"Scouting"

I've been diligent about making progress through my current nature photography reading, although I want to read the new macro book and post reviews on that asap. However, I'm about 1/2 way through the nature book and can probably finish it with a few more hours work. The biggest thing that slows me down is taking notes, but I've already found it is VERY useful to have those notes to refer back to as needed, even if I am filling up the entire journal with enough time here. Wow.

One of the main ideas that's coming into maturity is the idea of 'scouting' out locations. This isn't just work ahead of time or planning where to go. It's not just going to a place and deciding when to come back. It seems to be a combination of all of these, plus working on your visualization, knowledge of an area and a bunch of other things. It's often referred to - but rarely defined. Made for a good discussion topic in dgrin with some *excellent* suggestions.

For the less popular sites, try flickr searches. Where other photogs might not be willing to 'share' information, their photos will tell you much more. Dgrin appears to be rare in the willingness of folks to share details with each other and ideas on where to go shoot.

For the more popular areas -- google maps with photos on. They might not be the best photos in the world, but they WILL often show you places that the maps don't describe in full or the tour book skips over. They can also give you more visual references (for free!) for areas before you actually get there.

Otherwise, there are CDs out there for different areas -- the Photograph America series appears to be outdated but can still be useful. The NWP forums look like great resources for national park information though, as do some backpacking forums. There's a series just for California that I'm only wishing I could justify the purchase on. I'm better off directing my resources towards exploring Utah a bit more. Getting back to the Salt Flats should be first on my list, then exploring the marshes of Antelope Island. It'll be a while before the snow melts and I can get back up into the Alta Basin and hike a bit more in there. But even this includes mental ideas of what sort of photos I want to take, what areas I know exist and what times of day I want to get there to get the best photos. ALL of that is 'scouting', even if it doesn't feel like it.

So, the education continues.

lights, action and business

I love our local eventing association (Wasatch Evening Association") so was quite happy to donate photography services (portrait session or sales shots or action shots, however they want to use the hour with two prints included) for their silent auction. No idea how it sold but it just feels danged good to 'give back' to such. Course, I won a down jacket as Rookie rider of the year and fleece quarter sheet as BN horse of the year two years ago, so I definitely feel I'm due to give back :) I've I'd been in town I'd have taken some of the nicer but harder to sell on ebay items and donated them too, but alas i was in San Diego so missed this year's end of year banquet.

I'm also seeing if any horse rescues need some GOOD photos to help them adopt out horses, etc etc. Heck, I can even make mini web pages for them depending on what resources they do and do not have. I'm not sure who's in the area, but I know Nina knows a few and I can work from there. Giving back is good and this is something I CAN do and do fairly well.

This weekend is the USDF teachers lunging clinic at Promontory: still not certain if it's Fri-Sun or Sat-Sun but I'll figure it out soon enough. Sun is work, alas, but I'll take photos and perfect the exposure in the camera. Plus, hey! creative challenges abound. A horse that goes in a circle x 500 times.

I've started reading Strobist a lot recently and got into the LumniQuest line of items -- as well as their amazing secondary 50%+ discounted items on their website. GREAT customer service and I'll be getting a few there (fold flat, yay!). Gary Fong is the other 'big' name out there but they are hard plastic and a PITA to transport around. The ultra soft box should be WONDERFUL for horse portraits. Cannot wait to practice and play a bit with this.

Otherwise, the first few reviews have been upgraded into dgrin's book review section (yay! I feel important! :) ) and as I work on work those will be added as well. Nicely, they are amending them with other folks' reviews rather than replacing. This makes me much more comfortable, as we will obviously all have different words to say about the same books.

ALSO talked with Baldy (CEO of Smugmug) and his programmer who is working on the Packages product for release in the next few months. I'd reached out to them since I'd be in town in late May, but apparently that was just a tad too late. So an hour long conversation (which I believe went extremely well, given the 3-way nature of it), much was learned, must was shared, and I got to talk a bit about the business geek side of things, including ways that could be used to implement the interface to help those users who are less business inclined. Regardless, it was amazing to talk to two folks who have such a passion on par with my own and that alone made it quite worth it. I cannot wait to pick Andy's brain a bit more during Catalina.

Pricing and the art of managing SmugMug

Note to self:

Create empty albums for pricing per idea from the dgrin forums. This way I can inherit JUST these as needed. And yes, this means re-pricing everything I have, but provides me with more central 'control' over the entire process (adding in weddings later, etc etc).

1. Show Photos (higher cost, no upfront payment rec'd)
2. Clinic/Convention photos (cheaper, not in as high a demand)
3. Friends photos (friends and family rate)

then have the portfolio 'default' ones as well, which can use Bay Photos for better quality.

and the girl, she read on...

At least now I can put even MORE of my 'homework' to good use -- writing up reviews for dgrin since I found their book section to be a bit lacking (NO business books, a CS2 book, etc).

And yes, I still consider this to be quite fun and quite the blast.

Go me!