CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-23 03:22:15 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 32 +1s)

I'll tell you ... I needed a bit of a distraction tonight, so I worked on #JuliesEditChallenge . +Julie Jamieson uploaded her photo (here: https://plus.google.com/115270991787918797589/posts/aXjDPdXBJ1i) and invited anyone and everyone to play with it.  So here's what I did with the thing.

I have to admit that I added a frame at the end. I also straightened it, and left most the grain in there, 'cause I thought it worked.  I softened it up a bit, then worked with a radial filter to emphasize the animal, trying to make it look as though there was a shaft of sunlight illuminating only him and the rock on which he was standing. The colour was a distraction, so I got rid of most of it. The idea was to end up with a bit of a vintage, damaged feel to the image.

Thanks, Julie!

2013-05-22 03:45:31 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Introducing Snapsation

Amongst the greatest human needs is the need to tell stories, to record memories, and to share our moments with the people who matter the most to us.

When you need an awesome dating profile picture, a business portrait, photos of your family reunion or milestone events. You need an amazing local photographer to help you to capture all of  life’s moments.

As a local business you want to show off how amazing your restaurant is, the decor in your Bed and Breakfast, to show off your beautiful store or great new products, to record your industry happenings and events.

Finding a photographer is intimidating. And harder than it should be.

Photographers need customers. No matter how experienced a photographer is, there never seems to be enough time to focus on getting new customers. And for the many passionate andta... more »

2013-05-21 17:36:57 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 14 +1s)

Soon

Man, it feels like forever since I've posted a stylized photo. I wanted to post one here to let everyone know that we're really close to restoring the photo sharing workflow allowing you to  add and share imagery from an existing album.

I really appreciate all of your patience and understanding here and I look forward to seeing all of the amazing work that you have to share with us here on Google+.

#GooglePlusPhotos  

2013-05-21 13:12:13 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 19 +1s)

With congratulations to +Derek Kind on his well-deserved victory, I'll reveal my body of work from the most recent iteration of +Chrysta Rae's Photography Scavenger Hunt.

There's a great deal of work that goes into organizing a huge undertaking like this. +Chrysta Rae is our rockstar not only for how much she puts into this undertaking, but also for helping to build such an encouraging and supportive group of Hunters. +LaDonna Pride takes a hand in helping Chrysta out, and the value of her involvement and hard work should by no means be underestimated. Finally, from the quality work that's submitted, it's clear that the judges have a tremendously difficult job, and they always come through in such spectacular fashion. Congratulations, and thanks to +Alan Shapiro (as always, our stalwart mentor!), +Barry Blanchard, +Brian Bonham, +lane langmade, and +Lee Daniels for your time,... more »

2013-05-20 00:20:46 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 18 +1s)

it's *WORLD IBD DAY*
 i am here to bring awareness to all of you.  
Do you have any questions about my Crohn's Disease or any other IBD {Inflammatory Bowel Disease}?  
IBD is very different from IBS {Irritable Bowel Syndrome},
so please try not to get the two confused.
Millions of people all over the world are affected by this life crippling disease, it's time to get the word out so we can find a cure or at least get a little understanding as to what we go through on a daily basis.  I also want to thank all of you that have reached out to me and to others who struggle with similar issues.  
Ask me anything !!
(no, not that...  geesh)

Wonder where i bought my T-Shirt?::
http://thegreatbowelmovement.org/ibd-tshirts/why-ask-me-crohns-shirts/
More IBD Awareness?::
http://www.ccfc.ca/site/c.ajIRK4NLLhJ0E/b.7080069/For ... more »

2013-05-17 12:49:49 (24 comments, 1 reshares, 83 +1s)

There are flowers exploding all over my stream.

Thanks to everyone for your enthusiastic participation in today's #FloralFriday theme!  Here are a few favourites from the floral explosion in my stream today.

