Chris Howard's Writing & Art

You can't come to California...

...and not spend some quality time in Monterey.  With family and a decent camera.

Click on the following for the full view:

 

 

 

 

   

 

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Kyle Cassidy's giving away a copy of Seaborn!

I met Kyle at Worldcon on the Realism in SF panel, and afterward, at sort of an impromptu panelist gathering, I handed out a couple copies of Seaborn signed.  Kyle's now running a contest on to give away a copy of Seaborn to the best story (< 350 words) posted in the comments.  In one line: Tell a quick story about Roswell the Cat and mer-people. Check out the details here: http://kylecassidy.livejournal.com/537966.html

And then spend time at Kyle's site: kylecassidy.com.  Kyle's the most amazing and creative photographer and author I've run into, with projects all over the map (literally). He's collaborating with Neil Gaiman on Who Killed Amanda Palmer.  More: Where I Write: Fantasy & Science Fiction Writers in Their Creative Spaces.  Echoes of Life - Philadelphia Murders.

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Great Blue Heron

I was up at sunrise, noticed something very tall standing on the arm of a transmission tower.  I just managed to get my camera and a couple shots of this beautiful heron flying overhead.

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Remember when we were there?

40 years ago we were on the moon.  I remember all of us gathered in the den, watching the TV for what felt like days. 

Reminiscing? Check out the LIFE Magazine archive.

Here's our good old moon--with the Apollo 11 landing site, shot last September with my Nikon D40X: 

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My first iPhone app in the iTunes App Store!

PhotoStamp, an iPhone app that makes it easy to stamp any image in your Camera Roll with a copyright line, a URL, your name, any custom message.  Great if you're uploading your photos to TwitPic, Flickr, SmugMug, etc.  It's free.  It's in the iTunes App Store. 

Interesting note: I sub'd PhotoStamp on July 1 and exactly fifteen days later it's in the iTunes Store. I don't know how many apps are submitted daily, but it's a lot, and they're handling it well.  Apple, you rock!

Here's the link:

(opens iTunes)

Go get it!

Screenshots:

Isn't this beautiful?

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Ninth floor

At work today, right after a meeting on the ninth floor, I snapped off five or six shots using the Pano app which allows you to stitch images together.  Very cool stuff.  If you sort of spend some time trying to focus on the horizon a bit to the right of center, you can just make out a couple towers jutting above the trees.  That's the Boston skyline.  I did it all for the sky, though.

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Rainbow over Exeter

Alice and I were in Exeter yesterday evening doing a little shopping, and this is what the rainstorm left.

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The theme is Helios

A few shots off my iPhone:

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Just when you thought spring was in sight

Shot this today, off the back deck.  Snow.  Snow.  Snow.  Much more on the way.

Click for the full view:

UGCX show day one

Packed panels, great speakers, this has really turned out to be an interesting and fun con, and we're already making plans to attend and even get on a couple panels in October when UGCX is out in Boston.  Day one keynoters were the founder/CEO and COO of iStockphoto talking about what it takes to start, operate, be successful in the social media world, six sort of cute--but important--factors: passion is the glue, innovation is imperative, communication counts triple, outsource to the crowd, IT is it, flexible focus is the foundation. 

I dashed between panels and hanging out at the Ozmo kiosk answering questions--and we got a lot.  I didn't look up that often, but we seemed as busy or busier than anyone else.  UGC licensing, it's HOT!

Looking forward to Guy Kawasaki's keynote this morning!

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