Photogeekery

So I finally upgraded to Lightroom 3.  Every time I get into a new program or upgrade I feel the need to go back and rework everything I've ever done.  Just looking through the items in the develop module shows me that we're getting greater and greater ability to control ever more nuanced bits of our images.  Maybe it's about time I actually learned how to use some of these features.  As much as it pains me to sit fiddling with slidebars in these programs, having a graphic designer / Photoshop sorceress of a wife makes me feel very inferior at times.

Anybody know of any good (and free) tutorials out there?  

Time to pack

It seems hard to believe that I haven't seen an Ohio fall in four years.  The last time I breathed northern autumn air was in 2006 as I rode out my last days in academia.  I make it back up there a couple times a year, but it's typically in the summer or winter months.  I never would have imagined that one day I'd be wistful over the colors and sounds and smells brought by the droppings of deciduous trees.

This week brings a trip up north.  Time will be short between work activity at The Ohio State University campus, the usual planned visits, and the inevitable unplanned adventures, but I plan on clearing some time to go crunching through the trees.

Now to figure out how to pack six days worth of clothes, a laptop, camera junk, etc. into one carry on bag...

Galas and parties and balls, oh my!

Most of my photography "work" comes in the form of covering local events for a magazine.  Most of the events are in the form of charity auctions and fundraisers; those fancy gatherings where the well-to-do of the city get together and give away their money.  Regardless of the state of the economy, I still see a crap-load of money being given away.

I have set images that I have to deliver, so the photographic aspect of these events isn't all that interesting.  More interesting is getting to travel around New Orleans attending events that I would otherwise lack the pecuniary depth to witness.  As interesting as that can be, most of the time I'm in and out in less than an hour.  Every so often I get to go to fun things with celebrities and and athletes and politicians and I do my best to catch them making stupid faces.

October is going to be a busy month.  There were 18 events up for grabs and I took 13 of them.  It's going to be a lot of running around in addition to other travel and real work that I have, but I'm happy that photography has become a self funding activity.  I smell shiny new glass before Christmas :)

(For those of you not from New Orleans or not into the NFL, that's Saints head coach Sean Payton in the picture.)

What.A.Game.

Well Saints fans, sometimes you get the gator, and sometimes the gator gets you.  Just replace "gator" with "falcon" in this case.  I'm off to practice my field goal kicking...

Empire Building

I've used much of my time over the last two weekends building a foundation for the presence and presentation of my photographic alter ego.  There are so many ways to open yourself up to the world that at some point, you just have pick a place and get started.  You have to accept that you're a drop in one of many oceans.  The hope is that you can scatter enough drops out there that at some point they start overlapping and adding to one another.  

My first drops... 

www.photosteevo.com

www.photosteevo.blogspot.com

www.flickr.com/photos/sdhronek

www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=12416325

Old fashioned physical social networking devices are on their way (i.e. business cards), courtesy of Jenny.