Since I started 2008 by posting a photo of a sunrise in Door County, Wisconsin, it seemed fitting to end the year with a picture of a sunset from DC.
A house sits vacant on a country road just beyond the reach of the Chicago metroplex. Just a few hundred yards away, new housing developments occupy what was once rolling farmland.
I'm making the jump from a serious hobbyist photographer who occasionally sells a photo or lands a picture taking gig to hanging out my shingle that I am open for business. My shingle has been hung out in the online marketplace - you can check out my new Web site, which displays photographic samples in various categories.
If winter is when the world sleeps, a winter fog is when it dreams.
You gotta love a holiday that's marked by the lighting of lights.
It's been a while since I built a video montage of photographs. (You can check out some of my past video efforts here.) Winter is a collection of my photographs of the season, both bleak and bright, expressive music by Steve Wick and a quote from artist Andrew Wyeth to mark the winter solstice.
Winter is a time of both endings and beginnings. Although the face of the earth appears barren, life continues to course just below the surface, waiting for the fullness of time to make its appearance again.
We've crossed the threshhold. We're now on our way to spring.
Video © 2008 James Jordan.
I am the song bird
A rambunctious rodent looking so cute in a tree as the snow falls. Awwww.
This photo could also be subtitled, “Happy Accident.” I can imagine that the first high-key photograph was produced by a photographer who accidentally set the flash too bright and once the photos were processed, didn’t have enough time to reset and try again. The pics were presented to the client as “avant garde” and the client bought it. Photographers have been dialing up the lights ever since.
One of many small lighted trees we have around our house. Absconded into my basement photo area and placed on a small light box. Sheet of light green Canson art paper (available at most hobby stores) used as a backdrop. Hand-held flash unit bounced off ceiling. Tree replaced on fireplace mantel. Wife is used to decorations disappearing for short periods of time.
next week or so. Check it out – the site offers a LOT of helpful articles about getting the most out of your digital camera.
It probably wouldn't surprise you to hear that we're greatly scaling back on the Christmas gifts this year. Sorry, economy. No can do. Do try to get by without us. kthxbai.
When it comes to my photography, I pretty much take the same position that the current (and soon to be ex-) governor of Illinois takes: Everything's for sale! 
The morning of the Elgin 1440 project started out gray and dreary, but the sun eventually made its appearance and stuck around for most of the rest of the day. This photograph is one of five of mine that were accepted into the Elgin 1440 exhibition.
Back in October, I participated in the latest Elgin 1440 photography project. This year's event, the third in the series, encouraged the people of Elgin to get out and photograph a day in the life of the city - in this case, the day was October 14. The number 1440 signifies the number of minutes in a day.
More experimentation with my "wall of lights."
I’ve written about and displayed examples of bokeh here before. Bokeh refers to a lens’ quality in rendering out of focus points of light as circles. This is the time of year when we have a lot of little lights around the house – perfect for playing with bokeh shots. When I say a lot of lights, I mean a LOT – I’ll cover that in a future post.
I credit Roger with this find during our wintery woodsy photowalk a couple of weeks back. While I was still working on photographing an abandoned car, he spotted a snowflake which had entangled itself in the remains of a spider web in the crook of a tree.
Random thoughts from where I sit on a Friday:
Photographically making the best of being located in the suburbs. I took advantage of an early winter white-out to photograph some nature nestled among the houses, stores and highways. For those readers in the northwest Chicago suburbs, this was taken from the entrance driveway of Harvest Bible Chapel on Randall Road in Elgin. For those readers in the UK, Canada or Singapore, it's right here.
I just got a CD full of pictures of me taking pictures courtesy of Roger. They were taken during the photowalk in the woods that Roger and I took about two weeks ago. I especially like this multiple exposure shot of me sizing up one of the wrecked cars we photographed. Don’t I look like the crime scene photographer? Maybe the three of me should get together and talk about a career move.
And here is Roger's rendition of me putting a rusty Rambler on my memory card. The image I was making is here.
And finally, a picture of me doing the old patented "press photographer stick your camera over your head move" to catch a funky fungus growing out of a notch in a tree that was juuuuuust a little too high for me to reach.
Glad I could provide Roger with some photo fodder. That Roger is such a fungi.
Right on schedule, the first snow fell in our area of the country on December 1, wiping the canvas of late autumn clean and white. 
I think that we could all probably use some more wonder in our daily diets. A serving of slack-jawed awe. A few more goose bumps. An occasional side dish of pure delight. A traveler through this life collects photographs of and shares words about the points of light discovered along the way.
My photo gallery on Flickr
Want to take better pictures? Read some of the secrets behind my photos at Ready, Aim,Click.
