Photography Goals for 2010

A blog post over at Digital Photography School led me to start thinking a bit about what I'd like to accomplish this year with my trusty Nikon D50.  I picked the camera up several years ago and I love almost everything about it.  I find that because it's not the smallest camera, I'm not as inclined to take it everywhere with me.  I also worry about tempature changes during the winter months.  I do however want to do more with it this year than I have in any of the past years and I do enjoy myself when trying to get that "perfect" shot.

So - in the blog, the author lists 30 photographic goals that one could use as ideas for your goals for 2010.

Although I like all the ideas in the list - I'll offer up 10 photographic goals that I'm going to make for myself this year based on my favorites from the list.

1. Shoot a Photo a Day - I don't know that I could do this for an extended period of time, but I will do this through February to see what comes of it.  I'm more of a photo shoot kind of person, but this will be fun as it will challenge me to find at least one subject each day through the shortest month of the year.  :)
2. Prioritize your Goals - I like this idea.  I think it would be good for me to sit down and give some thought to finding out what I enjoy most about photography and then making a plan to devote more time to it.  I'd also like to save for a new Nikkor Lens this year.
3. Read a book per month - Again, I think this is a great goal to strive towards.  With so many areas to focus in on (no pun intended) it should be easy to achieve this goal. I'll post each month's book reviews up on this site.
4. Join or Start a Photo Club - I'll look around the Washtenaw area and see what I can find.  This will be a great way to get some advice and learn from others!
5. Share Online - this is something that I haven't been great at... I'm probably way to critical and I just need to share my pictures with others.  As you may have seen in a previous post, I've been working with Adobe Lightroom 3 and I really like it.  The ability to publish to Flickr makes it easy to accomplish this goal.
6. Create a Photo Book per Month - Well, a photo book per month may be a bit much, I will follow through with this one and set a goal to create at least two photo books this year.  If it goes well and I enjoy the final work, maybe I'll make more.
7. Get Published - This is by far the loftiest goal on the list.  First - it assumes that my work will be worthy of being published.  It's a good thing I still have eleven months to figure out how to accomplish this goal.
8. Develop a Post Processing Workflow - this will be key if I want to be able to capture the best pictures from a photo shoot and share them with minimal amount of effort.  I will spend time this month and next developing the way that works best for me.
9. Make Personal Post Cards - This will be the goal that I'll tackle in the month of January.  I received several Christmas Cards in 2009 from friends and family members and I didn't make the time to send cards back.  I want to give a personal thank you to each person and I think this may be a great way to show that I really appreciated the effort of my loved ones.
10. Take a Workshop - Yes, there is so much to learn!  I plan on taking a workshop, perhaps locally or maybe a photo trip to another state.

There you go... that's my list for 2010.  It will be challenging, but I think it will be great fun as well.

I'll post monthly summary entries to let you know how I'm progressing toward the goals.

Happy Shooting!

February is Album Writing Month

February is Album Writing Month!

Do you think you're up to the challenge of writing 14 tunes in 28 days?  If so, check it out.

For some history / more information - wikipedia can help out.

If you're not into writing an album, maybe you want to challenge yourself in different creative ways?
Let me know if you participate in any of these events, it would be great to track your progress.

Exercising the Hand...

No - it's not what you think.  Wow - get your mind out of the gutter....

I picked up the ProHands Grip Master Hand Exerciser.  It promises to help with hand control and speed for playing instruments. 

Take a look when you have a chance.  I like it - I think I should have got the lowest resistance first though, because this thing is kicking my hand's ass.  :)

site: Vintage Ad Browser

I love the look of older advertising.  It brings you back to another time and gives you a glimpse into Marketing campaigns and call to action methods that may have worked through the generations.

Check out Vintage Ad Browser when you have time.

Lightroom 3 Beta : Part Two

In the last post I took a first look at Adobe's Lightroom 3, a product that you can grab in Beta from the Adobe Labs website.  I was impressed by the layout of the user interface, the look was pleasing and it was pretty easy to find out how to perform tasks with little guidance.

