All kinds

 I photographed a peace, power and unity conference last weekend. There were a variety of community leaders there and the event consisted of a number of workshops on things like immigrant rights, predatory lending, internalized oppression, school change and community peacekeeping. It was inspiring to see the number of people, and especially the number of young people, involved locally in social activism.

But still my favorite was the cuties in the childcare room.

On Sunday, this picture will be published in the paper. Nothing monumental but there’s always a little rush involved in seeing my work published in any manner. This is part of a local youth leadership program where children plant a garden in their community and learn how to care for it.

Mass producing

In October, the camera club I belong to is planning to do a fundraiser that involves taking and printing event photos on the spot. The logistics of this have been bothering me since the idea was first mentioned, mainly because none of us have any experience doing that sort of thing and many of us barely have any computer experience at all. Over the weekend, I was able to play around with a tethered setup which was actually surprisingly easy to set up. By running the EOS Utility in the background which directs images to a specific folder, I could automatically import them into Lightroom using the monitored folder feature. I do need to purchase a longer camera cable (which I found out is called usb to usb mini) because the one that comes with the camera isn’t very helpful if I don’t want to carry the laptop on my back.

I also began experimenting with a lighting setup that I thought might be neat. We’ll be shooting (still) motorcycles against a backdrop of rather pathetic and sparse trees  so I was thinking this technique that I read about on Strobist  (and also here ) of underexposing in camera and then pushing the exposure with flash might look kind of cool and also minimize the not-so-great backdrop. I need to borrow some additional 580s and work on using a complete setup before October comes!

Try, try, give up.

As I’m pushing myself more and more and doing things “outside my box,” I’m learning more about my limits.

things I didn’t think I could do but I can:

- agree to photograph events in areas/venues I’d never seen before

- take photos of people I don’t know without standing 700mm away and around a corner

things I didn’t think I could do and have confirmed that I cannot do:

- ask total strangers for model releases.

For a few months now, I’ve been working with a local non-profit to get photos for their new promotional materials. For the mostpart, this involves them sending me to their various events which I photograph. On occasion, it involves them sending me to public events which I also photograph. But in those cases, I am to come back with signed releases okaying the use of the photos (with their own events, the event coordinators usually handle the releases). Every time, I have completely chickened out and come back with a whopping zero releases. But after today’s event, I’ve just decided that that’s that. I am not cut out for such things and I probably never will be and I don’t care because that type of work doesn’t interest me. I tried, I failed and now I know. So there you have it.

Crawlin’

And lest we be totally devoid of photos, here’s a quick one of my cousin’s cutie…

Am I stuck with Slim Shady?

I suppose that the point now is that I am to actually update. Aside from some self-portrait headshots I did the other evening to accompany an image of mine that will be published in a 2008 calendar (apologies to everyone who will then be staring at my mug for 31 long days in March), I haven’t taken a single photo since a week ago Tuesday. That’s been fine as I’ve been adjusting to the new computer and, for the first time (despite much trauma earlier), actually backing up all of my photos. I’ve also been doing a good deal of reading all kinds of material about running a photography business (very much digging Hey Girl, Nice Shot which details her journey through the process).

I’m not at the point yet where I am ready to make this a full-blown thing but I am seeing and feeling that I’m ready to take some steps in that direction. Establish a set process, maybe draw up some rates, have some cards available. My main obstacle at this point is a name. I don’t want to just use my full name as a business name because…well…I have a boring name. But the very few ideas I’ve come up with have either already been take or are, ahem, scandalous and skeezy clubs of the 70s (who knew?) I don’t want anything too cutesy and I’m hoping to come up with a name that could encompass the other non-photography related freelance work I do. Should I be worried that my creative processes are stumped at step one?

And thus it begins…

As I add more and more photo blogs to my reader, it occurred to me that I might start my own, if for no other reason than not to appear like some anonymous pervert when commenting on others. I am notoriously bad at keeping up with projects like this and the internet is littered with bits and pieces of previously abandoned forays but we’ll see.

I’m not currently a professional, mostly just an obsessive amateur.  I do have a day job which is entirely unrelated to photography and mainly involves sitting in a cube farm but I do at least have the added benefit of a window cube (complete with highway view). I’ve been working some with a local nonprofit, taking lots of children photos which I am loving, and I’ve been heavily involved in area camera clubs for the past two years.

The title of the blog comes from a quote by Ryszard Kapuscinski, “I managed to stop for a fraction of a second this eternally fleeting life and show the image to others.”  That very well summarizes by personal goals in photography…to stop for a fraction of a second this eternally fleeting life.

Here we go.