Burnerblog

I took some of the photos I took a few weeks back and did some Photoshop goodness to them, and boy did they turn out nicely! I re-did one of the photos below and it really shines now! I also did about another 15 or so which all came out quite well. It’s amazing how a nice photo can really be made to be a piece of art with just a little post-processing. Of course, I always knew this, but it’s been a while since I did any post-processing in Photoshop, so I guess I’m just happy to be getting some nice results again.

Here are a few examples:

Two of my favorite things: my car, and photography. Throw in a dash of Photoshop goodness, and VOILA!

This weekend has been very busy, indeed. Friday night I had band practice from 7:00 p.m. until around 10:15 p.m. when I had to leave to go and pick up Sherry from the airport. I got to the airport only to find out via my smartphone (my new Moto Q9c) that her flight was delayed for an hour. So, I drove home, took the girls to the store to get ice cream (Gelli was having three of her friends spend the night) and then I drove back to the airport to pick Sherry up. We didn’t get home until around 1 a.m.

Then, Saturday morning we had to go get the last-minute supplies for the photo job I had Saturday night (paper, a hand truck) and after a nice lunch at Sunrise Taquitos, we got dressed and drove to the Westin Galleria for the event. We set up and started taking photos at around 6 and didn’t stop until 11:30. It was a mad house! The bad part was that we couldn’t get all the photos printed right away, and the majority of them had to be printed on Sunday (today). I now have to go in to the company that paid me to take the photos tomorrow to give them the remaining photos. Fortunately, the photos look good, and the people seemed pretty happy with them.

Today was spent at the kitchen table with a notebook computer and two printers printing the photos all day. They look great, and they’re all in envelopes now ready to go.

I’m pretty tired from all the walking back and forth I did last night, and Sherry and I didn’t get a chance to eat dinner or to even get a sip of water for the 6 hours we were there and working. If we do this again, we’re definitely going to take the kids to help out; it was a very big job!

I took this picture very late at night/early in the morning (depending on how you look at it) on Saturday as the girls were watching videos on YouTube. The room was illuminated only by some black lights that Gelli had put up in her room (left overs from our Halloween party) and the screen of the computer itself. When I saw them in there, I immediately grabbed my camera and got this shot of them. I thought it turned out nicely, but in B&W, it was even better. So, here it is. I present, Girls on Laptop:

So, after installing GetMobio onto my cell phone, I discovered it had Twitter embedded into it. Seeing Elaine, Hanna, and Kathy having so much fun with it, I decided to give it a go. It’s a nice way to keep yourself un-bored when placed into situations that would otherwise force you to pull your own hair out. I’ve been twittering all day, and it’s kept me entertained. I found out that some friends have been on Twitter for a while now, so I’ve added them to my “looking at” list as well.

Then, I decided that I didn’t have any good pictures of myself to use as an avatar/icon for Twitter, so I made a new one. I pointed the camera at me as I stood in front of a South facing window and took the picture that is now in my About page.

Quite a bit happened this weekend. Friday night Sherry, Stevie, Lawrence and I went out for dinner at Steak and Ale and had a really REALLY good pork dish that I forget the name of (but it’s something like “bruised pork”). It was YUMMY! Sherry had something with shrimp, but the three of us guys all had the pork, and it was amazingly delicious and tender!

Saturday was a day for shopping. Sherry and I bought Brendon’s Christmas presents and also one for ourselves: a new TiVo HD. We drove straight from the Best Buy we bought it at to the Comcast office where I picked up two cablecards (I found out later I only needed one of them since they were m-cards) and Comcast had the m-card working perfectly within 24 hours. We now have two TiVos in the house; a Series 2, and the HD. The Series 2 was in our bedroom, but we’ve decided to put it upstairs so the kids can record their own shows and leave the HD TiVo alone! Then, Steve and Anita came over with the girls and they helped Sherry with decorating for the party. I was a bit too preoccupied with the new TiVo HD, so I was worthless as far as helping was concerned. This was to be a theme for the weekend.

