Picture Post, Sunday July 29, 2007

I've never scuba dived, and I probably never will. But I can stand by the water of the Sebastian Inlet, about a 40 minute drive from our home, and see some nifty underwater life.

Thes first three photos, I was doing exactly that, standing there and looking a the neat stuff growing in there.

One problem, taking photos looking into the water from outside like this usually are robbed of color and contrast.

This first photo is pretty much how it came out of my camera. I punched up the contrast just a little and it helped "see through" some of the murkiness of the water. Interesting, but nothing to print, frame, and send to Sainted Mother, ya know?

This is the same photo as above, but I freely played with it in Photoshop Elements trying to create an interesting and more impacting photograph. I like the results a lot better than the top one.

This is almost a straight photo, but it had much better water and plant color, and I added a bit of simulated film grain, to make it appear as if I had used a high speed print or slide film to take the photo with. I liked this too, and it looks a bit old school, like some of my print and slide film scans, although it was taken on a digital camera.

There are basically two trains of thought on the upkeep of guitars. One is that the owner rubs and dings and intentionally wears off the finish of the guitar to give it that "rode hard and put away wet" look.

I'm not that kind of guy. I think that good workmanship on a guitar is beautiful, and I try to keep my guitars clean and avoid dings and dents. But that's just me. I enjoy just looking at the things, they're beautiful on their own.

When I get a new guitar (new to me, most of mine were bought used) I put something on the back of the guitar to help prevent belt buckle scratches and shirt button scratches. At crafts stores, you can usually find big sheets of thin plastic that is designed to stick to slick surfaces like windows via a static electricity like surface tension which adheres the sheet of plastic to the item. This works fine for guitars too, and I put a big American flag one on the backs of my guitars. No glues or anything, they can come right off, but will stick there not unlike how Saran Wrap sticks to itself.

This is one on the back of my Les Paul that I showed pics of earlier this week.


Hope y'all have a good Sunday.