EngelFish.Net

I did not realize that it has been almost three weeks since my last post.  I have been super busy both professionally and personally, which makes for bad blogging habits.  I promise, scout’s honor, to try to be more regular.   There are lots of things going on for us right now. 

Today is Halloween, and I have a project in mind for tonight.  We have emptied our dining room, which overlooks the front street, and converted it into a mini portrait studio.  When our trick-or-treaters come by for their candy tonight, we are going to ask them to pose for a picture.  I’m going to collect emails, and then post them to my website for the parents.  Once the whole thing is done, I am considering making a neighborhood book with all the kids featured in it.  We’ll see how it goes tonight.

I’m leaving on Friday for a trip to NYC for the weekend.  It is time for the marathon, and I’m going up with David & Kim to support David’s attempt at a sub-6 hour marathon.  He thinks he can run as slowly as I do, but he’ll soon see that it it tougher than you think.  When someone using a walker passes you, you have to really stick to your guns to maintain pace.

IMAGE:  After getting everything setup, we had a bit of fun while I tweaked and adjusted the lighting.

Two weeks ago I was interviewed by the local newspaper about the new health savings account insurance plan we switched to this year.  Apparently HSAs are becoming more common, and it was a slow news day.  Their photographer, Ray, joined us on a hike in Umstead with the dogs.  It was a good time, and Ray turned out ot be a pretty cool guy.  He bounced around getting his shots while we trotted along and chatted with him about photography, school, and our mutual menagerie (he has lots of animals himself, including chickens).  The story ran this past Sunday, and I didn’t expect it to be the front page of a section, or for the picture to run quite so large.  Needless to say, our phones have been ringing with chiding calls from friends ever since.

Since the majority of my photo work gets done on the weekends, and I have a sizeable backlog of projects right now, all day today was spent editing images. Even by my standards, today was long, with 18 hours of photo-work logged. I was, happily, able to close out two projects, which leaves me with two more to finish Sunday. And there is leftover office work to do too. This brick wall is gonna’ give one of these days.

The past few weeks have been really really busy.  We’ve been shooting a great variety of jobs, including weddings, fundraisers, dance recitals, birthday parties, and even portraits for a match.com profile.  While I’ve never been a fan of the post production part of photography (digital has given us great control, but the drawback is that we now have lots more work to do), I’ve really enjoyed making better and better images.  My time on Flickr has dropped to near zero, and I’d be pulling a Beebo (vanishing act) if Taryn wasn’t keeping me abreast of events.  As I wade through the overwhelming volume of work (including editing all those aforementioned jobs, building a new website, and adding ecommerce to my website) I’m just glad that so much in our lives is going well right now.  We’re both pretty healthy & happy, mostly thanks to Taryn’s excellent cooking and her active support of our efforts to rebuild our exersize habit.

IMAGE: This is “Keeper”.  I was doing some work for his owner the other day, and couldn’t pass up this shot of him just being a dog.  He’s a rescue, and just amazingly sweet.