Friday Foto Fun 25

Rainbow over El Morro, originally uploaded by philputnam.

This was from a trip to Puerto Rico. We were preparing to shoot an interview overlooking El Morro (the fort in the background) when a brief morning shower came through. As we were resetting the equipment, this full rainbow appeared.

I hope you enjoy a nice weekend. The weather is finally a beautiful 70 degrees for highs and lows in the 50's. Glory.

Here's something scary for Halloween

From this Washington Post article:

Gabby eyed the Sexy Super Girl but decided against it. A friend at her Catholic school had worn that costume for a Halloween parade and pulled the already short miniskirt way up to cover her tummy. "That didn't look very good." But Gabby did like the Aqua Fairy, a vampy get-up with a black ripped-up skirt, black fishnet tights and blue bustier that comes in medium, large and preteen. A medium fits a child of 8.

No.

How about the Funky Punk Pirate Pre-Teen, with an off-the-shoulder blouse and bare midriff?

No.

Gabby pointed to the Fairy-Licious Purrrfect Kitty Pre-Teen, which, according to the package, includes a "pink and black dress with lace front bodice and sassy jagged skirt with tail. . . . Wings require some assembly."

Cheryl Cirenza shook her head in exasperated disbelief. "This is all so inappropriate. It's really disturbing," she said, eyeing a wall of such girl and preteen costumes as Major Flirt in army green, the bellybutton-baring Devilicious and a sassy, miniskirted French Maid, pink feather duster included. She'd just turned down her 13-year-old daughter's request for a Sexy Cop outfit. "When I was their age, I was a bunch of grapes."

The positive thing about this is that there are parents who are saying no, but apparently there are plenty that aren't. What are my daughters going to face in 6 years? Hopefully the culture is shifting back from the unlimited permissiveness of the last generation of parents.

One Sentence TV Reviews - Jon and Kate plus 8

The only thing cute about this show is the title.

Headline of the Day

I love this one:

State report concludes Texas has too many reports.

Friday Foto Fun 24

Radio Flyers, originally uploaded by philputnam.

Another long gap between FFF's. Here's my two oldest. My youngest just turned 1. How's everyone else doing? Anyone still bother to check this page out, continually let down?

We're ready for fall here. I always hate September in Texas. I always think it should be cool, at least in the evenings. It never is, and that always really bugs me. But hopefully a couple more weeks and we'll be highs in the low 80's and lows in the low 60's.

This is the season I always miss Kentucky the most.

Big Dumb Idiot

me, originally uploaded by workspacevan.

So a guy had his iMac stolen. That's bad. Lucky for him, the criminal turned himself in in a most unusual fashion. In case you don't have the pleasure of being a Mac owner, all Mac computers have a built-in camera, and a nifty software called "Photobooth" that takes photos with it.

The criminal was playing with Photobooth, as we are all wont to do, but he happened to title it and click an "upload" button, though he didn't know what it uploaded to. Turns out it was a software that automatically uploads photos to the rightful owner's Flickr account. Imagine the theft victim's surprise when this photo appeared in his Flickr stream.

Of course, the image and story made it all around the web through Digg and Boing Boing, and before long, Flickr provided the IP address that the photo had been uploaded from. Eventually, the Big Dumb Idiot turned himself in, claiming that he got the computer from a friend of a friend.

Of course he did.

Friday Foto Fun 23

Tall Trees, originally uploaded by philputnam.

Well, I'm finally starting to process the photos from a great hike I took with some good friends to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. There's lots more where this came from, just have to do the work of making them Blog-worthy.

Have a great weekend!

Friday Foto Fun 22

Sad Clown, originally uploaded by philputnam.

Another long hiatus, but I'm back with new materials. Today's entry is a shot of a friend of mine who was nice enough to pose for me at my son's 4th birthday party. I'm also going hiking in the Smokies next weekend, so hopefully I'll have some fresh shots to post in a couple of weeks.

Happy Friday!

Friday Foto Fun 21

Blue, originally uploaded by philputnam.

Been a few weeks, but I got out last weekend and found my muse again. Bluebonnet season in Texas was great this year, and I got a few shots from a weekend shoot at magic hour.

It's a cliche kind of shot here in Texas, Bluebonnet photos are standard fare, but most of them don't have women this beautiful to do them justice.

As usual, you can see more pictures at my photo blog. You can also check out my Flickr page.

Friday Foto Fun 20

Abigail 6 months, originally uploaded by philputnam.

My youngest turned 6 months old this week.

Friday Foto Fun 19

El Morro, originally uploaded by philputnam.

In Old San Juan Puerto Rico, this fort has guarded the harbor entrance since the 1500's. I applied a fake lomo effect in post production.

See where this picture was taken. [?]

Don't forget to check out my photoblog where I (mostly) regularly post new pictures, and my Flickr page.

Have a great weekend!

Friday Foto Fun 18

Grand Canyon, On The Tonto, originally uploaded by philputnam.

I know, I know. Been a while.

This was from the Grand Canyon Royal Arch loop that I (barely) hiked 2 years ago. I went through some of the shots from that trip, and this one was pretty dull, but had potential. A little Photoshop magic, and we got ourselves a photo.

Look closely for a little white dot in the middle right third of the photo. That's a helmet on the back of one of my hiking companions.

Friday Foto Fun 17

Break of Dawn, originally uploaded by philputnam.

This was the same trip as my infamous Sand Cave photo. The clouds finally broke after a long weekend of not being able to see beyond 100 feet. At least they broke for 20 minutes, long enough to take this shot and a couple others I'll add soon.

This is also the first shot that I used for my before and after case studies on my photo blog. Go visit to see the "before" status. It's a pretty remarkable transformation.

Have a happy weekend!

Phun with Photoshop

Over at my photoblog, I've begun posting some before and after samples of some of my shots. I'm always amazed at what a difference Photoshop can make to save an image that has good composition and colors, but are hidden by digital interference.

Go check it out if you're interested.

Friday Foto Fun 16

Man's Best Friend, originally uploaded by philputnam.

Well, I haven't posted a Friday Foto in many moons. Here's a shot I took for some friends for their Christmas card. If you weren't lucky enough to be one of the 25 people that received one, you can still enjoy it through the magic of the internet and Flickr.

On another note, I've finally converted Theep Doughts to the new Blogger . I like the ease of editing layouts now, but I'm dumbfounded that they didn't roll out new templates as part of their new service. How do you do that? I think the template choices are identical to when I started this blog 2 years ago. Not one new option.

Google, take note. The snazzy new features are nice under the hood, especially for the user. But people want some new things to look at after a few years, and this is the perfect time to give it to them, when you're unveiling shiny happy additions to your service. A missed opportunity in my humble opinion.

Bad Dog!

Bad Dog!
Originally uploaded by philputnam.

Well, we finally made it through the holiday season. I hope yours was good. Ours was very eventful, and we're very happy to finally be home, and ready to jump into 2007. Bring on the New Year!

To get things kicked off, here's a picture for you from our Christmas trip. And don't forget to visit or subscribe to my photo blog for more frequent photos.

Happy New Year!