My Reasons

I would like to welcome my 19th country, but to be honest, I can't tell who it is... I believe it's Austria. Also Phoenix, Arizona has joined the crowd.

I had a long day of thinking today, thanks to a comment yesterday. It kind of teed me off. For those of you who know me, I joke around about everything and anything, you will rarely find me being serious about much. So to make a funny poem about my kids eating pooh, the chance of that happening is slim.

For those of you who don't know me, I have a phobia of phones, not the phones themselves, but actually making a call. I rarely call people, and if I do, it's because it's something I really want to do. I prefer texting, email, or in person.

For those who didn't read my first posts early on and a reminder for those who did, or maybe just to clarify myself....

1. This is not a photography blog. This is a blog about my day to day "adventure" of achieving 500 photos on Shutterstock. So my life does not revolve around photos, it revolves around my kids, Angela, work, church, movies, so on and so forth. What I post here is usually stuff that distracts me from achieving my goal.
2. My goal is not to be funny, but that is who I am, so you get what you pay for, and you are not paying for this (I don't think you are) so there.
3. I am by no means an expert at photography, so if you are coming here for cool little tips and tricks, you're in the wrong place. I will occasionally give tips on things I know, and so far I have 30 posts and have given one tip, so I have a 3% knowledge base.
4. When I write about someone having bad skin that I have photographed, it is a reference to the amount of work I do in photoshop to repair the skin to make the photo sellable. I am not insulting the person, I am making a general statement that people who work on photoshop can understand.
5. I love movies, so when I see a great movie, I usually want people around me to be able to share the same "excitement" and "awe" that experienced, so you will find me speaking of movies a lot.
6. I hate being ticked off. Those of you who know me know that I rarely get mad or angry, but watch out when I do.
7. The readers I want here are the ones who will support me and encourage me to achieve my goal, that is the entire reason I started the blog.
8. I use the program "Statcounter" to track my readers. I can track country, state, and city of readers. That is how I know how many countries have read my blog, which cities they are in (hi Phoenix). That is all the information I get. However, when you live in certain areas, such as relatives, I know EXACTLY who is reading my blog. You may be anonymous in name, but I know if you are an avid reader, or just a one-time reader. I know when I lose a reader (bye Fred from N.C.) and when I gain one (Russia, my newest daily reader).

So in short, if you read it and don't like it, go away. I am looking for support for my goal. I will post any comment anyone makes (except spam) but when it comes to how I raise my kids, you better watch out, I take their welfare very seriously. For those of you who are staying, thank you, for

A. being quiet and enjoying my posts
2. clicking on ads and making me money
III. commenting encouragement and reminding me when I am off course (Fred and Luis)
Four. sending me brownies
Next. just being you
G. not taking me seriously, I wanna make you laugh to keep you coming back, but I am not always good at it

Here is a photo I took a couple years ago and uploaded. Would do excellent.... but I forgot a key keyword...

...suicide. Don't even have death, either. I am horrible at keywording, probably one of the reasons for my bad sales. So if you get stuck on keywords like I do, try Yuri Arcurs keywording program. It's free.

Oh yeah... btw.... I SOLD TWO PHOTOS while writing my blog... I should get mad more often....

There's Dog Pooh on the Floor

It's Chelle's Dog,
Called Cinnamin,
She's a poohin' dog,
It's a smelly sin,

It's in the corner,
On the Rug,
Lil' brown logs,
In a pile so snug,

The kids found it,
Can't hold 'em back,
Larissa eats 'em,
Like a snack,

Repoohed pooh,
For later today,
I'll be at work,
Thankfully away,

I'll wrap 'em up,
Wrap 'em tight,
Put 'em on Chelle's pillow,
Later tonight.

*bows* Thank you, thank you. That is from my collection of poems called "Babysitting the Dog", available at Amazon.com later this year. To find inspiration for your own poems, send me your address and I will ship you a pregnant chihuahua dog.

I was up way past my bedtime last night. I uploaded 5 photos, and two were accepted. I had a feeling one would be rejected, but I was actually kinda shocked at two of them, cropping and composition. So my total sits at 216, with 352 days to go.

