Congrats on the 36 smoke-free hours! And I LOVE this photo. I am a sucker for great textures, and this photo is chock full of them. I actually think it's quite beautiful.

It's amazing how you can find places like this and capture some magic on it. This is my first post here and every single day your pics makes me want an decent camera to start photographing but we'll see what happens :)

Finland over and out.

Hope you feel better soon. Don't give up!

By the way, your photos are beautiful; Chromasia is a the top of my favorites.

I am always amazed at the brilliant colors of your photos, as well as the sharp detail of all of your subject. Great shot. Beautiful composition. 14 years on the cigs for me 6 attempts at removing it. Hopefully last attempt will be in 2 weeks. I wish you the best of luck, you can do it.

Congrats on the first steps in giving up the ciggies - I made the move nearly three years ago now and haven't looked back. If nothing else, you'll substitute more photography for the smoking :-) I can totally understand the symptoms you describe, having experienced them all myself - it only gets better with time, so hang in there!

This is actually an image that is very evocative of the experience to me - so many times i just wanted to escape from myself...that patch of calm, green grass seen outside the stone window reminds me of that quest to escape the habit.

The one thing that propelled me through the process was the knowledge that as long as I really quit for good, I'd never need to experience the process again. Motivation indeed...

great shot , amazing colors , du "grand "david j !

Beautiful colors

My mother...20 years with two packs a day, she just *cannot* quit. Though I have to admit, I love this picture. I really havent felt the same about them lately, but I really do like this one. Kinda gives 'The grass is greener on the other side' motto about it. Rustic.

Ah, stop whining. I was on 40 a day and quit - four years clear now. Go out and get drunk, you don't get hangovers for the couple of weeks after quitting. Quitting teaches you lots about yourself so forcing yourself out to take pics will let you see new things. Shame you're using NRT, you're not getting the whole full experience...

Just another person wishing you the best. Don't give up- for every hour you resist, that's one more hour worth of reason to continue. Don't let your hope go dry, and don't take for granted these tough beginnings. After all, no smoking= more $$$$ for lenses! Keep up the good work, we are all behind you!

Thanks all.

Aegir: I've done the cold-turkey route in the past and have spent weeks alternating between zombification and wild moments of hysterical anxiety, frustration and general fury at the world and its inhabitants, so I don't need anything even remotely approaching the "whole full experience" ;-)

daily visitor: good point, but I have my eye on the Lyson Continuous Ink System rather than a lens :-)

As an ex-smoker I advise you put your cigarette-money in a box. That way it becomes very visible that you stopped smoking. And think of the great lenses etc you can buy with what you save!!!!

Good luck and don't give in!

Oops...no lenses I see, but something else. I didn't read the comments ;) Sorry.

Hey, I discovered Chromasia with the MetaFilter post on May 18, and I've been reading it daily since. Great work with the photography, but now that you're documenting the quitting process it's like getting two compelling blogs for the price of one. Know that we support you, and may the strength of these numbers help keep you accountable to break free of the addiction for good! Keep the great photos coming, and the life updates as well!

Irene: lenses are good too ;-)

Parker: thanks.

What an amazing and wonderful gift of love to your partner and children!! That they won't have to stand by [helplessly] watching you go through one of those unbelievably tormentive five year emphesema deaths.

That's what it took for me (after 29 years of smoking)... When I fell in love and we settled in together, then it dawned on me a few months later just what my [new] beloved best friend and partner would eventually be up for if I didn't quit.

Twenty-some years later, the lady is long gone; now *I'm* the one who won't have to watch me go through that nasty business at the butt end of a smoker's life!!

:-)

Hey David, I feel your pain. I stopped smoking on March 21st this year after 17 years as a smoker. I didn't use any nicotine substitute, (Look on Amazon for "Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking)...

Anyway, the first 2 to 3 weeks were very hard for me, but after that I seemed to come out of the tunnel, and now I don't even feel like smoking. Hang on in there, you can do it... If I can, anyone can!

Oh yes, the wooly "stupid" feeling does eventually go away! I was kind of useless for a few weeks though! I slept for most of it!

