I've just been handed a piece of paper that dictates every day of my life for the next 13 months... uuugh.

I haven't touched my camera since I moved down to this shitty ass metropolis... uuuuuuugh.

Big boat racing is done until next spring... sigh.

I'm gonna sail this weekend, dispite having saturday class and driving back and forth across the state. WOohoo!

So a whole bunch of the photos i've been taking have come out underexposed. I've done this for years, seems like i've especially began to notice it more the past few months. Yesterday i did mostly long exposure work with some neutral density filters in the morning, and the underexposure was at an entirely new level. I thought it was me, i thought i just sucked that much.

But NO! Its my fucking camera. I discovered today playing with my new (awesome) ND1000 filter, that the exposure changes as i move my eye away from the eyepiece. WTF!??! Somehow light is leaking through my eyepiece viewfinder into the camera, and screwing with the internal light meter. For normal quick exposures it wasn't noticible, or at night when it was black outside. But my daytime long exposures set it off, especially since i'm using a tripod and moving away from the camera before taking the photo.

Just today i noticed the exposure going from 2.5 seconds when i was away from the eyepiece, to 20-30 seconds when i covered it up with my eye or my finger, big freaking difference! I've never heard of this problem, and don't really know what to do about it. There aren't exactly alot of camera stores in BFE where i live.

/rant

Hope people notice my somewhat increased activity as of late. This place is nowhere near the same as it was when i joined, but i suppose thats not a bad thing, just something i have to get used to.

Anyway, i just graduated college this december. I moved back home and am living with my parents... its quite an adjustment after living by myself for the past few years. I had an interview at the local hospital, and i'm pretty sure they'll be offering me a job as a therapeuitc assistant shortly. Not exactly the most exciting job in the world, but its something to tide me over for a while. At least until i go back to school this fall. Actually a bit of good news is that the hospital offered to pay my tuition if i go back to school for radiation therapy, something i definitely might take advantage of.

So in the meantime, i'm stuck here in the frozen north for the winter, and i hope to make the most of it photographically. Its been too long since i've taken photos on a regular basis, and i'd like to pursue it a little more seriously now. For those of you that have supported me over the years, i hope i can continue to rely on you for encouragement and inspiration. I also hope i can help those that are new, and hopefully bring a little inspiration myself.

Happy holidays to everyone!

So i just got back from one heck of a road trip. I flew to california to visit a friend who was there for the summer, and then we drove back to michigan. Drove through 10 states, 4 national parks, 7 days in the car, almost 3500 miles total. I very quickly filled up my old 512mb card so i used some of the money i won in las vegas to buy a brand new shiny 1gb card. That one got filled up too, naturally. So now i'm up to my neck in pictures that i've only just started sorting through. Expect lots of random shit to be added over the comming days, weeks, and months. Enjoy!

Kate is taking a photography class. She needs to take lots of pictures for the class, so to save her from shutter boredom I go along for the ride. I'm finally taking some new photos and having some new ideas for things to shoot. I browsed through some old dA submissions a couple weeks ago and got inspired as well, i love it. Hopefully this trend will continue at least until kate's class is done in december.