This is a photo I had approved about a week ago, and become my fastest selling "blog" photo. I was actually playing golf with my brother, Martin. Whenever I go golfing with him, I usually get some pretty good photos, not of him, because he doesn't look like a golfer, he looks the underpaid no-name wrestler who gets beat up by Hulk Hogan. This one was taken a little less then a year ago I believe, I asked him to place the ball as close to the hole as possible, keeping the logo to the side to eliminate as much post-processing as possible. I angled myself so there was a space between the hole and the ball and started shooting. It was pretty close to noon, hence the harsh light on the ball. I also had Martin pose,

As you can see, I have some post-processing to do on this photo. Lighting, ball reflection on his nose, skin conditions, the dirt and grass around hole, the logo on the ball, I want to replace the sky with a blue sky, and of course I need a model release. The last one is the hardest. I already see I lot of potential with this photo. So Martin if you're reading this, I'll email release and you print, sign, scan and send back. If you're not reading this then... Mom, call down to your basement and get Martin to print, sign, scan and send back a model release.

If you look around the page (for you regulars) you may start to see some changes, some I like, and some I'll probably change. For one, I don't like the text ads to your right, so I'll probably switch to photo ads only. Above that is a new counter. Actually a feedburner counter, counts people subscribed to this blog. You'll see it has a 4-5 person variation on some days, because the earlier I write my blog, the more readers I have. That depends on the bot that delivers your feed. Yahoo didn't pick up the post yesterday for 8 hours. I may also be changing the background, I have started to before, but I just can't seem to commit to one I like. If you see something you don't like, or something you would like to see, comment and I'll fix. I rarely see any of these things, because the post entry page is a blank white page, you guys get the pretty stuff.

Well, that's it for today, except to say....

It's Chelle's dog,

In the dining room,

I found a 'nother pile,

Of her little brown boom-boom

Engagement Photos

I have been "hired" to do some engagement photos for a former co-worker friend. I've laid out some options for possible locations, locally would be Turtle Park. If she is willing to drive a little, we could always hit Piedmont Park in Atlanta. The vast majority of my people pics are shot at Piedmont Park, it has become one of my favorite locations. The other option would be Providence State Park, also known as the Little Grand Canyon. I am hoping she chooses either Atlanta or Providence, since I could then set up a photo shoot, invite some other photographers and models, and have a big ol' photo shoot shin-dig.

Here is a photo from a trip to Arkansas a few years ago.

Not the greatest, but I love the story behind it. I was sent to Bentonville, Ark. for some training for a couple weeks. The group that was leaving when we got there told us there was an amazing set of caverns up a couple towns to the north and if we didn't do anything else, we just had to visit them. So we made plans for the weekend to visit and got in our big 15 passanger van and headed to the middle of nowhere and found this almost literal hole in the ground. The cavern was nothing like you would expect, twisted down maybe 20-30 feet, and some fake gold coins around some various holes, and this incredibly out-dated talking guide system. We had pushed the first button at the first "station" and it was still talking when we finished the tour and left.

So we decided that the previous group had tricked us into to going, and to get them back, we would tell the next group what an amazing experience it was and that they should go see it. And we did.

On our way back we found a few spots for me to get some photos. A ranger tower you could climb for a quarter, where I got some amazing autumn leaves...

And at a church that was built into the side of a mountain, you could only access by this weaving path down the side of the mountain...

The path down was covered in great statues. And then we found this great little drive through animal zoo thing. We drove through and didn't see anything overly amazing, but at the end, you parked and there was a petting zoo. And in the center was a tiger cage, where they would let you get in and interact with a set of tiger cubs. This is one of the highlights of my life. How many people can honestly say they played with and petted a tiger? I was photographing one up close, trying to get his eyes...

When the other jumped on my back. Now this wasn't a full grown tiger, but this wasn't no kitten either, it probably weighed well over a hundred pounds (that is 32,700 kilograms for you metric people), or least it felt like it with it's claws in you shoulders and mouth "playfully" biting your neck. No one got a shot of it, probably because they were trying to get it off of me.

