4th of July 2015

Hey, would you look at that, I got one of these up well ahead of time for once. As usual, the mood hit me, and I decided to make use of it because I'm feeling good and productive one day, it's certainly no guarantee I'll be like that the next day.

So, okay, I'm not exactly in new territory here. This is pretty similar to what I made two years ago (see thumbnail below). So I kept the concept itself safe, which is fine, there's really only so much you can do with a patriotic theme, and I still think I improved quite a bit on this version, which is what is important to me these days: to improve at my craft. When I try something too high concept, well, that's when I tend to run into trouble.

Besides, I still like the setting. The 4th of July, in addition to marking America's Independence, is also a staple of SUMMER. And summer nights out in the country by the water are the best. It gets nice and cool (okay, sometimes it doesn't, and those nights blow!), you can hear the frogs and crickets, there's thousands of fireflies off in the distance, there's a great scent in the air that I can only refer to as "lakey". Especially early in the season like this, when it's not so damn hot yet, because the last couple months have been just about PERFECT around here. It's the heat and humidity that make me hate summer, but if it would stay the way it's been recently, I'd LOVE it.


4th of July, 2013