but all the blogs that catch your interest. Please don't limit what you read on a regular basis just because it's not easy to follow with your current system. Find a blog reader that works for all the blogs you want to read and use it!

All of this buttony business was inspired by a post on Will Work 4 Followers. If you want to add a simpler version of these follow buttons, head over to that site and follow the instructions.

By the way, the title of this post is in reference to the fact that this is my 200th post! When I arrived at my 100th post a while back, I realized that I had counted incorrectly, and it was actually my 101st post. I almost did it again this time.

This week's Edit Me Challenge comes from Selena of Stoneyville. The original image (below) had some challenging elements, most notably the sky with complete lack of color or interest.

_With my first edit, I did so many things to it, I don't even remember them all. It ended up looking a little over-colorized, but I think I like the effect anyway. I definitely added some sky color, and warmed it up overall. I changed the contrast and saturation on the couple's clothing as well. This one is my official entry for the Edit Me Challenge.

_On this second edit, I simply altered the levels, brightness, and contrast, and then burned in some details. After editing both ways, I'm still not sure which I like better - more color or less color (I did try knocking down the saturation of the vibrant edit, but it left something to be desired).

The Portland Aerial Tram recently celebrated its 5th year, just in time for a couple of tram shots in my 36 Views of South Waterfront series. This one, #30, is from the waiting area, and #28 was taken from inside the tram itself (as was #27 from the last post).

This series was also featured on the:

How 'bout that? Also, I just learned, the two tram cars are named Walt and Jean. How 'bout that?

Only six more photographs until the series is complete. Click on any photo above for a slide show.

_Yesterday was
Craft Day 2012. Celebrating its 10th year, Craft Day inspires craftiness in even the most ardent non-crafters. The event is hosted each year by my friends Megan and Andrea, and they provide all the necessary tools to get one's craft on.

Left photo courtesy of Lydia Brooks of Board Shanty Photo

_
Immediately upon arrival, guests are directed to an enormous rack of aprons, many of which have been constructed at past Craft Day events. Nearly all attendees choose to don an apron for the day (I'm kind of kicking myself for not getting a photograph of the colorful apron rack — Edit: Found a photo of Andrea and Megan with the apron rack [top of post], taken by Lydia Brooks).

_
Some participants arrive with a plan in mind, or their own supplies. Some just wait to be inspired by something when they arrive. Some come to learn a new skill, and some teach their existing skills to others. It's nearly impossible not to make something in this environment.

_
One of my favorite things about Craft Day is the "let's make it happen" attitude. If someone has a craft goal, but no idea about how to accomplish it, everyone nearby pitches in to help the idea come to fruition. Supplies are found, skills are learned, and the crafting abounds.

_
Some attendees show up just for the social atmosphere and to support the efforts of others, but all skill levels are embraced, and nearly everyone ends up proud of their Craft Day accomplishments.

I'm getting better at this Photoshop thing every day. 

Of course, starting with a good photograph helps. I still don't think I'll ever be satisfied with what I can get from an old Polaroid. I was, however, surprised at how much of a difference I could make to a professional photograph. My (second) preschool class photo presumably shouldn't have needed much, and yet I was able to generate dramatic improvements.

I almost don't want to tackle this restoring-all-my-old-photographs project too quickly, in case I learn some essential Photoshop skill that would have made all the difference to photographs with which I have already finished.

But Photoshop isn't my only trick. I also add to my HTML/CSS knowledge on a regular basis. That mouse-over business above? Yeah, just learned that today. Pretty snazzy, if I do say so myself. If you've already moused over them all and can't remember what the first image with the instructions looked like, just reload the page. Here's how to create the mouse-over effect with HTML:

<img src="http://url-of-starting-image.jpg"
onmouseover="this.src='http://url-of-hovering-image.jpg'"
onmouseout="this.src='http://url-of-end-image.jpg'">

Most of the times I have seen this on other websites, the starting image and the ending image are the same, and that's probably what I'll do in the future so I only need two images instead of three. As far as where your image ends up on your page and how big it is, you'll have to play with that a little bit. I added a height=### attribute to mine to make them all line up nicely. You could also try tables.

Oh, and in case you're wondering: yes, that's a real, living, non-drugged cheetah. But isn't my awesome E.T. shirt really the better part of that photograph anyway?

There is a truck in my neighborhood. It's an old truck. I don't know nearly enough about cars to be able to begin to tell you anything interesting about it (nor could I find anything that piqued my non-car-loving interest on the internet), but I do know it's a Chevrolet Apache 10. Oh, and the color of the truck is amazing.

I took some shots of the truck today, as I walked around the neighborhood. I frequently bring my camera with me as I walk, and I often find interesting things to shoot, but I don't always take the shot that I want.

