The Military Wife

The Good Lord was creating a model for Military wives and was into his sixth day of overtime when an angel appeared. She said," Lord, you seem to be having a lot of trouble with this one. What's wrong with the standard model?"

The Lord replied," Have you seen the specs on this order? She has to be completely independent, possess the qualities of both mother and father, be a perfect hostess for four to 40 with an hour notice, run on black coffee, handle every emergency imaginable without a manual, be able to carry on cheerfully, even if she is pregnant and has the flu, and she must have six pairs of hands."

The angel shook her head. "Six pairs of hands? No way!"

The Lord continued. "Don't worry, we will make other military wives to help her. And we will give her an unusually strong heart so it can swell with pride in her husbands achievements, sustain the pain of separation, beat soundly when it is overworked and tired, and be large enough to say, "I understand" when she doesn't and "I love you" regardless.

"Lord," said the angel, touching his arm gently, "Go to bed and get some rest. You can finish this tomorrow."

"I can't stop now," Said the Lord. "I am so close to creating something unique. Already this model heals herself when she is sick, can put up six unexpected guests for the weekend, wave good-bye to her husband from a pier, a runway or a depot, and understand why it's important that he leave."

The angel circled the model of the Military wife, looked at it closely and sighed.

"It looks fine, but it's too soft."

"She may look soft," replied the Lord, "but she has the strength of a lion. You would not believe what she can endure."

Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek of the Lord's creation. "There's a leak," she announced. "Something is wrong with the construction. I'm not surprised that it has cracked. You are trying to put too much into this model."

The Lord appeared offended at the angel's lack of confidence. "What you see is not a leak," he said. "It's a tear."

"A tear? What is it there for?" asked the angel.

The Lord replied, "It's for joy, sadness, pain, disappointment, loneliness, pride and dedication to all the values that she and her husband hold dear."

"You are a genius!" exclaimed the angel.

The Lord looked puzzled and replied, "I didn't put it there."

~Author Unknown

Wish I Could Be There With You...

For my husband:

This time it's a little harder than it usually is. This time, you're in my old stomping grounds, and I'm not there to share it with you. You floated in through the Gate, underneath that great golden bridge, and into the Bay where I spent some of the most formative years of my life. But I wasn't there to see it. You sailed right past my old home where I had so many different experiences - being in a major earthquake, watching my dad sail by on his way to sea and Somalia, and much more ... but today I wasn't there to wave as you passed.

And when you tied up at the pier, just a few streets down from my favorite place to go as a kid, I wasn't there to greet you.

Many others will get to see you; they will walk around with you inside your ship, see the inner workings of where you spend most of your waking hours, and learn about the day-to-day life of a Navy Sailor. But I won't be in the crowd listening to you speak.

I will be here at home, doing what I do. Loving you, praying for you, taking care of the kids and house, and waiting for you to come home. And wishing I could be there with you...

Gone all Friends & Family

Yep, I've decided to completely turn all photos of my kids on flickr, to friends/family only. :( Unfortunately, hundreds of stolen-from-flickr photos of kids are showing up in various places 'round the net, most notably on Orkut (google's own social-networking site) and also on MySpace. I'm not as popular as some of the other people who've had photos stolen, but there's also some new to flickr who've had photos taken. The majority of my kids' photos have been f/f for a while now, mostly to protect them from viewing by less-than-savory people, but I've shared some of them with the public; not anymore. To be honest, I'd been considering it anyway. Some of them had showed up in Explore, and been extremely popular - and ended up being misused and reposted by people pulling them through the API. Even though I've had downloading turned off for non-contacts, and 3rd-party API searches turned off, direct feeds were still pulling them and occasionally I'd find them on some odd site I never heard of before. I got major crap from one person after I asked him to remove my photos and let him know he was violating many of the API's TOS, so from now on, I just share with those I trust. Sad, but what else can I do?

Yay! Good News!

Self-Portrait
Originally uploaded by FlyButtafly

I haven't taken any new SPs for a while, so I decided to use this one from a while ago to share my fun news. :)

When I joined flickr almost three years ago, I would never have expected to be where I am now, as far as photography is concerned. I only joined because I had just started a blog, (sadly not updated very often nowadays - too much time on flickr ;) and it said I could post my photos from flickr to the blog. It didn't take long till I was hooked, and then a few months later I got my first digital camera. Then I learned about Camera Tossing, and posted my very first attempt. It was one of my most popular images on flickr ever - still is in fact - and it was my very first paid-for published photo. (I was interviewed for and it was published in a story about camera tossing in the Washington Post.)

I was also contacted by Jim Dever of Evening Magazine (a local entertainment/news show), to do a segment on my camera tossing. That was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I don't have the video (so kindly recorded for me by KnowWonNose) uploaded anywhere on the 'net - maybe when flickr goes video. ;)

I've also licensed 8 different images for use on ExperienceWA.com, Washington State's tourism website.

And now, I'm gearing up (literally - I have some serious gear to buy) for a wedding this winter! My sister's best friend has asked me to shoot her wedding this December. This will be the first time I've been hired to do photography, and I am so excited. I've long wanted to do photography professionally, and I'm slowly, finally, seeing my dream come to fruition.

Of course, I had to decide on a name for my business, if in fact I wanted to have a business. I wracked my brain, trying to come up with something memorable, pretty, and representative of me in some way. And something that wasn't already in use, obviously. I originally was thinking something like DownyThistle Imagery - I love thistles; the color, the way they look, and they represent my Scottish heritage. But it just didn't seem quite right. Well, one morning, I was driving home from taking my husband to work, and I saw the mist from the Snohomish River hanging in the air over the water and the nearby strawberry fields. Strawberries are a big crop where I live. (I have yet to find a suitable place to pull off I-5 and take a photo of the magical sight; but I'm determined one of these days, before the clouds set in for the next 7 mos., to do so.) As I looked at the scene before me, the name StrawberryMist Photography came to me. So I've decided to go with it.

