Image shamelessly recycled from previous election
My sweetie and I voted yesterday, and I didn’t get a sticker. That’s okay; we did our civic duty and can now relax and let election day unfold. I’ve heard the phrase, “It’s a turnout election now,” and it looks like turnout will be heavy. When I put my ballot into the M100 Ballot Scanner yesterday (a machine for which I made the training video), I noticed that the three machines had plenty of use: 1,000 on the first, just shy of 2,000 on the second, and around 2,800 on the third.

All that’s left now is to pray for our elections and the people who are elected. As I’ve said on Facebook: regardless of who wins today: all public officials, regardless of party, are only as accountable as we hold ’em. The days of electing them and sending them off to govern while we go about our business are OVER. We’ve got the government we deserve right now, so let’s take it back and conform it to the will of the people and the frame of the Constitution of the United State of America. So we need to pray that the right people would be elected, for wisdom in the electorate, and for a restoration of the greatness of our country.

Last night felt great, because instead of getting wrapped up in political stuff I simply opened up Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop to start playing around with some as-yet undeveloped photos. This truck, for example, is my first real venture into the world of HDR processing. I don’t have any of the industry-standard tools for such a thing, a fact I may have to rectify soon, but I am relatively pleased with this fledgling result. I was able to keep detail in the shadows of the truck and texture of the wood while keeping the colors and brilliant light of the grass, trees, and sky.

I like HDR photos when they’re super-realistic, but not when they begin to look painted. This one is borderline. As I play around with it more and get some more sophisticated tools to wield, I hope to get a better handle on achieving the look I want. It’ll be a nice change from a very polarized and relentless election season.