Graduated background, four years late

One of my New Year's Resolutions a few years back was figuring out how to take decent photos of my pots. I move at a glacial pace on these sorts of things--isn't acknowledging that the point of resolutions?--but today, almost four years later, I finally took the first obvious baby step of buying a graduated background. While I was at Southeastern Camera, I also acquired some affordable lighting and a stand, thanks to the patient help of the staff there. Initial experiments suggest the white-to-black background is going to be way better than the white posterboard I've been using (which is now covered with kitty pawprints, feline herpes sneezes, and other lovely details that come with loving one's cats trotz allem).

While in the store, I was asked what kind of camera I have. I've been using an old Canon PowerShot A620, which I called "um, an old point-and-shoot, but I inherited a good digital Nikon camera from my dad. He was an avid photographer. I wish I could use his expertise on this--" at which point I had to stop talking to focus on not bursting into tears. I wish I could use his expertise on this.

For the record, here's what you can do with poster board:

Resolutions

I need to start an Etsy store. That will go on my list of New Year's resolutions, along with coming up with a way to take decent photos of my work, building a gas or soda kiln in the back yard, and learning to repair plaster walls. Can you tell which of the Klein Bottles below were photographed by a professional photographer and which were photographed by me using a low-tech piece of white poster board propped on a chair as a backdrop?

I didn't make any specific New Year's resolutions on January 1, 2010, but some goals did crop up along the way. I'm pleased to report that I have successfully renewed my devotion to Robert Schumann (to whom, incidentally, I dedicated my Master's thesis in Astronomy way back in 1989) by learning the six B-A-C-H fugues for organ. For those who question the absolute brilliance of the fugues, might I recommend several months of worshipful practice and analysis?

By comparison, I've been resisting my way through The Lord of the Rings, but with December 31 looming, I've bumped things up a notch and am now a mere 200 pages away from finishing The Return of the King (not counting the hundreds of pages of appendices). By New Year's Eve, I hope to call my cultural literacy oath to Tolkien fulfilled.