Good luck mate!

I just love your photos. They're simply the best. Every one of them... Great :)

I have a confessed weakness for landscapes framed in windows - almost equal to my weakness for roll-ups (although I'm down to 3 a day now, any attempts at a permanent quit have always failed) so this one grabbed me from the start.
I sort of wish that there wasn't the competing green of the nettles battling against the iridescent - or should that be viridescent - green of the grass. I tried removing all the colour and that didn't work so well either. The warmth of the light coming through the window is important - maybe garden shears pre-exposure would have done the trick :)

Try unshelled sunflower seeds. I found them very helpful when I finally quit smoking for good 22 years ago. (They keep one's hands and mouth occupied in a somewhat similar way to cigarettes.) I also made a point of cutting out any newspaper stories related to the drug dealers (tobacco companies) and putting them up on the fridge to remind me that I was beholden to some not very nice people who were profitting from my decreased health, wealth, and self esteem. It truly does get easier with time, as I'm sure you've heard already. Good for you! Keep it up! A guy with your talent can do anything!

I found your blog a little less than a week ago. I'm very impressed. I think your landscapes are especially good.

I've never smoked, and I've never been a coffee drinker, but apparently coffee amplifies the addiction of nicotine. I'm not sure if anyone really knows why, but it makes it harder to quit smoking. So if you happen to drink coffee you could try quitting that too, at least for a little while. Good luck.

I love the glow of the frame full of grass showing through the wall.

While I am not particulary interested in hearing about your battle
with nicotine, I do think this is one of the nicest things you have
done lately. I also like yesterdays shot, "Local Call". These two shots
seem to sucseed where alot of your selective focus or framing shots
do not. I still belive in the great tradition of the f64 group and I never
get tired of a great landscape. I liked "Light Pours Down #2" from
your camping trip to Edale.

Congrats on the efoort, I truly wish you acomplish your goal. and congratulations on this pic. I love the elements and the fact that this kind of composition makes feel like I am lost somewhere and about to discover what is behid the wall. Which seems so nice by the way. Keep going Dave for sure it will be good for you and your family too.

Well, I say it all the time, but this is a fascinating shot again. I really love the green color of the grass. It's nice contrast with the building.

A fantastic image... The colour balance is pretty much perfect, the composition is very pleasing to the eye... The wood beams separate the picture into two completely different elements. Fantastic... My only criticism would be that this image appears to be the victim of camera shake. It's not as crisp and sharp as it could be; the top left of the beams shows this quite obviously. And looking at your shooting parameters I can see that 1/50th at 64mm is quite solid evidence. A rule I always try to follow is to use shutter speeds of the focal length... if that makes sense... So if you're using a 200mm (equiv) focal length, shoot at 1/200th, or 1/50th @ 50mm and so on, down to a minimum of 1/30th with focal lengths below 30mm. You can always stop the ISO/Aperture up a little and apply an unsharp mask in PS.

Do you have a monopod, Dave? They're much more transportable than a tripod and are surprisingly good at reducing/eliminating camera shake at low shutter speeds. Just my tuppence!

Thanks a lot for your photos...fantastic

Love how you can take something people would not take a second look at and turn it into art. Wonderful.

Very good Chromasia.
Good color contrast.
Eheh, I hope you will go one new shot tomorrow.
Take care.

'gards.

way to go Dave! Keep up your resistance to have a cig!!

Thanks everyone: for both the nice comments and the good wishes about the (non)smoking :-)

Am I the only one who thinks this pic looks remarkably like Led Zeppelin's fourth album cover? Something about the colours and the stone + wood combo.

Love this photo! The wee bit of light coming through the window is perfect.

And congrats on going non-smoker! Its 3 and 1/2 years for me now. Being told I was in the beginning stages of emphysema was all it took for me. The shock value alone did it and I went cold turkey from there. And I had already quit for 9 years once before so the beast does return! I lost my battle for about 7 more years till the doc dropped the bomb! Good luck! And it is worth it - every single breath!