i’ve spent some time each night since we’ve been back getting organized. i’ve organized all of my photography files, at least by year, and put a new snapshot on my server. i’m starting to burn copies of the backups on to DVD, and i just got in the new portable hard drive. backups are good. the more i do my research and want to get more “pro” with everything, i see the value of backups and organization in not only the files, but the process, resources, and equipment, too.

it’s starting to flow into other areas now, this whole organization thing. i can see the glass of the desk in my office at home. things are finding their way back to their places. i went through the box of magazines i have to catch up on and put into recycling the ones that were irrelevant and outdate and made it easier for me to identify the oldest of the issues i did keep. i organized the units from my photography class, and have the bundle ready for the unit on which i am currently working so that i can jump back in to it.

it feels good. the honeymoon put a lot of things in perspective, and i’m glad the flight back didn’t squash my good intentions. i’ve even started making lists again, which got really long, really fast. but it seemed to make things easier when i actually stayed on top of them, and they still work great at work. i added a photography project to the list that i want to work on, on top of working on the honeymoon “keepers”. i’ve set a few goals for myself in a few different areas, too. they should be realistic, and accomplishing them will give me a rewarding feeling to build bigger goals. perspective is good. realizing it’s a journey and enjoying the trip is better.

another reason to love google…authors at google.

i’m sitting in my hotel room in lovely exton, pennsylvania, watching australia’s next top model.

have no fear, i’ve also got the nhl playoffs going on in the background. the hotel i stay at here has the nhl package available on demand. <whew> still straight.

i’ve been getting more serious with the photography lately. i’m in the nyip course, and i also signed up for a class at wwa. kerri made a suggestion about watching america’s next top model, because they do a photo shoot each episode. i wasn’t too sure, but then a day later, one of the podcasts i listen to mentioned the same thing. not, of course, that i needed additional validation of the idea (i did), but it helped.

i set the dvr to find and record next top model. evidently, there is a new season on the cw, but the dvr recorded some repeats on mtv that were a few seasons old. i wound up watching every episode that were recorded; unfortunately, i think it did not record the final two episodes of the season, so i still don’t know who won.  i’m hoping that those two remaining episodes will be recorded when i get back home. not that i’m addicted. i’m in it for the photography.

for this trip, i only had access to australia’s next top model. i don’t know what season it is. for some reason, i think it’s the first season, but i don’t want to look it up until after i finish the season so i don’t ruin who wins. not that it matters. i’m in it for the photography.

hang on…

ok, i’m back. evidently, the australian version can show nudity or “pink bits”, as one of the girl called them. they swear a lot, and have for most of the season. and i thought i saw a nipple a few episodes back, but brushed it off. the second to last episode of the season, the remaining girls had to do a nude shoot.  it almost makes sitting through and watching the reality drama crap worth it. almost.

the australian version was interesting. the girls seemed to be from a variety of different areas of australia. there were some girls from the gold coast (the rich, obnoxious ones), an aboriginal girl, a sudanese girl, and the rest. the american version seemed to have what i would consider to be middle to upper middle class girls. the australian version seemed to have some lower to upper middle class girls, and interestingly it seemed like the class differences were more apparent and maybe more relevant to what was going on. fasinating.

in this one episode…

wait…

the photography. the reason i watch it, of course!

i want to focus on it, but i’m at the end of the second to last episode that’s playing in the background while i write this. oh, yeah, and there is hockey on, too, i think. who cares? it’s about…um…the…oh, yeah, the photography.

it’s actually a pretty good show to see fashion photography. on the american version of the show, the guy that gives the direction during the photography shoot is great, and seems to be able to get the girls in to at least a reasonable position. in both versions of the show, i can see some of the basic lighting and camera set ups, and then seeing the end pictures is fantastic.

the judges are making their decision! after this, only the finale remains!

i still don’t know what i want to do with my photography. i’m pretty stoked for the classes i’ve signed up for, because i’ll get exposure to some of the various disciplines. portraits and abstract, i think, are still my favorites.

they just rid of the the girl with the most experience from the gold coast. she was pretty fake the whole way, but i think a lot of the things the other girl picked on her for would actually suit a girl in the career. i just started the final episode. only 3 girls remain!

