Once again I've fallen off of the face of the blogosphere only to return again with so much to tell. So much has happened in such a short amount of time (the past 4 months went by fast).
It was a long month after I had gotten into my accident with the Lancer. But after looking and looking and a dodged bullet, I finally got my hands behind the steering wheel of an '05 Honda Civic. It's been treating me pretty well and I'm definitely going to be taking better care of it than I did the Lancer (i.e. more frequent oil changes!).
I managed to purchase a new camera. I was originally going after a Canon 50D, but during my setback with the accident, Canon had released the new (and better) 7D. So I got that instead and I'm pretty happy about that. In addition to that I've started watching / listening to a couple of photography related podcasts which has resparked my interest in photography and desire to go out and shoot and produce images. I'm pretty excited about this feeling. The first podcast that I got into is Photoshop User TV which, as you may be able to guess, is a show about photoshop. It's funny and very informational. The second one is just an audio podcast called PhotoFocus which is about an hour long show where the hosts answer photography questions submitted through email and twitter. Very educational.
Speaking of education, I've been thinking about furthering my photography education... not through school though. I've been thinking about taking some online classes through KelbyTraining.com just for the purpose of gathering information. I've been pondering this lately because a couple questions have popped up on the PhotoFocus podcast where the individual asked for recommendations on furthering his education, i.e. should he go for a degree go to seminars, or take online classes. The host made an excellent point that a client or business hiring a photographer is most likely going to hire based on the photographer's ability to produce images, not where they got their education from... not that they were saying school would be a waste of time. People have different learning techniques and perhaps need the one on one contact with the instructor. I however do not feel I need that would would benefit greatly by going through KelbyTraining.
Back to my new camera. I pretty much love it. I've been bringing it to work and using it for shoots lately (as apposed to the studio's 20D) and to say the least, my boss is jealous. So far I've only shot a 4 year-old, a senior, and an orthodontist staff, a senior shoot, along with my own little project with drops of ink into a wine glass.
The 7D also shoots HD video. I shot a little clip during my ink shoot which can be viewed here.
On the more personal life front... Christmas could not have come soon enough. It's definitely not as great as it once was when I was a kid and I blame most of this to working in retail. It was still good. I didn't ask for anything so I wasn't expecting anything fantastic, yet Bethany got me excited when I opened a box containing two tickets to Walking With Dinosaurs at Cobo Arena, which is happening tomorrow. I'm pretty thrilled about that. I got her a Nintendo Wii. She seems to be loving it.
That's all for now. Keep on truckin'
