Wider is better.

I've had a few days to mess around with my wide-angle lens now. I'm happy to say that it was a wise purchase. I find myself reaching for it pretty regularly. My main workhorse lens is the 24-70 f2.8L but many times 24mm just isn't wide enough. Now having that 10-22 in my camera bag leaves me confident that I can get the view I need. It's the widest lens available for the camera body I use.

In more photography news, I stopped in to visit a photographer friend of mine over in Madsion. He's just moved into a new studio that I was eager to see. He's got plenty of room to do the type of work he prefers. Great place! While I was there, I checked out his Epson Pro 4000 inkjet printer. Whoa... the output of that printer is a m a z i n g. I'm going to have to get one of those eventually. It's that good. There's actually a newer model out but still, the older one he has gets the job done.

I've focused primarily on portraiture-type subjects in the past year as I got better and better at it. The downside of that is having to work with people. Nothing irks me more than planning a shoot and then the subject not show. Grrrr... I have a plan on putting an end to that.

Anyway, I'd like to shift over to panoramas and maybe architecture. Scouting out locations and watching how the light on them changes throughout the day to pick the best times to shoot sounds like it would be a fun challenge.

One thing after another...

My excitement last week started Wednesday when Lesa wanted to head up to Nashville to see Jen Foster play at a new venue there. Early in the day it sounded like a good idea, but as the day wore on, it wasn't nearly as appealing. Several things not in our favor:

Jen was an opening act and would only be playing 3 or 4 songs.
Nashville is a 90 minute drive one-way.
$18 each is the admission price.
The thing started at 7:30 and we weren't going to be able to leave from home till right at 6.

I tried to put off going until Jen had a full show, but Lesa talked me into going anyway. "We can be there in an hour" she says. Um... Nashville is about 100 miles away. Unless you're planning on driving 100...

We get there at 7:45. Luckily (or so we thought at the time), we found a parking space in a lot near the venue with only one of 2 spaces that were open. We found out from the ticket people at the door that Jen was gonna be on in about 5 minutes. We made it JUST in the nick of time.

Jen did well. It was the first time I heard her live and I really enjoyed it. It was time for dinner though and I thought it would be nice to eat there in town before we headed back. As we approached the lot where we parked, I realized there were NO cars in that parking lot. Where there were 12-15 before, there were NONE. Lesa thought I was looking at the wrong parking lot. No, I remember exactly where we parked and her car was gone. On a chain link fence there was a small sign attached indicating cars parked there would be towed 24 hours 7 days a week. This sign wasn't visible earlier probably because there was a car in front of it blocking it. There was a number on there to City Towing. I called and confirmed that they had Lesa's car. Oh, they would bring the car BACK to us for $65... ON TOP of the $80 towing fee. Forget, we'll get a cab which we promptly did.

Anyway, we got the car back and decided to just come on home. It was late already and neither one of us had an appetite. I really think that parking lot deal was a scam. I wouldn't be suprised if that towing company bought that small lot in that area SPECIFICALLY to generate income from unsuspecting guests and then parking a "planted" vehicle in front of the towing sign. With that tactic, they can make money over and over on a busy night as the lot fills up and they empty it. Thieves I tell you.

My partner in crime.

8:55PM "City Hall" Nashville, TN

Stuff.

Last week was a busy one for me. I think I had 3 photo shoots... one Monday, Tuesday and Friday. That along with all the other things I also do at work besides photography kept me humming along. I finally did get a chance to go out with the Huntsville Young Professionals group for a social at the Museum of Art. When I arrived, I got recruited to help pour wine along with a client of the agency so that was fun. Saw quite a few people I knew there but there were plenty more to get to know. I'm going to make it a point to try and attend these things with some regularity and get myself into some other social circles.

Anyway with all the shooting I've done lately, it's time for me to go ahead and get a wide angle lens. Up to now, the widest lens I have for my Canon was this cheapie 18-55 one. There's a 10-22 I plan on getting to cover the wide range. In the meantime if I've had to go wider, I've used a Nikon D100 with a 12-24 lens which did the job nicely. Only thing is, I don't want to have to carry around 2 camera bodies and have to learn 2 different systems just because of me not having a wide lens for my Canon. Hopefully I'll have the new lens in the next week or so.

