Time Immortal

http://www.tinyurl.com/8gasu4 - twelve “elegant examples of evolution.” Pity the comments turned into a debate about religion, though. #
http://www.tinyurl.com/8ktrxs - John C. Wright’s Heinlenesque predictions for 2059. A mix of gloom and hope to ring in the new year. #
David Warren lists Sarah Palin as his “Man of the Year.” I find it hard to disagree. [...]

Ella surveys the world around her from over her aunt’s shoulder.

On holidays and house-hunting
Well, it was a good little hiatus. From December 24th, 2008, to January 4th, 2009, I didn’t blog at all, apart from a handful of posts to Twitter (visible in the sidebar; more on this in a moment) and the Pics of the Day that have become the consistent feature of the [...]

The Raving Theist confirms that it’s for real — his unexpectedly high-profile conversion to Christianity (to Catholicism, specifically, which only makes things sweeter) at Christmastime is indeed genuine.
And so again, RT: welcome to the Church, and forgive me what doubts I expressed.
He offers up an article with a few cursory notes about his conversion and [...]

This is one of two pictures I took at this angle (the other has Grace in focus and Ella out). I like the image, though; mother and daughter laying in bed, resting together.

On Boxing Day, Grace and I took a short trip out to Vermilion, to visit with her parents for a day and a night. And of course, in and amidst all the hustle and bustle of a busy family get-together, we wound up spending a goodly deal of time just hanging out in “our” room [...]

Another Lensbaby demo shot. What I really find interesting in this picture, though, is the scatter pattern of the light on the ceiling behind the light fixture that is the subject of this shot. I tried to bring those background details out a bit in Lightroom.

One other use of the Lensbaby, apart from taking just generally wacky-looking photos, is as a framing tool. This is an example of what I mean, in which the Lensbaby blur serves to frame Grace in the shot.

Hopefully everyone rang in the New Year safely and joyously.

The Lensbaby kind of looks like a lunar lander module attached to the front of my camera, and people often ask what the heck it’s for. I’ve found it’s easiest to demonstrate what it does directly, and this is another test shot I did for another curious relative at the first of several family gatherings [...]

Somehow, the pictures I take to demonstrate the effect of the Lensbaby always end up being among my favourites. This is just one more example of the trend, a shot I took of a Christmas tree at the first of several family gatherings during Christmastime.

One last Christmas tree photo, I think, will close out the set rather nicely. There are days I contemplate only working with the Lensbaby, to the total exclusion of my other lenses…and shots like these make the idea seem even more tempting.
Seriously: if you have a decent SLR, get a Lensbaby. It’s a whole new [...]

I took this shot of a Christmas tree looking over a balcony in Enterprise Square, and made sure to try and include the reflection on the glass.

I was walking through Enterprise Square in downtown Edmonton, and I saw this wreath and tree and thought to myself: “I can get these in the same shot.” I wanted the wreath to be in focus, and the tree out of focus.
And I definitely got that.
I was having troubles with the white balancing, however, so [...]

This shot is somewhat unique for me. It’s still a picture of a Christmas tree, and still taken with the Lensbaby…but in this case, I shifted the Lensbaby’s focus point so far upward that the camera actually saw the lens body (that’s what the black, empty space is at the bottom of the shot). And [...]

Another Christmas tree photo, again taken with the Lensbaby. I love how the out-of-focus lights just explode off of the decorations in this shot.

Christmas trees make for fun photographic subjects, especially when one has a Lensbaby. This is an example of why.

…there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, “Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a [...]

Actually, right toward the end (just a bit before the line about “a baseball bat and a puppy,” in fact) there’s an interesting bit of commentary on materialism in North American culture.
(hat tip)

Another line art composition, this one a tad more complicated than before. Whereas before I had just been layering different photos — some “line arted” and some not — together, this time I actually extracted Grace from a photo, and then built a new background around her using two Lensbaby shots and, in the case [...]