aegis \EE-jis\,

noun:
4. A shield or protective armor; -- applied in mythology to the shield of Zeus.

Today's word of the day post may turn into a quick rant about how technology ruins my life, but I'll try to keep that to a minimum.

First off, I've been in cahoots with the folks from dictionary.com. I was hoping to get a word of the day a few weeks in advance to plan something fantastic for you, my many readers. But instead, they sent the words for today, tomorrow and Wednesday. It's just as well, though; I used that opportunity to shoot in an empty building down the street with my brother.

Now for why technology is terrible: after shooting last night, I plugged my card reader into the computer and lost everything. I'm still not sure why it happened, but when I went to retrieve the photos, there was nothing there. In fact, the only reason I have anything for you at all is because I downloaded a recovery software that costs $130 if you want the full-sized image back.

And that's why today's photo is so small (when you click on it). I ended up just taking a screen shot of the tiny photo in the recovery program, which is unfortunate.

And for the photo itself: it's a pretty simple, but very fun way of using light. There's a flash to the right with a softbox pointed at Steven, my brother (thanks for modeling!), and another in the back shot through an umbrella to the wall. The "bars" in the photo are streaks of light made with LED key chains. Helen and I drew them in while Steven hung out looking awesome.

Well that's it for my anti-technology post. Luckily, there wasn't much more than a few photos and the 7th Harry Potter in mp3 on the card. But hopefully it won't happen again.

As always, if you've got a photo for aegis, send it to me in an email!