Rarely do I come across something that completely surprises me, and even moves me to my core.

Upon surfing around today, i came across this blog entry from Chris Higgins, about a site he’d found that apparently, he was as moved by as I was… a collection of polaroids, taken once a day from 1979 to 1997. There are a few photo a day projects floating around on the net, but this one is quite remarkable not only for its duration, but also for its outcome. It begins during the photographer’s days in college, and ends after his tragic battle with cancer.

The Man Behind the Photos…

At first his identity was unknown, but after a little digging by the blogger, he discovered the site was the counterpart to an exhibit being prepared in New York. His work is now quickly sweeping across the internet and the impact its leaving is huge.

Take a Look

I don’t often pass along things I find on the internet, but I found this so remarkable, I couldn’t keep it to myself. Please take a look, it’s unbelievable.

• The Site - http://photooftheday.hughcrawford.com/
• The Wiki Article - Jamie Livingston
  
• Curator’s Blog - Creation of the site and exhibit
  

Excerpts

This friday is the Athlone School of Music’s huge annual School of Rock show, effectionately named “Tadgh-fest” (pronounced “TIE-gh fest”), after the founder of the School of Music, the hardest working man in Athlone show business. :) As official photographer for the school and the counsel that supports the gig, I’m awaiting a long night filled with many downloads from my limited 8gigs of space onto my sometimes functioning laptop. Sometimes I just long for one of those photo media storage devices for easy download in the field.

In preparation for the event, I’ve been going back through my last few gigs and doing some adjustments. Here are few of the latest.

You’d think that after much rest, one might feel renewed, however the reality is that one just feels more tired. My doctor tells me to expect to feel “in recovery” for up to 8 weeks. I don’t know about you, but that sounds faily unlikely too me… at least it did, until I actually tried it, and noticed I’m certianly not up to par yet.

Anyway, I’ve been dabbling in my archives looking for photos with not much subject to help explore different theories of compotions and layout grids.  It keeps me occupied until I have the energy to pick up my camera and actually be aggressive about getting back into the swing of things. Here are a couple I’ve worked on so far (worked on being employed creative cropping to improve composition).  Both were taken outside my flat.  That brick wall makes regular appearances in my photos.

The infamous brick wall. Look for it soon in a background near you!!

There’s an irish joke about parking lines, which I would repeat, but sadly, no one outside this country will get it.

Life can be a mess, but there is always beauty to be found in imagery.

My apologies to all my loyal readers, I did not mean to keep you in suspense, it was a very busy weekend and didn’t get a chance to get to the computer at all.

Indeed .melissa. and JeezoPeezo guessed the oddity in the last photograph. Oddly, it was really obvious to them, i thought it was harder to spot. It took me a good couple minutes to notice anyway… Maybe I don’t pay close enough attention to my own photographs. Thank you both for participating in my ridiculous game. It made me smile anyway.

On an unrelated note…

I’ve been doing serious thinking about the things that get my brain really excited. I find great satisfaction in understanding the intricacies behind how miniscule things work, particularly when it relates to something I love, like photography, or computers, or anything else that crosses my path. It’s not enough for me to just know how to read a histogram, I have to understand exactly what the information means and how it’s coelated. I’m not happy knowing that adjusting certain sliders in Lightroom will give me a predictable effect, I need to understand exactly what each individual option does, and why it’s there in the first place. I’ve always been this way. Ask my parents (like the time I announced I could tune the piano after spending weeks investigating the inner-workings… they didn’t let me obviously… i could have done it by the way, i’m THAT confident).

I’m quite easily sidetracked by my tunnel-vision, to the exclusion of all other things until my curiosity is satisfied, much to the chagrin of my poor dear husband. Sound familiar to anyone? Raise your hand if you’re a geek!! Here’s you badge, you’re in friendly company.

I like to research these things because they make me happy, but it occurs to me that perhaps the things I discover might benefit others who either don’t already know, or are as curious as I am, but lack the time to investigate it themselves. SO! Expect to find a new series of articles based around my attempts to pick apart the details that are involved in this creative endeavour we like to call, “Our Addition to Photography”.

And in the words of Brenda, what’s a post without photos? Here ya go…

Another from the red jumper series. i love this one if only for the look on my darling husband’s face. They have so much fun together, my heart could literally burst.

Spotted this mother and son sitting by the river and sniped them with my telephoto. Something about the moment really touched me.

Yes, that’s my bass guitar, and yes, I love it to pieces. Oh, I’m in a band, Kerbside, for those of you that didn’t know. I fancy myself a budding Paul McCartney as I’m no Flea… I actually took this photo after a gig where the husband and myself played a huge venue with Mundy! To all my non-irish readers, Mundy is the irish Bob Dylan - in his early years. Really really nice guy, and he had hubby back him on mandolin for his current irish hit, “Galway Girl”. Good times were had by all…