Blog By Night

Freedom Rocks!

Shawn A. Krueger — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 05:28:20 +0000

Shot another event for CCHF on Friday night. They are group dedicated to protecting your freedoms and rights in all matters health care. This event was a little different. First of all, I got the call the morning of the event asking if I was available. It’s nice to be wanted, but advanced warning is always nice. This meant running home on my lunch break to get batteries charging, and delaying our trip up north by a few hours. Last minute planning aside, this was more of a party than a typical political fundraiser. The venue was crazy: “Retro Tonic” was the name given to this space that used to be six apartments. The building owner has converted it to an interconnected collection of party rooms, all with different themes. Everything from giant chess pieces, tiki huts and an up-north cabin room to a replica of the inside of the I Dream of Jeannie bottle. Every room was small and very dimly lit… and I was told that they wanted a bright look to the photos. So lots of flash, but we kept if off the camera and bounced it all around the room to keep it from being too harsh.
There was the obligatory speech block with Twila Brase (the force behind CCHF); radio personalities Sue Jeffers and Jason Lewis; MN State Senators David Hann and Gretchen Hoffman; and MN State Representatives Mary Liz Holberg, Mary Franson and Kathy Lohmer. They kept the speeches short, and then got back to the party, which featured Beatles tribute band Rubber Soul. Those lads rocked the house, er, apartments.
The highlight of the night was when Jason Lewis got up on stage and sang lead for the lads from ~~Liverpool~~ the Twin Cities to dedicate a song to our own Governor Dayton: “Back in the U.S.S.R.” After that, the band convinced Jason to do one more number and he sang again on “Get Back.”
The photos are now online. You can find them in our photo gallery under events.

Hello, Dolly!

Shawn A. Krueger — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:52:15 +0000

The 2010 Hutch project.

Reclaiming America Event

Shawn A. Krueger — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:42:31 +0000

Another event for AM 1280 The Patriot. The photos are now online. You can find them in our photo gallery under events. This one featured Hugh Hewitt, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and Dennis Prager. Appearances were also made by MN gubernatorial hopeful Tom Emmer as well as several other state and local candidates.

AM 1280 “Undoing ObamaCare” Event

Shawn A. Krueger — Sat, 01 May 2010 21:21:51 +0000

Photos from Wednesday night’s AM 1280 The Patriot event are now online. You can find them in our photo gallery under events. It was a great night for conservative thought. One message was clear from Mr. Medved: we must stay focused on the message of small government and personal freedom and not get distracted by fringe issues. MN Governor Tim Pawlenty made a great point that very soon, it will not be a matter of liberal vs. conservative — it will simply be an issue of elementary school math. Our nation is spending more than we are taking in, and increasing taxes on the working class (and those who employ them) is not the answer to that problem. Hugh weighed in with his usual witty and concise legal knowledge, framing many of the current issues and pointing out what we can expect from the courts in the future.

We’re off to see the Wizard…

Shawn A. Krueger — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:59:05 +0000

My latest project for HHS.

Apple to AT&T… we need to talk?

Shawn A. Krueger — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:36:17 +0000

Just random speculation here (I have NO inside info), but I think Apple is done with their AT&T honeymoon. Apple is a company that prides itself on great customer service and creating rabid fans that do more promoting than their ad agency. AT&T doesn’t share that great reputation and for the last 2 years, Apple has had it’s flagship cool product shackled to a service with a less than stellar image. We hear rumors of AT&T wanting to extend their exclusive contract this and Apple wanting better terms for it’s customers that… and even rumors of Apple talking with other carriers, who’s names start with V. I don’t think the relationship is working. I believe there is some tension behind the scenes and the bitterness is starting to spill out. Three separate times during the WWDC keynote, it was blatantly pointed out that the iPhone has a cool new feature… that AT&T would not be supporting right away in the US. Apple could have just said that MMS and tethering required carrier support and not every carrier would support it right away – then left it up to the press releases and reporter questions to disseminate the details of who and when. But no, they specifically touted the number of carriers in the number of countries that would be supporting these features, and either flat-out stated or left it blatantly obvious that AT&T in the US was not on that list.
I believe that negotiations are not going well and Apple used the WWDC keynote to say to AT&T, “See, people don’t like you and they think you are being a dick. They would love it if we offered them another choice.” I don’t know exactly what kind of leverage Apple is hoping for. Do they want a bigger chunk of revenue sharing from AT&T? Do they really want to extend the exclusive contract? Or are they preparing their consumer base for the impending switch? “AT&T was not able to offer the services that our iPhone customers demanded…” kinda has a familiar ring to it. Now, where did I put that 3GHz G5 processor…?

