Domina · Fortuna

I think I'm going to finally get rid of this thing and start a new blog somewhere else. When I do I'll post a link. I'm sure the servers can use the freeing up of several years worth of whining and photos. I'm pretty sure all ya'll are on my facebook anyway. I'm tired of posting things that don't get read and I'm tired of the lack of activity (I want madness people!). Not sure when I'll get around to getting a new blog, if I decide to at all (really it's just annoying having so many things to update) but this thing will probably be gone by the end of the month (if I remember).
lates.

I was holding a sign, you are hot - m4w - 42 (Ft collins)

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Date: 2009-10-15, 10:22AM MDT

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I was holding a Distinct Painting sign at Horsetooth and College Wednesday afternoon. I saw hundreds of attractive ladies , did any of you see me? I would like to get together for a good time. We could go biking , hiking or whatever. If you want to go further, I might consider that too. I won't attach pics because you have already seen me.

• Location: Ft collins

In this digital age where everyone has digital cameras, scanners and home "photo printers", when people upload their photos to a local drug store website and pick them up a few hours later, we hear this all the time - How in the world do Professional Photographers charge $55 for an 8x10 when they cost just $1.50 at the drug store?

Here's why.

Simply put, you're not just paying for the actual photograph, you're paying for time and expertise. First, let's look at the actual time involved. If you don't read this entire page, at least read this first part.

For a two hour portrait session:

- one hour of travel to and from the session
- two hours of shooting
- 30 minutes of setup, preparation, talking to the client etc.
- 30 minutes to load the photos onto a computer (2 - 4 Gb of data)
- 30 minutes to back up the files on an external drive
- 3 - 4 hours of Photoshop time including cropping, contrast, color, sharpening, saving a copy for print and a copy for the internet and backing up the edited photographs
- 2 - 3 hours to talk to the client, answer questions, receive their order and payment, order their prints, receive and verify prints, package prints, schedule shipment and drop package off at Fed Ex.
- For local customers, we also print a set of all of their photos, and meet them at our studio to review the photos and place their order. Meeting and travel time averages 2 hours.

You can see how one two hour session easily turns into more than ten hours of work from start to finish. So when you see a Photographer charging a $200 session fee for a two hour photo shoot, you are not paying them $100 / hour.

For an eight hour wedding:

- I won't bore you with the details, but an eight hour wedding typically amounts to at least two to three full 40 hour work weeks worth of time. Again, if they are charging you $4,000 for an eight hour wedding, you are not paying them $500 / hour.

Now for the expertise.

Shooting professional photography is a skill, acquired through years of experience. Even though a quality camera now costs under $2,000 taking professional portraits involves much more than a nice camera.

Most Professional Photographers take years to go from buying their first decent camera to making money with their photography. In addition to learning how to use the camera itself, there is a mountain of other equipment involved, as well as numerous software programs used to edit and print photographs, run a website etc.

And let's not forget that you actually have to have people skills, be able to communicate, make people comfortable in front of the camera - and posing people to make them look their best in a photograph is a skill all by itself.

Think of it this way - the next time you pay $X to get your hair done, a pair of scissors only costs $1.50. But you gladly pay a lot more to hire a Professional.

What about the cheap studios at the mall?

Please don't compare us to the chain store studios. But if you must, consider all of the time and work that we put into our photographs, compared to what they do. Good luck getting a two hour photo shoot at a chain store. Not to mention they won't come to the beach! And of course, look at our work compared to theirs. You get what you pay for.

The truth is, most of the mall and chain store studios lose money. In fact, in 2007 Wal-Mart closed 500 of their portrait studios because of the financial drain they were putting on the company. What the chain stores bet on is that you'll come in for some quick and cheap photos, and while you're there, you'll also spend $200 on other things. They don't have to make money, they are just there to get you in the door.

Conclusion

We hope that those who have taken the time to read this page will have a better understanding of why professional photographs cost so much more than the ones that you get from your local drug store.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.



Shawn, Pamela & Gavin Richter
Caught on Film Photography






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I came up with this idea when I heard NASA shot rockets into the moon in search of water, which completely creaped me out.

