The Secret

Have you heard about "The Secret"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phL0RLKL8bc

What do you think about it? It brought tears to my eyes. I realize that the images were filmed by a professional ad agency using big-bucks film cameras, but the images made me want to capture things like that and put them together in ways that would move people and inspire them. I don't know where to go with it from there.

Someone gave me the book that goes with the video. It's about "The Law of Attraction" and is an interesting concept. If you've read it or looked at it, what do you think? It's about the way we think. There have been lots of books about that and people have spent their lives trying to figure out and harness how thinking affects us. This book says, more or less, that we sort of become our thoughts. If we're negative thinkers, we're negative people. If we're postive thinkers, we're positive people. It takes it further by saying that the way you think will direct your life. It sort of magnetizes you, so that like items are always in your life.

So I'm wondering what other people think about this. Do you think you can think yourself sick? Think yourself healthy? Think yourself rich? or poor? I'd love to know.

The picture that I chose for today's blog isn't an exceptionally magnificent photo. The thing that made me choose it was the way I felt the moment I took it. I was immensely happy. I had Kay, my best friend, with me. We were on one of our photography excursion in the German countryside. I have nothing but good memories about those times. Kay was a positive-thinker. She was good to be around. I can still hear her voice and see her face in my mind's eye. To really experience life, you have to get out of the car. You have to walk the lane. People seem afraid to do that. On my photo excursions, I definitely get out of the car.

What madness is this?

What madness can this be? I finished typing my latest blog - just minutes ago, as a matter of fact. Thought I'd read the blogs of someone else. That lead to reading yet someone else's blog. Wow. Then another. I was reading that third one and there was a blog about his children being sick on their vacation. I'm feeling sorry for those kids and all of a sudden my neck feels achey and I feel a little feverish myself. It's true, I've had a tickle in my throat all day, but nothing major. I'm reading that guy's blog and suddenly I don't feel so good at all. Sheesh.

I'm going to put one of my favorite pictures into this blog. It makes me feel better just to look at it.

Late hours tonight

I'm planning to work late tonight. I need to get some wedding stuff done. With Roy out of town, I can spend the time working and not feel guilty that I'm ignoring him. Tomorrow and Wednesday I'll be in Baltimore, so today is my only chance.

I've decided to add photography to my business, in case I haven't mentioned it before. I bought a brand new Canon 30D. I love it. I'm afraid I already have my sites set on a 5D. That's my dream camera. Next. For now, I have a great 30D. I have been practicing with it and feel like I'm getting the hang of many of the controls. I'm not sure about focus yet. I try to put it on manual focus and I'm not getting clear shots. I read that you can adjust the eyepiece to fit your own eyes. I haven't done that yet, because several people have been using the camera and taking pictures. If I set it for myself, they - no wait. It will be okay. I can tell them to use the Auto Focus setting. That should work. My getting new glasses would work, too. Anyhow, the night I bought the camera, I was so excited, I couldn't sleep. I love photography. It has immediate reinforcement, because you can look at what you just did immediately. What's that called - ah, immediate gratification. I am still crazy about video, too. I felt like a traitor deciding to add photography and get back into that - but in reality, I am a visual person and I will do whatever is necessary to express what needs expressing - artwork, photography, written word, or video.

I am getting to know lots of people through my work. They are all an hour or more away, but it's still just great to be making friends at last. Videographers and photographers are awesome people.

I'm thinking of creating a new blog site that is connected to my website. It'll be a way to keep my clients up to date on my work. Right now I'm so behind that I feel like my clients are probably on their way here with a lynching party (spelled that lunching the first time). Should I get out of the wedding videography business like Diane S is doing? She was also very slow and got really tired of the stress of being behind. Maybe I'm not cut out for that kind of stress. I can move into other areas of videography and into photography. I just don't know. I love wedding videography. I might need to work harder at getting faster. I know. I know. When the house is done.

Speaking of which - Sarah and Kevin were awesome this past weekend. They got the whole floor done in the guest bedroom. Well, almost. The OSB needs to be run out over the back porch yet. But I consider it done. We got the kitchen cabinets installed. I was supposed to call the "counter" people today to come measure for the counters - but completely forgot. Roy got the final floor installed in the guest bathroom. And we put in the sink and hung the mirrow over it. It looks great. We still have to get that electricity done. We have two outside lights on the front porch to wire and the two lights beside the laundry room door to wire. Then a few inside things. We're close to done though. We were able to get some things wired that we didn't think we could - like the light on the back porch off of the master bedroom. It was hard, but we got it done. It looks wonderful to walk into the cabin and see kitchen cabinets and bathrooms and all that good stuff.

Ta Ta.