I've also learned that I need to go wireless to trigger the power pack on the studio lights. The 15" sync cord I've been using is a hassle in more ways than one. First, it's only 15' long. Second, it gets tangeled around everything. Third, it's a pain to move the cord back and forth between the camera and my meter as I set up a shot. My meter already has the wireless option installed so it can pop the lights. I just need to get the transmitter for my camera and a receiver for the power pack and I'll be good to go.

Still, there's more stuff I need but I'll get to that over time.

I fooled around with B&W stuff more last week. I found 2 pictures from an older shoot that I converted to B&W using some new techniques in Photoshop that I had learned with some very good results. I really like the way those turned out so I'm sure I'll be doing more of that in the future.

Oh, I went over to the Museum of Art to check out the Ansel Adams and Maxfield Parish exhibit. Good stuff. I enjoyed seeing originals of Ansel's work, not only of his nature photography but some of his portrait photography as well. His compositions are stunning. I got a few ideas from looking at his work that I think will help out mine. There was one shot on display that he took in my old stomping grounds at the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. I have to get back up that way again soon and spend at least a weekend there roaming around just like I did as a teenager. The Maxfield exhibit was nice too. The color palette he used in his paintings was very bold and vivid, especially his blues. I came to find out later that he was known for that.

Oh I almost forgot. My Friday the 13th started out on cue. The server at the office was hung and when I rebooted it, the data drives did not come up. Nice. Luckily, I was able to get them back with a reboot and reset sequence that saved me from painfully having to restore from backup. Whew!

Wow. What WAS that?

After spending all day Saturday in and out of bed feeling like poo, I once again got ready to go to bed for the night. This time, I rummaged around the medicine cabinet and found this Robitussin FLU stuff in there from a previous malfunction. I checked the expiration date and TA-DA, it was still good. Took it and slept peacefully and comfortably.

I cautiously woke up this morning ready for another day of feeling rough when suprisingly, I felt okay. I took it easy most of the morning afraid I was going to have a relapse or something. I did manage to go ouside and get my mail from yesterday and today's paper. It was a gorgeous day out - mid's 60's and breezy.

Normally, I would have washed my car on such a nice day but I'm thinking that wouldn't be a smart move in my situation. I kept it indoors today and got laundry and dishes done then spent time reading and watching TV.

So much for an exciting weekend.

Sick.

I don't know what happened since I was just fine yesterday. Spent the afternoon on a photoshoot for a client then went out to eat with friends. Later that night, I'm lying in bed and suddenly start to get cold. That was odd... my waterbed temperature is up, I'm in a t-shirt and PJ bottoms (not commando tonight), and I have a sheet then a comforter on top of me. I put on a fleece sweatshirt over my shirt and now my legs were cold. Put on sweatpants and thick socks then my HEAD was cold. Put on a toboggan and finally got warm. I was thinking to myself at the time, "this can't be good". Sure enough, woke up in the morning with aches and soreness and a fever. Just great.

I did haul myseld up to take a shower to see if that would make me feel better. Well, I'm now clean and still feel like poop. Spne my day laying around drinking fluids and getting rest. I hate that the weekend is passing me by but I have to get well again.

I called Kevin this morning to let him know he might want to find a backup drummer for church in the morning since there's a chance I won't be any better in time. Looks like Jeremy is on standby now. Whew. Thank goodness we have more dummers around.

This is one of the times that I really think how nice it would be to have someone around to look after me when I'm under the weather. Hmmm... wish my mom was around.

Well it's ABOUT DANG TIME...

for an update.

First off, my vacation time was well spent resting and relaxing. I had plenty of time to do some reading, go to the movies, spend time with friends - basically using my time leisurely with no planned schedule. It was very nice. I did have some kind of sinus funk that slowed me down a little but I quickly recovered in time for the new year.

Ate dinner new year's eve with Kevin's crew at Kyoto. Started off with sushi before the main course of a filet and lobster tail was served. Mmmmmm.... I had planned to join back up with them later for some fireworks but ended up at a party Scott was having at his place. There were probably 20 people there. Each one seemed to have a digital camera which was kinda funny because every few moments a flash would go off. As things started to pick up, I went out to my car and got the big camera out. Plenty of goofy stuff was going on that I got some shots of so there should be some good laughs to come out of it.

Hope everyone else had a good new years celebration. Now that it's all over with, it's back to work. ;-)

This was what was in front of my camera the moment 2006 was here.