something about photography. um, yeah. it’s not going to happen tonight. i’ve got to give the last, um, photo session my undivided attention.

www.whattheduck.net

i started my photography notebook today.

i guess i’ve made a lot of progress on the photography front lately. i signed up for the new york institute of photography course and working on my first assignment. in addition to my course work, i wanted to do some work with portraits, so i bought some new (some needed, some not) equipment, including a background stand and a new strobe. i took some pictures for some friends on saturday, which didn’t turn out as good as i hoped. if there is good news out of that, it’s that i know how it could have been improved, and i think that will help keep me motivated to continue to practice and learn. i also took some shots at the CCT production of Grease this weekend, i think i got some nice pictures from that. you can look at them here.

tonight i continued to practice, and set out to take some pictures of my guitar (tomorrow i get my new guitar, yay!) . the first shoot was sloppy on my part. i wanted to see how three variables (shutter speed, aperture, flash power) affected the lighting of the guitar. but the guitar was too close to the background, and i didn’t use a tripod so i introduced a few other variables that i did not intend.

instead of giving up, i went downstairs and tried again. the second shoot had the background further back, the light source (strobe with a shoot through umbrella) was a little higher up, and, very importantly, the camera was on a tripod. so this time, i could actually see the results limited to those three variables.

the results were mostly as expected. i was trying to do the math for those variables to see if i could get consistent (or at least expected) results by changing those variables, and i think i did for the most part. i documented it all in the photography notebook, since i think i’m one of those people that learns better by writing things down (plus i can go back and look at it). it’s also nice to have a plan (i wrote down all the shots i wanted to take before hand, in terms on the variables in question) to follow.

i also learned that picasa automatically “fixes” images by default. i imported them using picasa, which i usually do. i exported them to post to flickr, and noticed that all the pictures looked pretty similar when they shouldn’t have. so shrunk them in photoshop instead and uploaded those images. i’ll need to figure out how to tell picasa to leave my junk alone.

in any case, you can view the guitar shots from the second shoot here. i even included the setup shot for strobist folks. i also put the one i liked best on kettlepot here.

i think that’s it for tonight. i learned today that an old work acquaintance that i haven’t talk to in a bit is moving to texas. i wish her all the luck in finding what she’s looking for.

me, right now, i’m looking to go to bed.

in my renewed enthusiasm for improving my photography, i’ve been looking for web sites and podcasts related to the various aspects of photography, as well as photographers that have inspiring work.

LightSource: podcasts that cover some news and have an interview with a photographer. the interviews i listened to today were great. David Hobby of strobists fame. i also listened to a wonderful interview by Jeremy Cowart, who has some really amazing photographs on his website. He focuses mostly on music and television, but he has some shots from a trip to africa that are incredible. LightSource also has a Flickr group http://www.flickr.com/groups/lightsource/.

StudioLighting.net has a number of good tutorials, and links to some of the snapfactory youtube videos.

i made the decision to focus more on my photography. in a sense, i’m going back to basics, i signed up for the new york institute of photography course, and i’m also going back through the strobists lighting 102 series.

the first assignment in the lighting 102 series deals with the position (angle) of light, and how light coming from different angles reveals the subject. you can see the shots on my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kettlepot/sets/72157603996062227/.
i popped by target after work today and picked up my subject; a $0.97 hot wheels car. my gear consisted of the camera, flash, macro rings, and a table top tripod, all packed in my fancy laptop + camera bag that i take on my trips now. my studio? the marriott courtyard in new jersey. i decided to make the most of this trip to keep my momentum going, or at least my intention of having momentum.

the execution was pretty straight forward. i put the car on the upside down plastic tray that was in the room. there were two tables in the room, and their heights allowed me to put the tray on two cups on one table and have the camera on the tripod on the other table. i wound up having to hand-hold the flash, and of course the batteries for my remote died so i used the timer to allow myself to get in place with the flash prior to the capture. i took the first shot with with the flash above the car, and set the camera for 320/f10. the aperture gave me enough of the car in focus to suite my needs. so, the first shot was above the car. the next shot was of the car just off center front of the car (right next to the camera). then i went around the car in 45 degree increments.

