October is Up

More tiny peeks through the keyhole...

September is up

Another month, more photos. FYI, it was probably Rose who did that to Carrie's face. At any rate it was a dog fight. Really.

I leant upon a coppice gate

The Darkling Thrush
by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

August is Up

Just in case you stumbled here, the August page is up. September soon to follow.

Mark Your Calendars

Scanning the Maloney family photo box...

Guessing this was about 1950.

A Good Time is Guaranteed For All

Aug 14, 1971

Molly the Beautiful

Molly spent the weekend and it was much fun, as always. Today we made some portraits and they 'came out' , as they say, rather well. Have a peek, if you're inclined.

July is Up

And here it is!

Blogger won't let me put a photo on this post tonight... maybe I'll return later and try again.

Update: There, that's better.

Hee Hee

Ok, what a dweeb. Me, I mean. After all this time I just now realized that although this blog is called 'Monkshood' the url reads 'Moonkshood'. Jeesh. I found out where to change it, but I realized if I did change it, maybe no one would be able to find it anymore. Man, what an idiot.

June is Up

For the sixth(!) time since 2003, June is up! Somehow missed the last two days of the month. Doesn't seem possible, especially since Carrie's birthday is the 29th. I'll try harder this month.

Sorry for the surfeit of self-portraits; I'm doing a lot of test shooting these days. Any volunteers to sit for me?

Also, I'm trying to not duplicate too many photos that I put here, but it's rather hard. Sorry for the ones you've seen already.

There are some changes coming soon to dot Mac, the service where I host these photos. Apple is 'upgrading' the service and changing the name to 'MobileMe'. I'm not sure if this will have an effect on how I create/display these albums. Of course I'll keep all of my loyal readers up to date as to where they can get their photographic fix of happenings here. Watch this space.

Housekeeping

Just a quick note to say that I've changed many of my SmugMug galleries so that the most recent photo I've uploaded will show up first. That way you don't have to go to the back of the gallery to see my latest treasure. Hope I did it right.

This is my tonight's dinner. Couscous and frozen veggies with my favorite sauce. It's some ginger, saffron mango deal. Pretty yummy. I'm eating alone since Carrie's at her writer's retreat.

Soo Locks

Here's Mom, Cynthia and me in the town of Sault Ste. Marie, Upper Peninsula, Michigan. I'm guessing it's about 1957 or '58, making me three or four. I think I look four. I have dim memories of Mom and Dad taking us to the locks after dinner to watch the ships go through. The locks allowed the huge ore boats to move between lakes Superior and Huron. Somewhere I think we have slides that Dad took of a boat navigating the locks. I think Heather might have them. I wish there was a way we could scan those slides, I'd love to see them again. I'll have to look into that.

But for now, here's a photo taken by Dad, of us at the locks, after dinner. Fifty years ago.

To see more Given family photos, take a look here.

Somewhere Else

Last weekend I did a couple of shoots for the band Boondoggle. They're using a bunch of my photos on their website, both as a Flickr slide show and in the 'Band Bio' section. Check it out.

Boondoggle is a very cool, laid back cover band that's a lot of fun to see and hear. Catch one of their gigs if you can. Oh, and the tall guitarist on the right is my bro-in-law John. Awesome human being.

May Is Up

You can find the 'photo-a-day' (or thereabouts) for May here. Don't forget to look here as well, if you want to see even more. And you should really take a look at these photos of Molly.

Oh, and click on the carnival photo to see it bigger, if you're so inclined. It was taken at 'Good Neighbor Days' in Roberts, WI.

Tooting Again

Hey, I made the finals of the Digital Story photo assignment for April. Check out the blog post here or just jump to the gallery here. I'm on page 2.

Doggie Gallery

It seemed like a good idea to give the dogs their own gallery... they were hogging so much space in 'Daily Life'. Be sure to visit them often and leave a comment if you'd like!

April Is Up

The 'photo-a-day' deal continues on its merry and unrehearsed way, the latest installment of which you'll find here.

I have no plans to end its existence, but I am finding that the 'good stuff' tends to go here first and more frequently.

Horn Tooting

My favorite photo blog, The Digital Story, runs a monthly photo assignment. It basically serves as an inspiration to get out there and shoot. Last month (March, 2008) I submitted my first ever photo and wound up making the cut of final images! You can see the blog entry announcing the results here, or go right to the gallery. Be sure to note that there are two pages of images.

I made the photo with my trusty G2 (pictured here), before I was gifted with my awesome Nikon. I'm already hard at work (thinking about, at least) this month's assignment.

If you want to see more photos by me, visit (or even easier, subscribe to) my SmugMug galleries.

March Is Up

Well, I mean wow. A few days ago I received a totally unexpected, totally wonderful gift from... gee, it's a shame to call them clients. Because they're dear friends and were so before they presented me with this.

It was their totally over-the-top way of thanking me for finally completing the video of their UK trip, which did turn out rather nicely, if I do say so myself. So to Ms. Germain, Tomlanovich, Rivard and Germain, my profound thanks! You'll never know how much this means to me.

I can't see missing making a photo a day for a long time. You'll find March here.

Above is sweet Hannah, smiling that smile this morning.

Lastly, another reminder that most of my photographic efforts are going here these days. Be sure to poke around the galleries for old and new stuff.

February is Up

Not a bad month, the juices seem to be flowing again.

SmugMug

I've discovered the wonderfulness that is SmugMug. Actually, I've been aware of it for some time, but I finally joined a few weeks ago. I think I'll mostly use it for clients, but since they let you upload and store an unlimited number of photos, I've been posting shots of my own as well. For the time being I have two galleries:

Daily Life and Swanhouse photos

Take a look if you've time, and comment if you'd like. Also, each gallery has an RSS feed so you can subscribe if you'd like.

January Is Up

The January photos are up, and I think it might be the first ever that really has a photo from every day. I don't usually comment on the 'photo-a-day' thing, but I can't resist this time. First off, yes, each photo was taken on the day indicated. Second, I had no idea I had 4 SX-70s around the house. They all came from Arthur, I believe. And the ones I have most feelings about are 1/5 and 1/18. Really got into the 'hobby' with those two. And finally, I did have to scratch around there at the end; it was odd how it kind of worked out to total 31. Also, the slide show is a must for this one.

Holiday Post Mortem

Just for the heck of it, here are some remembrances of the past few weeks. Some of these you may have seen before if you look at the photo-a-day deal. Others you haven't. Note there are two pages, and also note there are various ways to view the pics, changeable at the bottom left. I like 'mosaic', but that's me.

December Is Up

You can see December's offerings here. Congrats Dave, for being my last posted photo of the year. Thanks to everyone who took the time to view and comment this year.

Also, I found a nice digital photography website and podcast here.