I just noticed that the small thumbnail photos for each day are missing. Dunno if I busted something with the move to the new server hardware, or if it was the new version of WordPress that nuked ’em. Bummer….. They’ll return, trust me!
Category Archives: Photography
General photography natter — gear, thoughts, ideas, and the odd photo.
Craft Show
I took my shingle on the road again today, and displayed my wares at Child of God school. I had really high hopes for this show. It was only their first spring show, but they had 50+ vendors signed up, and had a great track record with their fall shows.
Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out that way.
I’d guess there were a hundred or so customers that came by — very slow traffic. I did make enough sales to cover my costs, but still…. I had much higher expectations. I’ll give ’em a shot in the fall and see what that show is like.
I did sell another 18×24 of Crystal. That thing continues to amaze me with its appeal. The fun part was the transaction. I don’t have a way to take credit cards at the shows, and the lady that bought it — the pastor’s wife — asked if I took PayPal, and we began to figure out how to meet, pay, etc. Then … eureka! I realized that I had my broadband wireless card with me. I fired it up, she logged into PayPal, and sent me the funds on the spot. That was cool!
Lightroom, MacBook and Me
Just before the deadline for the $100 discount, I picked up Adobe Photoshop Lightroom over this last weekend. Lightroom is poised as a workflow management tool for photographers, and from what I’ve read and seen, it seems like a tool I wanna use.
Until last night, that is. (But that was only temporary — more on that later.)
I’ve imported my 60,000 image library into a single Lightroom library. The goal of my work is to be able to carry my library of small images and keywords with me on my MacBook wherever I go. This’ll allow me to find something that I’ve shot, whether or not the actual photo archive is with me or not. So, the week was spent importing away.
So, last night, I docked my MacBook up to all its external goodness (USB, Firewire, network and power), fired up Lightroom… and it said my folders were there, but didn’t know the counts, and then it chunked the heck out of the external RAID. And it chunked. And it chunked. Finally it stopped, and seemed to know the count of photos again. However, everytime I did just about anything to manage the library, I got the spinning Frisbee of death, sluggish behavior, and no kind of performance like I’ve read I should have with my hardware.
After some research, it appeared that I needed to import with an option set to have standard sized previews created along the way. I’ve been kinda going through Scott Kelby‘s new book, The Adobe Photoshop Lightoom Book for Digital Photographers, trying to pick up tips as I use that book as the guide for getting me up to speed on this new tool. I trust Scott’s work so much, and have several of his books — he’s really a Prince of Photoshop (or maybe a Duke or King) and a good Christian soul… all good things to me. Kelby’s text indicated that importing with the standard sized previews turned on would be painfully slow:
“…turn on Render Standard-Sized Previews checkbox and go grab a cup of coffee. Or two. And a sandwich. Maybe catch a movie.”
I took him at his word, and turned that option off. And Scott was right — the import was speedy. However, as it ends up, that setting is dreadfully required (at least for me — YMMV) to get my mojo working on my MacBook. Here’s what I think was going on. I think the MacBook knew the external RAID had been disconnected, and so Lightroom knew it too. I believe this caused Lightroom to freak out and try to find all the photos, and that left me sluggish and more than a little peeved at Lightroom.
I let it settle down (maybe 30 minutes — the Cardinals were winning, so no prob finding something to do ๐ ), and then I forced it to create standard-sized previews. And so The Little MacBook That Could began to whir and spin and work…. all night. In fact, it still wasn’t done when I left for work this morning. Scott was right again — it takes a while to perform that work.
(For those of you keeping score at home, it’s Scott 2, Colin 0. ๐ )
In the end though, it was those previews that seem to be the key to keeping Lightroom sane, and keeping the MacBook from turning into a home for wayward spinning Frisbees. It’s also those previews that allowed Lightroom and I to kiss and make up, and allow it to continue to be my tool of choice for workflow.
