I have this awesome advent calendar, purchased by my excellent wife.

Behind door number one is a pirate. I feel like I should be less surprised.

You can get vegetarian sushi, which is pretty awesome. I never had sushi before; the idea of raw fish didn’t appeal. The idea of raw vegetables and sticky rice definitely does, though.

Lovely, quiet sit in the (now-funded!) St. James’ Park before walking to work with Charlotte.

Went for a cool little wander in Worcester this morning. It’s been ages since I took my camera out properly. I’ve been saving loads of inspiration to a photo collection on a new site I’m working on and I think it’s really doing me some good! I love the every-day subjects you get in those slightly washed-out film photos. There’s nothing monumental going on, it’s just every day and I like that!

Charlotte is as tall as the flood was in 1948.

I found my first abandoned area. It’s pretty scary wandering round somewhere—especially when you hear someone leg it when you shout.

Today, I discovered that I would heartily welcome a camera with better ISO-handling. I’m starting to think about switching up my shopping list order from 14-24, D700 to D700, 14-24. First, I need to buy a house.

Today, she also spent some time trying to get comfy enough to sleep on mortgage paperwork.

I took a few potentially really nice photos around the hospital, but the noise totally ruined what I was going for. This was the only one with enough ambient light to drown it out.

Me: Sorry I didn’t help out with the housework this afternoon
Charlotte: That’s OK; you had something you needed to do
Me: What was that?
Charlotte: You wanted to watch the basketball
Me: PROFIT

So, there you have it. Somehow, I have managed to convince Charlotte that a game of the playoffs that’s like 2 weeks old is important enough that it takes precedence over housework.

Either I’m an evil genius, or she’s great.

If you’re wondering how I feel about my latest purchase, my SC-29 off-camera-flash-enabler, it looks a little like this:

If you’re wondering how Charlotte feels about it (and, indeed any other photography-related purchase I make), it looks something like this:

CLS is awesome, and and off-camera master gives you so much more freedom to experiment with shadows than using the built-in pop-up as the master. I am very pleased, and will be overusing this greatly in the near future. See more from this evening’s photoshoot at flickr.

It’s Charlotte’s birthday today! I’m marking it by sucking all the novelty out of these birdseye-view square crops.

I don’t think Charlotte is going to be pleased about my drawing a line between her and a Final Fantasy character.

We all have them. Some more than others.

She didn’t even take the wrapper off.