Checking in on those New Year's Resolutions

I'm not going to lie, I'm failing miserably on my New Year's Resolutions.  This really shouldn't be much of a surprise as I've never been a fan of resolutions anyway.

I tried really hard with my photography project.  Remember, taking one photograph a day for 365 days.  I was going along just fine taking photos of the Steelers Gnome, but then I just kinda lost interest.  Actually, I'm going to blame the cold weather and stupid Comcast (remember when I had no Internet for days) for my failures at this goal.

As far as the dressing more appropriate for work.  Ha, that's tough one, I'm usually crawling around on the floor in the computer lab installing equipment or dragging cables around to dress nicer at work.  Who knows, maybe I'll have a change of heart on this one and put some effort into it.

Okay, okay enough of the excuses.  Let's really be honest.  My main hang up is my love affair with TV.  I can't get enough of it and it is super easy to sit down on the sofa and just zone out.  I know, I know, this is absolutely terrible.  I really need to adjust my lounging time and make more of an effort at the things that really matter.

We'll see how things go.

Photo of the Week

Lake Elkhorn
Originally uploaded by SCA Photography

This week's photo comes from Flickr user SCA Photography, in real life he goes by the name Scott Athen. Scott's work was selected because of the wonderful composition created by the S-Curve of the sidewalk at Lake Elkhorn. I've probably walked this stretch of sidewalk a hundred times and I never thought to look at it like this. The low shooting angle and the S-Curve running from right to left moves the viewers eyes through the photo.

Keep up the good work Scott. I look forward to seeing your future works of art.

Let's get creative!!

Hurraaayyy!  It's Thursday, it must be Shameless Plug Day once again.  Okay, okay, I won't make every Thursday Shameless Plug Day, but it must happen today.

I've been quite impressed with the traffic that is occurring on this blog.  I have a core group of friends that visit the site and I have some complete strangers that are visiting, as well as commenting.  A pat on the back, it's cool to know that people want to read what I have to say. 

Unfortunately, I can't say the same about my Flickr group Suburban Life in Columbia.  A few people are contributing to the group (my campaign to prove artistic people can live in the 'burbs), but overall membership is low.  I guess I haven't really figured out how to get more people to check out the group, to join the group, and to ultimately post photos to the group.  To those of you that are posting to the group, keep it up, you are doing a wonderful job.

So, Columbians (you know who you are), I'm urging you, I'm imploring you to get out and be creative!  For those of you that don't live in Columbia, you should also get out and do something creative.  I know, you are saying, "I'm not be interested in photography", but that doesn't mean that you can't be creative.  So, get out there, do something creative and if it is not a photo, at least take the time to comment to this post and let me know what you did that was creative.  You can do it, I have faith.

A helping hand:

• Use your cell phone camera to take photos of your surroundings
• Make a snowman (should you have snow in your area)
• Make cacti people for your Manger Scene (just for you Mrs. IbStarC, is this sacrilegious?)
• Bake some Christmas cookies

It's finally here, it's photo of the week day!!!

The first ever photo of the week (on this blog and in my Columbia Flickr Group) comes from Flickr user Odonata457.  In this photo he has captured a wonderful winter scene highlighting the first snowfall in Columbia, MD for 2008.  Not only is the winter scene beautiful, but the warm orange colors left over from the fall are still noticeable in the photo.  

Great work Odonata457.  I look forward to seeing your future works. 

Light covering of snow and blue sky

Originally uploaded by Odonata457

Shameless Plug

The avid readers of this site (wait, what's an avid reader) probably already know of my interests in photography.  Well, most of you probably don't know that I initially went to school to get a degree in Applied Media Arts.  Obviously I didn't stick with this career path, but I still feel that I have some artistic qualities that have yet to be fulfilled.  I didn't stay in Art School long enough to take the photography classes, but now I'm wishing that I did.

Now onto the plug.  I recently jumped into the Digital SLR world and I've been reading as much information on photography that I can find.  I've also found a bunch of wonderful sites to upload photos on.  My favorite site being Flickr.  You can check out my photostream on Flickr at Almost Sooted.  While I don't always get much time to get out and take pictures, I still try to take and upload pictures when I can.  

I've also found many sites created by photobloggers.  These sites not only show great works of art, but they also dedicate a lot of time to photography tips and general photography experiences.  If you are interested in learning more about photography check out the links below.  Thanks for your support as I work on getting this thing off the ground.

Blog.SDuffyPhotography.com

Beyond Phototips

Your Photo Tips

Photopreneur

Photojojo!

Camera Dojo

The storyboard

Deciding on topics to blog about is certainly a difficult thing to undertake.  In order to contribute to a blog on a daily basis, some type of content is needed for posting.  With this in mind, I've developed a storyboard for daily posts to this blog.  My current ideas for this are:

• Lumburbia photo of the week (either my own or from others, by way of Flickr)
  
• Suburban musings
• Breaking news
• Where is that in Columbia
• The great unknown, life outside of the burbs

These are my initial ideas and I'm sure I will have others as this blog evolves.  I would also like to delve into topics that everyone in the burbs must overcome, like the neighbors, parking situations, the slow death of the suburbs, and commuting.

Hopefully, I can get a better handle on categorizing and developing these other topics.

The Beginning

This is my second attempt at a blog and hopefully I've come up with a decent idea for this one. In my first attempt at blogdom, I noticed that no one visited my blog, not once.  My guess is that the blog was just a bad concept and that without word of mouth no one would visit the blog.

At first I wanted this blog to be about all things photography and my newfound adventures in photography.  I began reading other photography blogs and I learned that in order to do a photoblog you needed to take pictures, a lot of pictures.  Unfortunately, I don't have much time to take lots and lots of pictures.  Then I started thinking about the fact that I live in boring suburbia and I realized that there is not much of interest to photograph in suburbanville.

These ideas lead me to develop the concepts for this blog.  I can't say that suburbs are completely void of inspiration or interesting things, but I also can't be too far from the truth. So I started thinking maybe, just maybe I would be able find something exciting to blog about in suburbia.  Then I decided that I could incorporate my newfound hobby of photography into this blog.  This would hopefully allow me to get out more and photograph the community that I live in, as well as, examining photographs of what other people find in Columbia.  Please accept my sporadic postings as I am working on a story board of ideas for this blog.  As of now posts will be hit or miss and when I'm not too busy.  In all hopes, I'll be able to develop a decent story board for this site for all to enjoy.

Without further ado, welcome to suburban life and welcome to Columbia, Maryland.  For more information on Columbia please check out the following sites.

• Columbia Maryland Online
• Villages of Columbia