Check out those rims! The color or this truck makes me want to eat ice cream.

I wonder about the owners of the things I want to photograph. If I looked out my window one day, and saw someone in my front yard taking pictures, it would be a little creepy. I definitely don't want to be that person. And yet, this truck is just sitting there, being all minty, begging to be my model.

So, then, what to do? Mostly, I just keep my camera to myself, or stick to shooting things that are definitely hanging over into the realm of the sidewalk. Or, I walk past the same thing over and over again before I get up the courage to take a picture. Like with the truck. It's been parked in front of the same house for at least 10 years. I finally took pictures of it today.

What have you always wanted to take a picture of?

I have begun a massive project.
I hope I can get it done in some sort of reasonable time frame.
I decided to assemble my photographs into a static, published book.

Reason number two is Photoshop. I have albums full of crappy snapshots (intermixed with some pretty great, high quality portraits, mostly taken by my dad). A crappy snapshot is album-worthy, but if I'm going to put it into a book, I'll be scanning it anyway. And once it's on my computer, I can correct all kinds of things: dust & scratches, colors, lighting, noise, removing unwanted elements.

I have a stopping point: May 2000. Any photos taken after that will go in the next book. I'm almost done with the scanning stage, which is huge in itself, but the editing of nearly every photograph and arranging them will take a ton of time. At least I don't have to organize them much; their arrangement in my albums was strictly chronological order.

Go back up your data.

Right now.

So, there I was, sitting at my computer, minding my own business. Suddenly, one of those warning boxes popped up on the screen. Apparently, I had removed a device without ejecting it properly.

All of them were either unsuccessful, or they would let me see my data, but only save it if I was willing to fork over $100 - $200. If I had lost everything, $100 would totally be worth it, but I only wanted 20 days worth of data. Can I get that for $5? Each of these attempts took several hours, as I waited for each program to find what it could find from my faulty external drive. I did nothing else yesterday.

I finally concluded that I probably could have spent all day taking some new pictures instead. I wiped the drive, and started over. Now it works just fine. It has been reloaded with its 0-2011 data once again. And I backed it up today, just for good measure.

Pictures I took in 2012, like this chair with the pumpkins, that I wasn't quite satisfied with and wish I could keep editing, are now stuck in this permanent state. I wish I could get that original back and edit it differently. Oh well.

Have you backed up your data today?

Go do it.

Right now.

There was a moment, this fall, when the figurative planets aligned. The end of October was going to bring with it the much anticipated Halloween celebration. Halloween always means much planning, preparation, and time. Time is something we have precious little of.

The biggest time sucker is, of course, the Haunted House. In order to make it deliciously creepy, we needed English Ivy and dried leaves aplenty. But fall happens very quickly. By fall, I mean the actual "fall"—that day, once a year, when all the leaves decide to relinquish their grasp on the trees. It seems as though one day there are only one or two leaves on the ground, and the next day there are only one or two leaves on the trees.

So, in this planet-aligning fall leaf timing scenario, here's what happened: I realized, all of a sudden, that today was Fall; all the leaves had hit the ground. They were also, miraculously, still dry. If you are familiar with the Pacific Northwest in fall (spring, summer, winter), you know that a dry day when you need a dry day is far from a guarantee (outdoor weddings with umbrellas can be charming). In fact, on this particular fall day, it was sunny. So there were all the leaves, just sitting there, still dry and crunchy and crinkly, and perfect for the haunted house still 3 weeks away.

__Ordinarily, this would cause me to pause just long enough to think to myself, "we should really collect some of those leaves while they're still dry," before rushing off to my next task. But on this particular sunny-dry-fall day, I had an entire half hour free. This is unheard-of. Free time is not a thing that happens.

_Put all this together: Dry Fall Leaves. Sunny Day. Half Hour Free. Several Enthusiastic Helpers.

In 20 minutes, we had 10 huge garbage bags full of leaves for haunted house ambiance, stored under a building until they would be needed in three weeks.

I tried editing this photograph, because it has such interesting colors, but I wasn't able to do anything to it that I liked better than the original, straight out of the camera. Love that Acer.

Late in the day, when the sun sinks low over the west hills, the seemingly infinite windows of the glass-laden buildings of South Waterfront pick up reflections of clouds and sky.

Walking home the other day, I saw some beautiful purples and pinks, and immediately grabbed my camera and made my way to the east side of the river to catch the sunset. I missed it, but was able to practice some of my night photography, and later my HDR skills.

These are #25, #26, and #27 of my 36 Views of South Waterfront series. That last one was taken from inside the Portland Aerial Tram itself! Enjoy all these Wikipedia links, for now, anyway.