Like so many others I've been very busy. As such, I haven't spent a lot of time here. The main reason is I'm essentially rediscovering photography. Over the summer I started to feel like I was in a bit of a slump. I was shooting, but not getting anything too exciting out of it. I thought that when I went to Yellowstone in Sept., I'd be re-inspired. That was mostly true, yet much of what I shot didn't "pop" the way I thought it might. I've recently had an epiphany. It's actually a bit of a story. Perhaps journey is a better word.

During the summer I discovered that Adobe bought Pixmantec. I was greatly distressed by this. Pixmantec seemed to be a company that understood photographers and very quickly made a name for themselves. What I didn't know was that Adobe had been working on developing Lightroom, a new aproach to digital photography workflow. They wanted Raw Shooter for it's RAW conversion engine. It intriguied me enough to start playing with LR b3. I was amazed at what I could do with RAW conversion and disapointed at it's DAM capabilities. It was slow as molasses, but still showed a lot of promise. I was especially impressed by the control over individual colors that it offers. Then LR b4 was released. Much faster, more tools, but still really crappy DAM capability. Not even close to ACDSee.

Well if it wasn't enough to be in slump. When I was motivated to shoot again, my 20D had a problem with the "main" wheel. Uggh! It's 14 months old, so I figured that it was out of warranty. Canon still covered it. It's been gone for nearly two weeks and I'm having withdrawl symptoms :P. They should be shipping it out next week. The good news is that I'm buying a 5 year extended service contract through Visa. Evidently it's a benefit that I didn't know about.

The same week that I discoverd the problem with the camera the A/C in my truck went, and our dishwasher started acting up. when it rains it pours.

Well, I'm going through one of those periods where I haven't used the camera for a while. I haven't even carried it with me. No motivation. Not for three months. I took it out of the bag the other day. I even turned it on. That's about it. We're supposed to discuss what makes us tick. Sometimes I don't even know myself.

I've read it many times that artists and writers lose their inspiration from time to time. After 3 years of shooting, it's only a few months ago I actually started to think of myself as an srtist. I made a lot of shots on a trip to San Diego in February that became mostly what I expected them to be when I pressed the shutter button. So does my lake of inspiration make it so? That I'm really an artist? Ha, not likely. More likely, it's all the stress that work has put on me of late. Working 60 hr weeks does little to encourage the creative side.

Many years ago was when I first learned basic photography. It was in high school. To make a long story short, I never had the money to purchase a 35mm SLR, lenses, developing, etc. So I was away for a long time. A few years ago, as digital photo technology began to mature to a decent level (and my income was a wee bit better), I bought a 4mp digicam. It had manual capabilities so I began to experiment and re-learn all that I had forgotten. One of things I read had to with the study of art as an aid to learning good photography, especially paintings and drawings. While I understood the concept, I didn't have any practical experience with it. I'm sort of a hardhead in that I often have to experience things for myself before they sink in. I have no formal art or photography training, so nothing to root the concept with.

Part 3- Self Criticism

I really meant to write this a while back. Life, being what it is just didn't allow me the time. So here it is.

This is a scary thought. Really scary. To have to look at one's own work the way someone else might look at it. To take away the emotional attachment that you have for your work. WHAT! That's what my art is all about, my emotions! How can I separate my emotions from my work? Well, that's the real trick isn't it? The fact is, this is one of the keys to self critique. Remember, others will not look at your work with the same viewpoint or emotions. Let me qualify one point, human nature dictates that it is nearly impossible to completely separate our emotional attachment. However, we can train ourselves to take an objective viewpoint. One of the best things we can do is to walk away from our work, that is, put it out of sight, out of mind for a few days or better yet, a few weeks. The advantage to doing this is to allow your emotions to take a break.

So we've been experiencing warmer than average temps in my little corner of the planet. It's supposed to be 71f here today. I spent the weekend in the southwest corner of Wisconsin. While the weather was excellent, the colors had not yet peaked, so I didn't find as much fall foliage to photograph as I had hoped. I got a few good shots here and there but that was about it. Not that the weekend was bad, in fact I had a great time. I never let lack of photo opportunities get me down.

Today however was completely different. I almost left my camera at home because I have to work late due a new system going live this evening. At the last second, on my way out the door, I grabbed the camera and tripod. The sun was not yet over the horizon and as I approached the Milwaukee Art Museum, I noticed an incredible shade of blue to the north. I got off the freeway to get a few shots.

Part 2- Accepting Criticism

You thought the shot through as best you could. You planned multiple visits to the location to understand how light affected it at different times of day and in different seasons. You took multiple test shots to get a feel for the composition that you were thinking of going with. Finally the day arrived when conditions were perfect. You made the photo that you are convinced is top notch. The composition is perfect, the subject is inviting, the light is magical. You look at the final result and say to yourself, "Wow!".

You post it on your favorite web sites fully expecting others to say "Wow! What a great shot". Then you read the comments left and find that your castles in the sand have all washed away with the tide. It's a pretty crappy feeling. Then the anger sets in and you begin to reason that these people don't have any clue what they are looking at.

We spent this past weekend at Point Beach State Forest, which is on Lake Michigan, about midway along the Wisconsin shoreline. I hadn't done anything "serious" with my camera for several weeks and I was itching to get out. The week prior, I put in almost 70hrs at work, including 3 1/2 hours on Friday, when I was actually supposed to be off. So when we arrived early Friday afternoon, I was pretty burned out and I decided to take it easy. We went for a drive, then came back, lit a campfire and relaxed. So no photography that day. I did spend some time reading my Outdoor Photographer magazine though!

This is something I think about a lot. When I'm shooting, when I'm working on post processing, when I'm surfing my favorite photo sites, when I have idle moments of silence (I told you I was taking this photography thing a little too seriously). Critiquing, accepting criticism, and self critique need to be as much a part of our work as understanding exposure and how it can controlled by shutter and aperture. Since I have only a little formal photography and no art training, this is all based on my personal experience. Maybe this has no meaning and I'm off base. If so, just ignore me.

Part 1 - Critiquing the work of others

I hate blogs. Blogs are the bane of the Internet. Why should anyone care what I have to say except me? There, I've said how I feel about blogs. That said I remind myself that "blog" is short for web log. The term blog has come to be associated with online versions of personal journals or diaries. IMO, true web logs