Here is my Zazzle store. Would have more, but it's irritating having to fill in the title, keywords, and description for every single item.

BTW, yesterday was one of my most read days, not by total count, but by returning visitors.
I would like to welcome Russia to the mix. Май тигр ест ваш перст pinkie пока сидящ в шаре мороженного шоколада.

Someone Wanted Allison Dead....

Ok, not really, I was just stumped for a title so I used the very next line on the episode of "Castle" I am watching, and lucky me, someone wanted Allison dead. Uploaded three more photos yesterday morning, and lucky me someone wanted them. All three approved, making the grand total so far 214.

A little boo boo this morning. Accidentally hit "enter" after entering the title, so now on my Twitter and Facebook pages, it will say "Someone Wanted Allison Dead" with a link to an empty blog (at least until I get this fully typed out).

This is another of my favorite shots. And it may be just me, but I think I do my best work when I travel. I have a whole series of lighthouses from Maine and Massachusetts. I have a few great shots from my trip to Bentonville, Arkansas. And this one was from a trip to Jacksonville, Florida. This entire trip was planned around getting a photo of this bridge. We did visit museums and such during the day, and Angela did meet with an old boyfriend, who was just happened coincidentally to be in town at the time.

I had my tripod, and I studied up on panoramic photos. This is also one of the first times I used all manual settings. I only had one chance to get the photos I needed, because I would be home before I could work on them, so if they didn't work, then no panorama. We scooped it early in the day and got some day photos, too. We got to the planned site at night, and got the shots. Had one little issue... actually two little issues. The first was this boat moving across the photo, which I had to clean up because the stitch program couldn't seem to read it right. The second was this giant "Go Jaguars" signs on the skyscrapers, which I had to clean up because I couldn't sell it as royalty free. I actually made two copies, one with the Jaguars sign, and one without, so I could sell as royalty free and as editorial.

BTW the action I use on the cross-processing can be found here. I did make some additional actions with different strengths, but this is the basic tutorial. Also, if you don't know how to make an action, let me know, I'll put that up too, saves me a ton of time.

Time for work again... until next time....

(edited: Luis asked about lighting on the previous post photos... second photo natural light, first photo Canon Speedlight with a diffuser cap on)

Good Morning

Good Morning. I am up bright and early and cold. Currently 19 out here today, or translated as 13 degrees below freezing. Or as they say in Canada, swimsuit weather.

I'd like to welcome Salt Lake City to my readership.

I did shoot the heart shaped box last night. Don't have my black background because it is still down at the church. So I used an old roll of black paper I had in a closet. The problem I have always had with the paper is it reflects too much light, making for a "glossy" grey background. So I tried the light painting technique, which made the heart look great, really enriched the red, but the background is just horrible. So now I must decide to either erase the background, or reshoot with a new background. The rate I shoot, a reshoot would be ready around Easter. So, a background erase is my best bet.

In the meantime, I was looking for the heart shaped box when I came across a model release I had misplaced. It was a gentlemen I had shot at the lake at Peidmont Park in Atlanta. I was nearing the end of my shoot for model/agency director Tyron Coachman. He was changing shirts for a shot on the bridge when a couple of men came walking by. They asked if I was a photographer and if I would shoot the one guy's photo. I said sure, had the other guy fill out the release while I shot the first guy. A couple shots were pretty decent, so I uploaded them last night. Both shots were accepted, making my total 211.

His skin was horrible, had several blackish blemishes and plenty of pimples. Took me a little while to clean up. The shot here was my favorite of this guy, I like the way the reflection in the lake kind of highlights him.

BTW, I did sell a couple last night to keep my streak alive, but now I face the dreaded Sunday Zero. Sunday sales are hard to come by for me, so if I can get one today and next sunday, I stand a chance of a good streak.

