Nam is back for this Top 200 Photo

photo #40 is:

This photo, again, is from before Nam was afraid of my photography. I was in town for the Lunar New year and just doing some kid photography of him by getting to his height to take the photos. He was interested in my camera and started getting closer and closer so I had to keep zooming further and further out. So I ended up at 17mm and that makes his head larger than it would otherwise be because of where it is in the frame. (Somewhat ameliorated by the fact that I shot this photo on a crop-sensor camera)

Mai again in today’s Top 200 Photo!

photo #41 is:

I think this is now the third time Mai has appeared on this list. I speculated about her smile, but I’m not really sure what it is that flickr loves about my portraits of Mai.

We’ve finished another twenty photos and are now, at the time of this writing, at 819 views for this photo.

Snow in today’s Top 200 Photo

photo #42 is:

This is a photo of our cars in the parking of the Apartment Complex we used to live at. It was probably right after the snow had finished falling. We used to think that was a lot of snow. Now (after the 2010 storms) we know better.

A walk along a path for this Top 200 Photo

photo #43 is:

Danielle gets very restless being stuck at home all the time. Since Maryland isn’t like NYC where you can just go walk around the city, Danielle has ended up gaining an appreciation for nature. Over the last six years she’s gone from someone who’d grimace at the mention of a hike to the person most responsible for getting me out of the house on the weekend.

Here it is - it’s computer-heavy this month.

Drip….drip…drip…. it’s time for another Top 200 Photo

photo #44 is:

This is another photo from when I was playing with my flash and attempting to catch water droplets forming those cool patterns they sometimes do when they hit a body of water. Going over these has definitely made me want to try it again.

An interesting Top 200 Photo

photo #45 is:

Titled “The Last Supper”: this is, I think, my most ambitious digital composition. I was deep in my 365 project and I didn’t know what to do for the 264th day. I had thought of this idea once before, but not in any depth. Originally I thought about doing it at the dining room table so it would be closer to the famous painting. But it turned out that even with my new wide angle lens, (B&H link) I wouldn’t be able to fit 13 copies of myself in that room. So I moved it to the living room. There is one pita chip on each plate to represent the bread. And one cup of wine from the tradition that one cup was passed around. As you know, if you’ve been following this Top 200 Photos series, I’m no stranger to composite photos. But this time I wanted to do it right. So I found thirteen different shirts to wear. Because it might be a little hard to notice at the size at which this photo is posted, notice the text on Jesus’ shirt. (If you don’t get it, read on)

And back to Las Vegas for this Top 200 Photo

photo #46 is:

This is an ad I used to pass by every day and night while I was in Las Vegas. Because of the glare it may be a little hard to read the text of the ad. It says “Always a Happy Ending at Tao” which is described as an Asian Bistro, Nightclub, and Lounge. I took this photo because I was unsure of how I felt about it. In case you don’t know the idiom, a “happy ending” is a euphemism for getting oral sex at the end of a massage (it could also mean masturbation - but not by the self). It originates from using massage parlours as a front for prostitution in places where prostitution is illegal. This allows the owner to claim (or ATTEMPT to claim) that he had no idea what his masseuses were doing. He thought everyone was just getting massages back there. These erotic massages and the term “happy ending”, in particular, are heavily associated with asians. Additionally, the billboard employs the image of a naked woman and either Chinese or Japanese script. (I know it’s not Korean which is bubblier)

Another surreal photo is today’s Top 200 Photo

photo #47 is:

This is the black and white version of a photo I mentioned before. As I mentioned then, I prefer the black and white version. Apparently the flickr community agrees since this one has so many more views.

Back to a wedding for this Top 200 Photo

photo #48 is:

This photo is from that wedding at which I was the official photographer. A few hours into the wedding I realized I didn’t have a post-ceremony photo of the bride and her sister. So I got them together and we started riffing off each other because I wanted them to express how close they were as sisters. I ended up with this fun photo. I think it’s in my top 5 favorite photos from that wedding.