It was raining today. Really hard. With thunder and lightning. I'm normally a run-rain-or-shine kind of gal. I've got a whole collection of rain gear for running in every season. Unfortunately, nobody makes rain gear that protects you from thunder and lightning, so no morning run for me today. Which also meant no morning iPhone photoshoot. Though I've taken the same route for the past year, there's always something interesting to photograph. My most-photographed items during morning runs are:

1. Graffiti
2. Discarded furniture
3. Posters
4. Stickers

Of course, the problem with taking the same route every day means that you get through photographing the usual neighborhood fixtures pretty quickly. Which means that I have to be extra-vigilant, and extra-creative. Even the most mundane things can look cool. Take this photo, for example:

In case you can't tell what it is, it's a post covered in staples. It tells such a story. Look at all the history. Hundreds - maybe even thousands - of people have posted their ads here over time.

So back to today's walk. It didn't happen. By the time I got home the sky had cleared up. But not just that. The snails came out too! They always come out after a rainfall, and today was certainly no exception. You may recall from a previous blog post that I am a big fan of photographing snails. Even my daughter is excited about snails. She loves pointing them out to me. And she's always extra-careful not to step on them after a rainfall.

We noticed the snails after I picked my daughter up after school this evening. There were TONS of them around. Of all sizes too. There were some teeny ones (with shells maybe 5mm wide or smaller), to some big ones, with shells that were a couple of centimeters wide. I got to photographing them right away, while my daughter started picking berries from one of the bushes on our property, to feed the snails. Check out her setup here:

I even took a shot of a snail with a berry.

I didn't bother telling her that snails don't eat berries. Why ruin her fun? :) Speaking of fun, I had fun with this shot. The snail is "posing" with my photography magazine.

And finally, my favorite shot of the day:

To see more snail pictures from today and from past iPhone shoots, check out the album here. And for more on my zany iPhone adventures, check out my Facebook page and Instagram feed (@umlaphoto). I am loving Instagram these days, by the way. I don't like the filters quite as much as on Hipstamatic (especially since you can get some really funky combos through mixing and matching), but it is a fast and easy way to spread the photography love.

I'd better be careful, though. With all this iPhone fun, my DSLR is seriously starting to feel lonely. Maybe someone will come up with a DSLR with a WiFi connection that uploads pictures to Instagram.