Herbal Essences' Clever Advertising

A few days ago, I was browsing the hair care products at CVS while waiting for a prescription to be filled. I happened to come across the same ol' bottles of Herbal Essences shampoo and conditioner, but they were sporting new labels that piqued my interest.

Herbal Essences Smooth & Shine Collections: "0% Silicone" and "0% Sulfate."

So, I picked up the bottles, started reading, and a few ingredients caught my eye.

Herbal Essences Shine Collection Conditioner

Herbal Essences Smooth Collection Shampoo

Interestingly, the Smooth & Shine collections do, in fact, contain sulfates and silicones. However, the advertisements on the front of the bottles are not lying to you. The labels indicate that the collection's shampoos are silicone free and the conditioners are sulfate free. Both are true, but these products are not curl-friendly.

Go On, Dust Your Camera Off

As far as my photography, the method and subject matter have been nearly the same since forever. I find my subject matter, I don't create it. Shoot 'em in digital. I only use tripods when it's absolutely necessary. Most shots are of landscapes and wildlife and are nearly always in color. I favor shallow depth of field and natural day-time lighting. I feel like it's time to cut that shit out. No one learns anything from doing the same ol' shit over and over.

Early this morning, around 5:30am, I decided to play around with long exposures.

30 second exposure

15 second exposure - I love this stump.

5 second exposure of some ducks. Interesting...

After the sun came up, I headed to a field near my dad's house to look for deer.

The morning fog was awesome...Appropriate for Friday the 13th.

I saw a doe and fawn along the far edge of the field watching me. So, I watched them for a while, but they spooked when I tried taking some shots of them. I went about my business trying to capture the misty morning fog and a few minutes later, turned around to see the doe creeping up behind me with her head close to the ground. She was standing only 25 feet or so away. I nearly crapped myself, which is probably why she skittered away behind some trees. Evidently, she had circled through the woods behind me to come check me out. Her and the fawn reappeared in front of me, about 35-40 feet away in the field. I watched them for at least 15 minutes while they grazed, slowly moving back toward the edge of the field, where I had first spotted them. It was pretty awesome - definitely a great way to start the day.

September: Back to the Grind

I started school again last week. As usual, I managed to fill up nearly all of my time with work, class, and tutoring, so I've been seriously slacking on posting lately. I did make some time to hang out with friends, before I become an overworked zombie by December.

 
Upon entering my car this morning, I realized that I am going to be camping out of it for at least two days a week between classes and tutoring sessions. Today was my first day back in the Anatomy lab, but if Thursday is anything like today, it looks it's going to be a busy semester. I only made myself available for ten hours a week, which seemed reasonable at the time, since I didn't want to take more days off of my reliable, yet thankless and redundant, day-job than I needed to. But that was before I was asked to also tutor Human Physiology. It was also before this morning, when a handful of students asked me for more information on seeing me as a tutor outside of the Anatomy lab. Honestly, though, I hope that entire ten hours fills up - I need the extra money and I love tutoring.

Visit my Anatomy blog here.

Digital Photography II started last week and my first Children's Lit class started this afternoon. Between the two, I'm pretty confident I am going to be happily swamped with creative homework assignments. I've recently spent too much time immersing myself in biology classes as part of Nursing prerequisites and in the process I started losing touch with my artistic side - the side everyone, including myself, has known for much longer than the one frequently seen now.









One of my first assignments in Digital Photo was to pick ten photographers' bodies of work that I am in some way inspired by and identify the unifying characteristics of their photographs. While I am pretty sure this is the result of the art department deciding that the students in fine art courses have too much fun and don't spend enough time "learning," I figured I would share it anyway. After letting my creativity grow moldy for a while, it was a nice exercise to get myself back into the swing of things.

1. James Brandenburg - Wildlife and landscape photographer for Nation Geographic for over 30 years.
2. Wendy Given - Visual artist with lovely and macabre still life work.
3. J Scott Peck - Floral still life photographer and painter who uses light manipulation constructed backgrounds.
4. Andy Ilachinski - Physicist by profession, photographer my choice who does a lot of abstract work. His blog can be found here.
5. Victoria Ryan - Abstractions of nature and creepy constructed images.
6. James Balog - Documentary style landscape photography about environmental conservation.
7. Jessica Auer - Documentary style landscape photography describing the relationships between the landscape, history, culture, and modern tourism.
8. Charles Hedgcock - Biological/scientific photography of insects and other small creatures.
9. Chema Madoz - Black and white still-life photography with a sense of humor.
10. Kenneth Gregg - Travel and nature themed photographs with emphasis on detail and texture.