What I don't have is interest.  There's a lot going on in my life, and I'd rather get on with it than write about it.  Besides I doubt anybody really wants to read about it.  So I've been neither writing in my blog, nor really reading the blogs of others.  I check in on Aces Full and Pandora's Tea Room every now and again, but that is pretty much it.  I post on MOTL every now and again, but not too frequently now that the werewolf games were cancelled due to people taking them too seriously.

What's been occupying my time is my photography business.  It seems to be picking up, which is great, because I simply love this work.  I did a school dance in February, and a photoshoot for an aspiring actor.  In May I did a costume shoot for a dance school which is the first shoot I've done where I can unequivocably say that I made pretty good money.

June's been hopping.  I did a graduation shoot for a relative (no money, but I did some networking at the school while I was there that might turn into business), and a graduation party for the same relative.  This past Thursday night I shot the dress rehearsal for a stage production of a dance interpretation of Peter Pan.  Friday night I shot the eighth grade dance of a middle school in southeastern Massachusetts.  Then Saturday I shot the 1PM and 7PM performances of Peter Pan (42 Gb of pix in one day... yowza!)

I wrote about this a little bit on a message forum, so I figured I'd share that here.

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June 12, 2009 11:01 AM

Last night's shoot went well but I am exhausted. I took a chance and produced a 36" x 24" (poster size) print of the main cast (with some added text) and it came out GREAT. I was amazed. I expected at that size the image would be very fuzzy--you know "stand a few feet away and it will look fine". Nope, it was nice and sharp. About 90 minutes of post production and cost about $50 to print, and I gave it to the dance school director as a gift.

She went positively gaga over it and hung it immediately as a poster for her show. The kids loved it too.

Of course I had a couple totally unrealistic parents come up to me after the show asking if I "had any extras" or would "give them one". "These are quite expensive to print. Of course I can have one made and shipped to you but it would cost $100." "Oh forget it then." LOL. It's so hard to make money in this business unless you are doing weddings or products. For the costume shoot I spent 8 hours shooting, and 50 hours in post production. My total profit after printing and shipping was $800--that's $13.75 per hour and no matter what price you charge people think it's too much.

Anyway the dress rehearsal shoot went great, apart from the 580 EX burning though batteries like there's no tomorrow. 4.5 hours of shooting, 1,105 pictures, 30 batteries eaten. I picked up a digital frame and loaded it with a bunch of work I've done over the last couple years and set that up next to the fliers--that got some attention. I had a number of people come up to me after the show and tell me how much they loved my work, which is always nice. We'll see if they still love me when I raise my prices next year. 

So tonight I have a middle school dance to shoot, and then tomorrow I have to shoot the performances that I went to the dress rehearsal for. Busy few days!

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June 13, 2009 1:55 AM

Tonight's Middle School Dance shoot was exhausting but fun. These kids were different that the kids at my daughter's middle school--they were a lot stiffer... nobody danced for like the first 90 minutes. I was like WTF? Heck I wanted to put the camera down and dance myself. The DJ was great, all the tunes were current.

This was an 8th grade dance and soon the kids will all be going off to different highschools so there was a lot of emotionality... a lot of kids were crying toward the end... that doesn't exactly make for a nice photo.

Kids at my daughter's art school are also more hammy for the camera, these kids pretty much constantly ducked and hid whenever the camera showed up. This behavior drives me nuts, I'm being paid to shoot the dance, these kids are bawling that they're not going to see their friends again, and they're not going to have pictures of their friends to remember because they're too busy responding to the camera in the way they've been trained to respond "ooh don't take my picture I look ugly". You just want to say "Jesus, grow up already." Sometimes I say to them "this may come as a surprise, but we can all see you... we already know what you look like." No matter, I just switched to the 200mm and shot long... you get nice closeups that way and the kids don't know who is being photographed.

All in all I think it went well. Two big shoots tomorrow... man am I beat.

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June 13, 2009 9:44 AM

Fell out of bed about 8:20... showered, shaved, and will be heading out for the third and biggest of this weeks three shoots. What an exhausting time this has been! No flash today ('cept before and after) so I shouldn't need a frickin' gross of AA batts...

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June 14, 2009 7:37 PM

Yesterday's shoots were positively EXHAUSTING! But I think it went well. At the end of the afternoon performance I knew I was in trouble tho... I had shot 20+ Gb of pictures, and I only had 22 Gb in CF cards with me. I had time before the 7PM performance so I went to best buy and purchased another 20 Gb of CF memory (1x 8 GB, 3x 4 Gb). During the second performance I shot the entire remaining 22 Gb. For the after photos I had to switch from RAW to JPG, and pull out my old "emergency card"--a 512 mB card that I've often questioned why I still carry it. Thank heavens I had it!