Sunday, I got up early to do another paid gig photographing a bridal shower. It was a lot of fun, and I may possibly be looking at some more photo work on a few more weddings based on this one. I like the fact that I’ve been getting extra work here and there via word of mouth. I don’t want to do it full-time, but it’s nice to do on my terms when I have the free time. I’ve still got two scheduled “gigs” this year, one of which is a really important corporate client. I am hoping to dazzle them this year so that I can make it an annual event. After the shower, I came home and changed out a few light switches that were left undone from when we painted the house and swapped out our light switches for the larger toggle switches. Aside from that, I took a nap, watched the NASCAR race at Martinsville (and watched Dale Jr. blow up engine #7 this season!), and did some more TiVo playing.

On an unrelated note, I installed Ubuntu (Linux) on two of the computers here in the house, and I have to say that it was the easiest install process I’ve ever had for any OS EVER. EVER! I think this is finally the OS that has a true chance of unseating MS and Apple’s stranglehold on desktop operating systems. Now if some games would come out for Linux like they have on Windows, they’d REALLY have the OS to go to! As it stands, Ubuntu has everything you need to make your computer productive FOR FREE, and INCLUDED. It’s very well done, and having installed everything from Red Hat to Debian to Slax, I was expecting at least a little bit of my Linux knowledge to be tested. NOT SO! Ubuntu really was so easy my kids could have installed it. My son actually wants me to install it on his systems (he has a desktop and a notebook), and my daughter wants it on her notebook, too. That’d be five Ubuntu desktops in the house. I’m also looking at setting up an Ubuntu server to see how it operates, and to possibly switch over from my W2k server.

So… that’s the weekend. Both productive and slacker. Just the way I like it!

I was looking through my photos today and found a great picture (one of my favorites) of the kids I took back in 2000.

Then, I compared it with a photo I took of them in June when we were in Washington, D.C.

They’ve grown a lot, but fortunately they’re still very close to each other. Sure, they bicker as brothers and sisters do (and this is exacerbated by the fact that they are both teenagers now), but they also rely on each other quite a bit, and love each other a lot. I’m proud of both of them, and I love watching them grow into the neat people they are.

People keep asking me why I don’t have a Flikr account, post my photos there, etc. I have over 12k photos, and I have only placed about 70 or 80 of them online. Why? Because of stuff like this. I feel pretty strongly about my photographs getting the credit they deserve when I release them. The last thing I want to do is have some company or person use my images in a derogatory manner.

I used to host all my own photos which was the most complete control I could have over my images, and found them being used all over the place. I used to read my log reports and actually visit the sites using my photos. If the photos were being used respectfully and non-commercially, I would continue to allow it. If not, I’d contact the owner and give them 24 hours to remove the image before I changed it to something they’d rather not see (decapitated bodies, mutilated body parts, etc). 100% of the people complied with my requests, but I will admit that it only happened twice out of a few thousand instances.

I finally got tired of being so nit-picky, so I stopped hosting my own images and took them down instead of just posting them all online somewhere. I decided to post only those images I use in blog entries, on photo forums when asking for feedback and advice, or when I decide to release to the public (concert photos on artist sites/forums, etc).

Why am I so touchy? Well, I’m not so much anymore, but the point is that I prefer to release my photos when I want, and I prefer for them to have context. I’ve been taking professional (for pay) photographs for over 25 years (I started taking family portraits and child portraits as well as advertising photos when I was 15), and have had my photos published in the newspaper, magazines, and on TV (both news and documentary). I know what my skills are and I know that technically, I can operate my equipment 100% manually without the use of aids and figures (had to on more than one occasion). I guess I don’t have the need to push my stuff into the public domain to prove anything to myself. The time for that has passed. Now, I use my photos to accent or illustrate my ideas and writings for the most part unless the photo itself is the subject, and then, it’s only because there’s something remarkable about the photo itself.

Congratulations to the bride and groom, Mr. and Mrs. Gary Edwards. I took their wedding photos this weekend, and thankfully, they came out well. The bride and groom were both very photogenic, and everyone was pleased with the results.

Now comes the post-processing of some photos to take out certain background items or to soften some portraits, add a bit of saturation or contrast here and there, and perhaps even the obligatory b&w that seems to be so popular these days. I was able to capture quite a bit of the wedding’s moments, and while the bride and groom didn’t want any “fluff” photos (posed), I was able to get a few photos that, while not posed, were standard wedding fare (cake cutting, couple with family, etc).

…it sure gets around! Now it’s on KHOU.com’s weather pictures section! Like I said earlier, it’s not my best work, but it was an impromptu photo that happened to capture some cool lightning. Sometimes, it’s those funny accidents that turn out to be the most interesting.