Blog By Night

OK, time to decide where this is going. Am I going to do a handful of weddings a year, or am I going to make this a primary source of income. In addition to the small bridal fair that we just did and the ad in the Hutch Bride’s Guide, I’m kicking around a listing on The Knot. Big jump, no? Big bucks too. It’s a gamble that could kick-start the business or have me investing in ramen futures…
Thoughts?

Well, we survived our first bridal fair – we started small in Hutchinson. The entry is very affordable and we have free lodging and babysitting there (grandparents are awesome!), so it is a very convenient area for us to work. It was an interesting day. When we arrived, we discovered that there was not a wall behind us that we could hang things on like we were told. But, a quick trip back to the parents’ place and we had sawhorses, plywood and extra tablecloths to build a little table behind us. To the right, you can see the booth next to us (the red stripe) – another photographer! So, not the greatest layout, but hopefully we will get some couples calling for more info. It was nice to see that we are one of only two photogs in the Bride’s Guide that is put out by the Hutch Leader and the Litchfield Independent Review. Here’s to an ’09 full of bookings!

Just delivered the final prints and albums to Ryan an Tami last week. Such a fun couple. It was great to see them again and glad to hear that they are loving their new home in Andover (and over, and over again!). They really loved their album and the prints. Delivering product is so much fun… I really should do more of that. But, to do that I’ll need to get some weddings booked. And occasionally, to get more business, you need to do some marketing. I’ve decided to start “small” by targeting the Hutchinson area. It works out well since I get a lot of referrals through Jeni and my parents still live there, so free babysitters! I have an ad in the Bride’s Guide, which will come out in Hutch and Litchfield in the next week or so. Shawnee and I will also be at the Bridal Fair at the Hutchinson Event Center this Sunday. Should be fun. Need to get more sample prints ordered…

Back up early, back up often… and then make another backup. Last week one of my internal hard drives died. As in: catastrophic hardware failure. But, that’s OK because I have an external drive that constantly backs up. Except, that drive was mysteriously dead as well – the computer just couldn’t see it and it made an odd buzzing noise. [Panic sets in.] I brought the internal drive into the Apple Store to let the guys at the bar take a look at it. Disk Warrior just laughed at me, as the drive went *click… wirrrr… click… wirrrrr… click…* Nothing. [Freaks out.] Now, allow me to temporarily freak out all of my clients – this was the drive that houses my Aperture library of images (and iPhoto as well). [Starts to feel a sense of camaraderie with Bob’s photog.] But, fear not! One of the great things about my account with Pictage is that they keep any photos I send them. Forever. And it’s super-easy for me to FTP them back to myself. So, that saves my professional work [read: saves my supple buttocks]. So, that just leaves the stuff in iPhoto. Lots of digital memories there. I talked with a data recovery service. Since I was referred by Apple, they offered to look at it for free and give me a file list of what they could recover. At that point, they would quote me anywhere from $500 to $2500 to get the data back. Ouch. How much are memories worth? Let’s take a second look at that external drive. The buzzing is coming from the power supply/brick. We have lots of those drives at the Apple Store. I brought it in and used one of their power supplies and it mounted right up. [Hallelujah Chorus!] It’s all back. Sunk a bunch of money into extra hard drives (and will soon do the same at work with their money), and researching online backup solutions, and will probably swap “off site” drives between home and work for extra redundancy.

Today Canon finally took the wraps off of the much anticipated EOS 5D Mark II, the “Destined Evolution” of the still great, but technologically aging 5D. Should ship next month, but I imagine that it will be a tough find for a while. So, that takes the temptation away from getting it for the Hutch project. And with wedding season slowing down, I don’t imagine that one of these will be in my gear bag in ’08. That will give me time to read all of the reviews and see if it is worth the wait.

This is just a quick photo I snapped with my iPhone for myself… a far cry from the images I got with the 40D, 1D Mark II and the arsenal of lenses that Wade and I used to attack the Basilica of St. Mary for a wedding on Saturday. But, not too bad for an iPhone, considering how dark it was when I took this. Technically I was only there as a VALC (Voice Activated Light Stand™) and pack mule, but given the location (and the fact that Wade trusts me and we work well together), I did get in some shooting as well. Besides, I let him use my 70-200 f/2.8L IS lens… oh, did I mention that I bought one? Yeah, it’s nice. Hand-held shots from the back of the aisle were never so sharp. “Make sure you get the kiss,” he said as he handed it back to me. No problem.
That 135mm f/2.0L that I was looking at… on hold for a while. Gotta pay for this one first… and a 5D Mark II second? We’ll see what gets announced this week/month… Speaking of which, I’m glad to report that CanonRumors.com has reached an agreement with Canon USA that will let them keep operating with the same domain!

Maker of totally awesome cameras, Canon has told rumor site www.canonrumors.com that they must cease and/or desist. One one point I can see… they prominently used (past tense) the Canon logo in their masthead. But, they are also saying that they can’t have any Canon trademarks like “Canon,” “EOS,” etc. in their domain name. I’m no lawyer, but it seems to that if www.AppleInsider.com, www.MacRumors.com, www.CrazyAppleRumors.com, www.MacOSRumors.com and others can stay in business without Steve’s lawyers crawling up their butts, then this guy has a chance. Hopefully they don’t suffer the same fate as Mike Rowe. No, not that Mike Rowe. It’s a fun site for geeks like me that gets us excited about Canon’s upcoming warez. I can’t see how it could hurt things. Or, maybe the photo of the pink 5D Mark II just pushed them over the edge? ;^)

Also a note to say that I’m taking donations for the just announced 50D and the upcoming 5D replacement, whatever they decide to call it… but I’ll take mine in black, thank you!

Ronda and Seth were so much fun to work with. Shawnee and I had a great time shooting their wedding. I’m still editing through the images, but I wanted to give Seth and Ronda a sneak peek at some of my favorites so far. I just set up a new account that will let me do online print ordering, and it should go live next week. Read more to see some of the highlights from Seth and Ronda’s wedding…

OK, when going through some boxes a few weeks/months ago, I came across some film. You know, like 35mm… for taking pictures without a microchip? Remember? Well, anyway some of it was “new” … perhaps “unused” would be a better term? … but there was one roll of Kodachrome slide film that looked like it had been shot. So, I brought it upstairs and set it on the bar.  **time passes**  The other morning I noticed it again and I decided to drop it off at Grand Photo on my way in to work. With the new daycare dropoff, I was actually there before they opened, so I filled out one of those envelopes and put it in the night slot.  Now, my best guess is that I went digital sometime back in early ‘aught-one with the Olympus E-10, so I have NO IDEA how long it takes to develop and process film these days. So I called that afternoon to check and see when it might be ready. Once they looked up my order, I heard, “Oh, the Kodachrome? *laughing* Yeah… that takes weeks.” WEEKS?!?! It seems that no one in the state of Minnesota processes it anymore. So, it goes to their headquarters in Chicago, down to Texas (WTF?) and then back home. I’ll have to post images of whatever is on there once I do get it back…

I decided that I need one place to document my Apple Store checklist, so there is now a dedicated Web Gallery just for the Apple Stores I have visited. As you can see, I have a long way to go.