My canoe outing pictures were apparently a huge hit.  I asked my wife to deliver the following message to the teacher: "I'm glad you like the pictures, and I would appreciate it if you could put in a good word with the principal about me making them available to the parents on my business website."  No further news on that front.

I shot another dance recital (this time at Dartmouth Middle School) last nite.  I really need to carry more CF cards, things got tight toward the end of the program.  Apparently 8 Gb of storage isn't enough for an intense 2-hour shoot.  Shooting was so-so--the auditorium had no photographer's booth and was pretty much wall to tall audience.  In addition the stage was low and the sound and light crew sitting in front of the stage had their heads blocking the view of the dancers.  The light stands stood in front of the stage, as did the speakers and floor lights.  All in all trying to shoot in the room was a nightmare.  I spent a solid two hours squatting in the aisle between the front row of seats and trying to dodge the optical obstacle course between me and the dancers.

So a lot of my shots were not keepers, but I did get some really nice shots and I think after the post processing I'll have 100 to 200 decent photos.  After the show I talked to the producer and she seemed (a) very friendly, (b) somewhat receptive, and (c) really busy.   But I managed to explain to her that I have a business website and would be willing to host my photos of the event so that parents could buy prints, and that I would be willing to give her copies of the pictures for free.  She didn't commit either way but did take my card and said she would contact me on Monday.  Hopefully I'll hear from her and maybe get my first gallery of photos for sale up on the Sagewood Site.

Other work - I was asked to shoot some staff photos for my employer.  Technically, I guess you could say this is paid work, since I am salaried, but I'm not choosing to call it that.  It was an opportunity though to test my mobile studio set up.  I pretty much had a conference room set up with standing lights and reflectors in about a half hour and then shot sporadically over the next 3 hours.  It was actually a pretty small shoot considering the number of employees who had to be photographed (about 20 or so), but the good side of it was a lot of my coworkers got to see me working and the equipment I was working with and it helped (I hope) to drill home the idea that this isn't just intended to be a hobby.

I do have one coworker who has asked me to shoot some family portraits for her (she's trying to work out a date) and others who have hinted that they might be interested.  We'll see if any of that pans out.

So yesterday I was photographing a first communion ceremony and passing out business cards.  On Thursday I photographed a school canoe outing.  Two more unpaid engagements under my belt.  I've been joking with Patty that I'm rapidly becoming an unpaid success.

But I need the experience so I don't mind so much, and I've been pretty much on my own trying to figure this all out.  I have been taking scads more pictures than I have actually uploaded to flickr, mostly because the people depicted haven't given permission for me to upload them, so what I can upload is limited.  The experience shooting and working with subjects has been great.  Now I'd like to experience getting paid.

For the short term (maybe the next couple years, maybe longer) I have decided to sign up for a turnkey service which will allow me to put my photos in web galleries where people can order prints.  Since these galleries can be password-protected for security, I'm currently negotiating with a local school who has had me in to shoot four of their events to let me put these events up in secure galleries so that parents can buy prints.

I chose Exposure Manager to be my turnkey service after comparing and contrasting several such services.  Since I'm kind of not feeling well today and wasn't going out anywhere, I finally signed up and then went back to beef up my languishing Sagewood Studios website.  It's still unfinished of course, but it looks better than it did.  Assuming people start hiring me for portraits and other work, I will be able to get a better handle on pricing and so forth and put more information up there.

There's a link there to a "test gallery".  Ultimately there will be links to real galleries, but you can click the link if you want to see what a typical Sagewood Studios gallery will look like (the password for this gallery is "test"--obviously not secure at all... I just chose that password so I can demonstrate how the security works).  The turnkey service automatically watermarks my photos to keep people from just copying them off the website, and lets me decide what products will be available, and how they will be priced.  The service will process the orders and handle the printing and shipping direct to the customer.  After the printing and shipping is paid for, they take a percentage of my profit in exchange for providing the service (plus an annual fee) and cut me a check at the beginning of each month.

If it works out, I may contact other local schools and see if they have any interest in having me photograph their events.  We'll see.  As far as being hired outright I have at least one serious lead from a coworker who wants me to do a family portrait for her and is willing to pay.  That's something at least.  Start small and all that.

Anyway, I'm staying positive and I'm loving the shooting.

Here's a funny animation I caught on Pharyngula, the excellent science blog by P.Z. Myers.  The audio is German, but there are subtitles.  I got a kick out of it, perhaps you will too?

