I'm giving away a free dA Premium account to a lucky Twitter follower. For full details, go to giveaway rules & regs on PittmanPhoto.com.

... have been greatly exaggerated.

I swear, I'll be back in action soon. I've recently moved from Spokane, WA to New Haven, CT and that has kept me QUITE busy. As soon as I can, I swear I'll become an active member of the dA community.

--Mike

One single shoot accounts for every image I have with more than 10 Favorites.

I recognize, quite readily, that I'm not a heavy-hitter on dA. I don't get gabillions of pageviews every day. I'm late to update, I update in batches, and I don't update that frequently.

Today, I was trying to figure out which of my deviations has been commented on the most. When I went to my stats, I felt pretty comfortable that it would be Hold Me and I wasn't disappointed. What I was surprised by is the fact that of my ten most commented images, 7 of them came from the same shoot. Of all of my images that have 10 or more comments, all of them came from the same shoot. And even more interestingly, it's the same 7 photos: all from the same shoot, the 7 most commented upon and the only 7 that have 10 or more comments.

Have I really been all downhill since then?

Here are the photos in question:






Here are some others I think are worthy; what do you think:

For those who watch, and actually care to see my crap, I'm sorry I've been so long in posting any new photos. The summer has been crazy busy with work, life, and some photo-ing. I have portraits from last SPRING that I still haven't even edited (freebies), so I have stuff on the way, I promise. At this time, I'm sitting on several portrait sessions, some landscape work in and around Spokane, WA as well as Seattle, Portland, and Idaho. I have weddings, and my most anticipated stuff comes from a two week European vacation.

I hope to have stuff up soon, so please keep an eye out. I'm digging out of messages and deviations to comment right now.

--Mike

What will it take for our leaders to be elected based on good reasons, not fear and stupidity?

I keep seeing questions about this, and having the same question posed to me quite often: what do you think it will take to change the direction of this country? Most think it starts with the President, and that in 2009 one way or another things will change. I whole heartedly disagree with this, and believe especially that if McCain is elected, the difference between 2009-2013 will be minimal compared to 2001-2009. Even if Obama or Clinton win, I still don't see much really changing.

I believe that the larger problem is with the voters, not the people who are elected. Those who cry for change must be willing to elect the person / people who will bring about change. This doesn't, unfortunately, start at the top. It starts at the bottom on the local level and works upward to the highest elected offices in the US. In any elected office, you are only as powerful as the people around / below you will allow you to be.

I personally don't believe this will ever really happen. The electorate is just too ignorant. I'm guilty of this myself, just as many people are. I don't research every person running for local office like I should. I do my research on the folks running for president, governor, and sometimes mayor, and always the judges.

Nationally, for the most part, I feel that people voting aren't educating themselves enough to realize that the issues aren't what Obama's pastor believes; nobody is trying to elect Reverend Wright as President. The people voting aren't educating themselves to realize that Clinton may have been wrong about the sniper fire in Bosnia, but that's hardly an issue. The people voting aren't educating themselves enough to realize that the Republican fear tactics about national security are just that: fear tactics.

The electorate needs to inform themselves on all issues, and on true issues, not what somebody's pastor says or husband says. I do believe that you are judged by the company you keep, but in all honesty, doesn't every one of us have that one person in our lives that we love dearly, but just don't agree with?

Maybe if people really took the time to research the candidates instead of listening to the media, reading e-mails, and watching the talking heads on TV pull out sound bytes... maybe then things would begin to change.

I believe that is what got us to where we are today. Ask about 73% of Americans (based on Bush's 27% approval rating) and I think they would all answer Ronald Regan's question "are you better off now than you were four years ago?" with a resounding "NO!"

A quote I really like that is often attributed to Albert Einstein sums up this election, and perhaps this country, very well: "the thinking that got us into this mess is not sufficient to get us out."

(also quoted as: "The thinking it took to get us into this mess is not the same thinking that is going to get us out of it." And more appropriately, though most certainly not Einstein in origin: "Stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?")