This is Tyron Coachman

I recruited him for a shoot I hosted in Atlanta a couple years ago. He was very persistent. He was running late and called me every 5 minutes to update me on where he was. He ended up coming at the end of the shoot and I ended up shooting with him more then the other photographers, which was great, because I am not a people person, and he knew exactly what he wanted, and what I was looking for. He called me back last year and we had another shoot with just him where I got a ton of great photos. This one above is my favorite of him. I changed to black and white because the green in the ivy was overpowering, and there was something about the shadows and his expression that just give him a menacing Denzel Washington look. He called me back one last time around September I believe to shoot one of his models, Danielle. I didn't get a release on her, so I couldn't upload, but I got some great shots of her. Last I heard of Tyron he had found a new photographer, a lot closer to Atlanta then I am.

Which reminds me, I had started plans for a shoot in Providence State Park (Little Grand Canyon) on the border of Georgia and Alabama. I was going to have a few models in outdoor/hiker style clothes, and invite a select few photographers. Maybe I'll get basics together later.

And I was "hired" to shoot engagement photos for an officer at Lee State Prison, where I used to work, not reside.

Anywho, time to get ready for church. Going to hear Jon preach on the 2 "have"s and 3 heads of "let us".

Just Stoppin' In

Not going to spend alot of time blogging today. Watching Bengals lose and I actually do plan on trying to find those heart boxes to photograph. I had a rough day at work. My internet keeps going out. My TV is out for repair. The only NetFlix movie I have is Monsters and Aliens for Eliana, and she is not home to watch it. Neither girl nor Angela is home. So right now I have no excuse to not shoot anything.

Except I am hungry and need to make myself dinner. And my feet hurt. And the Bengals are losing. And it sure is nice without the girls here. I am tired. It's cold out.

Oh, I wanted to mention some stats....
Dice are selling quite nice, finally selling them on other sites.
My streak of 4 straight days of sales at Shutterstock will probably end today.
I now have been read in 17 countries, welcome Turkey and Hungary.
California has regained their spot over Florida.
25% of my visitors are international
Besides Fred and Luis, (and family) my most devoted reader is in.... Alaska

Well, that's it for now... gonna leave you with this picture....

This is my son, Will, running down a 12 story lighthouse. He ran all the way up... we took some pictures and then he ran all the way down. I cross-processed this photo, which I can't remember the steps to right this minute, but maybe I'll give them out tomorrow, if you want.

BTW I now zazzle.

BTW for those who wondered why I was in a cop car the other day, I had chased down a shoplifter and the police were giving me a ride back to the store.

BTW if you wanna help my church's bus ministry, use GoodSearch, or you can use it for the charity of your choice

BTW I am ruggedly handsome

My Favorite Pic

I was cleaning (helping clean) out the dining room last night, rearranging my photo equipment into a neater pile, when I came across the little photo plastic thingy from my wallet. I had put it in my camera bag in Ohio because thanks to the one to remain nameless, my wallet ended up in the washer and everything was soaked. Thankfully the pics were done at MPIX and the quailty of their paper held up to the treacherous disaster.

Anyway, I came across this picture...

This is one of my alltime favorite photos of mine. It was actually an accident that I captured it, and unfortunately the focus was just off enough not to be useable on stock sites. I was able to decrease the image size and have it accepted by a couple sites, but they are the slow sites and I will probably never see a sale.

I was given permission to set up my background in the dining room and so I was taking photos of my daughters. This is Eliana, she is usually horrible sitting still long enough to get decent photos, but she was pretty decent this day. But I noticed that she was being distracted by the fan off to the side, so an idea (or as Jon says... "ideal") popped into my head. I moved the fan directly in front of her and started shooting. I was thinking I could get one of those "cool" hair care commercial shots where the models hair is blown nicely in the breeze. Eliana instead started sucking in the air (she is not actually screaming here). It wasn't until post processing that I found this great shot.

This shot is now on my business cards and somewhere on my website... I think the contact me page (yelling... communicating... get it?).

So I must get ready for work. At some point I will start shooting something and get back to talking about 500 photos. In the meantime.... I know I get easily distracted from what I am doing, and I will try better to focus on the photography for my blogs. Besides, it's easier to talk about the photography and find a funny tangent then to try to start out on the funny-ness. Blog point to "Fred" from N.C. who skillfully blessed me out that I suck (puts you in second place "Fred").

Oops... gonna be late for work............... no time to proofread....