it was interesting to look at the pictures. i had an idea of what would happen with the flash in the different places. i had a few drawing classes that talked about shadows and how light hits objects. but during those classes, it wasn’t much more than “if the light is on the left and the object is in the center, the shadow should fall to the right”. that part of it held true in this exercise, as well. but the interesting part to me was more about what the light did to the subject, not the shadows. in hindsight, the results i see make sense… when the flash was at the 45 front left angle to the car, light hit more of the surface of the angled car…the geometry works.

hopefully this is a good start to appreciating more of what light can do for me and my subjects.

so, i think i made a decision which, for those of you that know me, is so unlike me.

i woke up this morning severely early due to being sick. instead of trying to go back to bed (i couldn’t, even if i wanted to), i pondered. well, i surfed, really. i got an e-mail from one of my best friends about the latest picture i put up on kettlepot. it was really the first picture i’ve put up in awhile, and she said some nice things about it. i also talked to one of my photographer friends this week about my lack of motivation, direction, and all that. she made a good comment that i think, in some regards, applies directly to me. i feel like a lot of my good shots are luck instead of technique or skill. the old saying “i’d rather be lucky than good” does have its merits. sometimes a great shot is about luck; being in the right place at the right time, or timing something that you capture a shot that’s 1 in a million.

i’ve read my share of books, and blogs, and articles. i’ve talked to other photographers, and experimented. but i think what i need are some actual classes. i’ve been looking at some online classes, mostly because of the travel i’ve been doing and my life schedule. i don’t want to have another excuse to not take a class, i guess. my camera is with me at all times, even when i go out east, so i think an online class offers the best opportunity to continue with the photography in spite of life opportunities. my plan has always been that if i take this class, which covers a wide variety of topics and photography types, that i would then (hopefully) pick an area to focus on and take appropriate local courses here to advance my skill. sounds like a solid plan.

the other thing i’ve been struggling with is upgrading my camera, but the one i want, the Nikon D300, is $1,800. my saving grace has been that amazon didn’t have it in stock, which changed today. they do.

the perfect storm? extra money came in this month.

so, here i sit, way too early in the morning. i’ve been saving up for the course, the camera, and a new guitar. i’m trying to rationalize everything in my head, weigh the pros and cons. it’s enough to make my already churning stomach spin out of control. and then i rationalized it.

i think the course should come first. my camera is a decent, solid camera that is fine for what i am doing (or not doing, as the case may be). i can’t really justify spending the money on a new camera when i don’t really use the current one. really, the only push for me to do it would be because the new camera would do way better in lower light situations, which happens to be where i’ve been shooting mostly lately, and that’s the shows for kerri’s school. but the shots i’m taking are fine. i have two fast, low light lenses i can use. and, realistically, if i bought that camera and only used it to take pictures of the shows, i’d be disappointed in myself.

next will come a new guitar, i believe. we’ve been working on note reading and more classical guitar work, so i think it makes sense to get a reasonable classical guitar to help me work towards that. i guess as the things i work on get more complicated, having the classical guitar will make it easier.

the extra funds this month will then help pay for some of the wedding bills that we’re piling up, which will definitely help me sleep better. then, maybe sometime in the spring or summer, i can look at upgrading the camera. by then, i should be deep into the course work (if not done, assuming i get highly motivated) and have a higher technique to luck ratio.

it seems all logical written out. not bad for some early morning decisions.

i hate being sick.

i don’t get sick very often, and when i do i think my body does a pretty good job fighting it off. but it still sucks. the timing of this illness couldn’t have been worse, either. my guys from out east are in for a visit, so my plans for a team dinner and a vendor dinner were foiled. luckily, those events still went off, but i wasn’t there.  i did manage to go to work and get the stuff done that i needed to (and hopefully minimizing the potential for spreading my bug, although i read somewhere that i was probably contagious before i showed  any symptoms…still, it’s the thought that counts). i probably stayed too long today, but i think it was for a good cause.

i’m actually sitting on the couch right now, trying to do too many things, so i figured i would do none of them and write for a bit. and watch hockey. so far the lightning haven’t blown it like they usually do, and the vancouver game just started so they haven’t had an opportunity to lose yet. oh, speaking of hockey, i checked out my old teams website tonight. it looks great (except the old, freaky picture of me)! i miss playing and am trying to figure out if i want to fit it back in my life next season, although that’s unlikely with the wedding. and the 1,000 other things i want to do. still, if i can work the schedule, i think i’d like to.

