This is one of the images I’ve taken of our boxes which were piled quite high. The line, color, typography and grid are surprisingly fun. Just had to snap the composition.

Hey… this is fun! This is my first attempt at using Skitch. I found out about it from a Flickr friend Colin Devroe. Go over and sign up for the public beta.

I use SnapZPro for my screen captures and now I have Skitch. I’m using Skitch for fun right now but I imagine many other practical uses. But heck, let’s just stick with fun first.

More on this cool app as I experiment.

Tags: skitch, images, captures, draw, software

We took the elevator down to the platform and boarded our waiting train. It was dark and most of the passengers were napping recovering from their earlier start I guessed. We tossed our luggage overhead and then settled into our seats with a couple bottles of water and I put on my bright pink travel Crocs.

I put some of my small technology — camera, ipod, and earbuds, in the elastic fishnet pocket on the back of the seat in front of me. Settling in to watch the train departure from Philadelphia to points west.

As we pulled out from under the station to the surface of west philadelphia I began to look up at the passing neighborhoods. I was engrossed in the view of passing rooftops. Time passed and we meandered through the suburbs and then burst through to the farm land of Lancaster. I reached for my camera to catch an image of a four horse team working an Amish farm. Turned the camera on and nothing happened! All kinds of things went through my head, “Crap, did I drop it?” … Then it came to me like a water balloon on my head — I had left the battery in the charger, plugged into the wall receptacle in the studio. I could see it in my minds eye.

No photos on the outbound trip. Maybe I could get a battery and charger in Pittsburgh. I have my laptop, I’ll google for a store. Wait, I HAVE MY LAPTOP. Lucky me. My Macbook Pro could act as my camera. I opened ‘er up and launched Apple’s PhotoBooth app. My little built in camera turned on. Yippie!

The image capture experience became more fun. I even took a couple short test movies to play with and here’s one for you to take a look at. This clip is all about rhythm. The patter of light, the familiar sound of the rails, the change in sound and light when one car ends and another begins.

Tags: trains, rails, photobooth, apple, macbook pro, images, rhythm