Only a minute

This spring is beautiful. The fact that the cabin is under roof makes any weather beautiful. But it has been really nice. We're having sunny days in the 70's and that makes it even better. I'm overwhelmed with work and most of the time I'm okay with that. I just look at the thing I'm doing at the moment and keep my mind focused on that. When I finish it, I look at what needs doing next. I always have an overall picture in my head of all the things I need to do, but I focus on what I'm doing right now. The only time I get stressed about it is when something bad happens, such as a client calling and getting upset because their wedding video isn't done. That really upsets me and then everything looks more overwhelming and I want to quit or run away. On rainy days it seems worse. On nice days - like today - it seems better.

Sometimes I have days like yesterday. We got a lot done on the cabin this weekend and last evening I had to drive up to Gaithersburg to meet with a prospective client - my first Bar Mitzvah and my first photography gig. I was very nervous. They hadn't hired me yet, but wanted to meet with me and they wanted me to bring a camera and take pictures of the son to use as a sign-in picture at the reception. I didn't want to show up with my little Canon Rebel if I didn't have to, so when I was at Best Buy Saturday evening, I looked at their cameras. They had a Canon 30D, but not the 20D. I was told by colleagues to buy a 20D. I had gone online looking for one. Lots of places had them, but they were places like "Bargains.com" or "Cheap.com" and I wanted to buy it from a place I'm familiar with, like B&H. B&H doesn't sell them. What to do? Well, Best Buy had several cameras, including my Rebel, a couple of Nikons, a Sony, and the Canon 30D. The guy working there opened up the case (he admitted he knows practically nothing about cameras - great) and I got to handle the cameras. The Nikon and the Canon 30D felt awesome. Heavy, substantial. I decided the 3oD must be even better than the 20D. I mean, afterall, the number 30D seems higher than 20D - right? Plus I had found out the 20D costs about $950 and here was this 30D at $1,499. It must be a better camera. So I bought it. I bought a zoom lens, too. I was so excited. I didn't get to sleep until 2 am that night because I was so excited about really committing to photography by making that purchase.

The next day while we were working on the cabin, I started wondering about my purchase. I ran inside and got online and started looking. I found several forums where people talked about the 20D, the 30D, and the Nikon. They liked the Canon better than the Nikon - didn't expect that. I couldn't find anything comparing the 20D and 30D though. But I did find out that the smaller the number of the camera, the better the resolution. That upset me. I found an old article saying that the 20D has 8.2 megapixels and that the 30D only had like 5. Well, my 30D has 8.2, so I must have the newest model. That's all I could find comparing the two. The 5D has over 10 megapixels and costs almost $3,000. So it looks like the smaller the number of the model, the better the camera. It looks like there's a 1D, which is really awesome, but I didn't see any specs or prices on that. SO! I don't know if I made a great purchase or not. I do know that all my Canon cameas can share lenses. So if I have to buy just the body of a 20D or a 5D later, I can do that and keep different lenses on each one so that when I'm shooting pictures at a gig, I don't have to take the lens off and put on a different one. I'd just use the different cameras for the different shots. But still. I bought a 30D. I hope I didn't do a stupid thing.

I took that camera with me last night to Gaithersburg. Like I said, I was nervous. On the way, since it was suppertime, I ate pork rinds, puffn cheese popcorn, a candy bar, beef jerky, and a Pepsi. Sheesh. That's nervous. I got there 15 minutes early and didn't realize it. I caught them off guard. The mother was napping. They were very gracious and kind though. We all sat down in the family room. The son seemed very aloof and didn't talk much. I told them I'd like to just talk first - get to know them and the son. I asked the son what he's interested in - hobbies and studies at school. I asked him about friends. He loosened up a tiny bit, but not a lot. He is not only smart, but he's incredibly gifted. I decided I could trust him with my brand new camera. I handed it to him and showed him how to do a couple of things. He loved it. Soon he was smiling and he took pictures of his sister and parents. He tried different settings and decided he likes photography. His parents were happy to see that I was able to make the children comfortable. I took pictures of the boy doing some karate forms. He was uncomfortable with that - wanted to be photographed in a suit and tie. I told him that if he'd let me get him doing some karate, then we'd do the suit and tie next. He had so much fun doing the karate for the camera that we didn't have to do the suit and tie after all. Then for fun, I took pictures of the younger sister doing hula hoop. That sounds like nothing, but it was something indeed. She can keep up to 11 hula hoops going. She has a routine with them and she has a poodle skirt she wears. I got her to wear the poodle skirt and do the whole routine. We had so much fun. The parents were thrilled with the pictures and I got the contract. Now all I have to do is figure out what to do with the pictures. I know just who I can ask. I know I need to send them somewhere online and make them available for the family and they'll chose which to use at the Bar Mitzvah. It needs to be printed poster size. How exciting.

So that's it. I am a photographer!