I'm pondering the point of having a journal when a lot of what I want to say is held back because I know so many of you personally. There are things that have happened within the last several months that have effected me so deeply (and I guess this is the case with a lot of things throughout my life) that I would almost rather share them with strangers rather than risk someone involved even seeing it. The main reason being that no matter how much I say, no matter how much I try to show people who I am and how I am processing the things I'm experiencing it will be taken the wrong way. Some of you have known me for years and still you have no idea who I am or where I'm coming from. It's like I'm speaking a foreign language.  And I know some of you only have me on your friend list to be nice, it's not like we talk anymore or spend a lot of time together. Not that I don't still care about those people but I feel like maybe anything I'm writing about just reads like a pathetic drama you roll your eyes at late in the evening when you have nothing better to do. We all know I'm shitty about keeping in touch. And I know once I feel hated I don't really feel it necessary to beat a dead horse.
Tonight I realized that over the past year, almost exactly, I've felt like I'm in a constant warp-speed state of transition. I have high highs and low lows and recently I've found it extremely difficult to keep myself balanced. I feel sad, betrayed, heartbroken, like I've failed, like I'm running away, and yet at the same time I'm looking at this entire situation as the perfect opportunity to go and get something bigger and better. The stronger side of me has been wanting to leave for a long time . I've recognized that part of the reason I'm stuck in the position that I am is because I've refused to settle for the things I know will not make me happy. I've refused to allow myself to get stuck the way I have in the past. Of course I would have liked the change to be a little more comfortable, especially in the financial realm, but I also know that if I were in a good financial position right now I wouldn't have such a fever pitch momentum towards the door.
I'm leaving Fort Collins Saturday morning. I'll be vising (trust me there's absolutely nothing to do in Loveland) but once I get on my feet I'm heading towards Boulder and then most likely out of state. I feel a little sad and for some reason I feel partially ashamed: that cynical side of me is saying "you failed". But that's not all of me. I'm also almost relieved in a sense. Part of me can't get out fast enough. I want to shove all the responsibilities aside and hop on a plane to see where it takes me. I know that's not something I can do just yet but I know what I need in order to do it and that's something I'm working towards.
  A brilliant man once said that you are not free until you stop considering other people. He wasn't saying to consider them as in have care and understanding for them, rather  that you shouldn't factor everyone's judgments into your decisions. That you shouldn't allow yourself to get sidetracked if other people have emotional attachments to what you are doing. I thought I was free of that until I faced the decision not to come back to fort collins. and I thought I was free of that until everything really started to get hard for me. When I started to emotionally fold under the pressure of everything that's happened since the beginning of the year. It's trial by fire right now and I'm doing the best I can to summon that strength. It's hard not to do that without being angry. 
The real test has been setting aside the judgments I have on myself for what I have in the past view as my own short comings. I know that I have done the best that I can with what I've had, I know that I had broken down under the pressure and the fear at times but for coming into my independent years with the wrong tools entirely I have done pretty damn well considering. I recognize that part of my earlier resistance to leaving was partly due to my emotional attachment to some of the wonderful people in this city. I've always spent a lot of time by myself and I think part of me is afraid to go somewhere where I don't know anyone. Though I've done it many times before, back then I had my family with me. It's hard to determine right now if I really do want to get as far away as possible or if I could settle for just being a few cities over.
This isn't meant to be some sobby farewell. I wanted to write this as if I knew only strangers would read it, the way I did when I was younger. And that could very well be the case. I find it slightly pathetic that I don't feel the freedom to be able to communicate the disappointment and the anger that I have experienced over the past several months. Some of the unbelievably mindless assumptions people have made about me and the sadness that I felt over it is immense. And it happened over and over again in so many different situations. I also find it sad that I can't do the same with some of the beautiful and wonderful things that I know I can only keep with me because it's my own experiences that have led me to find these things as amazing as I do. Is it possible to communicate who you are, to the greatest of you capacity at the present state of your development, succesfully? And is it really that hard to be steadfast in a state of strength and self trust to a point where those moments of fear and weakness and self pity are nothing but fleeting moments in bad times? I have days on end where I can be there. I've had entire months where I felt nothing but absolute calm and faith. Hard times start to creep into the cracks of my pretty little world and suddenlty I'm chicken little recognizing old fears with new faces and I'm crying myself to sleep at night. It takes me a while to get back on track, to find my balance again. To find my head. And some nights I find it and wake up the next morning with all that fear dancing around my head only to start all over again. Once you find that strength you never want to let go, and yet letting go is exactly what it is. In the biggest sense of the term. It's a little lame to recognize the pattern and still be afraid of it when you know it can't hurt you.

