So what did you do this weekend?

Well gee, funny you'd ask. One thing I did was learn. a LOT.



Okay so such photos are easier with someone else's studio and set up, but I LEARNED so much about umbrellas and soft boxes and lights and metering and low-key and high-key and lighting portrait styles .... and then tons about Photoshop and Bridge that I hadn't known previously. Just, wow.

WOW.

hey, eventually......

I mastered Curves last night. As in, the tool in LR and CS4.

*lightbulb moment*

I get it I get it now. AT LAST.

Thunderstorms of all sort this week, so Hoofprints was rained out. Ach well. Let's hope next week dries up a bit, else Golden Spike will be a bit tricky.

On the bright side, found a local good embroidery shop which should be able to do a work jacket (lightly lined fleece but waterproof - hard to find!!) as well as the back of my black sunshirt. yipee?

Picked up the grate/crate system that will make GREAT backdrops for hanging prints off of. Thank you Wal-Mart for $3 frames (thumbs up!). I'm still printing at home. I'll do this for GSHT and then start ordering prints so I can show off the quality that SmugMug can do -- which is such a heck better than my own printing.

Networking and finding local Utah groups -- once they have something that isn't on a weekend in which I'm booked (erm, which is just about every one), I'm very excited to join in and meet the local photog folks.

Lensbaby fun continues, but there's also more learning going on with Lightroom and much else. I won't discuss the dead harddrives and other things fried by the lightning storm.... *sob* but hopefully recovery will help with those. Please cross fingers on those.

So any how, that's the state of things right now. Leaving you with ferns over Bon Tempe lake:

Still learning, still practicing

Playing with IR photos, with B+W conversion but I've a long ways to go with these. Fortunately there's good reading out there in the Infrared League - when I get time for it.

Showed in the Chicken Event last weekend, taking time to practice on cross country a bit in anticipation of the help I'll be giving Lucy in two weeks' time. Good times and I expect the group of us to have some kick-ass photos :)

Mostly, a bit of lensbaby work. Class is over but getting some awesome shots still and pleased with the skills acquired. Need to get back into 'book' learning and applying that, but composition is my weakness right now. there IS a class for that but it's longer and more expensive -- and I'm not sure if I need it if I get through the composition books I have or can get from the library. Decisions. Probably one of the last past of my photography education. Well, LARGE parts.

Let's not even get into lighting and studios and portraits and other such.

Hoofprints schooling show this Wednesday -- a better idea on backgrounds and moments to shoot, so I think I can do this without taxing myself so badly this time. Yay!

Things I learned this weekend

Okay, watching 2 days worth of USDF tests I learned a LOT about riding and showing.

But I also learned a good deal about photography of these events, which I'm going to outline here for my own brain reference

* BACKGROUND : choose it and STICK with it. Even if they look 'pretty' in the other corner, those dumpsters and trailers REALLY show up in the background when you have the final photo (it's amazing what the eye can edit out that a photograph does not...). Fortunately with these tests, they are long enough to pick and choose the 'when' moments.

* KNOW THE TESTS and WHICH MOMENTS/MOVEMENTS to capture and which end of the arena you need to be at. Fortunately this was not a problem even if I have a hatred of 3rd level test 3 now after watching it a dozen+ times. Stupid turn on the haunches.

* DO WHAT YOU CAN TO MAKE THEM LOOK GOOD. Yes, this has to be done. Saddle too far forward? 3/4 shots do wonders for this. Sitting too far back? well, a bit trickier, but 3/4 and frontal shots help a bit, as does the art of timing. Fortunately only a few tests that involved posting, but any butt-out-of-saddle-time goes into the cull-bin immediately. It just never looks good to the rider.

I'm sure there's more, but that's it for now. Oh! and 70-200mm mated to the 1.4 TC II is great love!

first USDF show down, success!

The weekend was a blast with a very well run show -- tiring to take photos but I know all those tests now, that's for certain! When to take photos, how to capture, dealing with light, etc etc.

There's a bit of culling to do but not too much post-processing if any, which is a huge relief. Then uploading! This time I remembered to shoot RAW+JPG basic so at least I can do easy uploads and replace any that are purchased later on. Just have to remember to do that ....


The judge had some good ideas, including submitting a mini article and a few photos to CoTH for publication, especially as it was Promontory's first show. Huh. Never thought of that, but good idea all around! I'll have to pick out a few favorites (if that's possible, there's a LOT of good ones in there, yay!) to do that first.

There's no Utah 'rags' like Riding back in California, just our newsletters. Adrianna will handle UDS, not sure about RMDS. I'll find some that will look good in B+W and do the conversions myself. No one else seems to have a blood clue it seems.

So a bit of work to do, but not too too much. No more photography for a week and a half, but the Equine Photography class with EPNet is starting up, so I'll see what I can get from that, if anything. I presume so but it's a 'basics' class .... if anything, it'll get me out shooting more.

Things are looking good !