Otherwise known as the, Thank God This Is Almost Over edition.

Hello again blog. Another 100 days have passed (and then some) and I was looking over my Project 365 pics trying to make sense of what flickr thinks is interesting and what it does not. Still doesn’t make sense to me. I was also marveling at the fact that I’ve somehow managed to take a picture every day for the last 310 days. Only 55 more to go.

While it’s fun to look back on, and I’ve learned a good bit about taking photos and maybe a teeny bit about being disciplined, it’s not been all that I hoped. Initially, it got my creative juices flowing, and gave me an excuse to get out more in search of interesting photos. But, as time has worn on, I’ve started looking on it as more of a chore. I really don’t want to look at my camera with dread. I am still determined to finish the year however. It would be a shame to have come all this way and stumble at the finish. But next year I think I’ll find another project to occupy myself with.

Three photos dropped out of the top 10 list over the last 100 days, replaced with three new ones. Leaving the list are Day’s End (112 / 365), The Globe (78 / 365), and, ironically, Will I Ever Make Explore? (75 / 365). Day’s End and The Globe are actually two of my favorites. Sad to see those two go.

C is for Coronary (218 / 365) enters the list at #5. I love this picture. You can get a sense of my sense of humor from it, along with Video Game Violence (55 / 365) and Empty Headed (251 / 365). They all make me smile.

Raw Hammer: Anger (246 / 365) at #6? Really? 41 views, 1 favorite. Just below it is Icons! (161 / 365) with 1,184 views and 2 favorites. Just another mystery of flickr’s interestingness rating. It’s a bowling ball people!

Lastly, Stones River (195 / 365) enters the list at #10. Actually this one was supposed to be used in a hotel guest guide for Rutherford County along with an article about the Murfreesboro greenway. I’m not sure what happened with that, if anything, but it is a pretty good shot and it’s nice to see it getting a little recognition.

Wow, look how long it’s been since I’ve written anything here! My blog gets pretty neglected what with Facebook and Twitter. Usually I don’t have, or am too lazy, to compose any thoughts longer than a few sentences and those two services provide an adequate outlet for my micro thoughts. If it seems lonely over here, well you know where to find me.

This is supposed to be about my Project 365 though. But it’s kind of related. I set out on this project, taking one picture a day, every day for an entire year, and it was supposed to help my with several things. Learning about photography, taking up something and sticking with it, partitioning my time, getting out more, etc. And it has helped in some of these areas. We’re 204 days into the year and I’m still taking pictures.

On the other hand there have been some negatives as well. I’m starting to look at my camera with dread and count the days until the end of the year. This doesn’t seem like a good thing. And you can see, as you go through all of these pictures, that I’m just not putting the effort into it that I did initially. Of my top 10 most interesting pictures (according to flickr), 5 of them were taken during the first 2 months of the project. Only two were taken during the last 100 days and of those, one just happened to get linked to a very popular blog.

Part of the problem is that this project has worked a little too well in some ways. For example, I’ve started exercising and trying to watch my weight. So now I weigh myself daily, and go to the gym as often as I can. What’s happened is that now it’s usually very late before I have a chance to think about a photo and not only is there a time constraint, but also an environmental one. Limiting myself to a picture between 10PM and midnight doesn’t afford quite as many photo opportunities as you’d think.

So, I need to work this out somehow and try and raise the quality of my photography again somehow.

In the meantime, the list hasn’t really changed much since last time. Sylvan Stream, Night Settles on LP Field, and Fillin’ Station are gone from the list. New on the list are:

• Icons is a picture I took out at WWDC this year. It’s really of my icon for Lucky 7 Slots, and isn’t amazing or anything. What happened was it got linked to a Skype blog post and has gotten lots and lot of exposure and has zoomed all the way to #5 and is still getting lots of views each day. Thanks Skype!
• No Way Out is a pretty old picture actually and the only Photoshop composition in my Project 365 set. I really had fun making this and wish I had more time to devote to stuff like this. I’m not sure why the sudden burst of interestingness, but it’s jumped up to #6
• Day’s End is one that I’m really happy with. It squeaks in at #10. I went out to Hurricane Creek Recreation Facility on Percy Priest lake a few months back and took some pictures around sunset. And really liked the way it turned out. This one was even linked to by Nashvillest for their photo of the day. Thanks Nashvillest!

That’s about it for my photography update. Until next time then. Perhaps I won’t wait 3 months for the next update. Or maybe I will.

I’m jumping the gun a bit since I’ve not posted or taken my 100th Project 365 picture. That will happen sometime today. But I was curious to look at my progress, so there.