I’m up to page 15 now in Scott’s book. Wonder what I’ll learn next! ๐
Finding My Muse
This morning, NewsFire picked up a piece by Steve Simon on the O’Reilly Digital Media Blog talking about Warming Up. Basically, the focus of the article centered on preparing to photograph.
There were a few tricks in the piece — none of which I’ve tried — but the real meat was to get your mind in the right frame for taking wonderful photographs, and ensuring you’re ready to do that when the moment comes. I think that’s a huge thing, and probably something that’s not talked about enough. I’ve had folks tell me to shoot everyday — that’ll get you ready for anything. Others say to shoot a lot everyday. But to do that, you still have to prepare. Even Lance Armstrong stretches out before going on a daily ride.
So what’s the best way to do that? Well, I dunno. I can’t even tell you what I do, but I do know that inspiration (for me, anyway) is key. If I’m in a beautiful locale, I’m drawn in and swept away with the feel and sense of the place. And when it all comes together, and I’m hearing the sounds, smelling the smells and seeing the place — really seeing it — then I know I’ve found my muse, and I’m ready to make some beautiful images.
I think that’s why I get a little dry on new images when I’m not travelling or when some kind of beauty hasn’t struck me in the yard. I have a tough time getting motivated when there’s not something beating on my senses, compelling me — forcing me — to go photograph. That’s probably not something only I suffer from, but it’s something I’ve gotta get beyond.
Ideally, I should be able to find something interesting to shoot daily. Maybe it’s not all beautiful, maybe it’s not all nature, but there’s a kind of discipline that can only come from practicing my craft, opening my eyes to new things, and trying new techniques on a near-daily basis. There are folks out there that shoot daily, and post a photo from that day’s shoot — why not me? Dunno if I can keep up with doing that daily, but surely more than once every couple of weeks would be useful! ๐
Watch this space!
CS2 Is Dead… Long Live CS3!
Today, Adobe finally released Photoshop CS3!!! I’ve been waiting a long time for this, and am looking forward to the improved Photoshop experience on my MacBook. This also clears the way for me to get myself off my Quad G5, and continue my migration to a more portable, mobile experience.
However, there’s still a fly in the ointment… My trusty filters from Nik Software aren’t yet universal, so to use them, I’d need to still run CS2 (which has to run under Rosetta), or force CS3 to run under Rosetta and take the performance hit there. Blecch. Hopefully Nik will get it together soon, and get us PPC-to-Intel folks taken care of.
In any case, it’s time for me and Mr. Adobe to have some conversations about getting their code running on The Little MacBook That Could!
Masters of Photography
Scott Kelby posted a link today to a video on YouTube called Masters of Photography. It’s an interesting watch, but the thing I notice is….
There’s almost no nature or landscape photography in the show. I feel slighted! ๐
In truth, I understand the desire to capture the human condition on film, I really do. However, I think seeing the condition of the planet is also just as important. We measure time with photos, and while the changes in nature can be on a planetary scale of time, capturing those images and reflecting upon them is no less important.
So, nature photographers unite! There’s a whole world out there, just waiting to be seen!
Flickr
So far, I’ve resisted the mass exodus to Flickr, and other photosharing sites. I’ve been concerned about copyright issues, unauthorized use, etc. However, I seem to notice more and more folks putting their work out there, some for just the joy of sharing, some for the ease of sharing moments with far-flung family, and, from an article I read this morning, some for gaining critiques of their work.
Steve Simon penned a great piece talking about Flickr on the O’Reilly Digital Media blog, and it’s really got me thinking about Flickr. Let’s see…. There’s a ton of potential exposure, and there’s a ton of folks on there who’d be happy to poke holes or praise my work. Those are both pretty good reasons for me to thoughtfully put some pieces on Flickr.
Steve’s posting also mentions the back-and-forth envy ‘twixt amateur and pro photographers. He certainly sees it as a grass is greener point of view. For me though, the grass really is greener on the other side, and I have a strong, strong desire to put more of my energy, along with more of my income reliance, on my photographic work. One of the points of the article is that putting pieces out for others to view is a good step to improving the quality of the work.
