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:

Lensbaby class continued

aaaaaand this is where one $150 lens does better than ones 10x the cost. Rock on littl' babe.

more baby work....

Lensbaby work that is.....

Working on the even blur. Left side is my weakness:


Macros still fascinate me...


Alas, some inages just don't do well on other uncalibrated monitors. but i love this one:


And while uninspiring, at least this is technically correct for what we want this week (sweet spot in the middle):

day the first...a start

Motivation can be a fickle friend but there's much to be done.



And much to ponder.

one very twisted eye

Busy reading, busy living .... not busy shooting.

However, I have a Lensbaby class for the next 4 weeks, so I'm rather intrigued to see what this can get from me -- and what I can get from that pesky little thing. The two teachers (online class) are fairly impressive in their Lensbaby work, so I only hope their teaching lives up to what they can accomplish themselves.

Kathleen Clemons and Ron Goldman

Right now, the best I can offer is two from Catalina -- this is about as happy as I can get with the lens right now, so I'll see where I am after 4 weeks, shall I?

Not everything is worth it, but it's at least less than the cost of a class....

This was the last book I finished, and it ended up better than expected but still a bit .... eh. I'm past the basics.

Now I'm onto something a lot more complex but nearly MORE disappointing:



I'm certain that this is an excellent book. In fact, I know it is. However, it also decides that drowning you in 99% useless information is a good technique, with the tendency to repeat some of the important parts in case it (as very likely did) get lost. The last legal book I read covered all of this very concisely within a chapter and very few new ideas are presented here.

However, should you desire some need to fully understand this area (especially since 90% of it only applies to stock photographers), this is your book. Just don't expect the obvious: no firm opinions, no sample model releases, no guidelines on when to use and not use one.

Rather, the book seeks to educate you so YOU can make those decisions. Wise perhaps, but in the end a rather fruitless pursuit since the reader very likely did NOT pick up the book expecting this sort of educational tactic.

######

okay, rant over.

Beyond this, I HAVE been looking into online courses for photography. More specific stuff (such as a lensbaby class) that I feel I CAN benefit from no matter what. These are surprisingly reasonably priced, although I could put the funds towards a second lensbaby (but why??) or a dozen new photography books (Oooo. but I think I've found all the 'good' ones so far).

So, things to think about. Classes don't 'start' until May 1st so I've some time. Spring time and a lensbaby could be a rather awesome experience :)

Post-weekend and the steps ahead

I'm still in process of uploading images from this last weekend as well as going along and creating a 'best of' album'. Apparently running 5 uploads from 3 different computers kills your net connection. Who knew? After last night, I know. I am starting with the horses and as time permits, I'll go through the last several years of photos and pick out the better stuff, post process as needed, and go from there.

Print wise, I decided on the ones to have for 'display' at events, so I just need to process those files and order them. Also decided on the two prints to get done *everywhere* to show quality issues between the printers SM offers and Target, Walmart, Walgreens, Albertsons, Inkleys and even Harmons. THAT's a project I'm rather curious to see how it turns out. I think I'll print 5x7 but crop big (not 100% but close to it) so the details really come through. These will also include my first metallic images from EZ Prints and Bay Photos, so I'm extra excited to see how THOSE turn out :) The 'display' ones at the show are going to just be lustre since I'm self-laminating them as the frames have no glass (lighter, less dangerous and on clearance at IKEA that way).

Page 1: EZ Lustre & Metallic - cat
Page 2: EZ Lustre & Metallic - flowers
Page 3: Bay Photos Lustre & Metallic - cat
Page 4: Bay Photos Lustre & Metallic - flowers
Page 5: self-print: cat & flowers
Page 6: Walgreens & Inkleys - cat
Page 7: Walgreens & Inkleys - flowers
Page 8: Walmert & Target - cat
Page 9: Walmert & Target - flowers
Page 10: Albertsons & Harmons - cat
Page 11: Albertsons & Harmons - flowers

I did finish the pricing plan yesterday, although the 'multiple gallery' implementation …. Yeah. Not so smoothly there. I'm not pleased at the idea of going gallery by gallery, but I think getting off the mini and onto a full screen will help, as I might have been mis-selecting some of the choices.

And I'm danged if I can find the Portfolio level pricing. THAT's hidden away somewhere good and secretive.

Otherwise the to do list continues to get chipped away and grow at the same time. Looking into Etsy, I don't believe printed canvases will pass the 'handmade' muster, which makes me wonder about collages …. Which I rather like the idea of. Ooo! So I'm going to get some canvas and materials and use some of my own prints (must get printing again) to see how creative I can be. This also has the potential to be much cheaper, so I'll see how it goes. There's also the possibility of painting the canvases first, but that's definitely later down the road. Etsy continues to be a work in progress.

Oh and the lensbaby? All it took was a call to the company -- who had the items in stock -- and mention that my local store had nothing and was reporting no delivery until June and BAM! Two days later, they had my order in and were fully stocked. It's nice to be an enabler. I should get a discount for helping them restock there! Ha.