My new girlfriend: Photoshop

Dave: Okay, so Tessa thinks I'm more interested in Photoshop than her. I can tell by all the glares, cupboards banging and the familiar loud groaning from the other room. The thing is is that I've discovered photoshop, and love it. I can't drag my sorry ass away from it. I've spent roughly eight hours going over the 250 photos I took of our friends wedding. Now I want to buy a scanner and printer and start going through the millions of other photographs I've taken over the years. I've always been a "film" buff but it was getting expensive and some of the jobs I was getting required digital, so I bought a Nikon D70. It's an amazing camera, and with digital and photoshop together the sky's the limit.... and that sky can be any color you want it to be. I still think of photography as a true art form, with the skill coming from composition and lighting. Photoshop is just a fun tool to add to the process, not replace it. My true passion still lies in taking black and white photos, using a nice high grain film with a #25 red filter.

I'm starting to feel that this whole blog adventure Tessa and I have set out on has become somewhat of a creative outlet that keeps expanding and growing. The more we create and learn the more we want to keep going with it. I even went to a Documentary film info session last night. I'm thinking of taking the course through Langara college. It's yet another avenue I want to dive into and explore. Final cut pro sounds like an amazing editing program that I'm hungry to learn. I want to start making short films, editing them, and posting them here. The wheels are turning.

I know Tessa will think I'll be sneaking out of bed, in the middle of the night, to do even more projects. But the fact is is that I'll be looking at the millions of pictures I've taken of her... admiring her long blonde, black or even blue hair.

I love you like raisins

Tessa: This last Sunday was a lovely quiet day after our Saturday night dinner party bomb when our friend hijacked our cedar plank salmon and conversation with the 46 inch HDTV with 900 channels at full volume. Okay, the Ali G. marathon session was highly entertaining but nevertheless Sunday was a welcome reprieve. I was happy to have a nice quiet day and read on the couch while Dave photo shopped our friend's wedding picture for the 900th hour in a row. Deanna's head has been coloured, moved, removed, sampled, stapled, highlighted well you name it. But I digress because I was talking about my peaceful Sunday. From time to time Dave would rip himself away from his task sit on the couch, pat my feet, plant kisses on my forehead and say thing like"I love you like slfjdflkdflsj? " "Like what?" I said? "I love you like raissdosdrs." I'm positive I heard raisins. I love you like raisins. “Raisins” I asked. “You hate raisins.” "Yes, I know." he said walking away enigmatically...back to touching up his pictures for the 902 nd time.

A few hours later he would re-emerge from his cave, saunter over to the couch and whisper the same sweet nothing in my boggy ear still ringing from the Ali G marathon. But this time I thought I heard green peppers. I love you like green peppers. Green peppers. He hates green peppers. Ohhhh it’s all getting a bit cryptic now. How am I supposed to read when he’s busy photoshopping without me and telling me he loves me like raisins and green peppers. How can I fully concentrate on my zombie book with disturbing thoughts flying through my mind like an electrical storm. So I get up from the couch and travel to his lair. The photoshop lair. Now I’m beginning to understand that he’s not re-doing these pictures out of necessity which is one thing. He’s doing them because he LOVES DOING THEM. That’s why all of a sudden I’m a raisin and not a hamburger. He knows I’m on the couch reading my zombie book just waiting for him to finish with that filthy photo manipulating program so he can play with ME. Yes, ME! That’s right. I don’t want to read, I want to PLAY. He knows that. He knows I’m slowly seething. I’m turning into Ali G. I’m becoming the monster in my werewolf book because I want attention. Yes. I DO!

So I wrap my arms around his shoulders, bend down and nestle my face in his neck and whisper sweet nothings in his knobby ear. "I love you hot pants,"I say. "I love you like XFCXFG+KJHKHKJHLH." "Like what?" he shouts trying to escape my body hold. "Like raisins."I say sweetly. Like raisins.