The application is setup in five major modules; Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, and Web.  I took a quick look at the first two modules in my first post.  I would like to tell you a little bit more about each of the modules now that I've had more time with Lightroom.

I'm finding that the library is a great way to organize photos.  An average photo shoot will result in several hundred photos, of which I'm pretty happy if I get one great photo.  (I'm hoping that the more practice I get the better I'll get at shooting, but I'll be the first to tell you that it's pretty much dumb luck right now).

As I was saying, I'll take multiple shots of one target and usually get one that I like better than others.  Maybe the lighting changed a bit between shots or I moved just a bit to get a better angle... there are many reasons why I'll have more than one shot of the same target in a photo shoot.  Lightroom has many ways to look at your catalog of photos.  The default view is the Grid View, there is also a Loupe View for looking at one photo at a time, a Compare View and a Survey View (I'll go a bit more into this view and options for flagging in the next blog post).  I wanted to touch on Compare view because this nice feature let's you compare photos side by side.  When in the Library module, select your photos, using CTRL to select multiple and then choose the X|Y button.  This will allow you quickly tell which of the photos you like best.

Once I was able to identify the photos that I wanted to organize into an area where I could re-visit at a later time, I found that within the Library module there is a way to catalog / organize photos into Collections.  Collections are a great way for me to go through my entire catalog and sort photos from specific photo shoots into organized groupings.  Below I created a new Collection called "Randoms".  To group a photo or multiple photos into a Collection, select the photos and then click the Collection drop down icon and choose "New Collection", you'll be asked to name the Collection and have the option of adding the selected photos. 

 

Another option on the Library module is located under the main Navigator and is called "Publish Services".  This caught my eye as I noticed that there were options for "Hard Drive", which I believe is a basic export locally, and the other was the ability to publish to Flickr.  After a little bit, I remembered my Flickr account password and I was able to setup the connection for Lightroom to publish directly to my Flickr Photostream. I did have to verify through Flickr that I wanted Lightroom to be able to do this, but once I did that it was as easy as putting in my login and password and choosing a default naming convention and publishing location.

 

With this feature setup, I was able to drag and drop a photo on the "Photostream" line under the Flickr Publishing Service and once I did that it is queued up for publishing.  Choose publish and as you can see in the photo above, there is a status bar above the Navigator that let's you know the progress of the upload.  This was an easy feature to setup and I could see how users of Flickr would like this integration.  I can only imagine that other Publishing Services will be added in the future, things like TwitPic, Facebook, etc.

While I was working within the publishing / sharing part of Lightroom, it had me thinking about the other modules, so I moved on to the Slideshow module.

 

This module is pretty straight forward, you want to show a collection of photos in sequence.  Select your photos, select from a default list of templates or customize to fit your needs, adjust options such as watermark information, shadowing, and many other options, perhaps add a soundtrack and your done.  Publishing output gives you two options, MP4 and PDF.

Within the Print module, you can print your photos.  Go figure!  The best part about this is the ease of which you can choose popular templates to print your photos in... just like the types that photographers offer in professional packages.  You can mix and match photos into a custom package, or print multiple sizes of the same photo easily, as shown below.

 

The last module is the Web module and it's by far the most exciting to me since it allows you to create Flash enabled pages to show off your work.  I'll go deeper into this section and more features to organize your photos on my next Lightroom post.

So far - I really like what Adobe Lightroom has to offer the photo hobbyist and professional photographer.

Rockin' out with the new Line 6 Spider IV

I recently picked up a new guitar amp called the Spider IV, from Line 6.  I was speaking to Andy about picking a new one up and then perhaps selling my older Line 6 AX2-212.

Today I finally unpacked the amp and set it up in the recording room.

The first thing I noticed after setting it up and plugging in was how awesome this amp sounds.  It's very loud (75W), but crystal clear and the tones are just amazing.  It makes me want to play and keep playing.

The next thing that caught my attention is the amount of options on this unit.

  

The unit comes with over 250 artist and song presets.  Yup, you read it right... feel like jamming out to AC/DC's "Back in Black" - there's a preset for it, tune to it and this amp will digitally model the amp and settings that were used for the guitar track of the song.  Don't worry though - it's not like Line 6 ties the hands of your creativity at all, each of these presets can be edited and saved as user presets. This is going to be really fun to experiment with...