+Swee Oh 
https://plus.google.com/102390118349128083852/posts/aHceEvNipdr

+Diana Boyd 
https://plus.google.com/102698568624233195241/posts/445ar8TmRV9

+Linda Daugherty 
https://plus.google.com/101138224878685054321/posts/K4eGG5aCwXG

+Steve Barge 
https://plus.google.com/116985892549750076024/posts/FBrJ44xtiYn

+Mark Steven Lewis 
https://plus.google.com/105742320020889639269/posts/jNzxXEHNWkz

+Nadia Pewinski 
https://plus.google.com/100432265657380354319/posts/NxJ7qvXwitJ

+dietmar rogacki
https://plus.google.com/115410587965033872537/posts/G7nA2F9h7QL

+PaulaThomas... more »

2013-05-17 02:21:06 (24 comments, 6 reshares, 88 +1s)

and now our backs are against the wall

Today is Thursday and can only mean that another #FloralFriday is almost upon us!

#FloralFriday   has a community here: (https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/101224450803598731206). Feel free to shower the community with your floral love -- we'll be interacting more in that venue in the future!

Here's what you'll need to know about this theme:

-- Use the hashtag #FloralFriday and/or tag +FloralFriday on your photo.

-- You can plus-mention all of the curators like this: +Tamara Pruessner +Beth Akerman +Kiki Nelson +Eustace James, but please don't  tag us in your photo.

-- We will try to share some pictures throughout today ... your photo has to be posted as public and unlocked.  We won't be able to use everyone's shot, so please don't get upset if yoursdo... more »

2013-05-16 03:39:10 (33 comments, 3 reshares, 84 +1s)

Playing with the new G+ layout gives me a chance to do this test. Now I get to see how photos work after all these changes ....

hope floats

2013-05-15 05:54:21 (18 comments, 0 reshares, 63 +1s)

Happy birthday to Mr. +Alan Shapiro, who is a mentor and a selfless, endless source of inspiration to everyone he touches. May your day be filled with gladness. And bourbon. And a little bit (or a lot) of Nutella.

Today, we do it #AlanShapiroBirthdayStyle .

2013-05-14 02:12:10 (24 comments, 0 reshares, 35 +1s)

this pain will pass away

#lyricallyinspired
 [+Jason Jakober +Amanda Recker +Tara Romasanta]

I love this song, and I think I may have done another image that used it as a source of inspiration. [Puscifer - Momma Sed]

It's just a broken heart, son
This pain will pass away

2013-05-10 05:28:26 (11 comments, 2 reshares, 50 +1s)

We're barely an hour into #FloralFriday where I live (in the Eastern time zone), and the hashtag is already trending at number five! Although I won't be around as much as I'd like to be for the next couple of days, I'm looking forward to checking in to see what you all have left me!

Use the #FloralFriday hashtag and be sure plus-mention the four curators -- +Tamara Pruessner, +Beth Akerman, +Kiki Nelson, and +Eustace James so that we can see the work you've submitted!

As for carnations, they are not my friends. I don't particularly like taking photos of them, but I can occasionally find an angle that seems right.

gone from me

2013-05-10 01:31:46 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 39 +1s)

nothin's gonna change my world....

If you've seen the movie Across the Universe, then you'll probably recognize the inspiration for this photo. This photo was taken as an entry in +Chrysta Rae's Photography Scavenger Hunt, in which the first of ten album reveals has taken place.  Check out a plethora of strawberries at the link below, and stay tuned over the next ten days for a wealth of amazing photographs!

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/113977984500465768287/albums/5876054305398972433

2013-05-09 16:36:35 (14 comments, 2 reshares, 52 +1s)

loving the alien

Guess what tomorrow is .... yes! #FloralFriday  is just around the corner again!

The news: +Kiki Nelson is now part of the #FloralFriday  curating team! Welcome! As for me, I'll be pretty scarce over the next few days, as I'll be helping my daughter celebrate her 12th birthday and helping my wife celebrate Mother's Day with our family. But please plus-mention me anyway so that I can enjoy all the flowery goodness when I return!

