from the photo’s description…

Shot by my hubster! He was underneath as her safety while I was shooting and then shot a few while he was down there She was really not enjoying this!

huh. couldn’t tell!

all this brought up a discussion around our home, between responsible talks with the photographer and what was deemed a sort of witch-hunt. J’s argument was that there could have been more productive ways to confront the photographer rather than “yelling” at her on the internet. perhaps sending her a PM about why what she did was (for all intents & purposes) bad. and that’s completely fair and i get that to a degree. i’m guilty of it (haha); many times we hop on the witch-hunt train before exploring the facts. but… you can probably figure where i land on this. and why we make such a fun dichotomy at times

in my mind, the photographer deserved every last bit of venom and anger sent her way. who does that?? who thinks it’s a brilliant idea to hang a newborn baby from a tree on a piece of cloth? the child was clearly under duress and not positioned in any fashion that was comfortable. yes, newborns are flexible, moreso than a 3-month old; that doesn’t mean you take it to the nth degree and begin emulating Anne Geddes* however you think is necessary. if the photographer got her feelings hurt or riled up r whatever, what does that matter when put it in the perspective of “you are endangering the safety of a human being who cannot defend itself?” i’d rather the photographer cry for a couple of hours and maybe learn a lesson than read in the paper, “Newborn Child Dropped From Tree During Photography Shoot; Doctors Suspect Massive Brain Injuries Resulted.” i mean, come on: the photographer admitted as much (and you can see in the photo itself) that the baby was not happy. there are ways and methods to accomplish the whole “baby in a [whatever]” look without actually hanging one from a tree or pole or whatever. you just have to learn.

are all witch-hunts justified? no. i’m a reactionary person, and sometimes i’ll feel bad a few hours later. but this is one of those times i am glad someone, somewhere stumbled across it and brought down the wrath of the internet. so what say you? in this instance, did the photographer deserve to be yelled at by the internets? or would a calm sit-down have been useful?

*i blame all of this on Anne Geddes. she makes it all look so easy, thereby encouraging those with a fingernail’s worth of her talent to try and emulate her style and method- babies hanging from wraps, babies in mason jars, babies flying, babies inside flowers, and so on & so on.

hm.

editor’s note: i realized after re-reading this, i made it seem like i had no free time to just hang out with RML & Jac and go swing or do whatever. what i meant to say was- i wish i had more free time to do those little video projects. my life’s not quite that insane.

so here’s the thing. we need studio management software. we should have started using it six months ago. up until now, our kinda’ cobbled together system has involved Numbers, Bento, Things, Gmail, Address Book, and iCal. it’s getting to the point where, because (not to toot our own horn) we’re getting more bookings than ever, and we need a cohesive system to tie everything together into one neat, tidy package.

there are a handful of solutions out there, that deal specifically with photography studios. but none of them… seem to fit quite right. i’ve started to run trials on a couple (ShootQ & Pixifi), but there’s just something missing. so i’ll just lay out exactly what i want in a studio management software suite.

• standalone software- we’ll call it The App. all this browser based nonsense is just tedious and a bit lame, IMHO. this is kind of the cinching point for everything else i’m about to ask for. web-based stuff doesn’t really have a bearing on some of the other things i want (unless they’re synced without my needing to do it manually).
• integration with iCal- i love iCal. it’s wonderful. and everything we need is in iCal. make The App that has hooks into iCal, so that the two can talk back & forth. i don’t need a completely different calendar system to add more stuff to. i want The App that works with iCal, so adding one thing shows up on the other (and vice versa), and can then sync to my iPhone/iPad/other computers without needing to keep a bookmark or another app on my phone around.
• integration with Address Book- regardless of your feelings about the recent Lion UI overhaul, Address Book is great for what it does. same thing with iCal; work to make the two play nicely, talking back & forth. if nothing else, and i have to export/import my contacts manually, make it easy. the one suite i’ve played with the most, Pixifi, allows for uploading of .csv files, but they have to be in a very specific data format (CRM?). um. what? just give me the ability to import a group vCard or a .csv file. don’t make this dumb.
• iPhone/iPad app- duh. and make it work like Things does. i have The App on my desktop running, i open The App on my iPhone or iPad, and the two sync over WiFi. bam. done. even better (and unlike Things), sync to THE CLOUD.
• don’t load it with crap i don’t need- i don’t need galleries or proofing areas for clients (thanks, Zenfolio). i don’t want to post my pricing online so that some wily character can get ahold of them. i don’t need a module for hosting workshops.
• make it work on a Mac- ugh. this is the biggest one. hire a team that can concentrate on both the Mac platform and Windows platform. don’t use Adobe Air or whatever other crap folks are using to make cross-platform “stuff.” it’s all garbage (see: Tweetdeck) and a massive pain in the butt to use. if my software needs updating, i don’t want to also have to update Adobe Air (again, see: Tweetdeck).
• easy product/price imports- one of the first things Pixifi asked me to do was to start manually entering in pricing. easy enough for things like albums and discs, but prints?? are you serious? we have different pricing for different reasons (military, wedding, normal shoots). Zenfolio allows me to export my prices to easily digestible files; why can’t i just import that? i wanted to cancel my trial subscription almost immediately when i made it to that section.

