I’ve been meaning to post these for a couple of weeks now. Last week I was working on some projects for someone so I can keep paying the bills! Yes, I know! Excuses, excuses!

I decided to change this category up a little bit. Instead of this being a weekly feature, I decided to just change the category title from “Photos of the Week” to “Photography.” Why? Well, for obvious reasons, I’m lazy and the weekly thing would probably never happen. Wishful thinking on my part! I have also been thinking that I need a space that I can use to show off some of my best work. I thought it would be silly to create another website because I already have too many! So, here it is. Hopefully, with any luck I won’t change this category again. Enough meta talk, on to the photos!

The photos from above are from our garden this year. We’re trying several different things. One of those being corn. Gorgeous, tasty, sweet corn!

It seems to be doing pretty well. I walked down there the other day and saw many ears of corn. I’m anxious to have fresh corn from the garden. I’d like to make some cream style corn with it. Would definitely be better than that stuff you get out of the store. I need to find my Great-Grandmother’s recipe for cream style corn and do a video.

The fourth photo (second row) is the start of one of the rows of green beans in our garden. We’ve already been enjoying the green beans. My sister has been canning them for the winter. They are SO good! The fifth photo is of the beets! How many of you like beets? I LOVE beets! At least I hope I do. It’s been a while since I have had them. A long while! The last time I had them was at my Grandmother’s house when we’d come in from school. The last photo is of the grapes growing on our grape vines. I am very anxious for these to ripen. I just hope most of them don’t fall off which is what happened last year.

Before I close up this post I want to link you to a blog entry I read earlier last week titled “8 Photography Myths Debunked.” I thought there was a lot of great advice in the article. My favorite being:

I Can’t Take a Good Photo Without X: X can be whatever you want. A flash? Use a flashlight. An SLR? Use a point and shoot. A tripod? Steady that hand by leaning on something. A camera? Well, yeah you would be right, there. Point is, there is always a way to take a good photo. Improvise and adapt. Learn to embrace it and you will find yourself taking more, better photos than you had imagined.

I am guilty of that, completely. I want a dSLR so badly! I know it will be a while before I’m able to afford one and all the accessories that I’d want for it (and need) from the start. I’ve always heard my entire life: “You can take a good photo with any camera.” I believe that, too. I honestly think a better camera just makes it easier for you to capture a photo. Although I believe a dSLR would improve my photography, I have to remind myself that I have gotten some great shots with the camera I’ve got and I want to show people that they can take great photos with any camera, too. Happy shooting!

This past Friday December Harvest had a show at Edna Mae’s Bar and Grill which is just outside of the Wartburg city limits. They performed several sets as evidenced by the length of the video below. My personal highlight of the evening was hearing their acoustic set which you’ll see in the video.

A couple of technical notes. I had to encode this video in a lower resolution because a few of the videos I recorded were in lower resolution. Also, now that I have got the video uploaded I realize that I forgot to put a title at the beginning of the video. I will fix that when I have time to render, encode and upload the video again. The video was taken on July 11, 2008 at Edna Mae’s Bar & Grill.

December Harvest Teenage Thunder Show (MP4) (201 MB)

December Harvest Teenage Thunder Show from andymelton on Vimeo.

When it storms I love to get my camera and record video or take photos. I love listening to the rain and the wind. I only get worried when they start talking about tornadoes, those really scare me. The clips in this video were taken over the course of several months, I’ve indicated the dates in the video. Dates may not be completely accurate but they are close enough.

I was going to put music in this video but I opted not to because I really liked listening to the wind, rain and thunder outside. There is a part in the beginning where the power goes out and I and someone else ask if it did (I thought someone had turned the television off). I had my hand over the microphone so it was muffled.

Stormy Weather (MP4) (58.9 MB)

Stormy Weather from andymelton on Vimeo.

About this time every year Brownie starts shedding his fur coat in huge clumps of hair. Before I recorded this video I had already brushed him once earlier in the day! Brownie always looks so much skinnier in the summer time.

For those of you wondering, Brownie is an Australian Shepherd (at least that is what I have been told). He’s close to 5 years old now! He was originally my cousin’s dog, then my sister’s, now mine. I plan on keeping him for many years to come. He’s my sweet big brown dog! I just wish I didn’t have to keep him outside.

If you’d like to see more photos of Brownie you can look at him on my Flickr account.

Shedding The Dog (MP4) (47 MB)

Shedding the dog from andymelton on Vimeo.

It’s been a while since I have done an audio post but thought it would be better to tell you about these experiences in audio form. I was having a hard time recording these stories by myself so Cheryl Mercowski suggested that I call her and tell the stories to her so I can have instant feedback. I hope you’ll enjoy these rather embarrassing stories that are very detailed. Thank you Cheryl for recording the main audio portion of this program!

After you listen to this (or before, doesn’t matter) you should head over to Cheryl’s website and listen to episode number twelve. It’s one of my favorites. I included a clip in this audio recording to give you a little taste.

I played a couple of other audio clips from video I have seen on the YouTube in the past couple of days. The first one is from Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. Check out the YouTube video here. The second is “My Dumps My Dumps” by Peaches.

Impromptu Commode (MP3) (27.3 MB)