 

Other features that make this amp attractive are CD / MP3 input that will allow you to jam along with your favorite tracks while playing them through the amp, ability to record using a direct out, built in tuner, foot control using one of the available foot boards (which I picked up as well, but I'll post another blog when I've had time to play with it a bit), built in Looper (frickin' love this feature!), and auto FX such as smart pitch shifter, auto-wah and more.

The Looper allows you to turn this amp into a sequencer, which is great for coming up with rhythm and lead parts and seeing how they sound before actually recording them.  It may also make it interesting for being able to do some live show looping.

Below is the older Line 6 amp, which I think I'm going to keep for a while longer, but I have a feeling that the Spider IV will be the amp of choice when practicing.

 

Rock on!

site: SongU

Have you wanted to learn more about the craft of songwriting?  Perhaps you're already a songwriter and you'd like to learn more about the following topics;

• Song Structure
• Lyric Writing
  
• Composing on Guitar
  
• Promoting Yourself as an Artist
• Creating and Submitting a Demo

SongU may have a course to fit your needs.  I've taken several courses through this site and found the content to be very good and the instructors very helpful.  They also have a way to submit your songs for review by industry professionals.  It's a great way to get some candid feedback on your writing.

From the website -

What is SongU.com?
SongU.com provides a unique opportunity to study songwriting with award-winning songwriters, make industry connections, and pitch your songs all from the comfort of your own home computer. With our user-friendly site, you do not need special computer skills or a high tech setup. At SongU.com, wherever you are...we'll bring the music industry to you.

Time to get the office in order...

I hooked up the new Linksys Wireless Broadband Router yesterday and it worked like a charm, allowing me to roam around with my laptop and browse the internet at blazing speeds... well ok ... not blazing, but not terrible either.  Here's an example from my office computer;

I love my ATT 3G Broadband card.  When I'm on the go, there is nothing like being connected. Sure at home it's butt slow, but I'm in a pretty remote area... no cable services, heck ATT doesn't even offer DSL out here.  When compared against the price of satellite internet - the value was much better with Mobile Broadband.

Tonight I installed my D-Link Wireless PCI card into my desktop computer in the office.  I was expecting to have to do some configuration since it had been a while since I'd used it, but it installed smoothly and found the wireless network and connected without problem.  Now I have internet in the office as well!

So, I'm sitting here thinking... if I'm going to get comfortable and get back into the office, I might need to upgrade my monitor.  I've got a 15" KDS Rad-5.  It's an older monitor, but up till now it has done the job nicely.  I think I can get a decent monitor now for under $200.

Let the hunt begin!

site: GDGT

Want to track the latest news about all the hot gadgets coming out?  How about interact with others who have the same gadgets you do?  That's where gdgt.com comes in.

Here is the link. 

I've added a couple of the gadgets I used to have and one that I currently have... I think it might take me a bit to get everything in there, but once it is, it will be a nice inventory of tech gadgets and resources for them.

site: This Recording

I figured I would share this site with you.  Maybe I've been under a rock (ok - or in a bar seat) too long to have noticed cool sites, but the content of this site caught my eye and made me feel a bit uncomfortable all at once.  I kinda liked it.  :)

http://thisrecording.com/today/2009/7/10/in-which-boy-meets-world-changes-our-understanding-of-cory-s.html

Enjoy.

Getting organized with Lightroom 3 Beta

I downloaded Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta today and I'm checking it out this evening.  The first thing I noticed was how nice the interface is laid out. 

Of course upon install and launch a nice brief tutorial screen walked me through what I can accomplish with the application.  Once done, it searched my hard drive and imported in all my pictures.

The bottom of the screen has a nice horizontal scroll bar for easy thumbnail viewing of my entire collection.  Double click on a photo to select it and once you do that you have a variety of options that will allow you to categorize your photos using keywords or edit your photos with Quick Develop options; White Balance and Tone Control.  It took no time for me to tweak a few settings to have a photo looking very nice and add in keywords so that I'll be able to reference this photo in future searches and find it easily.