just make something that works. please. i don’t know why this is so difficult to do. and who knows– maybe i’ve missed something somewhere that has exactly what i want. right now, though, it’s just a garbled mess to sort through.

a couple of weeks ago, i did my semi-annual check to see if the URL was still in use. and yes, it was. but i decided i would finally just bite the bullet and ask. her blog hadn’t been updated in ages and if memory served me correctly, the photos on the site with the desired URL hadn’t changed either. so i sent a nice email, explaining my intent, how funny it was that we both have a business in the same industry with the exact same name, oh, and what do you think about maybe… transferring your domain ownership to us? i politely explained how it didn’t seem the work had been updated very much and maybe, just maybe…

so i waited. and waited. i thought either 1) i’d really upset her and she was ignoring my email or 2) it got lost in a spam filter (it did sound kinda’ like a scam thing once i re-read it). well! lo & behold, she wrote back today. turns out, yes: her work had slacked off as it became less of a priority (it was a part-time venture) and that she was actually going to wrap up her time as a photographer to put full focus back on her main career. so she’s entirely willing to part ways with the domain name! hooray!

so… what next? i genuinely have no idea where to go from here. i’m willing to help step her through the process when she’s ready as she’s made it pretty clear she’s not tech-savvy in the least, but frankly, i don’t even know where to start. i know we’re on different domain hosting providers, so there’s a good jumping off point!

today’s lesson comes after a long-simmering suspicion that’s turned into (for me) outright “not cool, guys.” last year, we were so excited/elated/over-the-moon to be asked to photograph around UM for their admissions department. it was essentially a dream job: doing what we love for a place we love. the initial response was fantastic, with the promise we’d be back to do more, including off-campus work to showcase things to do in the area.

so we waited. and waited. and emailed. and waited some more. and emailed again. and nothing. at all. no word, no response, no idea what was going on. as of today, still no word.

we aren’t owed anything. we were paid for our work (at a highly discounted rate because of the subject matter and client), so this isn’t about us not being compensated properly or in a timely manner. this is, for me, a matter of respect for two very proud alums who happened to be in business with a service they needed.

we were so excited about this, to add this little tag to our names, to show off to our friends who are fellow UM alums, “hey look! look at this awesome thing we’re doing for a place we love!” now it just feels hollow, borderline like we were duped. we were made to feel as if this new relationship would be a long-standing one, where we’d come back when needed and continue to produce great work. now? part of me wants to remove the blog post we did about it because i feel like the sad girl who got a prank date from the popular kid and thought maybe it would go somewhere.

i have no idea what happened. maybe they found another studio to do the work, maybe they just don’t need someone to do photography for them anymore. maybe they’ve started using undergrads in the art department for photos. all of those situations are completely fine. if they came back today, or six months ago, or two days after the shoot and said, “hey, thanks for the work; great starting point, now we’re going another direction…” ok, fine. it would’ve stung a little bit, but at least there’d be an answer instead of complete silence.

i realize that this is a dicey thing to write about, but because of who it is and our previous relationship and ties to them, it burns that much more. and you should know why we haven’t shown off any more work from them.

so, i went looking to see if Netflix offered the Blu-Ray version of The Empire Strikes Back (they do), when i stumbled across this, the top review on the film’s page. enjoy.

As someone who believes that there are literally trillions of inhabited planets out there in the cosmic playground of outer space and that much about their origins and destiny (as well as those pertaining to our own planet) have been revealed and documented within the last century in a series of 196 Papers known collectively as The Urantia Papers (or The Urantia Book) that were authored by various Beings-Not-Of-This-Realm who were commissioned to bestow this epochal revelation upon our planet including translating it into the English language (since English is not the native tongue of either our local universe of Nebadon or our superuniverse of Orvonton or of the Paradise-Havona Central Universe of Divine Perfection which is the dwelling place of the eternal God and around which everything else and everyone else revolves in accordance with the superuniverse plans of evolutionary progress and spiritual attainment), I was predictably pleased to watch a movie that to me asked: Are we really all alone in the universe of universes with this vast enormity of wasted space encircling us like lifeless set decoration or are we rather a part of some gigantic undertaking that is fusing perfection and imperfection and blending science and religion into one creatively unfolding project that is beyond our mortal comprehension to fully fathom and that involves other living beings on other inhabited planets who are in the truest sense, our cosmic cousins? So when I gaze into the starry heavens at the countless suns of space, I marvel at how seemingly insignificant it would superficially appear that our planet is and yet just as many movies highlight the important role that faith plays whether in regards to believing in a Higher Power or believing in the existence of alien beings far removed from our galactic proximity, I do have faith that our sphere (Urantia) is just as precisely administered and just as lovingly fostered as if it were the only inhabited world in all existence.

