A couple of weeks ago I posted Lightroom Plugin Development: What To Do When a Hobby Becomes Work, a long missive about the weight that Lightroom plugin development has taken on me.... how something that I intrinsically enjoy has become, in part, a chore. I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and encouragement, both online and off.

I've decided to take the route that I speculated I would take, and that many encouraged me to take: Tim Armes' "donationware" model.

(The stack of unanswered email and comments has only grown while I've concentrated on implementing this system, so I've [...]

Things sort of started yesterday when we were both getting haircuts. While he was waiting for my cut to finish, I suggested that he go to a nearby bakery to pick out some bread for himself for today's breakfast. He'd never gone out like that himself, but it was just a minute away, so I gave him some money and sent him out. He accomplished his task well, and was proud.

So, he had his bread this morning, but I didn't have any for myself. I thought to build on yesterday's achievement, so suggested that he run to the nearby [...]

As I wrote the other day, Anthony went skiing for the first time this weekend. In between taking 500+ photos of him and his YMCA friends, I took the occasional generic ski-slope shot....

Imagine that you're at a table in a library and the person next to you gets your attention, indicates that your pencil has rolled a bit over into their space, and kindly pushes it back toward you. You might mumble a word of thanks, take your pencil, and not give it further thought because it's a trivial matter not worthy of further thought. Okay, so remember that [...]

On my way up to the ski area for Anthony's first ski experience, I stopped by the Shirohige Shrine on the shores of Lake Biwa (Japan's largest lake, about a third larger than Lake Tahoe). It was somewhat dark with a cloud mostly in front of the sun, with nice streamers of light emanating from the edge of the cloud, but overexposing the frame gives this interesting result.

I have no idea why the shrine is named Shirohige, which means "white beard". (UPDATE: it's apparently related to how a white beard indicates longevity, and perhaps wiseness)

Okay, I looked it [...]

I'd planned to write up a bit about the fun of spot metering, but have run out of time for today.... it seems that I'm extra busy lately. I did take a moment yesterday to run up to Shogunzuka in hopes of catching a nice sunset. It was pretty dull, but through the magic (or mistake, depending on your point of view) of spot metering, some of the photos of it came out okay. [UPDATE: here's the post on spot metering]

I tend to like this kind of silhouette shot at this location, as the nearby photos link shows, including: [...]