Of course, without my husband's support and patience, and my kids' tolerance of my camera constantly in their faces, I'd never have gotten this far.

But now, who knows where I'll go from here? :)

Bye, JPG!

Bye, JPG!
Originally uploaded by FlyButtafly.

Recently, JPG Magazine went through an overhaul. Apparently, Paul, one of the partners at JPGmag, decided to abandon what made it so successful to begin with - along with the magazine's founders Derek and Heather, and the first 6 issues - and rewrote (or more appropriately, erased) the history of the magazine.

I think it's galling, and I can not conceive any rational reason for doing so. There are so many people who've been a part of it from the beginning, and completely disregarding and dishonoring those of us who contributed and were part of a once-great community is going to do nothing but harm the magazine we loved. Good bye JPG, sorry to see you do this to yourself. But if this is how you wanna play, then good riddance.

The real story of JPG
Heather's post
What the 'About' page used to say
The new 'About' page
8020 Publishing's post

I'm just thankful I was able to be a part of the group and magazine way back when - before it decided to sacrifice its parents and feed on itself. I even had a photo published in issue 6, "Oops!" - before they switched gears and went downhill. I guess all I have to say now, is Bye!

Camera-Tossing for the (TV) Camera

Photo by FlyButtafly (formerly TaGurit).

So if you're thinking what I think you might be thinking ;) - yeah, that's Jim Dever from Evening Magazine. Ok, well you're probably only thinking it if you happen to live in WA (western Washington at that) and tune in to channel 5 at 7pm on weeknights.
Edit: I just realized it also airs on NW Cable News at 9pm on weeknights - I don't have cable, so I didn't know. I apologize. :)

Anyway, it's a great show, and Jim usually does the more entertaining bits - whether it's breakdancing or bobsledding or anything in between. Well, he contacted me recently to help with a story on camera tossing. (Ok, well - an interview anyway, and to throw the cameras around.) We met up the 14th (of this month) in Evergreen Park in Bremerton, and he did a filmed interview with me and then we did some tossing.

How'd the interview go? Well, I'll just say I do much better when I'm scripted and on-stage. *Acting* as someone else in front of people is so much easier than just being myself and thinking on my feet. ;) I'll never be one of those impromptu actors who ad lib all over the place and are complete geniuses when they do so (not to imply I was acting... but it's just to illustrate the fact that I have to sit and think to come up with *good* stuff usually). I can write stuff, and I can recite stuff, and I can come up with sarcastic one-liners and stuff like that... but when it comes to just being me in front of a camera, I geek it all up. I just know when this airs I'm going to be just shaking my head at myself, going - did I have to say it that way? Oh it would've been so much better if I'd done/said this rather than that... and on and on. We're always our own worst critics though, aren't we? ;)

Jim was really cool though, and I never felt ill at ease. He seems like a regular guy (albeit one on TV every weeknight ;) who just has a really fun job and a hilarious sense of humor (and of course, he is one of those who can just come up with stuff right off the top of his head. Gosh I hope I didn't screw any footage up for him...)

As far as the tossing goes - we had a lot of fun with that. :) I tossed it for a while, while they shot from all different angles (well, Jim didn't shoot it obviously - Tim, the camera-man did all of that) and I tossed a couple different cameras. Got my first-ever injury (minus the bumps on the head from my little dearly-deceased P&S that I used to bounce around in the van while we were on the road) that day:

A camera that I was borrowing has little metal triangle-ish shaped loops on the sides for a strap. Well, I never toss with a strap (it gets in the way) and anyway, I somehow got sliced with one of the loops when I caught it. I hadn't even noticed until I was picking up my stuff so they could shoot in a different part of the park - I looked down and saw blood on my hand, and it was all over the pocket of my jeans too. Ouch! It's still there (on my hand, that is) and still sore, too. *Recommendation: Don't toss cameras that have little metal protruding things.*

Jim did great for a first-time tosser (I already know about the whole British slang term, so don't even go there ;) and only dropped it, um... a *few* times.

I even dropped mine (oops!) once... but only in the tanbark, so it was all good.*Recommendation: Until you're used to the way your camera handles in the air, practice tossing over soft surfaces!*


I had my new camera with me, and used it for the first tosses, but unfortunately I only have a 32mb memory card, so I wasn't able to get many images (I used to have a 512mb card... Goshdurnit, I just can't find it anywhere!) Here's a few I got:




Not spectacular, but the lighting conditions were unfortunately not the best for tossing that day. And I still hadn't gotten used to my camera, (I hadn't even read the manual yet!) so, well... And no, I'm not just making excuses! ;) (Seriously, lighting has a big role in how tosses come out. Too much light, and the shutter shuts too fast, or the image picks up too much light and it's all washed out.) Oh well. :) I did recently upload some tosses from my archives (I've got over 600 on my hard drive) that were from my old P&S though. Here's a sampling:



(click on any photo to see it in larger size)

I'll be posting a tutorial later, for those interested in trying themselves, along with a review for each of the cameras I've used so far. (Just so you know, I've only used Olympus - I just love their usability, versatility, ergonomics and - heck, everything!) :)

disclaimer: Please don't think I'm overstating my importance. I know it's just going to be a short piece, and everything - but heck, I'm still excited. :) And I know I'll enjoy it, however they put it together.
Thanks Jim, for the fun time and the opportunity to spread the word in WA about camera tossing. ;)