Leaf piles

I've been in a pretty great mood these last few days.
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- I spent the weekend focusing on my best ideas (of the week) and was disciplined enough to ignore the rest (that were way off target!)
- One of my best friends and I took some nice autumn pictures with our SLR cameras and watched videos of our semester in Italy
- I had way too much fun raking leaves in the backyard
- My ads stayed on the wall last night (for Fellowes Paper Shredders)

I've been on quite a roll as far as staying on the wall in class. This week I am working to put together a rough draft of my portfolio, a collection of Joe's "Greatest Hits" and see if it sells or flops. Either way feedback is good and the outcome will help me to understand exactly how far (or close, I could be close!) I am from making this career move a reality.
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Going back to the leaves, I'd like to explain why I had so much fun raking them this past Sunday.

The photo challenge for this week was to capture a photo in which symmetry is present. After coming up short all week long I was asked by my parents to help rake the leaves. I started with the leaf blower and actually had a lot of fun with that until it ran out of gas.
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At this point I had two pretty big, not yet huge piles of leaves. Then it hit me, or so I thought, I'll make two huge piles of leaves (kind of in rows) down the center of the backyard and I'll have my symmetrical picture. My idea was to rake all the leaves into two large long rows and have a bench at the end of the row and lie down on the bench with the rake in my hand and make it look like I raked my way straight through a (red) sea of leaves.
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So after raking like a maniac for a few hours I set up the shot, mounted my camera on the tripod, set the self-timer and took a bunch of pictures. Unfortunately, it was already getting dark and my lens wasn't wide enough to capture how cool my leaf piles actually looked, that and I kept moving on the bench before camera snapped the picture! Below is the best shot I got:
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Since I wasted so much time sculpting leaf piles, I found my self in danger of not fulfilling my promise to bag all the leaves. And bagging them is what led to all the fun.
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I was picking up leaves the slow way, scooping them by the rakeful, when I started thinking about how much fun it was to dive head-first into these mounds when I was growing up.
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Before I knew what happened, I was knee deep in foilage, as happy as a kid who just found out that everyone gets out of school for Yom Kippur, Jewish or not.
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It reminded me of a short video I watched the night before from my semester abroad in Italy. My friend and I happened upon this old man one day while walking past the Duomo in Florence. He seemed crazy to us that day, but his smile was infectious and as I look back on this video now I realize that he is so full of life. That's how I want to be, always.

Next time you see a leaf pile, jump in, don't worry who sees. When you smile, people notice and they never forget it.

joeyz101

http://twitter.com/joeyz101