I am the Captain of the Pinafore…

Shawn A. Krueger — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:08:53 +0000

…and a right good captain, too!
Well, for the first time in quite a while, I went to an audition last night night. And today I got a call asking if I wanted to join the cast of Woodbury Community Theatre‘s An Evening with Gilbert & Sullivan — and I even get to sing the Captain’s Song. The revue will feature songs from Trial by Jury and other G&S favorites. The show isn’t until September, but there are only 2 performances on the 12th and 13th, so mark your calendars now! Looking forward to working with old friends and being on stage again.

AM 1280 pictures are online

Shawn A. Krueger — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:23:19 +0000

Just a quick update to let anyone interested know that the photos from Tuesday night’s AM 1280 The Patriot event are online. You can go directly to the gallery here. Guests can download low resolution files for sharing via email or posting online for free, and you can also order prints directly on the site as well.

An evening with Bennett, Prager and Hewitt

Shawn A. Krueger — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:15:23 +0000

Tuesday night I worked an event for local talk radio station AM1280 The Patriot called “Obama: The First 100 Days” with radio hosts Bill Bennett, Dennis Prager and Hugh Hewitt. It was a discussion of how the first 100 days of this historic presidency have gone, and how it will effect this greatest nation on God’s green earth, if I may borrow a catch-phrase from the absent Michael Medved. An outsider might expect this to be an evening of Obama bashing, but that would be discounting the sheer intelligence and wisdom represented by the three gentlemen pictured above. Every criticism they had was backed up by logic, common sense and even history. These guys know their stuff. And they even had some points on which they commended Obama, usually something that didn’t go quite as he campaigned, but rather showing that the president is either more level-headed than we feared, or that perhaps access to higher-level intelligence and advisors have changed his tune. It was great to see people that I have listened to and hold in such high regard, in person.

More photos of the event and portraits of the VIP dinner attendees with the hosts will be available online by the end of this weekend.

Dish photos are online

Shawn A. Krueger — Thu, 07 May 2009 16:53:49 +0000

Photos from Second Harvest Heartland‘s Dish event are now online. You can view them here, under “Events.” It was a great evening supporting a great cause: ending hunger in the heartland. They really are a fabulous organization. For every $1 donated, they are able to distribute $9 worth of food to a family in need. An astonishing 96% of their budget goes directly to programs. If you’ve done any research on non-profit groups, you know how awesome that is.

Happy Star Wars Day!

Shawn A. Krueger — Mon, 04 May 2009 18:50:20 +0000

May the Fourth Be With You!
Congregation: …and also with you!

Louie and me…

Shawn A. Krueger — Fri, 01 May 2009 15:51:30 +0000

What a fun night! Second Harvest Heartland‘s “Dish” event is always a blast, but this year was even better. For one thing, I wasn’t just a guest this year – I was volunteering as a photographer (more images to follow), which is always fun. Plus, one of my favorite entertainers of all time, Louie Anderson, was there. As a kid I had Louie at the Guthrie taped and watched it over and over and over. Needless to say, I was very excited when I saw that Louie was the headliner for the evening. When we were just about ready to leave for the night SHH’s Executive Director, Rob Zeaske asked I would mind taking a couple of photos of Louie… Let me think about that… OK! So I took some shots of Louie, Rob, Dawn Marie Nelmark (SHH) and Cookie and Char of Coleman Mason Events. Rob let Louie know that they raised over $367,000 to fight hunger that night and Louie starting a round of high-fives. Well, I was right there, so I put my hand up too and got a high-five from Louie Anderson. He asked my name, shook my hand and asked if I wanted a photo. Char was nice enough to take the below photo for me.

Fight hunger & get a deal on your wedding photography!

Shawn A. Krueger — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 23:03:35 +0000

If you are looking for a way to give back, a fun evening out, some good eats, some laughter and/or a great deal on your wedding photography… then check out Dish: Cuisine for Change. Dish is the annual fundraiser gala for Second Harvest Heartland. Their mission is to end hunger in the heartland. Dish is a really fun event featuring some of the Twin Cities’ best chefs who let you sample dishes from their upscale restaurants. There is also wine and martinis, silent and live auctions and a performance by Minnesota native, and one of my all-time favorite comedians, Louie Anderson! The event is selling fast, so click the image above for more info today!

