i was up way before i expected today, it wasn't so long after seven this morning that i was milling about boiling things and causing quite a clatter. i had thought i'd run myself out of wakefulness in under a half hour and return to bed, but after an hour i realized i was happy with an early start, and so i set out to make a day of it.

cloudy days are great days for studio photography, though most of my results were less than best today as the clouds were rather thicker and darker than is ideal. what that makes for in most cases is low contrast and shoddy colour relative to a pure white background.

about once a week, light permitting, i experiment with these sorts of pictures, trying the occasional new idea and then just putting in a bunch of time photographing everyday objects, slowly building up a portfolio of the mundane for use as stock images. the calico rock above was about the only thing that turned out well this time, though i did manage at one point to document jennifer's kind assistance:

in other things accomplished, it was three more big green bags of bric-a-brac off to the dumpster, a more aggressive approach in my search for more satisfying employ, a network cable run through a wall and a changeover to summer bedlinens. the evening i spent supping at med grill, discussing structural equation modelling with my favourite statistician, finishing with but a single shot of cuervo before a windy, somewhat rainy wander home.

day two at its close, though mostly acme-free, turned out to be a day of good and steady accomplishment. day three will i suspect start just as early; there's drycleaning to get in and i'm onsite for the first day of that contract i mentioned in a recent post. with luck, there will be time enough left over to bleach the fridge and get a fresh coat of wax on the wood floor in the bedroom, and maybe if i'm lucky the cats will realize it's their turn to make dinner.

i feel more human with each day gone by.