Twitter

Anyone who is following on twitter knows I went on a very minor tweet rant the other day about Twitter and how people use it. It was all sparked by this radio personality that I follow on twitter who used to reply to tweets addressed to them (a phrase I call TweetBacking), but hasn't over the course of the last few weeks, and yet they still are promoting their Twitter feed by saying, "Follow me! Follow me on twitter." For some reason this REALLY aggravates me to no end. I love twitter. I love the fact that there is interaction among you and your "followers." That is what makes this a social medium. If you aren't going to participate in the social aspect of it, then go away. You are not nearly interesting enough for me to just follow you and have no interaction with you. Twitter was/is a way for people to get a chance to interact with people they may never otherwise would have. If you aren't social on Twitter, you are just someone using Twitter as a megaphone. Something that allows you to shout your thoughts/feelings/nonsense to the crowd, without hearing them respond. So if you are one of those Twitter users whose followers are 1,200+ and you follow less than 100 and you never tweetback, then you are an egotistical jack ass and have no idea how to use or reap the real benefits of being involved with a social media.

Weight Loss

In my attempts to get below the 180 mark, I am now publishing my weight on my twitter feed every day. I came across this article yesterday and a lot of it made sense to me. No eating late, working out, weighing myself and publishing that weight. All very good motivational tools. So hopefully I will hit that goal of 180 and maybe even go further.

Photography Obsession #2

We took a vacation in December to one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited, Turks and Caicos. It is truly an amazing place and this was our second time going there. During our visit there, I took close to 500 photos (in both RAW and jpg formats) after we got back, I edited those down to about to 225-250. Out of that group I pulled the RAW images of a select few and did some photoshop editing to them, these are what sifted out. I always say, the more shots I take, the better my chances are of coming up with a good one.


This shot (and the next 2) were all taken while we were eating lunch outside one afternoon. It was in a section of the resort called the Italian Village. This image is color adjusted and cropped more horizontal from the original.


I think sometimes when you make a color photo black and white and leave just a touch of color it can look cheesy, I have seen a lot of wedding photos done that way where the flowers are left in color (especially when the color is like peach or something) I don't think this photo is cheesy like that. I love the orange of the glasses AND that they draw you into them to look for details in the photo you might not see otherwise.


This is the 3rd shot taken at the same lunch (how lucky is that, I am glad it took forever for us to get our order). I looked straight up behind me and this is what I saw, the sun back lighting this tower, the top part of the picture is the umbrella we were sitting under waiting for our food. I did very little to this one in photoshop, it is very much like the original. I love all of the lines and angles in this photo and it is AMAZING that the sky has the ability to be so blue.


This one I call "dream life." Sitting on a beach, beer in my hand and not a worry in the world. I photoshopped the "clutter" out of the photo, the buoys, the people, the boats, and just left it with me, the water, the sun and a beer.


Kite flying is hard. This is a shot of Owen doing something we all have done . . . try to get a kite in the air. I think it is such a good shot, cause of the lighting, and motion, you can tell he is trying so hard to get it going.


Conch Shells . . . this guy had "caught" (if that really is the right term) these conch, cleaned them out on his boat, and then set them on shore to sell. I actually took this picture standing in the ocean and looking back onto the beach. In photoshop I enhanced the pinks and purples.


Really didn't do too much to this photo from the original, just cropped it down some. Renea and Owen were hanging out in the ocean when Owen decided to give his mother a kiss. I just think it is a sweet pic.


I have see a lot of beach pictures where the sun is never seen, and I wanted to take one that incorporated the sun as well, I think it adds that feeling of "hotness" even though it really was very pleasant the whole time we were there. The water is really that color, it is gorgeous!


Sunset. It really it is as simple as that.


One of my favorites. Just my son Owen and the water at dusk. I love the pastel -ly feeling of this picture. I did some photoshop clean-up where I took buoys out of the water, but that was about it.