#FloralFriday  has a community here: (https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/101224450803598731206). Feel free to shower the community with your floral love -- we'll be interacting more in that venue in the future!

Here is the info for #FloralFriday :

-- Use the hashtag #FloralFriday  and/or tag +FloralFriday on your photo.

-- You can plus-mention all ofthe c... more »

2013-05-05 00:43:28 (8 comments, 1 reshares, 58 +1s)

You knew it was going to be flowers, didn't you?

For the lady over whose sleep I watch ... ;-)
And for the lady whose indefatigable energy and ebullient spirit is always an inspiration ...

I wish you the happiest of birthdays. May the best days of your past be the worst of your future.

#HappyBirthdayChrystaRae [+Chrysta Rae]

2013-05-04 02:51:36 (22 comments, 1 reshares, 63 +1s)

Well. It's winding down toward the end of the first #FloralFriday during which I've shared curators' duties with +Tamara Pruessner and +Beth Akerman. I have to say this: WOW, Tam! I can't imagine how you've been doing all this on your own until now. And this: I've really enjoyed the amazing quality of the images that have been coursing through my stream all day today. And this as well: I'd like to share a few of the numerous images that caught my eye throughout the course of the day.

by +Eilidh McHale [https://plus.google.com/113616415514109228464/posts/daXY1i8vkxc]

by +Jason Jakober [https://plus.google.com/111397628815301589258/posts/9UvQDbbNsep]

by +Melanie Kintz [https://plus.google.com/114127684466692817416/posts/c8XzNwSgWYq]

by +Rick Leaf [https://plus.google.com/117949314904695168818/posts/FrZhkxxoJyd]

by +Ruslan... more »

2013-05-03 14:28:13 (22 comments, 1 reshares, 53 +1s)

two much of a good thing

Happy #FloralFriday  everyone!  

#FloralFriday  has 2 new curators (with one more to be added in two weeks)!  +Beth Akerman and I will be joining the inimitable +Tamara Pruessner to manage this marvellous theme!

#FloralFriday  also has a community here: (https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/101224450803598731206). Feel free to shower the community with your floral love -- we'll be interacting more in that venue in the future!

Here is the info for #FloralFriday :

-- Use the hashtag #FloralFriday  and/or tag +FloralFriday on your photo.

-- You can plus mention all of the curators like this: +Tamara Pruessner, +Beth Akerman, and +Eustace James (wait! that's me!). Please don't  tag us in the photo.

-- We will try to share some pictures throughout today ... your photo has tobe posted ... more »

2013-05-02 15:31:45 (13 comments, 0 reshares, 15 +1s)

Coffee? Tea, actually. But it's #CoffeeThursday , and no-one should tell +Jason Kowing or +Maki Silberberg or +Stuart Dyckhoff or +Sairam Sundaresan that I'm cheating sinning. Or that I no longer drink coffee.

2013-05-02 12:13:22 (15 comments, 2 reshares, 64 +1s)

Happy birthday, +Tai Mi! I know you love the flowers, so here's one for you. And also, a secret that you may not have known: the flowers love you, too.

your smallest fan

2013-05-02 04:12:10 (12 comments, 2 reshares, 42 +1s)

I got your flowers, all right. I got 'em right here.

the grace (of a peaceful ending)

2013-05-02 02:32:48 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 36 +1s)

#wordlesswednesday #wordlessonwednesday  

choose the colour of your day

2013-05-01 13:11:30 (14 comments, 0 reshares, 56 +1s)

I heard through the grapevine that +kimberton pemberly has been going through some tough times with her health lately, and that she could use a little cheering up.  Here's to you, Pemberly.  Hope you get back to feeling better in no time at all.