Having gotten used to Aperture and its features, I coughed up the dough to Apple so I can continue using it. I still haven’t really spent time getting to know all of its features, but I can find my way around well enough to crop, straighten, adjust exposure, levels, etc. The less I do to a pic the happier I am, but occasionally I spend a bit more time trying to get a photo just right.

Looking over my 99 pics, one thing that makes me particularly happy is that I try not to focus on a particular theme. While I do tend to take a whole lot of pics around the house because I still have a hard time making time for my hobby, there is still a good bit of variety. Mostly still life around the house, but several of flowers and naturey bits thrown in, as well as sports, architecture, and even a portrait or two. This is a good thing I think.

Taking a look at my Top 10

1. Evolution is still #1 and my only Explored pic. I still don’t get what’s so special about it.
2. Moonlight makes a well deserved move from #3 to #2. It’s still one of my favorites despite a smattering of hot pixels (not newly discovered red stars).
3. Video Game Violence moves from #4 to #3. I really had a lot of fun making this one. And so did my son. He regularly presents ideas for my picture of the day that include assorted toys meeting an untimely demise. Perhaps I should worry. I need more stuff like this. Not necessarily blood and violence, but like this and No Way Out (43 / 365) that require a little thought and creativity.
4. No Photos Allowed falls from #2 to #4. I took this for the perspective, but its popularity is also party attributed to the security guard, standing to the left in this photo, who came and told me that photography wasn’t allowed in the mall. The admin for the Photography is not a crime group stumbled across this pic and invited me to add it to the group whereupon it received many views. It actually has more views than any of my other Project 365 pics.
5. Assimilation jumped from #8 to #5. Still shocked that I was able to capture this on the first try without any sort of assistance.
6. The Globe is one of my favorite little bits of serendipity since I started this project. I knew I wanted to take a picture of this glass globe but wasn’t quite sure how to pose it. I laid it on a magazine and found the words were magnified nicely. Even better when I found words like “depression”, “uncertain”, “the globe” and “I don’t know” and managed to magnify them within the globe.
7. Will I Ever Make Explore? is another new one and a bit of a joke. Flickr’s Explore contains some fantastic photography. And while I don’t expect to see my pics on there everyday, I’ll admit I have uploaded more than one image thinking this might be the one. Sadly, Scout remains silent.
8. Sylvan Stream. Speaking of stuff I thought had a shot at Explore. In any case I enjoyed my little drive out to Burgess Falls where this photo was taken.
9. Night Settles on LP Field drops from #6 to #9 which is just as well since it is a painful reminder of the Titans loss to the Ravens in the playoffs.
10. Fillin’ Station drops from #7 to #10. While I like it, it also demonstrates the quirkiness of flickr’s interestingness calculations. Within moments of posting it, it had 1 view and 1 favorite and was therefore, somehow, immediately among my most interesting pics. Right now it has 46 views and 1 favorite and is my 24th most interesting pic overall. While Uppercut (59 / 365) taken the day before has 86 views and 1 favorite, but is my 30th most interesting. Strange.

That’s it for this time around. I am having a harder and harder time trying to find things to point my camera at, but so far so good. Just two hundred and sixty-five more to go. Thanks again to everyone for your encouragement and feedback.

I’ve managed (somehow) to keep taking a picture a day, every day this year. Just 303 more days to go. Sigh. Anyway, I think I’m getting a little better. And I’ve made the switch from JPEG to RAW. Although using RAW means that I spend a little extra time fiddling with my photos before uploading them to flickr. I made almost no adjustments to my first 40 images and now, at a minimum, I crop, straighten, and check the white balance. And sometimes quite a bit more. Those that require almost no adjustment in Aperture make me happiest, so hopefully Aperture won’t make me lazy.

I’ve also started adding a small watermark to the bottom right of each image. Aperture makes this stupid easy. I don’t mind people using my images, but I would like credit. This hasn’t been a problem with my flickr images, but I noticed that someone took a bunch of scans that I posted on my genealogy site and uploaded them to Ancestry without acknowledging the source. Not sure what I’m going to do about that, if anything. But it is aggravating and thus the watermark from this point forward.

Anyway, I was going through my most “interesting” (as determined by flickr) pictures to see if the newer images were more likely to be more interesting than the older ones. In other words: Am I taking better pictures? My top ten most interesting Project 365 pictures are displayed to the right. I have two pictures from the first 30 days among my top ten and eight from the last 30. That’s encouraging. Also six of the top ten were processed in Aperture. So, even more incentive to continue using Aperture after the trial expires.

