Wow, it's been a while!  I've been occupied with a whole bunch of stuff, some of which has actually been related to photography.

One of the things that's kept me awake at nights has been how to differentiate what I do from other photographers, especially with an eye towards making this a profitable pursuit.  Given that the barrier to entry to the world of image capture is so low (phones with decent cameras are now ubiquitous), there is now an abundance of photographers out there and the bar has been raised very, very high; it's a struggle to stand out.  So how does one rise above the crowd in this digital era? I guess one way is to enter realms where a barrier still remains.  It seems to me that *moving* pictures - i.e. video - is one such realm. Yes, phones do capture video, but it takes so much more time and effort to create an "acceptable" video, never mind a "great" video, than it does to create a reasonable still image.  With data transmission rates going ever higher, it's now quite possible to send high-quality video to mobile devices, something that was prohibitively expensive not too long ago.  It looks like there's an opportunity here and a space that is not yet saturated.  Now, I'm not a videographer by any means, having dabbled in this area only briefly, but it's something that I will definitely explore further.  As a kind of bridge to full-on video, I'm looking more closely at cinemagraphs.  A still image with moving elements is rather eye-catching, and it still leverages my background in photography and photographic tools.  Here's my first attempt (please be patient during the initial load):

I hope to be able to do more with these, especially with a view towards presenting them in high resolution and smoother tonal transitions, but this is a start!