Another PubEd Column

My second.

Hooray for Insurance

Excerpt from my new liability insurance agreement that made me laugh:

"'We' do not pay for 'bodily injury', 'property damage', 'personal injury', or 'advertising injury' which results from war. (This includes undeclared war, civil war, insurrection, rebellion, revolution, warlike act by a military force or military personnel, or destruction, seizure, or use of property for a military purpose. Discharge of a Nuclear weapon is deemed a warlike act even if accidental.)"

Investment Capital...

It's a nice thing.

Public Editor, Baby!

My first column ran today. Read it here.

The rest will be on Fridays, starting with the one this week.

That Darned Cat

The feline pictured above has been routinely visiting our house to beg for treats and try to sneak inside. The dogs bark at it but they're cowards and never actually fight it. I shot it a few times today (chill, cat lovers, just with the camera) and it's sitting outside right now.

Anyway, here's a song he reminds me of: "The Cat Came Back." 

It's official...

Logan C. Adams Photography is really a business. I filed for and received my Sales Tax number last night, and I now have my own sole proprietorship.

The grand opening will be August 15.

I took a long trip to Manhattan and Topeka today to make some purchases for my portable studio (is that a contradiction of terms?). First off, I picked up a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS2 at K-State. I was using Photoshop Elements, and let me tell you, it's like comparing a shovel to a bulldozer. So many more tools at my disposal -- which will take a while to learn -- and I know this will give me more avenues to improve my images.

After that I drove to Topeka to make some purchases at Wolfe's Camera, the only camera store I know of withing 100 miles of here. I only buy from them on occasion, most of my equipment purchases are done online through B&H and other retailers. Some tell me I should spend more in-state to keep the local guys in business, but such persons must never have gone to Wolfe's.

When I shop there, my chances are 50/50 between good service and being treated like garbage. Wolfe's good service is awesome, but their bad service makes online shopping seem friendly and social.

I got good service this trip, so next time I think I'll just walk in, read a price and run before getting the third degree from one of the camera clowns.

I bought a pair of umbrella for that Photogenic I bought, but they can be used on any strobe. In fact, I'm thinking of selling the Photogenic so I can buy a full kit brand new where everything fits everything else. Plus, a warrantee would be nice.

So, Anyone want to buy a strobe?

Dreamblogging

I had a dream last night that I can't get out of my mind. It was one of those dreams that carried some sort of message with it, but I'm tired of carrying it in my head so I'm putting it here.

This dream had me at the wedding of a good friend of mine from Washington. It was in a giant church (the size of McCain Auditorium) with golden/tan walls and a high ceiling, at least 60 feet high. The place was packed.

He was getting married to a mutual friend of ours who is also in DC now and, naturally, I was taking pictures. I couldn't really tell if I was the official photographer or not, my camera was weird as hell. It was on the end of a four-foot rod that was bent at different angles, and I never hit the shutter or adjusted any controls. I just moved it around and it took a shot whenever I wanted it to. Weird.

But what really was strange to me the bride, a mutual friend of mine and the groom's, and they're a couple I sort of would expect to see together. I don't want to get into too many details.

After that was over, I had another: a recurring nightmare I've been having about getting trapped in a giant Wal-Mart from the future, a place so big it takes weeks to cross it on foot and dead bodies of shopaholics are found every month.

Ok, get your pens and notepads out. Start analysis now!

New Fun things

I bought another fun piece of photo gear today. A local photographer who'd closed her business last year let me know she still had some gear left for sale. I went by her house and found the Photogenic strobe she had left. For $65, she was mine.

It's a PowerLight 375, which means it's a light that uses 375 Watt-seconds of electrity when at full power. A watt-second is used in lighting to express how much light a unit puts out, which is insane to me considering it takes no account for how efficient or inefficient the thing is. Basically, a 400 WS light is a small one, an 800 is medium, and a 1600 is kinda powerful. They go up to 3200 and well beyond, though.

I took it home and let her rip a few times. The light works very well when fired as an optical slave (photo-speak for firing a flash by telling it to go when it sees another flash). The stand was rather unstable, so I replaced it with one I already had for holding reflectors.

All I need to make it the perfect addition to my kit is to replace the power cord (nicked in a few places) and buy an umbrella to soften the light. I plan on using it as a kicker light, again photo-speak, and put it off to the side to fill the shadows created by my main light, which I'm going to be purchasing in the near future. I still need to make some decisions on that.

Also, a teleconverter (TC) I'm renting will arrive in the mail tomorrow. I ordered it because I'm considering buying one, but I want to try one out first. A TC is a small lens that goes between the lens and the camera and the main lens and increases the its focal length (magnification) without much weight and not costing too much. The downside is that it sacrifices some light and some sharpness.

A new one costs $275, but it's $45 to rent it for three weeks. We'll see what happens. 

A shot with the Photogenic

A shot of a room with the Photogenic 375 in it. It's at it's lowest power setting (1/16 of full power) and my camera is set to ISO 100, f/4, 1/100sec. I triggered it with my 580EX from atop my camera set at 1/128 so it would have much effect on exposure.