After the amazing ride I’ve had this year with some of my pieces, I have to wholeheartedly agree. Three shows this year already, and more on the way…. and those are telling me I’m doing something right.
So, once I get it all ironed out, I’ll post something here, and you’ll probably notice more interesting stuff on the sidebar pointing to my Flickr experience. Enjoy!
Batteries
In my newsreader this morning was a blurb from James Duncan Davidson concerning batteries. As he waxed about rechargeable batteries, he mentioned Maha cells. Now I’ve been hearing about Maha cells for a long, long time through QST and other ham radio oriented material. So where did he end up buying them?
The world really is a small world, after all!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
We had nothing going on today, so we slept in. And I mean “slept in” — I got out of bed at 10am, which is highly unusual for me. I’m usually up with the sun, if not before. It was the best night of sleep I’ve had in months though, and that makes it worth it.
Add to the picture that the sky was dropping tiny snowflakes on us, and it made for a perfect morning.
As it was already late in the day, we decided to start out our day with corned beef and cabbage, and headed down to Mulligan’s, a little sports bar down the street from us. By the time we got out the door around noon, the sky was full of largest snowflakes I’ve seen in years. They were giant clumps of flakes, falling like crazy. None of it stuck, but for hours and hours it looked like a scene from a winter’s postcard.
Surprisingly, there wasn’t much of a wait at Mulligan’s. Once we were seated, what was the very first thing I put in my body on this day? A green beer. ๐ Having missed the away-from-home college experience, I don’t know that I’ve ever started out my day with a beer, but today, it seemed like the right thing to do.
Mulligan’s serves up a mean plate of corned beef and cabbage too. Huge portion — but great for breakfast! — and tasty. Now, Darla makes the best corned beef and cabbage I’ve ever had, and spoiled me with it last night, but Mulligan’s plate was tasty too, and was even served with a little horseradish sauce on the side. I’m a horseradish (and wasabe) fan, so this was right up my alley.
So, with a belly full of corned beef, and a head full of green beer, I’ve continued getting ready for the show at the end of the month. I believe I’ll have two tables at this show, and with that extra display space, I expect to be showing a lot of new pieces, along with having a whole bunch of smaller pieces available. My strategy is a little different for this show.
In the last show, I had a few large images on easles behind the table, and I’ll do that again this time. However this time, I won’t have to dedicate such a large percentage of the table space to those. I’ll be able to spread out many more affordable pieces, and hopefully grab folks’ attention with plenty of very reasonably priced items. Consider it a marketing experiment! ๐
Hi, I’m Colin, and I’m a Paperholic
CompUSA going out of business is a bad deal, and I’ve written about that before. However, I still find myself going in there, trying to find a bargain…. a cable, a card reader (’cause you can never have too many of ’em), something. Tonight, I dove in there looking for a ditty bag to carry all my paraphenalia inside my laptop bag — mice, card readers, cables, etc. Basically something to corral all that required stuff, and keep it quarantined from the rest of the bag until I need something.
When I couldn’t find what I was looking for, I wandered through the store, and happened through the printer paper aisle.
That’s the first moment I realized I had the disease — paperholism. I searched greedily through the boxes of paper, passing by the HP, Kodak, Canon and even Ilford…. until I found the Epson papers. And not only did they have matte papers, and not only were they in 8½x11, but they also had 11×17! I’d been looking casually for this size, as I planned to print my portfolio at that size — I already bought the binder for it — and hadn’t actually seen that paper around… until tonight.
Oh my, did I gather up the boxes of paper — they even had some velvet stock that I might go back for. One, two, three…. the boxes kept leaping from the shelves into my waiting arms. By the time I’d checked out, I had two boxes of 11×17, and two boxes each of two different kind of 8½x11 matte paper all being lugged to the car.
Yes folks, your humble writer has the bug, and has it bad. Who knows what kinds of paper adventures I’ll have next!