One of the things I've been doing on the side at work is taking photos of our groups moving into our new $30 million building that was just finished. They wanted "we're moving in" type photos, so I've shot people unpacking, setting up offices, etc. I've also tried to get some architectural shots of the building itself.
Well, Columbia has a powerline or two in the sky, which is an understatement. The City and the University really need to get their act together and start burying some of these ugly power lines and put their stoplights on arm-style poles.
So, in the meantime, I've had to just remove them with photoshop. Below is a before and after of a shot I got of the front of the building with the storms a few days ago rolling in from the West behind it. Took around 4 hours of editing with Photoshop to clean up the image and remove the powerlines, poles, cars, signs, etc... the small versions don't really do it justice since you actually edit larger, full sized images where you can nearly zoom in on each individual brick...
An hour or so ago Cotton and Ashley were chirping at the back door and window at something, so I checked it out and turns out it was a small squirrel eating the fallen seed from our bird feeder...
As you can see by the third picture, Cotton really wanted to go get him.
I got my second paid gig as a photographer Friday at work. Well, I found out about it then really, but the shoot will be sometime during the summer/fall with a deadline of the end of September.
There is a group in our School at work doing a project and they've set aside $500 plus expenses to pay for a photographer for a 3-4 page booklet about the disaster in Graniteville, SC in January 2005 where a train derailed, spilled a bunch of chlorine, and forced the evacuation of a good number of homes.
So, sometime between now and the end of September I'll make 2 or 3 trips to Graniteville to shoot their memorial and town - kind of an Americana town type feel to the pictures. Should have lots of opportunities in a small, old mill town like that.
I shouldn't be so dismayed at my 30th birthday, but to me it seems more like an ending than a beginning. When you're in your twenties you still have a small stranglehold on youth.
In your twenties you go to college, live in apartments, bar hop on weekends and basically live without having to worry about tomorrow. By the time you hit 30 though most of your days consist of working, eating, and sleeping and you trade seemingly infinite energy for mortgages, yard work, and worrying about things like life insurance, 401Ks, and digging yourself out of all the debt you acquired living without worries in your twenties. :)
Of course, there's a lesson in there somewhere I imagine. And I bet it has to do with enjoying the present as much as one should. Because when you first go to college I remember thinking how lucky kids in high school have it... free room and board, no real bills, far fewer chores, whole summers off school, etc. Now at 30 I look back and think how lucky all these college kids around me at USC are with all their free time and easy schedules. I guess the lesson would be that when I'm 40 my thirties are going to look pretty appealing, right? :)
Anyway, rather than lament the future, I suppose I should celebrate the past. After all, my twenties were pretty good to me overall. I turned 20 in Michigan and less than 3 months later moved to South Carolina, so nearly the whole decade was spent here. Means that I miss seeing family and friends, but not that I regret moving because I love the state and my time here has seen all the reasons I say my twenties were good.
I finally got (relatively) serious about college and got my degree, started dating Christina shortly after moving here and married her near 3 years ago, bought a house, and got my job at USC which turned out to be a very good move. Lots of checkmarks next to things on the Major To-Do list for life.
Honestly, I shouldn't make it sound like I don't look forward to my thirties because I definitely do. I'm in better shape now than I pretty much ever was in my twenties, so it's not like things are slowing down there. And life does get easier as careers progress and debt lessens so I'm sure we'll spend a big part of the next decade together taking vacations to all kinds of great places to see and photograph. I'm sure that with the path we've put ourselves on from 20-29 that from 30-39 things will only continue to get better. I guess in 10 years I'll have to pull up this post and find out if I was right and whether or not I lived my thirties as best I could.
Getting back to present day stuff though, I've been meaning to post a few pictures from last Sunday when Christina and I went to Saluda Shoals, a park along the Saluda river about 10-15 minutes from where we live. Basically just nature trails and some covered picnic areas and playgrounds... Christina went there last Friday on a canoe outing with work (a "team building exercise"). Nice place, but we walked and walked and walked... our feet were killing us by the time we got back to the truck. Click the image or link below to go to a gallery of some photos from the park:
My new camera gear at work arrived this week! I still can't believe the School bought me near $4,500 in camera equipment based on just the one shoot I did for graduation this year. I didn't realize it at the time, but I sure am glad I did a fairly decent job that day... who knew it would get me a pair of pro-caliber lenses to use. For the camera body, I decided to get the same one I own personally... makes it easier since I already know how to use it and all. No slow downs when shooting trying to figure out how to change this setting or that setting. Plus, even though it's Canon's smallest and cheapest camera body, it's just as capable as their next higher model when it comes to 95% of the features, including image quality, which is indistinguishable and that's what matters the most. And with the additional grip attached to the bottom of the camera as seen in the photos below, it's comfortable to hold and use. The top photos is the School's gear and the bottom photos is a comparison shot with the stuff I own.
It's funny, even though I own two more lenses than the School, all of mine combined don't cost 1/4th of the pair I picked out for the School. Wish I could trade them. :)
Last night we went to a retirement party after work for Dr. Pettus in the Electrical Engineering department. When Christina and I first started there, he was Chair of the department and the department invited us through Dave. It was nice seeing so many familiar faces... it had been over 4 years since I'd worked there.
Click the picture or link below for a gallery of a few photos I took last night:
There was a Hot Rod magazine car show in town Tuesday so I went after work and walked the 6 large parking lots of cars. Click the image or link below for some of the shots I took there:
Well, we're officially Aunt Christi and Uncle Tom now. Nicki and Miguel had a healthy baby girl this weekend and we went to Atlanta for her arrival. She didn't really want to arrive apparently though, so Nicki ended up having her via C-section. Everything went very well though. Anna arrived Friday evening and was 20.25 inches long and 6 pounds, 11 ounces.
Click the picture or link below for a gallery of some of the photos Christina and I took this weekend. We stayed at a decent place in Oakwood just south of Gainesville and there are a few shots mixed in from the pool there. We also ate dinner with Christina's parents Saturday to celebrate at Chateau Elan, a winery and Inn near where Nicki and Miguel live, so there are some shots from there and of a wedding taking place there that evening as well.
