It’s a slow Tuesday.

We just got back into town today from our road trip. Sorry for the downtime! Expect touchpuppet to resume regular service by tomorrow. Of course I’ll also make an update about the trip soon so stay tuned for that.

While the boy half of Touchpuppet endures treacherous driving conditions (snow, Manhattan) & samples fine food from Texas to Canada the girl half stays behind to sell & create at her job. At the end of an early & long day she was snapped by writer & street style photographer Allison Bagley for The Inside Source, eBay’s new blog-of-sorts.

Read the rest of the interview and view the other Houstonians she snapped here.

Truth be told, I was not window shopping, I was rushing home for a nap.

Just a reminder that we are leaving tomorrow afternoon for our road trip. I’ll update touchpuppet as often as possible and I’ll have daily trip updates on our facebook page and on twitter. Hit us up if you’re in any of the towns we’re visiting!

I have 25 google wave invites to hand out to our lovely readers. Please leave a comment and I will pick 25 of you at random.

UPDATE: I’ve sent out about 15 invites so far. Leave a reply if you’ve gotten yours… Hard to keep track of them all.

We want to play with you! If you’re in Washington D.C., New York City or Montréal, let us know and we will try to set something up! Email us at letsplay AT touchpuppet DOT com with your details/location.

We’ve created a Flickr group for touchpuppet and we encourage all of you out there to go join and submit your work! You can find the group at www.flickr.com/groups/touchpuppet/.

Just a quick reminder that the deadline for submissions for project #1 in the new Touchpuppet Project Series is November, 1st! We already have a few submissions and I am eagerly awaiting for more to come in. If you’re unaware of the project, please see the original post here or read the project summary after the jump.

This is the second installment of our Reader Talent series. If you’re unaware of the series, please go here for more information. This weeks installment is rather small but nevertheless I really like both the artists. Lets see some more submissions!

While I was in art school studying photography, my favorite photo assignments were always the ones that forced me to go out and shoot an idea or concept that I probably would have otherwise never considered. Sometimes the concept was exceedingly brilliant, and sometimes just flat out stupid, but the only thing that mattered was how I interpreted that concept and how I ultimately realized the idea using my own vision. This allowed me to really assess my own creative vision while at the same time helping to expand my photographic interests into areas I normally would’ve ignored.

So basically I love having an excuse to shoot something new, even more so when someone else puts me up to it. So that is where the Touchpuppet Project Series comes in, your opportunity to return to art school and challenge yourself in ways you might not otherwise be doing. Each project I will issue a new challenge to you all (and they wont always be photography related challenges), and give you a specific time frame to submit your works. All submissions will end up here on the site, so not only is it a great way to get out and shoot, it’s also a good opportunity for some exposure.

With all of that said, I am happy to announce our first project Original Strangers. The concept is very simply summed up as “photograph someone familiar to you as if they were a stranger.” The only requirements are that you (hopefully) submit new works completed specifically for this project, and that you send in images with at least a 600px width. It’s that simple! The deadline for submissions is November 1st, 2009. I look forward to seeing what you all come up with!

Please submit all works to featured@touchpuppet.com with the subject line “Original Strangers”. Project summary after the jump.