What's the difference between a dildo?

If you saw the thumbnail of the image below and thought to yourself, "Man, that kinda looks like a wiener." You should definitely be ashamed of yourself.  But you should also know that you're not alone.  Turns out there are tons of pervs out there just like you!

It's a lightbulb!  I swear!  So what do we do about it?  I still think it's a pretty rad shot, so I'm determined to find a way to save it.

First attempt:  Maybe the difference is 29.5˚?  What do you think, does it look more like a light bulb in a vertical orientation?  Or does it just look like a front on fruit basket?  Just a slight change in the angle of the dangle, if you will..

Second attempt:  What about a composition and a tighter crop?  I'm thinking that this tighter crop features the splashes better.  And with the crop passing through the threaded bottom of the bulbs, it draws the eye to that feature, thus making it a quicker lightbulb read. 

There's gotta be a way.  I want to know what you think!  Please leave me a comment.  Does one of these options fix the phallic tendency, or should I try something else?

Really Really Intense

Intense ran this in a bunch of mountain bike mags.  It looks amazing.  Building that file was quite a process.  Good thing AJ is a genius.  It doesn't hurt that the bike's they make are unreal.

Instagram

It's happening.  Resistance is futile.  You should totally follow me.  I'm an exciting person.  And sometimes I even make my own filters.

Speaking of which, here's a fun fact: the full frame border I put on the image below was scanned from a print I made in school with a real live full-frame neg holder.  That I, Steve Simar, filed out with my own two hands.  Take THAT, digital!

No, I Do Not Like to Make Babies Cry

Why the crying baby?  So glad you asked.  Here's the story.  

We needed a shot of me for the website, and, happily enough, a little downtime presented itself during a recent shoot.  Kevin took a good 40 or 50 shots of me standing there in my clothes consciously trying not to look self-conscious.  They were nice and all, but a little bit too.. I don't know... normal.  

Then Burd showed up with his daughter in her pretty pink jammies, and said, "Hey, you should hold the baby."  We shot a whole series of me pretending to scold someone off set while holding the happy baby.  They were hilarious.  Ricki is a very happy baby who likes to stick her tongue out at the camera.  After a while she lost patience with the whole scene.  In the moment I thought it would be funny to display the opposite emotion.  It was our last frame with the baby, and it turned out to be the winner because...

Upon review, while the others were funny, Ricki was simply TOO cute in all of them.  I don't mean that in the same way a new grandmother means it.  I mean that her cuteness was overpowering.  I mean, just look at that face..

I can't be expected to compete with that.  And I won't.  Not on MY website, sister.

Persistence

As a man with talent, I take exception to his second sentence.  The rest is amazing though:

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
— Calvin Coolidge