OK, so what does all this have to do with wedding photography, you ask? Well, it’s simple… Fly By Night Graphics, Ltd. is donating an $800 credit towards a wedding package. The bidding will start at $300… so you could save quite a bit of money and what you do spend will go towards a great cause. Even if the bidding gets up higher, you’re not out anything and SHH gets a nice donation. I will be at the event taking photos if you have any questions. Or feel free to contact me ahead of time.

The Two Towers

Shawn A. Krueger — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 05:27:09 +0000

Membership has its priveldeges. Every now and then you come across a deal so as to make you a fool, should you pass it up. Tonight such a deal was made at the Apple Store and a new Mac Pro found its way into my basement office. I won’t go into the specifics of the price, but let’s say that I’m fairly certain that I can nearly break even when I sell my old one. No, it’s not one of the new models announced last week. It is the “Early 2008″ model that they are clearing out. This one has two, quad-core 2.8GHz Xeon processors. Not a huge jump from the 2.66 that I had, but there are 8 cores at work now instead of 4. Can’t wait for Snow Leopard! But in the meantime, Photoshop and Aperture will appreciate the breathing room. And the ATi Radeon 4870 plays nicely with this motherboard, so that will help too! So, watch for my old Mac Pro on the Bay of E someday soon…

Old Photos Online

Shawn A. Krueger — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:50:14 +0000

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The uploading continues… I’ve got a couple more shows from the archives just added to the gallery. Both are from 2006. Kiss Me Kate at Morris Park Players and Twelfth Night at Macalester College. I haven’t done any editing or color correcting, so these are jpegs straight out of the camera – both keepers and duds. Mostly just wanted to get them uploaded for the purposes of backup, rather than actual marketing… but who knows, right?

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What does this do?

Shawn A. Krueger — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:33:04 +0000

Natalie figures out the bath tub faucet – in between bouts of getting Daddy wet!

iPhone test with a photo

Shawn A. Krueger — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:56:45 +0000

Another test… This time with a photo.

Test from iPhone

Shawn A. Krueger — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:54:50 +0000

A quick test of a post from the WP iPhone app.

Feeling the Zen

Shawn A. Krueger — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 04:47:49 +0000

We are in the process of switching our image hosting service. I had been using Pictage on a 6 month discounted trial basis. They have a lot to offer, but they charge quite a bit for everything. At the trial price, I could sustain a business, but once it kicks up their regular monthly fee, it’s just not going to be feasible. I can see it being a viable business plan for another studio that does much more volume than I do. Plus, their commissions on prints and products are on the high end for the industry… and just went up. So, over the last month or so, I did a lot of research on various services and settled on Zenfolio. If you happen to be in the market for online photo storage or marketing, use this referral code for a $5 discount: YSR-CAR-7SR. Still lots of uploading to do… broadband can only do so much in the up direction. More categories and events will be added as time permits. But, you can check out what we have so far here. Weddings are password protected – I tried to make them the same as they were before, if you had visited the old site. If you forgot or just want to check it out, shoot me an email.

Turning point…

Shawn A. Krueger — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 03:53:37 +0000

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?

Our bridal fair is a great bridal fair…

Shawn A. Krueger — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:48:19 +0000

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!

Time for some marketing…

Shawn A. Krueger — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:46:04 +0000

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…

Dodged a data-recovery bullet…

Shawn A. Krueger — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 04:53:01 +0000

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.

It’s the most wonderful time…

Shawn A. Krueger — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:38:07 +0000

My wonderful wife Shawnee finished trimming the tree the other day. She sent me this picture from her iPhone. The combination of the light pattern on the wall and the iPhone’s stellar low-light performance created an almost painterly effect that I rather liked. The house is all decorated with garland and lights… although I still say the front porch could use a few more. Just call me “Clark!”

Life on the interwebs…

Shawn A. Krueger — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:28:24 +0000

In addition to my infrequently-updated blog, now you can also catch my infrequent updates on the Twitter as “fbng” and the Facebook as “Shawn A. Krueger” – AKA, myself. Yes, I caved. No promises to update much, but we can be virtual “friends” and stuff. I still refuse to get a MySpace…