#weloveyoupemberton  

2013-04-30 13:00:37 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 36 +1s)

Hi, Tuesday-at-work. Good morning. I hope you'll find it in your heart to be nice to me, seeing as I've spent the last four days on a mini-vacation at home. Will it help if I bring you some flowers? Thanks in advance.

those yet to be born

2013-04-30 00:08:47 (24 comments, 1 reshares, 61 +1s)

I bought new flowers. My flirtation with gerberas is in abeyance for now. They've been discarded in favour of tulips ... for now.

#monochromemondays  [curated by +Hans Berendsen +Jerry Johnson +Steve Barge +Dominique Hilbert +David Orr and +Martin Heller]

brightness falls from the air

2013-04-29 20:21:56 (8 comments, 3 reshares, 48 +1s)

Holy hell. Is this the same dog??

The sheepdog is ready for summer, though.

2013-04-29 02:07:22 (15 comments, 0 reshares, 54 +1s)

This is one of my favourite things ever. My daughter gave it to my wife and I when she was seven. Every now and again, I look at it or I look at this picture and I remind myself how lucky I am to be surrounded by a loving family.

dear mom and dad

2013-04-28 03:22:29 (10 comments, 1 reshares, 37 +1s)

More math and more ratios for you tonight. This one is the golden spiral, aka the Fibonacci spiral. This ratio was "discovered" about eight hundred years ago -- and it tends to appear in nature in ways that contribute both to mechanical efficiency and to aesthetic value. If you look closely, you can find this ratio in use in pieces of art like the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa, and in logo designs all over our modern corporate world.

The composition here isn't quite as tight as it could be, although there is some correspondence with the way the flower's stalk lies on the phi line. I could have changed it with a tighter crop on the left, but that would probably have changed the way the spiral follows the right-hand side of the flower. Again: this was cropped only enough to change the aspect ratio to exactly 3:2 -- the composition happened in camera, not after the fact. That... more »

2013-04-28 01:58:53 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 36 +1s)

Happy Saturday, folks. Hope your weekend's working out well for you -- wherever you are, whatever you're doing.

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

2013-04-26 19:06:33 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 38 +1s)

They're not flowers. But they're pretty much the only other thing I shot this week.

#macrofeatherfriday  has as its curators +E.E. Giorgi and +Robin Griggs Wood.

2013-04-26 03:49:09 (17 comments, 0 reshares, 37 +1s)

Have you ever heard of the golden triangle rule of photographic composition? Aligning photos in certain ways is supposed to draw attention to the centre of interest and to improve a photograph's balance. Ratio, balance and alignment, oh my.

(Was this composition deliberate? Yes and no. It was something I had in mind when I saw the way the flowers were placed in relation to one another. But I didn't expect the angles to fit quite this well.)

2013-04-26 03:22:47 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 26 +1s)

Is it time for #FloralFriday yet? :-D (+Tamara Pruessner)

Here's another in the series that I've come to think of as The Gerbera Variations.

and imperishable

2013-04-25 13:11:46 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 54 +1s)

Right. I was in the middle of posting something and my machine bluescreened and crashed because clearly, no-one is meant to see this photo, ever, except for me.

(And maybe you, if you can see it.)

chaos and order

2013-04-25 03:45:31 (11 comments, 2 reshares, 59 +1s)

So lay your pistol down, Granny
The duty of men never fell to you
When you unknit your brow, Granny
Your friends, they are jewels, twice as beautiful and few.

Iron & wine - friends they are jewels

This was going through my head not only as I worked on posting this, but also as I shot it. That's a pretty clear case of being #lyricallyinspired  to me.
+Jason Jakober | +Amanda Recker | +Tara Romasanta 


twice as beautiful and few

2013-04-24 04:38:48 (22 comments, 0 reshares, 47 +1s)

I've said this before. I'll say it again. People really need to get me to go to sleep instead of eating potato chips and editing images.

move, bitch

2013-04-23 03:45:20 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Hi, everyone! It's time to play your favourite game and mine: Ask the Internet!

