Photo-A-Day

Photo-A-Day #790 06/07/07

14 Comments
Self Portrait

Okay, I know that I look pretty goofy in this picture. This isn’t a Self Portrait Sunday submission for Cass’ Self Portrait Sunday (A meme I should be doing). I took this with my camera on the gorillapod tripod and with the 10 second timer. 10 seconds is a long time and I had to time my smile at the right moment. I cannot hold a smile very long without it looking fake. Apparently 1 second is too long, but this was the best of the bunch. I didn’t like the background so I made my own with Photoshop (Andy I am disclosing that I did some photoshop work to this photo just for you my friend.) The photo today is not the point. What you see in the photo today is the point. Can you guess what it is?

The point is that the suit is buttoned. Yes, it is actually buttoned. This is significant because I have not been able to do that for about 5 years. I’ve had what you can call a “weight problem” since I have been traveling. The problem is that I couldn’t wait to fill my gullet with everything my expense account would allow me access to. I had to take a serious look at my health a few months back and make some real changes to my attitude and actions. They were small changes like the complete removal of regular soda from my diet. Thank you Soda-Club for Splenda sweetened diet soda. I also took my gym membership more seriously. And I played quite a bit of Wii Boxing. I added breakfast of Cheerios and strawberries to my morning routine. Mom has been right about that one for years. That’s about it, nothing major, nothing earth shattering, just some changes, little ones.

I dropped some weight and have been feeling better, some important tests with the doctor have been looking good and Allison has mentioned that I’m getting skinny (a feat that will not be achieved in actuality but she is my wife and loves me and she notices things that I don’t because I am more critical of myself.) I thought, what the heck let me see if I can button the suit, the pants fit much better and maybe the jacket will too. I tried it and it fit, it is still somewhat snug but I was comfortable. So comfortable that I drove home with my shirt buttoned and tie on just so I could take this photo today. I should have waited till after I got my haircut this afternoon though. My hair has been in sore need of a good cut for some time and now it looks awesome but in the picture it was helmet-esque.

There are some good blogs documenting weight loss out there, one I read is FatBloggers.net and I recently got a comment from The Diet Diary. Good luck to those folks and their journey towards a more healthy life.

I got another entry in the Sod-Club Contest today. This time from Christine of The Passionate Ailurophile

14 thoughts on “Photo-A-Day #790 06/07/07”

  1. Hey Drew,

    Congrats! I knew you could do it! You know well the challenges I’ve also had with healthy dieting.
    You mentioned ‘little changes’. Check out this website, it’s quite amazing. http://www.littlechanges.com/
    These folks are amazing, what a story.
    Keep up the great work! By the way, I’m having fun with my new camera!!

    Take care.
    Meghan

  2. Thanks Meghan, you and your spinning and biking are going to have you running all over those mountains during your trip.

  3. It’s great to see that as my waistline is expanding, yours is getting smaller. I’m very proud of you. 🙂

  5. Looking good man. The last time I put on a suit it was so small that I busted out of the pants and had to walk around the event with a split down my rear.

    I have cut out most of my soda too, which I miss a lot, but I keep hitting McDonalds, which keeps hitting my waistline.

    Good to see someone is making progress.

  6. Hey Jason, love the concept of your blog. Thanks for linking to me, where did you find me? I found you because I noticed that you linked to me. As for the soda, if you live in the Continental US you can enter my Soda-Club contest and you can get a great home soda maker.

  7. Drew,

    Thanks for mentioning the background was photoshopped. I am a firm believer that photography is an art and digital manipulation of the picture after the fact is not part of that art.

    I can to this realization after reading a photography magazine and seeing this really cool picture of 100 hot air ballons in the air and thinking wow that would be cool to see. However it was really a picture of the sky with shots of ballons stuck in after. there were never 100 ballons there so had I actually been there is would have been a huge disapointment.

    I am sort of ambivalent to photoshop. Yes it is cool but to me photography is about capturing the moment. The camera lense it supposed to make you feel like you are there and photoshop has allowed people to create cool looking pictures but unfortunately they are of things that were never really there.

    Look at a picuture of a mountains and a beautiful sunset and instead of imagining the warmth on you back as you sit there and watch the sunset you have to worry about did someone take a picture of moutains the then photoshop in a sunset.

    basically I want to know that someone was there ans experienced the moment I am looking at and feel connected to the photographer. They can play whatever tricks with exposure, f-stop appature etc they want but I want. I see that as akin to wearing sunglasses or squinting. What you get when you snap that shutter is Photography. Photography is not done on a computer. Sorry that is not the same art. It might be pretty it might be cool but that is something different and should be labled as such.

    I would be fine with a disclaimer. (this is a composite photo done with digital editing software) or something to that effect. I am irked when those are passed off as photgraphs because face it they are not photographs.

    Sometimes I hate technology so much. I enjoy art it is something I am not good at and I respect people who can do it. Photoshop makes photography so much easier. It takes a lot of the challenge and romance out of it and it ceases to be photography.

    Rant to be continued later

  8. What about sharpening the image, Each image I take I do a few tweaks to. Photographers tweak their images in a photo lab, so what is the difference between making edits in a lab vs making edits and tweaks in Photoshop.

  9. That is great Drew. You look like you feel better too. Weight is something that I have problems with also. I walk alot at my job and stay rather busy picking up heavy stuff and stair climbing, but I can’t seem to drop more weight. I drop about 5-7lbs, then that’s it. But back to the subject. Congrats, continue what your doing. I want to see more pictures in the future of more progress. Talk to you later bud.

  11. Thanks Jay, you have been great support here on the web, I will let you know how things go. Dropping regular soda was a huge thing for me. It was a big help.

  12. Thanks Chris, You should check out my blog The Wired Kayaker. On my first podcast I actually asked people for T-Shirts I could wear in my podcast. I’m going to place the link on the Photo-A-Day I put up today. And I will take a Photo of myself with the T-Shirt when it arrives. I’m also buying a second Shirt. You have some funny ones.

  14. Thanks Eddie, I’ve got to keep working hard, it isn’t a matter of try anymore for me, it is do or do not. Thanks for the support. How is Larry assimilating to the family?

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