But 42 jigglebytes in a single day is some outrageous shooting. About 3,500 pictures. Sorting through this is going to be fun. Lightroom is chewing on them now and probably will be until tomorrow.

Emma was able to perform as Peter Pan, which was nice, though she had to hold back and give a slightly more subdued performance to prevent further injury to her ankle. It was nice seeing her dance at all though.

The "movie poster" was a big hit. About 700 people filed past it and every time I went out into the hall to shoot candids there were people looking at it and my digital frame (yay!). The thing I liked best was when I caught the dancers looking at it, they really liked it and it made for some nice photos. Have I mentioned how much I love this work?

I got more compliments and requests on Saturday, some people looking to buy the poster print. I added it to the show gallery and enabled large format printing options (and T-shirts, which my lab has begun to offer).

So now begins the long slog of post processing. But with so many pictures to choose from I should be able to come up with some that are sure to please. And the post work should be hella easier than the costume shoot was.

Gonna be a lot of busy nights tho... but not today, today I am recuperating... 12 hours of driving over the last 3 days, getting home every night after 1 AM, sore as heck from shooting...

(Good news, I had two orders today from earlier galleries. Yay! Only $70 but I'm taking it as a good sign.)

Wow am I beat. But it's a good kind of beat, when you feel like you accomplished something.

On a quick run through the performance photos I found a nice little series. Peter Pan was not on a wire, so she got about by making beautiful acrobatic leaps. I managed to snap a series of leaps (on the tail end of the leap as she was coming down) as she leapt around the dancer playing the part of Wendy Darling. In the series it looks like Peter is flying...  Sweet!

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Sheesh!  Time to get back to work.  Talk to you guys later today.  I'll keep checking the outstanding states and senate seats.

If you are a US citizen and planning to vote I could use your help. During each presidential election I run a blogathon and one thing I like to do is publish "polling station reports". Basically I have friends and acquaintances drop me an e-mail after they vote to tell me about their experience at the polls. I'm looking to do the same thing this year, and I'd love to get poll reports from any of my friends or readers who are interested in helping out.

Though my blog is very opinionated, the poll reports are not intended to be partisan--I'm not asking who you voted for or why. The sort of info I would be looking for is:

1. Where did you vote (City/State--even if you voted absentee):

2. What date and time of day:

3. What were the conditions like? (i.e. was it crowded or deserted, chaotic or organized, did you have to wait a long time, were the staff professional, were they nice or rude, what kind of location was being used for voting--i.e. gymnasium, school, post office, church, etc.)

4. If your station used voting machines, did they seem to be working or were they out of order? What sort of machines were they (hole-punch, optical scanner, touch-screen, etc.)?

5. Were you the subject of (or did you witness) a voter challenge? If so what was that like?

6. If you voted early or by absentee ballot, how did that work out?

7. Anything else you want to add.

This should basically boil down to a few lines in e-mail. Doesn't matter if you cover all of the points above--basic idea is to say where you voted and what it was like. I will likely edit/digest reports I receive for grammar and clarity before posting them to my blog.

If you are interested in helping out, please drop me an e-mail with your poll report after you vote on November 4. Poll reports should be sent to: pollreport@plastereddragon.com. That e-mail address will be disabled on November 5. All reports should be sent on November 4th (or earlier if you voted early/absentee)--the idea is to log things as they happen.

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.

It's funny that James wrote about this today, because I wrote about it last night on a discussion forum.  I'm pleased that James and I saw the same videos and came to the same conclusions.  If you haven't heard, a young man (Andrew Meyer) caused a disruption at a John Kerry Q&A forum and finally was removed by the police.  During his removal he became more combative and resisted the officers which ended up getting him arrested and finally tasered as it was the only way to get him to stop shouting and remove him from the hall.  Predictably (I suppose) people have seen an editted version of the video that makes Mr. Meyer look like more of a victim than he actually was and the most outspoken conclusions I see on YouTube basically boil down to "he asked a question 'they' didn't like so he was tasered and arrested, wake up America, we are living in a dictatorship".  *yawn*

Anyway, here's what I wrote on a discussion forum where someone had posted the editted version of the video under the heading "A Most Terrifying Video":

The video was editted to make the kid look more like a victim than he was. There is a more complete video with commentary that makes the kid's behavior easier to see through and makes the cops behavior more understandable:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1na1hcGQCHg

I'm a liberal and I believe in civil liberties. The kid was totally in control of that situation, he WANTED a big scene and he got it. He was totally playing to the cameras.