Das Rad

Friends and readers, ULev has acquired its own troll.  I should feel flattered I guess, but this coward is such a scumbag he's not above leaving anonymous comments insulting my daughter.  What does this mean for everyone else?  From now on once you post a comment it will be sent to me for moderation.  This means it will not appear on the blog until I approve it.  I apologize for the delay.  Thank the asshole.

Kicks ass.

Weird video though.

I was listening to NPR Science Friday on podcast a few nights ago and caught an interesting segment detailing a recent discovery regarding bacteria found in soil.  It has been demonstrated (for example, by the discovery of the nylon bug) that bacteria in the presence of an abundance of one substance or another may evolve to be able to metabolize that substance... even if the substance is synthetic.  It's also been shown that bacteria in the constant presence of antibiotics will evolve immunity.

These newly discovered soil bacteria have done both.  That is, not are they only immune to a disturbingly long list of known antibiotics, they have evolved to the point where they can actually eat antibiotics.  The Royal Society of Chemisty has an article on this recent discovery:

[...] The soil samples were taken from many different places [in the USA] including public parks and farms, pristine forest, and land treated with wastewater.

'The increase of multiple-antibiotic resistance in human pathogens is continuingly weakening our ability to fight infectious disease, and any accessible reservoir of resistance mechanisms that could transfer to pathogens could exacerbate the problem,' say Dantas and Sommer.  

So far, the researchers haven't found any known human pathogens among their antibiotic-consuming organisms, but they say that some are closely related species. This might make it rather easy for pathogens to acquire antibiotic-resistance and antibiotic-metabolising genes from innocuous bacteria. [...]

Scary stuff!  But rather unsurprising since antibiotics get into the environment every day through their continued use.

The segment on the antibiotic-munching bacteria was followed by another segment on an alternative form of antibacterial treatment called phage therapy.  Phage therapy, instead of using chemical substances to combat bacteria, uses viruses, specifically bacteriophages--viruses that only infect bacteria.  This sort of therapy was predicted shortly after the discovery of bacteriophages in 1917.  Once antibiotics were discovered (in 1941) phage therapy wasn't pursued further in the west, but continued to be studied in Russia.

The advantage of phage therapy is that the anti-bacterial agent is also a living organism, so as bacteria evolve to become immune to it, the phage species also evolves to continue to prey on the bacteria.  Antibiotics, being chemical compounds, do not evolve, hence eventually bacterial evolution will defeat an antibiotic unless you can rapidly deplete the bacterial population to the point where your own immune system can fight off the infection successfully.  As bacteria with antibiotic resistance can be found in the environment, and people have been infected with resistant strains, there is apparently renewed interest in phage therapy.

No human phage treatments are presently approved in the USA, though the use of phages to prevent bacteria from growing in food have been approved here.  Phage therapy on humans is used in some states of the former USSR, especially Georgia.  In the NPR podcast linked above the scientists interviewed spoke of a patient with a resistant bone infection that was successfully treated using bacteriophages after being told here in the USA that amputation was his only recourse.  Interesting!

"What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous ... it's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God. Get out of that seat ... You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon."

-- Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago), speaking to atheist Rob Sherman

If Rob Sherman was a Jew or a Muslim or a Methodist or anything but an atheist, Representative Monique Davis would be openly castigated from every direction (and deservedly so).  But it's okay to hate atheists here.  Welcome to my country.

Mr. Sherman was testifying to the Illinois House State Government Administration Committee about a one million dollar grant slated to go to a Baptist church that was trying to rebuild from a fire.  As you know churches already don't pay taxes, so it seems rather curious that anyone would think it okay for tax money to go to a church--especially in a country where church and state are supposed to be separate.  The grant money story is pretty smelly all on its own, but I am not at all surprised that any outspoken atheist would have an opinion on the matter, and might choose to testify to government bodies on the matter.

But Monique Davis feels otherwise.  She feels atheists have no right to testify to the American government.  And for that matter we are destroyers, and dangerous to children.  And it's okay to censor or silence us.  Oh and the country was founded on Christian principles.

How does someone like this even get elected in the first place? Shame on you Monique Davis.  You madam, are no Democrat.

Hat tip to the excellent science blog Pharyngula for the story.  You won't be hearing about it on Fox.

Today the lady of my life is another year older.

Happy birthday hon!

Let's go out to breakfast! 

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