I’m not sure this has been interesting to anyone but me, but I wanted to make note of my progress regularly so I can see how my photography evolves (or devolves) over the course of the year.

Oh! And before I forget, thank you so much to everyone who views, comments, or favorites my pictures. I really appreciate the encouragement.

10. John Hiram Layne (1768 – ~1840): Born in Virginia and moved to Marion County Tennessee sometime before 1800. If your last name is Layne and you’re from the middle Tennessee area you’re probably related to this guy. He was my 4 x great grandfather.

9. David Pickett (1858 – 1910): Born, lived and died in Daus, Tennessee. Struck in the head and killed, by a rock which fell from a chimney he and two of his brothers were building. He was my great-great-grandfather.

8. Daniel Lafayette Layne (1871 – 1946): A well respected man born in Sequatchie County Tennessee. He not was not only a teacher for fourty-four terms in several one room school houses, but also a deputy sheriff, a member of the Sequatchie County Court, and a Justice of the Peace representing the Third District for forty years. He was my great-grandfather (my mother’s paternal grandfather).

7. Daniel Lee Layne (1907 – 1992): Better known as Leander Layne. He was born in Daus, Tennessee. Something of a trouble maker in his youth. He found religion sometime after the death of his brother Ulys in 1939. Like many in the 50s he moved the family to Detroit, Michigan to work in the automobile factories. Several years later he moved back to Tennessee. He served the community as pastor of church in Beersheba Springs until he passed away in 1992. He was my maternal grandfather.

6. Francis Adam Goodman (1827 – 1898): One of only two (as far as I know) ancestors that have found themselves worthy of a wikipedia entry. Francis immigrated from Germany in 1830 and eventually made his way to Salem, Allegan County, Michigan in 1855 after having lived some time in Baltimore, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. During the Civil War, he served as a private in the Ninth Michigan Infantry, Company D. After having served the local community as Supervisor of Salem Township, Commissioner and Justice of the Peace, he was elected as a Republican, representing the Second District, to two terms in the Michigan state Legislature in 1881 and 1883. He was my 3 x great grandfather.

5. Major James Tate (1778 – 1849): Born in Virginia, he along with several brother settled in, what would become, Warren County, Tennessee around 1806. James served in the War of 1812 at the rank of Captain and was later promoted to Major. He would be known as Major from that time on. Although I wonder if the title wasn’t given in recognition of his 18 children! He served as Justice of the Peace for Warren County and other public roles. The Major accumulated as much as 26,000 acres (that’s 40 square miles!) of land in and around the area now known as South Cumberland State Park. He was my 4 x great grandfather.

4. Colonel John Tate (1743 – 1828): John was born in VA and settled on Big Moccasin Creek on a spur of Clinch Mountain on the Holston River in November 1772. He is referred to in my documents variously as Lieutenant and Captain but his headstone reads Colonel. It is said he served under Colonel William Campbell in the Washington County Militia during the American Revolution and fought at the Battle of King’s Mountain. In 1787, John was appointed Captain in the upper Militia of the Moccasin Valley. In 1802, James Monroe, the Governor of Virginia, later President, appointed John Tate to become Lieutenant Colonel Commander of the 72nd Regiment, 3rd Division of the Virginia Militia. Later, as the senior Justice among 31 present for a special meeting in Lebanon in 1825, John Tate helped start Emory and Henry College. Colonel John Tate was my 6 x great uncle.

3. Robert Tate, Sr. (1725 – 1794): Robert Tate, Sr. is the oldest of the Tate line contained in my genealogy. There are over 1000 Tates in my database that can be traced back to Robert Tate, Sr. He was my 6 x great grandfather.

2. Henry Miller Layne (1846 – 1917): Apart from a brief time spent in Company “C” Tennessee Union 6th Mounted Infantry Unit during the Civil War, Henry spent his days as a farmer in Sequatchie County Tennessee. He was my great great grandfather.

1. Robert Tate, Jr. (1745 – 1806): Robert Tate was not quite so active in public service as his brother Colonel John Tate, so less is known of him. In 1781 he and his brother, John swore allegiance to the United States in Washington County, VA. On April 20, 1784 he received a land patent of 250 acres in Washington County, VA on both sides of Big Moccasin Creek on a spur of Clinch Mountain on the Holston River some three miles from Colonel John Tate. He was an Ensign of the Militia in 1786, while his brother, John was a Lieutenant. He was my 5 x great grandfather.