This Sunday morning, I woke up to a site that has absolutely inspired me to revisit my kid's photos!
Back in my day, I remember maybe 6 photos of myself at best; with my kids, I've got shoeboxes full of photos. Gary and Megan, I'll see you in June for some fun photos.
Basically, you recreate imitating an old childhood photo. 
Check out colorwar2008 for all of the great submissions...
At lunch time, I enjoy walking off a meal by photographing anything of remote interest that could pass off as "art". At least in my eyes.
Today, I was at the courtyard of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center taking maybe twenty pictures of the reflections in the round water fountain. I was mesmerized by the images of all the beautiful reflections than I didn't realized that the gentle wind creating the ripples was soaking my beige pants from the knees down.
See the other photos at my Flickr set.
After eating lunch, I love to stroll around downtown for some exercise and visual stimulation. After photographing all of the usual tourist scenes, I've been noticing the detail on walls, sidewalks and fixed objects. 
I'm glad the wall art is still in place from the Irish bar (closed) on Lower Broadway... 
I was strolling around downtown on foot when I saw two of Nashville's finest trying to catch a break from the oppressive heat and humidity.
"How about a thumbs up photo?"
"My friend, it's too hot - Why don't you get on and we'll take your photo?"
"AWESOME!"
Next time you see a patrolman, offer them a cool drink of water and a kind word.
They deserve it.
After talking with Chris Wage & Emily Ramsey last night, I'm motivated to work on my digital photography skill sets.
Things like ISO and manual settings escape me; I just need to break open the manual and dive deep into the finer aspects, while learning and observing from others.
I'm proud of this shot and composition (click to embiggen): 
The "accidental" shots are the best; I just need to document the settings.
VivalaLesley!
I wish I had a flying vehicle to jet me around Thursday night as I motored from West Nashville to Cool Springs to the Flying Saucer downtown.
I've been part of a great team working hard to finalize all of the logistics to host the upcoming Promise Keepers Men's Conference at the GEC (sorry, Sommet Center) July 20 -21. Lots of details and planning with the 700 or so volunteers from retail, registration, ushers, security... to host 14,500 men that weekend. But it's all been worth it to see the positive impact Promise Keepers has had for the last seventeen years on families. I know, as I'm a direct receipient. Very honored to be lock arms with the local leadership team giving of their time.
I've set up a Promise Keepers local blog which is a very effective tool to keep to keep all the volunteers and leaders up to date, in the loop and honoring their time.
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Speaking of honor, a slice of the local blogging community came out to celebrate Brittney Gilbert at the Flying Saucer for "all her efforts on behalf of Nashville is Talking for the past two-plus years."
Thanks Brittney for engaging us to have a voice via weblogs and build a community. We've come too far to see Nashville Is Talking grow with the richness of relationships not to be silenced.
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It's impossible to take good pictures in the dark, even with a flash!
I was able to carve out seven shots - posted at Flickr
Several weeks back, I was contacted by a publishing company about a book project to promote Nashville that the Chamber or Mayor's Office could use to attract companies to relocate to Nashville. Via Flickr, they found one of my downtown photos. This officially became my first paid, published photo with a second yet to be published by another company. Today, my one of my two favorite visitors (the UPS guy, the other being the FedEx dude) showed up with a beautiful book - Nashville Amplified.
OMG - page 82...
I'm in good company with Blake, Deb and the PhragMunkee.
and more than that, seeing that the author is non other than Fiona Soltes who use to write with The Tennessean newspaper. We went to church together way back and she was gracious to write an article about my involvement with Make A Difference Day when we were doing free oil changes and safety checks for the single moms at Belmont Church. Fiona is a class act and it was great to reconnect via print and seeing her craftsmanship. Go girl!
One of my favorite How To sites is Lifehacker. "Computers make us more productive. Yeah, right. Lifehacker recommends the software downloads and web sites that actually save time. Don't live to geek; geek to live."
Just in time for the holidays, Rick Broida writes a great Lifehacker article - 8 Ways to Shoot Video Like a Pro
Nothing brings out the camcorders like the holidays, which is why this is the perfect time to admit an ugly truth: You suck at making home movies.
No, really. I'm sure you're a nice person and all, but there's more to videography than just taking the camcorder out of the box and pressing Record.
As with photography, good videography requires a bit of know-how. Luckily, I know how, so here's my list of ways you can improve your home movies. You won't come out Soderbergh on the other side, nor even Singer, but your Uncle-Henry-dropped-the-turkey-on-Aunt-Edna's-head submission to America's Funniest Home Videos will look a lot better.
On the way back from the airport, I thought I park the car downtown and get 45 minutes of walking exercise in. Walking and stopping to take in the "visual textures" of what Nashville has to offer downtown thru the lens of a camera prove to be a nice change of pace. 
Here's a graphic of (I'm told) Getchen Wilson / Chevrolet ad on the side of the Gaylord Entertainment Center from a perspective of a child. (Shame on me - I don't know my country singers - thought it was Sara Evans.)
Also quite a stroke of Irish luck to see this green car parked behind the closed Seanachle Irish Pub on Lower Broad.
It's a shame that the murals will disappear once the building is renovated for the next tenant.
Southwest Airlines's mural "Greetings from Nashville" is still intact after all these years downtown behind the Gaylord Entertainment Center.
Notice the dog in the car to the left...
I think he'd rather be at home. 
(the window was down and it was 60 degrees... otherwise I would have gone ... ballistic.)
