On the Waterfront

I sometimes forget how lucky we are to be so close to the beach. Living out in the boonies, though, we're just as close to Hilton Head as we are to Tybee so we always go to Folly Field on Hilton Head.

If anyone's interested there's still a few weekends of beach portraits available, either Hilton Head or Tybee, before it gets too cold!   

YES!

I am so psyched! These are the first images of mine that were accepted by a stock agency for licensing! I'm gonna be rich! No, I wish, but it's a start! So hopefully lots of people will need pictures like these and buy them and I can retire before I'm too old to see through the viewfinder.

Atlanta Rocks!

And not just because I used to live there! Atlanta Rocks is a great indoor rock-climbing facility that we try to get to whenever we go to Atlanta. Not for Amy or me, of course (I mean, come on), but the kids really enjoy it. Well, not really Jarrod. He kinda takes after me with "the less physical activity the better" attitude. But Abigail definitely loves it. And she's an awesome climber. It's like she's Spidergirl how fast she gets to the top. Up and down she goes and never slows down. 

Goodbye NY!

After dragging my vacation stories out for so long I have reached the final posting! You're either crying or breathing a sigh of relief. Keep it to yourself whichever route you take.

For some reason Abigail really wanted a portrait of herself. I guess on the off-chance that she might run into the Jonas Brothers on the street or something at least she could give them a picture to remember her by. Anyway, the sidewalks along Central Park are filled with artists hustling tourists to sit for a drawing. The guy we chose (or who chose us, I'm not clear how it unfolded) first told us it was like $272 but he would do it for $185. A big ol' hell to the no. Then he came down to $52 and we still walked away. We eventually settled on $45 for both Abigail and Jarrod. He really did a great job, though Jarrod looks to have a lazy eye in the finished drawing. Maybe if we had payed full price he would've drawn a regular eye. Anyway, he then tried to sell us a paper matte for $45 to protect the picture. We told him no, just give us a bag to put the picture in. Of course he didn't have a bag, but he would sell us the matte for only $10. I'm pretty much steaming by now because the picture is charcoal, it hasn't been sprayed with fixative and will rub-off if touched, and this guy is trying to get more money from us. I'm not paying him another penny. Another artist offers to sell us a matte for $5 but we turn him down, too. We can live with a few smudge marks.

We had other equally exciting adventures on our vacation, but I'm afraid my memory is not what it used to be. During one of my early-morning insomnia bouts I tried to blog from the iPhone, but like so many other things associated with that it didn't work. 

In order to squeeze in one more day in NY we had to leave at 3:00 Friday morning and drive all day for me to be back for a wedding on Saturday. Traffic was pretty much non-existent, but those one-way streets still made us go in circles. 

Is This My Good Side?

This is what my picture looks like on Facebook. That's because I don't have any pictures of myself. There are no pictures of me to prove I have ever taken a vacation (at least none I can put up), and what very few pictures there are are so blurry that I might as well be a tree. Amy can't take a picture to save her life so she won't be any help. 

I'm new to Facebook and I have no idea how to use it, but I've found it to be addictive. If you're really bored search for me under Ryan A. Smith and let me be your friend!

Color: Blue, Outlook: Gloomy

I have to start by saying I know nothing about "Art". I've taken art courses and have art books and visit art museums, and can sometimes even answer art questions on Jeopardy, but for the most part I'm very uneducated on the subject. I figure if I don't really "get" what I'm looking at it must be "Art". I have a friend who always says to me, "Oh, I forgot, you don't like art." That's really not fair because I do like art, I just don't understand it. I don't claim to know what good "Art" is, but I definitely know crap when I see it, and the exhibit I saw Saturday was turd-city. It just infuriates me that someone can take pictures of the same green building at different angles (and not even good angles), group the pictures together and call it art. Or take a picture of a red shack in the woods and talk about what it "means". Or take a picture of a rundown building called the "Klub" with old cars parked in front. How is that "Art"? Someone please tell me. This dude has fooled someone. I kid you not, Jarrod and Abigail have taken pictures as good as what I saw on display. I would never show those pictures to anyone if I had taken them; in fact, they would probably have been deleted. Don't get me wrong -- my self-confidence is pretty much in the toilet everyday, but I like to think I have a higher standard for my pictures than the junk I saw on display. Maybe that's why I'll never show in a museum: I don't have it in me to B.S. someone into thinking my picture of a crappy red building in the woods is worthy of being on display when it so obviously is not. And that's just what this dude did. Give me a break!

And then in the next gallery was literally a picture torn from a Winnie the Pooh coloring book, scribbled with markers (not even in the lines!), framed and called "Art". God help us all. I think it was by some famous "artist", but he must've been having an off-day creatively.

I hung out with my friend Jose Saturday night so that made me feel better.

Randomness

Is this not the best ever? I spotted this sign on Valentine's Day 2006 at Kroger on Mall Blvd. Thank God for camera phones or this greatness would've been lost forever!

Shout Out: Meg!

Meg was one of my brides last year and holds the title of my favorite bridal portrait session ever. I just want to thank her for all the kind words she has said about me. I run across comments from her in the most random places online and it's really gratifying to know she has taken the time to write about her experiences working with me. If anyone needs a reference about me I've got just the person!

He's Back!

After 5 days Bruce is finally back home! Someone found him less than 2 miles from our house looking for something to drink. He looks like he's lost about 10 pounds, and he only weighs 16 to start with! Very dehydrated and tired but well on his way to recovery. I think we've cried just as much since we have him back, but they're tears of joy now.

Please make sure your animals have ID tags! I think we're going to have one of those GPS chips embedded into Brucie. We just can't go through that kind of agony again. 

Penguins & Snakes & Bears, Oh My!

One of our days in NYC we spent at the Central Park Zoo. How cool to have such a huge green space right in the middle of the city! With a zoo, no less!

We also visited FAO Schwartz. As a parent there aren't many other things that are more of a beating than wandering around a toy store waiting for your kids to choose a toy. I'm not even sure how it came about that my kids get to buy a toy on every vacation we take. Isn't the vacation itself enough? Anyway, FAO Schwartz is the big toy store where Tom Hanks played the giant piano keys in the movie Big, and the piano is still there and people can play on it.  Is it just me or is that reference a little out dated? Do kids even know that movie? And just how many of those things do they sell at $250,000? Can they not find something else? No wonder they filed for bankruptcy. I did buy a Rubik's Cube 'cause it came with directions for solving it. I can't even understand the directions.

In Mourning

We are just devastated that our beloved Brucie ran away this weekend. There are acres and acres of woods behind our house and he's gotten himself thoroughly lost. He's so dumb he can't take care of himself out there all alone. Thankfully he has a collar with our address and phone number, so we still have some hope. I went by the animal control office this morning hoping maybe he had been picked up, but no luck. I can't imagine how people whose children go missing and are never found handle that kind of situation. We'll keep checking the doors until he finds his way home.