One last week of summer break. My dad came back last Tuesday. He surprised me just as I was sitting down to dessert. He had called & left a message but he had called my cell phone which means nothing if I am in the house. The voice mail came through at 10 pm. I really need to get a microcell from AT&T. They are now available in our area.
The boys were going through a period when they were on each other’s nerves. But they seem to have settled down. Maybe having a babysitter made them realized it’s not so bad when it is just the three of us.
I got to go out on Friday night to a photo walk on Clearwater Beach. It was an evening shoot which means mostly tripods. So I really didn’t get a chance to test out my Black Rapid strap for women. It felt good for the short time I used it. And speaking of tripods, I had thought I had my next one picked out. It was going to run me about $400. But now I am pretty sure I want an L bracket. I do enough macro work where this would come in handy. And if I start working on portrait photography this would save a lot of time. But the L bracket means a different time of head and if I spend the money on that, shouldn’t I spend the extra on better legs? So now I am looking at $1100. Ugh! It makes sense in the long run but that means I need to just use what I have for now and save up for the tripod. I am really trying to not increase my current debt with new purchases. Patience. Sigh.
I also have to stop relying on my dad except for the basic tasks. He will feed the boys if he has to, but don’t expect him to clean up after them. Yeah, I a, whining about having to do the dishes once I got home at 11:30 Friday night. And no sleeping in on Saturday since they won’t feed themselves. They would be willing to learn but are wary of things that produce heat like ovens, toasters and microwaves. Oh well. It’s just small stuff.
I was looking at camera bags this evening. What is it about photographers and camera bags? We claim that we haven’t found the “perfect bag.” I don’t think it is that. I think we just like to buy stuff. And camera bags are a lot more affordable that $2000 lenses.
Then again, I am not happy with the 3 bags I have. The first one is way too small. It was purchased when I first got my dSLR and only wanted it to hold an extra lens and my wallet. The problem was that the strap digs into my neck. My second bag is a bit of a piece meal. I got a Crumpler Bucket in hopes that it would work with my many tote bags. It didn’t. So I got the Crumpler messenger bag for the Bucket. It seems really bulky. I used it on one photo walk/hike and thought I needed a back pack. I do like my Crumpler backpack. Mostly. It fits well and feels good. But I tend not to take it off and access other lenses. What is the point of carrying them if I don’t use them?
I like the styling and padding of the Crumpler bags. The bags don’t scream camera bag and the construction is solid. I don’t like the price nor that no one seems to carry them locally so I have to buy them blind.
I don’t need a new bag. I want one. I have no money for a bag right now. Too many other accessories which should be purchased before another bag. But I keep looking at bags because flash modifiers and reflectors are pretty standard and dull. Tonight I found two that I had never heard of; CamSafe from PacSafe and ClikLite. Both are pretty interesting and don’t look like camera bags.
Meanwhile, the boys go from playing quietly in their rooms to both wanting my attention at the same time. Yesterday, Andy ate all of his grilled cheese right away and all of his chicken right away. Today, I made 2 grilled cheese sandwiches and he had the cold waffles instead. And then he only ate half of the chicken.
Weird. Even if you rename your photos in Lightroom and on export, iPad puts them in order of the original file name. Or maybe it is using capture time for sorting.
It feels very odd.
When I upload photos from my camera, I delete the bad ones. The ones so blurry I can’t stand to look at. Then I give the rest one star. I go back and look at them zoomed in and give them 2 stars if the are in focus. They get three stars if they are tack sharp.
I label those I want to edit and those I have edited and are good to use.
What I had never done is go back and delete the images with only one star.
This weekend, I ran out of space on my external hard drive. I did order a replacement but I have less than 1 gb on this drive partition which means I can’t do anything with my photos until the new drive comes in.
I have a problem with waiting.
So today I decided to delete those one star images. I started with January 2009. I only had 450 images in there. I just deleted 298. Whoa!
But, it’s good. I will not, cannot go back and look at all those somewhat decent shots. Why am I keeping them? To be honest, I did keep a couple because of a smile or it was a shot I didn’t have something better from that moment. But for the duplicates, the out-takes from a mini session of 50 photos, they are gone.
Just because we can save something, doesn’t mean we should.
At least that is today’s mantra.