Today's question: should I (re-)open an account at 500px.com? Why (not)? Also, you can show me your account if you're so inclined. Thanks!

2013-04-23 03:17:47 (17 comments, 1 reshares, 43 +1s)

Did you know ... that water drops go with feathers? Yeah, me either.

The theme for this week's #MacroMonday is feathers. The theme curators are the lovely and talented +Jennifer Eden, +Jake Easley, +Kelli Seeger Kim, and +Kerry Murphy.

you're a handsome devil. what's your name?

2013-04-23 00:39:00 (27 comments, 0 reshares, 57 +1s)

I shoot a lot of flowers -- I suppose that's one of my things. Although I love to shoot them, and I love the results I'm getting lately, it'll eventually be time to move on to the next thing. It'll be interesting and exciting to find out what finds me next. Until then .....

hey kid. you like flowers?

2013-04-22 02:07:21 (15 comments, 5 reshares, 81 +1s)

It's settled. My favourite flowers are gerbera daisies. I can never keep them alive, though! So I have to keep buying them ...

a million dead-end streets

2013-04-21 03:28:31 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Added photos to The Selfy Sunday Project.

2013-04-20 04:08:58 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 20 +1s)

I am not a Bad Influence on my kids. I am a Good Excuse for their intriguing behaviour.

like father, like daughter

2013-04-19 02:43:47 (14 comments, 0 reshares, 39 +1s)

This reworking of a photo I shot in 2007 was inspired by a recent photo shot by +Jeff Smith [here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/115961021629090154025/posts/AmRj93N1nB2].

It's nice to be surrounded by inspirational and talented folks. It helps us all to see better and to do better work. Thanks, Jeff!

12:31 p.m. (Apparently They Were Travelling Abroad)

2013-04-18 22:19:02 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 27 +1s)

So I drove my son home from his first year of university and was thinking as I talked with him that every day with kids can be surprising, and that talking to him was in fact starting to feel like talking to an adult. It's not weird so much as that it's a paradigm shift. Talking to your kid as an adult for the "first" time is different.

And then this happened.

2013-04-18 01:33:39 (16 comments, 0 reshares, 21 +1s)

You know, I think that I really, really need to quit encouraging my son. He's gonna need therapy someday. 

O_o

#SomeoneBetterTakeAwayMyPhone  

2013-04-17 12:22:14 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 22 +1s)

#wordlessonwednesday #wordlesswednesday  

2013-04-16 18:22:32 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

Hrm, for some reason I can not get the arrows to select a different thumbnail when leaving links today
Day 108 - +Eustace James 

2013-04-14 05:29:15 (14 comments, 0 reshares, 32 +1s)

Twenty thousand of you? Y'all must be crazy.

2013-04-13 02:09:53 (23 comments, 1 reshares, 47 +1s)

I am a terrible procrastinator. I've been planning to change that, but I keep putting it off. :-/
Here's a late share for +Tamara Pruessner's  #FloralFriday .

the world is half made of death

2013-04-12 12:37:13 (24 comments, 2 reshares, 42 +1s)

This is what happens to you at our house when you can't keep from nosing around the place on your anatomy where your doggy-business used to be. Fucker.

#fidofriday (courtesy of +mel peifer, +Wes Lum, +Lisa Lisa, and +Suhaib Ayaz)

2013-04-10 02:13:09 (17 comments, 1 reshares, 81 +1s)

One more thing: my cat says that we're not done with the #eyewars  until he's done with the #eyewars .



OK. We're done.

2013-04-10 01:51:38 (14 comments, 1 reshares, 33 +1s)

Somebody said something about #eyewars  (I'm looking at you, +Rob Elliott).

No, really. I'm looking at you.

2013-04-06 23:39:58 (9 comments, 1 reshares, 43 +1s)

My easter lilies have bloomed a little bit too late, I think. The last bloom finally opened today, well after my shooting session last night, and nearly a week after Easter Sunday. Mais c'est la vie.

never as good as the first time