Your Substitute Monday Photo Shoot #1: What's New?

It is 2008 and John Scalzi, the blogfather, has moved on leaving a large hole in our little community. One of the memes that John used to do each week was the Monday Photo Shoot. Although I didn't always participate, I still enjoyed checking it out each week, and I was feeling a little sense of loss. Apparently so was Karen over at Outpost Mavarin. She has decided to take up the discarded meme (with John's blessing) and run with it. This is the first week she is hosting it.

So, let's get on with it! This week's Monday Photo Shoot is:

Your Substitute Monday Photo Shoot #1: What's New? In honor of the new year, show us something new. It can be a gift you got over the holidays, something you gave yourself, or even something that symbolizes the New Year to you. If it's new, it'll do!

Since I am currently without my trusty laptop {{{waaaaaahhhhh}}}}, I decided to cheat a little bit and go online and find a photo of my What's New. Yeah, I know it is cheating, but ya do what you can do LOL!

My What's New was a sort of Christmas present. We were shopping in the local B&N Bookstore on the Sunday after Christmas because I wanted to see if the calendars were on sale yet. They were, along with some nice Christmas cards at 50%. I ended up picking up a beautiful box of cards for next year, but no calendar. I decided to check the Mall on our next day off for a calendar, as they have the huge kiosk of calendars every year. I had technically done what I was supposed to do, but come on..... it's a bookstore! So I decided to browse for a little bit.

One of my favorite animal photographers is Robert Vavra. He does wonderful pictures, and I have a few of his books. People often think he only does horses, but I have not only Eqqus, but Eqquus Reined, The Unicorn of Kilomanjora, and.... Vavra's cats! Anyway, on the sales rack I spotted a Vavra book that I had never seen. It was huge. Not only was it thick and heavy, but it was in a large format to further emphasize these beautiful photos. I glanced at the price thinking I might beg for it later. It was only $29.99. My mouth dropped and I quickly pointed it out to G. He said, "Merry Christmas, get it!" I flipped thru the copies and picked out the one with the best dust cover and paid for it. I was happy to leave the bookstore now because I couldn't wait to get out in the car and look at this gorgeous book more closely.

 

 

After getting home I took the time to look and see when the book was published because I was surprised that I had never seen it before.... The publication date? Wait for it.... 2007! Hmmmm..... So I went online to Vavra's website and discovered the book being advertised as coming out in November of 2007. Now I was really curious. Quickly googling the book I discovered it for sale on a couple of sites, including Borders and Amazon... for $60. Why this book was on the discounted shelves and for half the price only 2 months after it's publication? I don't know... but I'm glad I grabbed it before anyone discovered the mistake.

The Book is huge and gorgeous. Admittedly there are no new pictures, it is a retrospective of the photos he has taken over the last 60 years, but many of the pictures are from books I haven't purchased, so they are new to me.

There you have it... my first (albeit cheating) entry in the New Monday Photo Shoot. Want to play along? Just snap a picture, post it in your blog, and pop over to Karen's and leave your link. She is extending this week's entries till Sunday night, so you still have plenty of time!