The New York Institute of Photography offers firework photography tips and tricks that are a great read. I’ve been thinking about getting a tripod lately, but then many of my photos would lose that distinctive blurry quality that makes them so distinctive. 😉

I’m working on some things so the photolog is going to be down for a bit, so don’t go there. Hopefully some very exciting things in store there.

0-day photos are back, including an especially interesting one of Josh with a nice backlight, and a strange pink photo.

If you glance over at the sidebar, the photolog is now italicized, which can only mean one thing. It’s back! Over two hundred new pictures, eleven new albums, and more captions than you can shake a stick at. Go check it out, and be sure to leave comments. It’s going to be another summer of photos, so be sure to check the photolog regularly. I’m going to see now if I can do anything about the horrid HTML there.

So you’ve seen the ten that were chosen from a pool of over five thousand, but wouldn’t it be interesting to know what photos didn’t quite make the cut? Here’s the story of the six photos that almost made it:

• 6-1-2002, Rachel — I really like this photo but it’s a tad washed out in the colors, though nothing that couldn’t be tweaked I suppose. In the end it was just pushed out by stronger candidates.
• 1-19-2003, Sarah C. — This is one of the more interesting ones from the photoshoot with Sarah. Again, I like the shot but the contrast is a too high on her face, and overall it’s blurry due to the lack of light. Gotta love the hair though!
• 2-20-2003, Duck — A fairly recent photo that has some pretty interesting elements. I especially like the duck behind the main one that’s checking everything out. I also enjoyed these subjects because they didn’t attack me like the geese did.
• 2-16-2003, Wood — Sarah W. swears she took this photo even though I’m pretty sure I did. The whole day is worth checking out as a lot of the photos came out very well.
• 2-16-2003, Sauce — A cool picture of something hot.
• 3-23-2003, Trees — I was extremely close to putting this one in, as personally I really enjoy this photograph. In fact it’s my desktop right now. There’s just something about the contrasting colors and shape of things that tickles my fancy.

I cannot describe the thrill I felt when Rannie asked me if I wanted to participate in the latest 300 Exposures Project. Well my ten selections are now online. I put a little story with some of the pictures, something the photolog format here doesn’t really lend itself well to, so go check it out even if you’ve already seen the pictures I’ve chosen. And leave some comments so I don’t look like a dork ;).

The photolog has four new albums and about a hundred new pictures, including some of a family trip, an Apple sticker, a peace protest, and two jazz concerts. I had another very nice post lined up but I forgot that Tantek’s site occasionally crashes my browser so it’ll have to wait until I find some more free time.

My day in photos: Alfred Hitchcock would cringe. Mmmm, texture. New do. I love the arrow. Flowers for my Mother’s birthday. Blue steel.

Not pictured: my mid-term being delayed until Saturday, birthday dinner, evil Starbucks, rude and ageist salespeople, how wonderful this day was despite the occasional annoyance, and my funny elated look from being happiness-hungover from SxSW.

Got some really nice pictures in the country on Sunday. I hadn’t realized it until I was working on the photos, but the bulk of the pictures on the photolog are taken at night. This fits my personality because I’m very much a night person, but these daylight pictures have really nice colors, so perhaps I should try to take more pictures during the day.

The photos from last Thursday’s meetup at Brasil’s with the some other H-Town Bloggers are finally up on the photolog, as are some others. It was great to see Elaine, Kathy, Christine, Katie, Robert, and Mike again. There are so more thorough photos (like with people) up at the H-Town Blogs Gallery. Remember when something is updated it’s emphasized in the navigation menu on the right.

What happens when three friends are very bored one night and decide to reenact fight scenes from various movies in stop time in a public park? Good question.

Well I am proud to announce that the photolog has reached a great milestone: over 5,000 publicly viewable photos are now online. The champagne is flowing freely at the photomatt.net world headquarters. If you haven’t been in a while, I just put up two portrait series, some fun stuff, and some narratives. I’m looking forward to the H-Town Blog get-together tonight.

If you had come to the site yesterday, there would have been about 4,483 photos, now there are 4,935. I know I haven’t had much time to post lately, but that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. I would espescially recommend checking out 12-29-2002 as it has a real range of every kind of picture imaginable. The shots from the cathedral under construction are particularly good in my opinion.

With that burden off my shoulders, I’ve finally starting taking pictures again. I took some night ones in the country yesterday, and today I started a project which I hope to finish up and post on the first of Feburary, a series of eleven portraits.

The first of the Christmas photos are up. Expect many many more :). Also I feel the first picture in that album deserves a little explanation, as it is a dump of everything except my laptop stuff and camera I carry in my backpack. Many people often remark to me that my backpack is too full, so I decided to see exactly what I carry around in it. From left to right there is my CD case, some cheap in-ear headphones, retractable phone cord, two Orinoco 802.11b cards, some Burt’s Bees chap-stick, Penguin mints (with extra caffeine), my migraine medication, a Tecom USB Bluetooth adapter, house keys, some gum, cheap electric razor, optical USB mouse with retractable cord, retractable cat5 cable, Taking Your Talent to the Web by Zeldman, and a Stowaway keyboard for my Clié.