The cops were standing behind him because he had a reputation for causing trouble at public events. The moment he took the mic and began speaking one of the college officials went to the police and said "he's a troublemaker, watch out". This made the police suspicious of him. At one point a police officer told him to finish his question and let Kerry answer, he responded rudely (through the mic so everyone could hear) and continued. As Kerry tried to answer the boy's first question, he ignored Kerry and launched into his second question. It was clear at that point he was there to talk not to Kerry, but to the crowd.

Well it's cool if you want to talk to a crowd. You can put a video on YouTube, or you can schedule your own rally and see who shows up, but you can't just grab the mic, take the floor, and talk whatever crap you want as if it is your show. It's not your show and the organizers are going to eject you if you won't play nicely, which they attempted to do at the end of his THIRD question which is the part you got to see. No surprises there.

All this boy had to do is say "sorry officer, I'll cooperate" and in all likelihood they would explain to him why they were ejecting him the moment they got him out of the room. Which by the way, they did, except you don't get to see that because the video that was posted at the top of the thread doesn't include it. Heck, if he had cooperated they probably would have let him go at the door.

This video does show his detainment once they get him outside the room:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7NWukZhsiBw

Watch that video where he reveals by his own behavior just how much of a neurotic nut he is:

"They're going to give me to the government! They're going to kill me!"

Those of you who think its actually okay to scream HELP HELP and WHY WHY when a police officer has decided to detain you should take heed: when the police arrest you, they are allowed to hold you and don't have to charge you with ANYTHING for 48 hours. That is the law of this country. If you don't agree with it, please contact your representatives and work to get the law changed. If a police officer tries to escort you out of a building, you DO NOT have a right to know why. If a police officer chooses to arrest you, you do not have a right to be told immediately why you have been arrested. If a cop tells you "stop shouting, and stop resisting me or I am going to arrest you (or taser you)" and you choose to continue shouting and resisting, well duh, do the math.

The rights you do have upon arrest are read to you in long form, or in the abbreviated form:

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to be speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense."

Did you see "you have the right to know why you are being arrested" or "you have the right to scream loudly and resist arrest"? Me neither. That's because we don't have those rights.

It's a shame this boy provoked the police into tasering him by repeatedly refusing to cooperate. I'm sorry he got tasered, but freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom to disrupt a political rally. Watch the full video and pay attention to the commentary, and watch the second video that shows what happens outside, how he keeps craning his neck so he can shout to the cameras... because he's all about the cameras.

1. http://youtube.com/watch?v=1na1hcGQCHg

2. http://youtube.com/watch?v=7NWukZhsiBw

I'm trying not jump to conclusions (paranoia is unhealthy). As far as I can see, this boy orchestrated what happened to him through his own behavior and could have put a stop to it at any time.

There are a lot of affronts to free speech in this country, serious ones that we should be concerned about ("free speech zones" for example: http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/08/04/hilden.freespeech/index.html), but this nut and his bad performance art does not qualify. He should have been ejected, and he was.

BTW, the "Commonplaces" album has its own feed if you want to follow it:

http://unbecominglevity.blogharbor.com/blog/Photos/Commonplaces/index.xml

Those of you that enjoy the thoroughly wonderful blog Aces Full of Links (which is written by my friend James) have probably noticed it seemed to be down for most of the day today, and now although visible is not available for commenting.  James is having server issues and asks that you please bear with him while he gets things back in order.

Here's to you Aces Full.  Get well soon!

So the other day I was commenting on a blog where the authors were working on a new layout.  I spotted some strange wrapping issues and uploaded a screenshot of my browser window for them to look at.  Repeatedly, whenever the screenshot was on the screen, I caught myself trying to click the browser's back button in the screenshot.  Needless to say, each time I did this was followed by a disjointed moment of confusion where I wondered why it wasn't working.  Is my browser locked up?  What's going on?  After a second or so the realization would come.  You dummy, that's not your browser, that's a picture of your browser.

I think it served as a reminder of how much we do automatically once we've "learned" to do it.  The entire metaphor--hand to mouse, mouse to cursor, cursor to back button, click--all automatic and interpretted by the brain as "go back".

Anyway, next time I upload a screenshot of the browser, I think I'll leave the menu and toolbar out of it.