so… there’s that. here’s a link.

confession: until tonight, we did not own a BluRay player. not out of any sort of “whatever, new tech!” mindset; it was more out of, “well, maybe I’ll get my hands on a PS3″ sort of thing.

so happens, that my fam-in-law upgraded their theater system recently. included was a new BR 3D player, so they had no use for their old BR player. ta-da! we now have one. and of course, I’ve been trying to pick it apart all night. and I can’t. this… wow. i had an idea, but i had no idea.

first off: i am in love with our AppleTV. i love iTunes. i love renting and watching HD stuff from iTunes via our AppleTV. but i’m not dumb enough to think there’s not some loss in the compression that occurs to make it a deliverable, consumable format & size. par for the course. but it looks great. tonight, after i got the new player hooked up, i popped in a BR copy of The Dark Knight I had laying around (don’t ask). lots of dark (ha) and shadows and action, a perfect place to push this thing to its limits.

BLOWN. AWAY. seriously. mainly because of this one small scene…

yes, that’s a terrible photo, but it’s more for illustrative purpose so you know what i’m talking about. Alfred has just entered the closed off Wayne Enterprises secret hiding space for Bruce/Batman and is coming down the elevator. there’s a great reveal, as he moves from compete darkness into light. on a regular DVD, you’d start to see blockiness as he transitions from that dark into the light-filled room. same thing (but maybe less so) if I were watching an HD digital version. here? it just looks like film grain. beautiful, amazing, lovely film grain. am i looking through Blu-colored glasses right now? possibly. maybe a few months in i’ll start to pick at things a bit more (no, i can’t help it), but for now, i am just astonished at the image quality.

if there’s one caveat at this point, it is our TV. we purchased it back in… 2007? maximum output is 720p, and it’s a Westinghouse. it’s older. it can’t do 1080p (though it’ll do 1080i [read: useless]). it’s… smallish (37″, i think?). but it has served us incredibly well and at this point, unless Apple releases something mind-blowing as the rumor mills have been indicating, we’ll have it a while longer. there are some issues with image quality (slight smearing in high-action [mostly when watching sports on TV], blacks not as black as possible, etc.) that i know relate directly to the TV that i’m fine with. but whatever.

so anyway. i’m a convert now, i knew i would be. it’s just kinda’ funny how long it took me to get here. so i’m curious: i have some films/TV shows in mind i’m curious about renting or purchasing, but what movies do you think i should check out/rent/must-own in BluRay?

• a secret, closed group for only residents, and;
• a public, “face of the neighborhood” Facebook page.

it went down in flames. hard. the final vote was to restrict the group’s main postings (but not comments!) to only admins. so, only admins can post new things in the group. this is, in my opinion, useless. a Facebook group should be open to discussion about whatever. if it’s mindless chatter, so be it; just ignore it. but a carbon copy of the email newsletter or other random emails is just pointless.

i even offered to admin the new Facebook page. i offered the option to restrict postings on the public page to just Admins in an effort to keep a tight rein on content. but it doesn’t help when people, who profess they don’t even have a Facebook account, don’t understand the point. those people spoke the loudest and ultimately made the final decision and it sucks. it’s dumb. it’s short-sighted. and completely frustrating.

this is my ultimate frustration with technology and people who refuse to grasp it (note: not with people who don’t get it but are at least willing to listen). i tried to break it down as simply as possible, to ensure that it wasn’t a difficult thing to accomplish, but people had already made up their minds because the internet is scary and now i’m rambling because i’m genuinely a bit angry about it.

so here’s the thing: i have this big, overarching project i am currently hard at work on. ultimately, we’re looking at having three different videos ready to go…