 The Library Module, which is the default module when the application is loaded allows you to do what was explained above.  When clicking on the Develop module, you'll move into a world where an amazing variety of tools are laid out to let you edit your photo. Options to change exposure, lighting, detail, lens corrections, add effects, the options seem endless at first glance. 

I can tell that this is going to be an application that I'm going to enjoy spending a bit of time with... I'll take a deeper look at the Develop screen and move on to the other modules tomorrow, which focus on how to share and publish your work.

Hello Flex, how have you been?

I've been a fan and an avid user of Macromedia's (now Adobe) line of web products.  I began using Macromedia Flash in version 3, Dreamweaver at version 2, Cold Fusion when it was still owned by Allaire, , and was founder of the Ann Arbor Macromedia User Group (now FlashFocused - Ann Arbor Flash Platform User Group and headed by Misty Mills).

I was extremely excited to see products such as Captivate, Breeze, Flash Communication Server and Flex launch, and I participated in many of these product beta programs.

I was a bit crushed when Adobe purchased Macromedia in 2005, and shortly after my career took a change which had me doing more IT Management and Project Management work than web design and development.

Adobe has done a great job keeping the programs I loved alive and kicking.  I was extremely excited to hear that Adobe Flex was now about to be at Version 4!  I decided it was time that I became familiar with my old favorites and so I went and purchased Peter Armstrong's "Hello! Flex 4" book in eBook format.  This book is in workshop format and I hope to work through it this week and next and leave my thoughts on the book and Adobe Flex 4 in general on this blog.

After I'm done with the workshop, I plan to use the Adobe Flex SDK to build an application to track vendor and software / hardware maintenance contracts.  This will help me in my current job at Thomson Reuters and will also allow me to become proficient with an application that I really enjoyed before I took a break from the web work that I was doing from 2000 - 2005.

Hello Adobe Flex, how have you been?

Web Texting

Last year I had a couple friends that would like to text me to stay in touch.  If I'm being honest, I actually warmed up to texting.  It was an extremely easy way for me to find out what friends were doing and get a quick answer to a question such as the ingredients to one of my favorite drinks.  I have AT&T Broadband Wireless service and a Sierra Wireless 881 PCMCIA card that I would use to send texts.  I found that I had a charge of $0.20 per text.  Until I found this great little service.

Joopz allows you to register your number with them and send out texts from a web interface.  They must use a shared pool of SMS accounts to send the messages from as I've heard from friends that one downside is that it doesn't always come from my phone number (I think this is just a glitch in the software, I would imagine that it should insert your number in the "from" field, almost a form of spoofing an SMS number).  This is ok to me though, because as friends reply it returns to the Joopz pooled accounts and then finds it's way back to me.  The best part about this is that I can text (sometimes) delivering it as my number, and I don't get charged for sending or receiving texts through my AT&T service.

Joopz let's you send 50 free incoming / outgoing texts per month, or you can sign up for $20 for the year of unlimited texting!

It's worked pretty well for me.  Sure I don't get incoming texts as fast as I used to, since I have to check the web interface to see if anyone has responded to an open conversation, but for the price, it works for me!

Daddy plays the Squeeze Box, Mama never sleeps at night...

I found this little gadget more than a couple years ago.  In fact, there is a blog post on this blog about getting one of these if I ever owned a house.  Well - it's been three years that I've had the homestead... I think it's time to pick one up.

Latest Toy... extending the 3G love...

I decided to pick up a Linksys Broadband Router today at Amazon.com.  This little thing will allow me to plug in my AT&T Broadband Wireless card and extend the love to other devices in my home that have been internet starved.

Once it arrives I'll let you know how the configuration and setup pans out as well as speed tests.  I'm in a very remote area, so wireless signals on my broadband card are not very great.

Adobe still rocks... and I haven't forgotten...

See how Adobe products were used in the creation of the latest hit film "Avatar".

http://forta.com/blog/index.cfm/2009/12/21/What-Adobe-Products-Were-Used-To-Create-Avatar

Don't call it a comeback... I've been here for years...

