"Photography is 90% sheer, brutal drudgery" - 365 Project, Day 36

I have a little story to relate.  Keep in mind, it has nothing to do with photography, but its relevance will be explained in due time (perhaps not in this post, but some time in the future).  My best friend's mother likes the slot machines at casinos.  She walks the endless aisles of one-armed bandits, looks at one, say 'This one looks nice', and start playing.  A little while later, after my best friend have handed over all our money to the casino (which, it has to be said, graciously accepted it), we walk past and see her (at the same machine) with three or four huge cups of quarters, having come out on top anywhere from $50 to $400.  I've seen this happen.  Multiple times.

My father and I were talking around taking pictures today and much to our dismay the weather seemed to have been spitting on us.  It didn't seem to have enjoyed our presence very much.  I have a recurring joke in my mind that, after this project is done and over with, I will publish a book of this project with the title 'The Worst Year in History to Take Pictures: A Glimpse Into 2011's Crappy Weather'.  Some people simply have bad luck.

The weather unabashedly seems to laugh in the face of photographers (and, to be fair, non-photographers as well) this year.  It is inconsiderate and, quite honestly, pretty rude of the weather to do so.  We do not want to laugh at it, saying it has thick angles or bad hair.  We simply want to capture it and show it to the 30 or so people that see this blog from day to day.  Quite honestly, even if we did want to laugh at its bad hair today, 30 people is hardly a number that should alter its self-esteem much in anyway.  The weather can be so insensitive and inconsiderate.  Sometimes I feel like walking outside and taking pictures simply out of spite!

Today's pictures laugh in the face of such weather, as most of them were taken outside.

Frank

His note: After a great afternoon of taking photos with my son I'm sitting here wondering what shot would I choose for today's blog photo.  As the rule is we can only use a photo we took on that specific day for the blog photo.  I finally decided on this one because it reminded me of so many memories relating to trains.  These are 2 railway spikes.  As a youth, folk music was quite popular.  The Canadian king of folk at the time was Gordon Lightfoot.  He wrote a song called Steel Rail Blues.  And after staring at the photo for many minutes I decided to dedicate this photo to him for creating this specific song.

Mandy

Her note: My dad always look so serious. I caught this rare smile from him and I like the fact that he is looking down; he almost looks bashful.

Shannon

Her note: Went for a walk at lunch today and saw this old clock that didn't seem to be working.

(To clarify, the picture was taken a little before 1pm, not 4:30, like the clock indicates.  For those that don't believe me, take a look at the EXIF data, thank you very much.)

My picture

This is somewhat representative of the weather we've had this year.  It's April and there's still ice, no leaves on the trees, and it looks drab.  Try as I might to bring out the colours, editing the file only made everything look, well, more drab.  This scene is somewhat tragic and unfortunately didn't work as a black and white picture as much I would have liked.  The colours are very dull, so it works anyway.

I have no idea what tomorrow will look like, but we'll see what it will bring.  I doubt it will be particularly nice, but I'll have four new pictures nonetheless.