My gripe with craigs list today is something that I'm sure is a bit specialized but I can't help but say something about this. I keep seeing ads for graphic design artists with experience with CS3-specifically Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign. Of course, they're the staples of the graphic design world but Quark? Seriously? Who the hell still uses Quark? And why the hell would you be using it if you're already trained in Indesign? You can do the same and more in InDesign. Really, I don't get it.

Annoying post of the day-
In the Art/Media/Design section there's a post asking for a Macy's Christmas Tree decorator. Yeah, that's art right there, a predesigned display that you can't pay your employees enough to want to do. No, that's not a slap in the face at all.

So,.. I just got laid off. I was late the other day because my car didn't start so I had to ride my bike, I called in to let them know. I was twelve minutes late and I called my boss to let her know. Luckily I'm officially "let go" and not fired on the books so I have a referance (thank god, I was there for over a year) and I got paid for today since I showed up. My tab was canceled out as a severance gift and now I'm free to pack my things and move back in the with rents. Or somehow find another job and stay here until the lease is up. We'll see.

I've decided to post this since I used to think everyone knew it and now i'm finding hardly any one does. Whether you use a digital point and shoot or a Pro DSLR there is one thing you MUST do before taking pictures on a new memory card (SD, compact flash, XD, etc)- FORMAT YOUR CARD.
Your camera uses software to translate an image into code, every camera has it's own way of doing this and if you don't format the card, all those awesome pictures you took might not ever make it to your computer, much less posted on flickr or myspace album. Check your user manual to find out how to navigate to this tool. I recommend that everyone read thier user manual front to back when using a new camera because you can not only miss out on a lot of really important information about your specific brand of camera but you can also be missing out on all the bad ass stuff it can do. Most people flip the the parts that they want to learn rather than really reading all of it (I know it can get boring but you don't want to find out a year down the road that those pictures you took on vacation could have been a million times better if you had known what white balance meant).
When you delete files from your camera without formatting the card information is still stored on the card. If you have a problem reading the files there are plenty of programs available that can do a card recovery and pull up this lost information , but it's not a guarantee that the files will be usable. Formatting the card will wipe all of the information off the card. The way I manage the card information is when I have filled up a card, or I have pictures from a whole concert that I want to keep together, I plug the card into my computer (you can get a multi card reader at best buy for about ten bucks. it plugs into your usb port and you can copy the photos directly onto your hard drive. completely worth it. ) and copy the files into a folder titled whatever it was I was shooting. When I'm positive that all of the files have made their way onto the hard drive I eject the card and put it back into my camera. I have made it a habit to format my card before I start shooting whenever I go out. Just have to make sure it's information you have already backed up.
I know I could have said "format your card" and be done with it but after having about four customers a week come into the store with complaints of "the cards not working at the kiosks in target" to "oh my god you have to help me I can't read my photos on my computer and these were pictures of my friends wedding in europe" it gets to be something that needs to be addressed. I'm amazed at how many people take photos of some of the most important events of their lives and they haven't bothered to figure out how to use the camera their taking them with. From this being the first and most basic step in the process to making sure your resolution is set properly, to understanding the difference between how you monitor is calibrated and how the print vendors differs from that, every step counts towards the finished product. (seriously people, I get one more 'pro' coming in with a 5x7 at 72 dpi wanting a poster size print I'm going to loose it)