Gretchen & Bobby, August 2009
Congratulations to Gretchen and Bobby Demanche on their beautiful wedding on August 8, 2009. The couple is honeymooning right now in Niagara Falls and I really wish them the best of luck because not only was their wedding a lot of fun to shoot, they were very gracious and understanding after a few things went all wrong.
Paying for Spam: The Downside of the Ad Buy
It’s often easy to tell when spam has wormed its way into my Inbox. There are the telltale signs, the use of capital letters and about fourteen different exclamation points inserted at random into the subject line as if every other syllable needed some additional excitement.
The one downside of my recent surge in advertisement has been the trickle of spammers finding their way through Google’s filters (probably the same way they all found themselves with Gmail accounts) to get right out there in front of me. Of course it doesn't help to know that it's possible that I paid for the click that lead to the spam.
The last time I really paid any attention to a piece of spam was when I got my first notice from the Swiss National Lottery, after all who doesn’t love it when you win a lottery contest that you didn’t even enter.
When Materials Count
The most frequent refrain you hear when you're an aspiring photographer is "it's not the camera, it's the photographer."
It is perhaps the best piece of advice that anyone can give you, because as much as professional outfits harp on the fact that you need to have "professional gear" you can't really take a good picture unless you're a fair photographer (or just very lucky). This is evidenced by all those fancy cameras that go up for auction or for sale on Craigslist, bought originally by some hapless twit who felt that if they could just get the right camera then they could quit their job as a dentist and become the next Ansel Adams (or just take dirty picture of models).
This is my camera, there are many like it, but this one is mine.
An Ode to On-Camera Flash
We've all felt it, being caught in the sudden flash of a camera. The rush of blinding white light filling the air around you and forcing your eyes shut so they don't get burned out of their sockets. The world slowly comes back into focus, the white fading out to be replaced by at first hazy images and someone asking you to smile a little too late.
It's the attack of the on-camera flash.