Tag Archives: photography

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A New Venture

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A colleague of mine at work took a continuing ed photography class here in Madison recently.  We’ve been carpooling the last few weeks, so there has been ample time to chat about it.

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One of the things that she mentioned was that the instructor has a store on Etsy where she sells prints of some of her photos.  I took a look at a couple of them and said, “… OK.  People are buying this?”  I guess art is one of those things whose quality is fairly subjective.  What I look at as a very average photo, someone shopping for low-cost prints might think is just outstanding.  It dawned on me that if this person is selling these photos and doing so successfully, I could try my hand at making a few bucks on the side.

So anyway, I’m going to start a shop, but I need to take the time to choose which pictures to list.  Listings are twenty cents apiece, so I figure I’ll spend five bucks or so to get started, and see if any of them sell.  If not, I’m only out five bucks.  I figure if I can sell one or two, that would at least cover the cost of the listings.

Any ideas for which pictures I should try to sell?  Obviously, I’ve got many more than those on this site, but maybe you’ve got some ideas.  Take a look if you want and let me know.

General, lists, Uncategorized

Rethinking the Agenda

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Had a nice weekend full of baseball, friends, movies, and much-needed housework.  When all was said and (mostly) done, I had a list of about five things that I wanted to accomplish, computer- or website-wise, that were left undone.  I managed to plow through a couple of them (including my first photo uploads to this site in almost a year – check out the Storyhill pics from last Labor Day), but some were only half-finished.  I had to try pretty hard to not be disappointed with myself, even after a nice June weekend.

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Clearwater Lake, Deerwood, MN

Not having had a summer like this in over a decade, it’s hard for me to let myself roll with the proverbial punches and take advantage of the nice weather and low-obligation without a plan.  I feel like if I don’t have a list, I’m going to miss out on something I should have been doing.  But, I guess if the last ten years should have taught me anything, it’s that there will always be more time to get your list done.

I took a couple positive steps in the last week that I hope will lead to maximum summer enjoyment: I moved the BryGuy show back to the latest possible part of the evening (we’re starting at 9PM beginning this week), and I set all of the ‘to-do’s’ on my RTM list to be due no earlier than 8PM on any given day.  Moreover, instead of insisting to myself that the tasks on that list get completed on the days I set them due, I opted to be satisfied with a little progress, and a revision of the date and specifics of the goal.

Summer’s too short around here.  I need to make sure I’m enjoying it.

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Discount Post

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DSC_0220Hey, I know that this isn’t very substantial, but to me it was huge (as in, took me about 6 hours huge).

Ever since I switched themes on the blog here back in the fall, I’ve struggled with finding an effective way to display photos.  I’ve had it on my list all this while, but today, I finally tackled the problems, and I feel like I have a nicer presentation of these images than ever.  I’m hoping this will lead to me adding pictures to the website more often.

So, if you’re interested, take a look at the Galleries page, and enjoy.

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Key Your Eyes Peeled

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Just dropping a note while we’re in Colorado Springs that the new photo gallery “A Very Wordy Wedding” is up and online.  More to come soon from our trip, so check back frequently in the next several days if you’re interested.

More detailed posts to come to sum up the duration of our vacation.  We had a great time and will be home soon!

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Long Shots

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I looked at my sad little list of tweets on the front page today and it made me feel kind of bad.  Really just haven’t had a lot of blogocity flowing of late.

Anyway, later on this evening I will be taking in a second screening of Star Trek with some of the geek men from MKE.  We caught Watchmen as a group, too.  I’m going to turn in a little earlier than I usually would on a Friday, because I have to head over to the Wordell house in the Falls tomorrow to work on a computer; want to get said work done in the AM hours, so I’ll need some good sleep…

Went out and took some pictures last night after the sun went down.  Been meaning to do some night photography with my new camera, but this was my first chance.  Picked up a couple tips from Wordy on how to make some of them look better (I only uploaded a few of the decent ones).  Tip #1: remember that when you’re doing a 5-15 second exposure of a building and you’re zoomed in @ 300mm, you’re asking for blurring.  It’s just gonna happen.  Good point there.

What’s with the Brewers lately, eh?  They started slow, but things are looking up after a 5-1 homestand that came on the heels of a 3-1 road trip.  Brewers have won 6 series in a row, and they go to St. Louis this weekend playing for first place in the Central.  Yeah, it’s still early, but I see signs that the team is more relaxed and grown up than people were counting on.  I hope they don’t lose it, and they remember what is working during this good stretch.  Oh, and having Trevor Hoffman to handle the 9th doesn’t hurt, either.

I’ve got 2 weeks to go @ UWM before heading back to Osh Vegas for work once again!  How bout them apples??

What’s new with you?

General, Uncategorized

Upgrade City

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The podcasting plugin that I use on the blog here finally upgraded late yesterday. That was one of the two still holding me back from upgrading my blog to the latest version of WordPress, and I’ve been waiting patiently (more or less) to get there.

So, I completed the upgrade on WP, even though I didn’t end up with the latest version of podcasting; I did find an older release that works just fine w/ this version of the blog, so I guess I’ve been waiting around for nothing. 😛

Anyway, there are a couple other things I’ve been kind of anxious to try in this newest version, so keep an eye out for a new feature here or there… nesting comments works a lot better now (or at least look nicer). If you register on the site, you can also customize a user avatar.

There was also a new version of the photo gallery plugin, and it seems to have a bunch of new features to try out.  I added an RSS feed for photos, and I’m going to try to figure out how to reinstate the “public gallery” so if you have pictures you’d like to share, you can.  So there’s a number of little things.

Hope your weekend is going OK.  I’m back to tinkering…

General, Uncategorized

Stick to That Schedule

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My hour-to-hour scheduling has been going OK, but the weekends are still a mess (my fault), and I have missed days here and there with getting enough writing accomplished.

You may wonder how this factors in with a new blog I started reading this week– it’s called Digital Photography School, and my friends at Lifehacker clued me into it.  I picked up that new camera at the end of January, and I’ve taken it out a few times to shoot, but I would like to get better, and in order to do that, I need to shoot a lot more.  I would also probably benefit from some reading on photography in general, and without going out and buying a new book, I figure the Internet is a good place to gather up some tips.  Or I could try a library.  They still have those, right?  Do they still offer books for free?  AMAZING..!

Anyway, I should try to find a spot in the schedule to add shooting time in.  I could probably get by for the time being on an hour or two per week, so it shouldn’t be that tough.  Maybe add that in to give my weekends some structure…

Hope you’re either recovering from St. Patty’s Day, or laughing at those that are.