1. one of the just the main subject being interviewed
2. one of just the various people saying very nice things about him
3. and a final sort of mashup of the two

the first two were ultimately pretty easy to nail down. the third? ugh. so, here’s my setup-

there are my three projects. i’ve duplicated the main “Larry” project with the intent of copying & pasting clips from the “Endorsements & Interviews” project where they’re needed. should be easy enough, right? so take stuff from here-

and copy bits (not all of it) into here-

got it? good. here’s the thing: IT WON’T WORK. and what initially was really frustrating at week’s end a coupe of days ago is now infuriatingly vexing and nonsensical today. according to Larry Jordan, guru of all things Final Cut X and prior, copying & pasting is completely possible. flummoxed, i waited until i got to the office today to retry. still didn’t work… at least what i wanted and needed didn’t work. on a whim, i opened up a completely unrelated project (a small bit from a 2011 wedding), copied a clip from it, and pasted it into the project i am working with. and it worked! hooray! excellent! i thought that possibly, maybe, somehow that goosed the software into finally working correctly, so i returned to my actual projects to try again…

and nothing. still doesn’t work. see how this has now become even more exceedingly vexing? it makes absolutely no sense that i can copy and paste a clip from the Kate’s Song project to another project, but not from the “Endorsements & Interviews” projects to anywhere else (or vice versa). it’s as if something is just stuck within that particular collection of projects and i cannot find an answer anywhere as to what is going on and why it won’t work. here are some details/bits of information for anyone curious…

• i am wanting/needing to use this method because everything is already graded for color and audio has been tweaked, plus the clips as they appear in one project are already cut exactly how they need to be. i am desperately trying to avoid all that again if at all possible.
• i am using a plugin called “Finisher” for all my grading and image finishing. i’ve no idea if this is causing a problem, though at this point, i suppose maybe it warrants testing at this point.
• all projects/events/everything are on one hard drive, an external FW800 drive. i’m not going in between hard drives to do the editing.
• everything was shot on the same cameras: a 5DMII and a 7D, at 1080p, 23.98fps. no mixing of frame rates or weirdness.

so there’s all that. hopefully someone will come along and help out, hopefully Mr. Jordan will be willing to continue the conversation with me or someone, somewhere knows what’s going on and can help.

edit: just tested turning off and removing the “Finisher” plugin from a clip in hopes that maybe that would be the solution. it was not; clip still would not copy & paste. of note- the clip from Kate’s Song had the ‘Finisher’ plugin applied to it and copied/pasted just fine. the mystery deepens.

lately, the LAP blog has been “dealing” with a massive increase in spam. i put dealing in quotes because we’re not so much “dealing” with it, more than it gets caught by our comment spam filters. most of it goes right to the bin, but some gets trapped and marked as potential spam, leaving me to go in & delete it. but spam comments are funny, so i thought i’d share some of the more… interesting bits.

• “I was just seeking this info for some time. After six hours of continuous Googleing, finally I got it in your site. I wonder what is the lack of Google strategy that do not rank this type of informative web sites in top of the list. Normally the top sites are full of garbage.”- six hours? you are persistent, spambot!
• “In this grand pattern of things you’ll receive a B+ for effort. Where you misplaced me ended up being on all the particulars. As people say, details make or break the argument.. And that could not be more true in this article. Having said that, let me say to you just what did work. Your text is definitely highly convincing which is possibly why I am taking an effort in order to opine. I do not really make it a regular habit of doing that. Secondly, although I can easily see the jumps in reasoning you come up with, I am not necessarily convinced of how you seem to unite the details that produce the actual final result. For now I will subscribe to your issue but hope in the near future you actually link your dots better.”- you sound like one of my old english professors. i do tend to sway back & forth between different thoughts and ideas with little care for how they connect to things. i’ll take your constructive criticism under advisement. and thanks for the B+! see mom, i am a good student!
• “I am John, how are you everybody? This paragraph posted at this web page is really nice.”- hi, John! that was quite a nice paragraph, wasn’t it? i’m fine, thanks. hope you and the family get a vacation soon; i know work’s been tough lately.
• “Materials I just read a blog, Hopefully it doesnt disappoint me about this. What i’m saying is, I know it was my replacement for read, on the other hand actually thought youd have something interesting to express.”- alright, that just seems rude. i like to think we always have nice things on the blog. harrumph, sir! harrumph!
• “It truly is nice to definitely arrive an online site where the blogger is skilled. I appreciate you for creating your blog.”- see, “replica louis vuitton handbags?” “cheap ghd” knows how to treat a blogger! thanks, bro. your spam is quite tasty.
• “Please message me with many hints & ideas about the way you made your site look this awesome, I might have fun here!”- sorry, friend. trade secrets & all.
• “estoy feliz porque uruguay llego lejos”- i don’t speak Spanish, but according to Google, you’re saying, “I’m happy because I get off Uruguay.” hm. alright. OHHHHHH, that’s what you mean. yikes!
• “whats your facebook profile?”- a/s/l?
• “I appreciate, cause I recently found just what We were interested in. Have a decent day. Bye”- “have a decent day?” geez. next time, try this.
• “Someone essentially ensure seriously articles We’d state. It is a beginning I frequented your web page and therefore far?”- far… what? ok.

bring on the spambots!