W.

Coca-Cola

Diet Coke

Untitled, too

Untitled

Natural Light

Fanta

Cat, Poros

The Art of Your Heart®

Today we received our official trademark registration for The Art of Your Heart from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Kind of exciting, it comes in a big fancy envelope, and now we can change the ™ to an ®.

It's my first trademark; many more to come. Woo hoo!

Dr. Pepper diptych

Orange Crush

Minute Maid

Thel

Back in college, my room mate BeckyBeck had this great Whippet named Thel. She was a super dog; I love her big glowing eyes.

The Ribbon Book in Elegant Bride

The Summer 2009 edition of Elegant Bride has an excerpt from Ribbon: The Art of Adornment, featuring photographs by Moi, Parker.

Amstel, Athens

Magnolias

The recent cool weather has all the magnolias starting to bloom again. Their delicious, lemony scent might be my favorite smell in the world. Either that, or frying bacon.

Mmmm... hog fat...

What Mommy Found

Walker left this rather large rubber snake in the yard many moons ago. Yesterday, Kristin discovered it while she was pulling weeds.

That got quite a yelp out of her. :-)

Gracie at Work

The Incredible Successware Automator

If you a) use Successware to run your photography studio; and b) you're a Mac and not a Geek; then, c) you can download my amazing Successware Archive Automator for Mac which will handle all your backup needs and also allow your to safely transfer all of your data between machines.

Instructions are included, as is the original Automator workflow which you can customize to fit your needs.

Courtesy of Moi, Parker. Just send me some love and we'll call it even.

A beautiful day

It's been an exquisite day here in Atlanta, mid-80s, no humidity, sky as blue as the Greek Islands. I'm really starting to enjoy this Global Warming thing.

After this morning's portrait sessions, I took the boys to the Dekalb Farmer's Market, which has long been one of my favorite places in town. We went for a few things for tonight's dinner and ended up spending an hour there. Calder took a liking to my coffee and drank it; Walker and Tillman hogged up the basket, grabbing samples off every table, demanding every treat in the bakery  as if they could eat them all.

Tonight's dinner was another fabulous recipe courtesy of Cooks Illustrated, Char Siu, or Chinese Barbeque Pork, with some wokked bok choy and Jasmine Rice. YDFM mascarpone fruit tart for dessert.

After dinner, I got the boys off to bed and enjoyed the beautiful evening out on the patio while Kristin read trashy magazines. Tonight's companion was a Bolivar Habana torpedo --  a #2, I think -- given to me about two years ago by a friend (thanks, Dwight!). It was perfectly aged in my humidor and utterly enjoyable to the very end. 

I know this is all Twittery micro-blogging, the quotidian details of the day, like how I tied my shoes and cooked breakfast, had a tasty cup of coffee and worked and played. Twitter is just a headache. I couldn't care less what Ashton Kutcher has to say about Nikon cameras or politics or his old lady. Granted, there are a few interesting Tweeters here and there, but most of it is just atomized nonsense, the exultation of ennui.

My point is this:

Happiness is elusive. We all search so hard for meaning in life. We buy self help books and try to actualize and watch Oprah and find some feeling in the world. We all do this on some level. Some make it a hobby. Some make it a career.

And what if it's all right in front of you? Your son laughs about a pretzel, your wife smiles and gives you a little smack on your butt, the baby throws up on your shirt, the dog eats a meatball and farts. The night is cool. The crickets chirp. Sinatra is on the radio.

There is so much beauty in the world, so many people to know, so much music and art, so many dogs, so many babies, so many reasons to be happy. So why do so many of us seek to be unhappy?

As Father Patrick once said at midnight mass, "Let's all try to grow up a bit, shall we?"

Yes, let's.

Boys vs. Girls

Something you will never hear a girl say: "When I was at Miss Ali's, I took a square pretzel and chewed it into the shape of a gun."

B., One

IGA Red Cream

Magnolia

G., 1

A.W.

Adventures with Kiddo

Kiddo, a.k.a. Mary C.'s latest project.

Big Buddy

Around Athens

Joke Grenade

A termite walks into a bar.

He says "is the bar tender here?"

(hat tip Walker)

Worst Chicken Piccata, ever...

I recently found this recipe as we were clearing out our unused cook books. We have too many, and, alas, we are no longer accepting applications for new ones.

Having cooked my way through college (Taco Stand and DePalma's, Athens, GA, woofwoofwoof), I can humbly say that I am a darned good cook. 

Where I found this chicken piccata recipe, I don't know, but it holds the title of Worst Recipe, Ever in the Smith household. After styling the plates, Kristin and I sat down, took a bite, and quickly agreed that it 1) tasted like bile; and, 2) made better trash than dinner.

Walker says that it should be "Eu de chicken barf"

E, Jumping

Canon, Sure Shot

Sure Shot (a.k.a. Canon) is a show dog, and I'm crazy about these Chinese Cresteds-ez.

Acropolis

Rock the Vote

Only a week left to vote for us as Atlanta's Best Portrait Photographer.

Please click that link to the right and rock the vote, ya'll! It's excellent kharma, almost instant.

Kodakchrome, RIP

Kodak's 1000 Words Blog has this special remembrance with Steve McCurry and Eric Meola. McCurry's portrait of an Afghan girl -- a portrait so famous that virtually everyone reading this can visualize it -- was made on Kodakchrome.

Also, over at Slate, photographer Camilo Jose Vergara offers a slideshow of his Kodakchrome work, which documents the history of a small building at 5134 W. Madison St. in Chicago.

Recent Commercial Project

Design: The Grant Collaborative

Client: Aquafil

Photography: Moi, Parker

Einstein: Big Bucks, No Whammies

from The Boston Channel:

BOSTON -- An iconic photograph of Albert Einstein was sold by a New Hampshire auction company Friday for $74,324, making it the most expensive Einstein photograph ever sold at auction, according to the auctioneers.

The photograph was taken in 1951 while Einstein was celebrating his birthday at Princeton University. Photographer Arthur Sasse tried to convince Einstein to pose with a smile for the photo, but Einstein instead stuck out his tongue, producing one of the most recognizable images of the irreverent physicist.

Walkerisms

"Oh, it's beautiful, the way my money glimmers."