I'm not sure why I love using this blog title, I guess it dates me a bit, back to the days of LL Cool J on my boombox radio (that I could not live without) and it brings back good memories.

Speaking of memories, we're almost through 2009 and I'm going to start using this blog for 2010 goals and activities.  So - stay tuned, more to come.

Nice Websites

These websites have really caught my eye and I have to give props!

Very nicely designed.

http://www.tnvacation.com/
http://www.bnlmusic.com

Looking for Broadband Internet in MI?

Here is a link that should help out.

Finding the perfect house - Step By Step

You'd think that this would be an easy process, right? You've saved up some money - or maybe you hit the lotto and you've got cash to burn! A house will most likely be one of the largest and best investments that you'll make in your lifetime. What an exciting time!

Step 1 - Find a realtor

Believe it or not, these guys can come in quite handy for getting you in-depth information regarding the house you are researching that Realtor.com won't list. When dealing with a realtor - if you are just buying a house, not selling, then you'll have to sign a "Buyer Agreement" with said Realtor, which basically just allows this realtor to work on your behalf during negotiations and such. The Realtor in this case would be known as the "Buyer's Agent". This is the situation I went with as I am currently living in an apartment.

Step 2 - Tell your realtor what type of house you want

Give as much detail to your realtor as possible about the type of house you want. Notice I did not say need, you should basically give the description of your dream house to your realtor. An example might be - brick ranch, with basement and two car attached garage, at least 1500 sq ft in size, on 2 acres of land, three bedrooms, two baths, fireplace and a pool! The more info that you give them, the more they'll be able to find.

Step 3 - Prepare to be flexible

Not all the listings that you're realtor will send you will meet your dream house criteria. At some point you'll have to prioritize what is "really" important to you and then you'll come up with the list of "needs"

NOTE: A good realtor will be sending you listings everyday - or at very least every two days.

Step 4 - Driving it home!

Once a realtor sends you a listing, you may want to do a drive by of the house to take a look at the outside condition as well as finding out what the neighborhood is like - there were quite a few listings that looked great on the web and looked like hell when I drove by them. A good rule of thumb for the neighborhood is to ask yourself these questions...

Would I feel good about having my parents come to see me in this place?
Would I feel safe about having my kids play outside in this area?

Living next to the liquor store my be a sure sign that this is NOT the place for you!

Step 5 - The Walkthrough

Ah, what a wonderful time this can be... the homeowner and the selling agent have hyped up this house as much as possible, so be ready!

Interesting points that I've learned;

1) Full basement doesn't mean finished or even mean that it is a basement you can live in. I walked through a house that listed "Full Basement" and found that it was 5 feet tall, no good for a guy who is 6'3" tall.

2) TLC usually means Tender Loving Care, but might as well mean Take Lotsa Cash or Total Loss Case because unless you are a contractor; the skill / money it will take to fix these houses up will break you faster than Drago broke Apollo Creed.

3) "Minor" is a MAJOR word. Minor damage should equate to "replace". I walked through a house that had "minor foundation work needed" which turned out to be a fifteen foot crack in the block foundation, about an inch thick.

4) Ignore descriptive words like "spacious" or "open concept" until you really see the place. Spacious apparently means something different to each person - I walked through "spacious" kitchens that were smaller than a walk-in closet.

5) "Water view" could mean that you have to be holding binoculars to "view" the water.

6) "All appliances included" usually means that the appliances are so old that the seller is buying new ones, or they can't physically get them out of the house.

There are many more - but I'll let you discover them on your own and I think you're getting my point.

Be sure to ask your realtor to have the house empty when you walk through - and by that I mean asking the current owners to not be present. The reason is simple, you don't want them to influence your decision about the overall feel or condition of the house. I walked through a house where the owner was present and he basically had a bit of a nervous breakdown while showing us the place, talking about why he loved the house so much and why he didn't want to leave but was "f-ing" forced to... and let me say it was not a comfortable situation.

There will be a time when you walk through a house and you just fall in love. It's perfect and you can see yourself living there! The picture below is the one that I found.



The next post will talk about what comes after you've found that perfect house... and how you just might find out how imperfect it really is...

Cheers!