I’ve already made a dirty liar of myself! Dang. But I have been delaying a new entry in hopes of finally getting my DIY soft box how-to online. However, life keeps intervening It really is sad and silly, though. But I will have that soon. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe today? Just know that I’m crazy, crazy busy.

Also, I think I am suffering some sort of artistic semi-crisis. Not so much a crisis, as I think I am pondering how I work, and what I work with. I have been keeping this withdrawn, but maybe I should share this with you all? Maybe it’s not that profound, but it has helped keep me off base, especially with all the insanity around not helping at all.

Anyway, I am going to post through this, and also aim to bring some updates to this site in general. I hope you will stick with me. And thanks for reading, regardless!

Listening: U2

Ok, so I let the blog slip a bit … I just couldn’t stand writing substandard quickie entries to get by, though. I’ve been in the midst of job interview preparation, moving (again!, but much more minor … for me) and what seems like an endless parade of other things. But here I am, finally trying to get the ball rolling again.

I just spent a night in a southern Minnesota city that just helped redefine “fall weather” for me. 20 degrees with snow and ice everywhere … this is normally a freak day or two in February every other year for me. I’m glad I spent that winter in Denver, or I’d really be in for a shock.

Expect to see some changes around here, too. They might be minor, but they’ll be noticeable. And feel free to let me know of any changes you’d like!

And considering that my next entry is nearly fully written already, I should be back here with a long promised post. But until then, have a great day, and thanks for reading!

Listening: The Mamas & the Papas

So, I was trying to finish the DIY softbox tutorial when I realized that I wasn’t imagining things when I realized that my Canon 50mm 1.4 wasn’t focusing nearly as close as it should. I took a look at the little distance thing on the top, and realized it could only spin around about halfway, leaving me with basically half the range of focus.

Apparently, this is a fairly common problem. My 50mm lens alerady had a bad run in with American Airlines, to the tune of $100+ in repairs (thankfully paid by the airline!), so I am loathe to try to go through that again. However, I did find an excellent tutorial that might help me out of this fix:

http://www.fotomozaic.ro/artikel.php?idstory=225&s=1

So tonight, I will locate a set of small screwdrivers (or just one, I forget), and I will venture into DIY lens repair. This might not be smart if the lens was still under warranty! So beware, to others who might try this.

So for your delay, I will have a succession of DIY softbox construction and DIY Canon lens repair entries in short succession.

Total cost of this combination so far? Barely $5 for the softbox (total cost maybe $10 for all the materials involved) and hopefully nothing for the lens.

I’ll make sure to take a ton of pictures along the way, too.

Anyway, YOU SHOULD ALL VOTE ON TUESDAY. VOTE, DANG IT!

And congrats to those who already have. (LIke me!)

Watching: The news

So here are a couple more leftovers, this time from my shoot with Now, Now Every Children. There’s not much new to add, except the TV shot was my first shoot involving the use of gels to match color. (I had shot a concert before, but it was a different situation.) Their faces were far too white for the rest of the shot, so I took a yellowish gel (possibly a CTO?) and cut it in half to fit over the grid snoots that were on each flash (to restrict the light to their faces). Anyway, it colored the light perfectly, and I am pleased!

Also, I am going to try to finally finish my soft box how-to for a special weekend entry.

Oh yeah, and one last thing:

I have a photo up on JPG again, so if you could vote for it, it’d be rad! Click on the image to go to the page to vote:

Thanks!

Listening: Rival Schools

It seems that I have arrived! Lately, I have gotten a few scam messages about shooting weddings of foreign nationals with poor English skills. I did some research and found the progression of the entire scam, which can be seen here:

http://www.joewein.de/sw/fraud-wedding-photographer.htm

I also got another scam message today that made me laugh, because it was intended for makeup artists, and also because of a hilarious misspelling (which I put in bold, for your convenience).

“Good morning to you over there, please i’ll like to know if you will be available for my daughters make-up on her weeding day. The weeding has been stated for 12th of November,2008 at 25 Hill Street, 2nd Floor, Torrington, Connecticut 06790 at my place of residence. I wish to know how much you charge for the make-up and if there are other services which you render aside make-up.If you are fine with travelling [sic], then flight expenses to and fro will be taken care of inclusive other charges you may wish to put forward. I will appreciate if you could get back to me as soon as possible in other to discuss the issue further. Thank you and have a great day.”

Should I write back and apologize for being unavailable for the “weeding” day?