and, speaking of wedding. i still haven’t made an appointment with a photographer, although it’s a work in progress. i did check out a few more websites tonight, and have a few more lined up to look at tonight. i need to focus my priorities and stop making excuses for not making the appointment. tomorrow.

i need to update the website, too.

ok, enough about all the things i need to do. it would become the never-ending post.

it’s going to be a busy few days. i got a violation letter from the HOA because i haven’t taken the christmas lights down yet. between travel and all that, it was a low priority, but i’ll take care of it saturday. i think it’s supposed to be nice out. we have an engagement party on sunday, and i think some folks from work will come up, so that makes me very happy (unless, of course, they get sick between now and then, and then i can only blame myself. and them, for getting sick).  then on monday, i’m flying east for the week. it will likely be my last trip for a few weeks. kerri and i are going to florida in march, just in time (hopefully) to see my friend’s new baby, or to see her right before she has it, or to be there when she has it so we can babysit their precious daughter. we’ll see a hockey game with mom, and spend some (noisy) QT with the new puppies. We’ll probably head to Orlando for a bit, too. I think I’ve earned a free night at a hotel with my Marriott points, so there is something to be said for the travel.

a light night of writing, i guess. no deep thoughts, no keen observations. it was an eventful day, but one that i’m trying to process, i guess. it was also work related, and i don’t / won’t post about that stuff. it is what it is.

oh, speaking of. i know a few folks that hate that saying. but there was a brief segment on npr talking about the saying. i looked for a link but didn’t find one, but it was a light story talking about the phrase, where it might have come from, and how it’s used.

and on that note, it’s back to photographer websites. vancouver scored and my insides are churning in celebration. stupid being sick. boo. still…

it is what it is

as always, i’ve been meaning to write for awhile. i’ve had all these (good) ideas that i’ve been wanting to write about but didn’t take notes and now, after a very long day, my head can’t recall what it once thought was the most important thing in the world.  i’ll work backward and see how far i get…

today we took the ski train up to winter park for some mountain fun. it was actually planned for my birthday, and it was a great present. the ski train itself is worth it, but being up there with kerri and two of my best friends makes it even better. it was a good day, though. it was a cold and we were reminded we need to upgrade kerri’s gear, but we made the most of it. my legs felt good, and my friends, who hadn’t been up there in over a year, did great. i brought the camera but didn’t use it; too cold, too overcast, but more on that later.  this paragraph already had a few things that sparked my failing memory.

my birthday. the big 3-4. i guess i’m destined to prefix all my birthdays from now on “the big”. i still don’t do birthdays, but k had the house decorated when i got home from work, which was awesome. we drank some wine, had dinner, and watched hockey. what more could i ask for? she got me a midi controller keyboard, which was way to expensive but that was very in line with what we’ve been doing musically lately. what a weird thing to say…”what we’ve been doing musically”. a couple of guitar lessons and all of a sudden i’m a musician.

speaking of music… the guitar lessons are going very well. we’re switching back to more classical work so i can focus on my note reading. i’m also continuing to read my music theory book, so things are starting to (somewhat) make sense.  a few weeks ago, kerri and i were playing with a keyboard and she was teaching me a few things, then we went for a few nights with me working on my songs (i have 3 “covers” that i play and (try to) sing) and her playing keyboard accompaniment.  music will always fascinate me, i think. it’s such a combination of so many things…theory, math, formulas, patterns, creativity, passion, soul, everything. i’m not nearly as advanced as i need to be to do the things i want to do, but i have some cool tools (including my birthday present) with which to experiment.

i actually took a few pictures yesterday, too. as i said, i took the camera with us on the train today, which was big for me. i didn’t use it, but it was there. yesterday we went with some friends to an acquaintance’s photography show, and it inspired me a bit. we got to talk to the photographer, and i actually sounded like i knew what i was talking about, which made me feel pretty good. i put two new pictures on kettlepot, which are the first new pictures i think i put up since i redid the website.

a new family guy is on tonight, so i’m totally distracted.

finito!