Wedding Day

After much preparation and stress, today we will embark on the begining of our true professional career in the photographic world. We will be photographing a wedding, having planned from the beginning and today we execute the shoot. This is the fun part, as well as seeing what we took and finding some great pictures in the pile.

The few weddings we’ve done so far have been pro bono, or as sub-contractors. This time, though, it’s us from start to finish. It’s a little stressful, knowing that our clients’ memories are in our hands. We hope and expect to capture the best we can.

We were concerned about the weather at first [since it has been unseasonally cold and snow and ice are still on the ground], but it seems that we have been given a small break. It’s now sunny outside and more mild than yesterday. It’s above freezing, so we are seeing some melting, too.

All told, even with the stress building up to the event, I think today will go wonderfully.

First Snow

It’s snowing today – the first snow of the season. I dedcided to work from home today to complete a document that I’ve been assigned. Does that sound like I’m here because I have to be? No way! I’m home because I’m chicken. I don’t want to ride my motorcycle in 28 degrees with falling snow. It was cold enough for me yesterday in the low 30s, and yes – even a few degrees makes a difference when riding. BRRR!

Besides: it’s supposed to snow all day long, and I could end up stranded in DC – not a fun proposition, if you ask me!

Cabo Dive Pictures

These are mostly diving pictures so far, but more will come later. It takes quite a bit of time to post them from here. Not the fastest of Internet uplinks.

Anyhow: we are now packing up and heading for the airport to go back to Virginia tonight. Then, tomorrow, we will be leaving our house yet again and going down to Richmond to visit friends for Thanksgiving. Lots of travel, but the next time will be much easier – no wet dive gear to deal with…

Finally: A New Camera RAW

While down here in Cabo, I have been using my new Canon PowerShot G9. And if you read my previous posts, you’ll remember that I had a heck of a time getting it to play nice-nice with Lightroom. I got an meail that notified me of some updates to both Lightroom and Photoshop CS3 surrounding a new version of Camera RAW – version 4.3.

This makes all life great. Really. Well, for those of us using a new camera released since version 4.2 came out it certainly helps. I dropped all the calibration settings that I did and imported the pictures with the default settings that came with Lightroom 1.3 [the updated version which has the new ACR 4.3 included] and lo-and-behold. Magic. Sure, Lightroom does its usual thing of optimizing [which I may re-do the calibrations with the new ACR], but all in all, it’s a wonderfull difference.

Now that it works as it should, processing the underwater pictures should be much easier. Oh – and I’ll let you know when some get posted…

Hola!

We are in Cabo San Lucas. Life is relaxing. Of course, it wasn’t relaxing all week…

There were some hiccups while trying to find the dive shop. We actually missed our first dive due to construction and our inability to find our way around. However, we were able to find a place to call from and got detailed directions from the owner and signed up for the afternoon dive instead. Along the way, we were suckered into the time share schpeil. Yeah, we got a free breakfast, but sheesh! The sales pitch was painful. Ah, well. Live and learn.

Finally, we got to the dive shop and found that it was a hole in the wall. Literally. Talk about tiny. We even had to jump into the boat from the sand of the beach. I guess I’m spoiled. I like the Cozumel way of doing things. So – we dove 3 days and decided to call it quits. There was not enough visibilty or things to photograph and the water got real cold down deep. We decided that 6 dives was enough and that some relaxation time was what we really wanted. Tomorrow will be a sit-by-the-pool day. I might even have an umbrella drink.

Oh – and my dive computer died early in the 4th dive. Nice. I’m back to gages and tables now. I hope it was just batteries and when I can find some new ones, everything will be fine… I hope. If not, well… we won’t be diving for a while due to having to save up for some new equipment.

We have taken a good amount of pictures, but nowhere near what I usually do. I will post them here as soon as I can.

Short Timer

Two days and I’ll be in Mexico. We are really excited about the trip and it couldn’t come at a better time. I REALLY need a vacation. I need to get my mind off of work and come back with a fresh attitude.

What I’m really looking forward to is the opportunity to take some underwater pictures with my new camera setup, but also to have no responsibilities except for choosing a place to eat. It’s been far too long since I had a real relaxing vacation – one where I can sit on a beach with an umbrella drink in my hand and not worry about what time it is or if I have to write a document when I get up in the morning… I’ll just have to remember to get up and go diving. That’s not hard.

Time For The Winter Theme

Now that it’s cold outside and has dropped below freezing a couple of times and even been a few flurries in the wee hours of the moring up here, I feel that it’s time to “winterize” the site. Notice the nice, snowy banner… That was near our old house. I can’t wait for real snow!

Well, it’s now the weekend and I’m happy work is done with for a while. Next week will be very short and then we’ll fly out to Mexico!

Membership Has It’s Rewards

Certainly it does when it comes with an insurance package…

I just joined PPA – Professional Photographers of America. It’s an opportunity to get me more exposure to the business side of the business… as well as some good networking, education, and other discounts and such. Since the business is just begining to grow [after all, we’ve only done a couple of weddings and some church events so far] I felt it was time to make it official. Of course, I joined at the associate level which doesn’t put me in the referral database. I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet. I want to get through the rest of the year and all of the vacations/holidays coming up and then maybe we’ll start marketing and promoting the business.

I guess I’ll have to hire an accountant then… maybe even get some legal advice.

More Photo Backlog

Having finally found the “correct” camera calibration, I’ve now reimported my entire library back into Lightroom and have begun processing again. I’ve now posted some of the remaining pictures from Curaçao which have been waiting since last year. Maybe, by the time it’s time to leave for this year’s dive trip, I’ll have last year’s pictures posted. I have one more directory to finish, and I’m goinig to try to do it in the next hour or so. Those will be the pictures of the town of Willemstad, which is quite colorful.

Now that I feel I’m not fighting Lightroom, maybe I can process the remaining 3000 pictures sitting in my “working” documents.

New Ikelite Case

2012-01-08 23:30:18

Last week, I received my Ikelite case for the Canon G9. This case is brand new. So new, in fact, that I am probably one of the first people to get one. I bet that even the underwater photography product reviewers got theirs no faster than I. It was released on October 17th and in my hands in the afternoon of the 19th. That’s what I call fast.

This came well ahead of time, since for a while, we were worried that the case wouldn’t come. The Canon case, which is much smaller and has less features, will not be released until Nov. 15th… and we leave on our trip on Nov. 14th. That wouldn’t work. So, for a while, I was nervous since I had no idea when I would actually get the case. But, I have it now, so all is good and I’m completely psyched up for our dive trip now.

I have to say that this will be unlike any underwater photography experience I’ve had to date. Previously, I carried only a pocket camera and a relatively similar sized case. Now, however, this case and external strobe is…  well, HUGE. It is not, of course, that large in comparison to other Ikelite cases [especially since those are geared for D-SLR cameras], but it’s not a pocket camera case even though the G9 is a pocket camera. I’ll have to post a picture of me holding it since it’s rather larger than anything I’ve used so far. The stobe is nice and powerful [I got the DS-51, which is the bottom of the line, but it still works great – better than I expected] but having it mounted so far up will take some getting used to.