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NECCC: Photography Galore!

UMass

On the weekend of July 11-13, I traveled to UMass Amherst to attend the 63rd annual conference of the New England Camera Club Council. This was my first time attending a photography conference of any kind, as well as my first experience with anything camera club related. Here are my reflections on the weekend in 5×5 format.

Five things I liked:

Opportunity to photograph models outdoors, with signed model releases, so I can use the photos in my portfolio. Unfortunately, most of the models didn’t really fit what I’m looking for in my own portfolio, but I do think I got some good shots that I’ll be able to add.
Session called “Behind the Scenes of Nature Photography” with David Middleton. He showed various iterations of a scene until he reached the “final shot” and described how he got there. It was pretty cool to be able to hear his thought processes, and the criteria he used to decide what to eliminate and what to keep in various shots. As a bonus, David was a very entertaining and listenable presenter. Great personality.
Session called “Modeling Perspectives” with Peggy Arbene, Skip Hoyt, Paul Smith, and Gordon Yu. They went over how to do lighting, backgrounds, pose models, and how to assess and plan for a portrait shoot. I don’t have a whole lot of experience with portrait photography, and I got a lot of useful information in this session.
Session called “Digital Workflow: The Rest of the Iceberg” by Jim Craner. Offered some nice tips on how to organize and manage large collections of photos, and how to plan for various conditions out in the field. Jim also had excellent presentation technique (as he said, thanks to his many years of teaching middle school), and wasn’t afraid to demonstrate his technical knowledge in an educational and palatable way.
Opportunity to to essentially immerse myself in photography for a whole weekend. I carried my camera around with me everywhere, and stopped at any opportunity that I felt like photographing something.

Five things I didn’t like:

Didn’t receive the pre-arrival packet until after I got home from the weekend. It contained such useful information as where to park, a map, a parking pass, information on extra things to bring to the dorm, etc. This would have made my arrival and time on campus a bit less stressful. It took me about an hour from the time I drove into the campus to the time I settled in to my dorm room. I realize that I registered late for the conference (July 1), but still, that should have been enough time to get a packet out to me before July 11. Perhaps in the future they could send the contents of the packet via email, as a PDF or something. That would be more expedient.
NECCC website wasn’t very useful during the weekend. They should have kept it up-to-date with information on schedule changes, happenings, photos from the events, and information on the models. In general, I didn’t get the impression that the NECCC is a very internet-savvy organization. They should be using things like Facebook, Twitter, flickr and some sort of Wiki software to help organize and distribute their information, build an online community, and draw in the younger and more tech-savvy crowd. It also wouldn’t hurt for them to hire the services of a professional web designer and developer. I can recommend several good ones.
There was a wireless network on campus, but the NECCC didn’t promote it in any way that I could see. I had to ask about it at one of the registration desks and then get a slip of paper with information on how to access the network. This would be another thing that could help draw in the tech-savvy crowd.
The dorm and dining hall were located on one side of campus, while the conference was located in another part of campus. This required either a long walk or a bus ride, and the bus rides and bus stop locations weren’t strategically placed. For example, I would have expected a sign right outside of the dorm that said “Shuttle Bus” along with information on the schedule and route. I eventually found one of these posted somewhere inside, but this was after I had already gotten through most of the weekend. Even more annoying, at lunch breaks, I had to walk all the way over to the dining hall and then all the way back to attend the next session.
Most of the models that they hired to do the model shoots were not dressed very tastefully, at least in my opinion. I don’t know whether that was the models’ decision or the organizers’, but in any case, I don’t think I’d care to use most of the model shots in my portfolio. I realize that other people may have different goals and tastes for their own work, and if the reactions of the other photographers were any indication, it seems like most people were okay with the models’ choice of wardrobe. Still, I would have preferred some of them to wear more modest and/or classy outfits.

Five things I learned:

Photographers who are trying to take photos to be entered in a contest are a very tense bunch. Always concerned about the subject appearing exactly the way they want, getting into conflict with others who are trying to photograph the same thing. Sure, it’s nice to get a good shot without distractions in the background, but have a little patience. Lighten up a bit and enjoy!
Perhaps as important as a photographer’s skill in image capture is his or her ability to get to the right place at the right time. Many an impressive photograph are impressive in large part because the photographer had the funding and wherewithal to get to an incredible location at the right time.
I’ve definitely learned that my interests in photography tend toward photojournalism. For example, I was more interested in photographing the photographers who were photographing the models, than I was in actually photographing the models themselves. I just don’t have the interest in setting up a perfect shot with everything in the right place. I prefer to capture situations as they occur, and try to tell the story of what was happening as I saw it, and usually that doesn’t involve waiting until everything is just right.
I’d rather take photos of regular people like friends and family than photos of professional (or semi-professional) models. They tend to have more personality and are more fun to work with. There were a few exceptions to this, however, most notably Audra, who is a recent mom.
I learned how to observe and prepare subjects for portrait shoots, how to interact and how to give direction and suggestions on how to pose.

Five photos of models:

Five photos of other things:

You can see a selection of other photos I took over the weekend in the gallery.

Build Guild: Web geekiness in Salem, MA

Last week, I attended the inaugural meetup of the Build Guild, a Salem, MA area meetup of web geeks. The meetup was held at the Salem Beer Works. Here are my reflections on the event in 5×5 format:

Five people I met (for the first time):

Five good things:

Location was theoretically convenient; only about a 10 minute drive under ideal conditions. (This time, I spent a few minutes getting lost on the streets of downtown Salem, literally just blocks away from the venue. I don’t drive into Salem often, okay?) Certainly used less gas than it takes to get to Boston or Newburyport.
Good food at the Beer Works.
Enjoyed talking to various geeky people about geeky and non-geeky topics.
Gained insight into the working habits of non-corporate developers.
Great hosts Marc and Angelo made sure that everyone was welcomed and enjoying themselves.

Five not-as-good things:

Venue was a bit on the noisy side.
Sometimes I couldn’t tell who the Build Guild people were, since we had spilled into the general bar area and mixed with the regular restaurant patrons.
Got crowded at the peak and was hard to move around and interact.
I got lost on the way there (this is the City of Salem’s fault for poor signage, not the Build Guild’s).
Low lighting didn’t make for the greatest photographic setting, at least not with my camera (this is the Beer Works’ fault/choice to set the ambience, but I can still complain, can’t I?).

Five Observations:

Salem has a lot to offer young hipsters: coffee shops, bars, restaurants, social opportunities, public transportation, cheap apartments.
Apparently many (most?) large corporations no longer retain their own development staff. Put another way, most of the people I talked to that evening were freelancers or worked for design or consulting agencies. This made me feel a bit out of place, coming from a company that has a large, in-house development staff. I’m also speculating that another reason I saw more freelance/agency types is that many corporate-employed developers don’t see the need to go out and meet with developers from other companies. In many ways, I don’t really need to attend an event like Build Guild as much as others. At work, we have a large group of developers with diverse talents and interests, and a lot of experience, so we are constantly in the process of learning from each other. We also work only for one client, our company, so there is no need to look for gigs or other outside work. And since we rarely hire outside help or outsource any services, there isn’t much point in receiving sales pitches from people with services or software to sell. However, I believe that it’s still good to attend these things because how else can one learn about what else is out there, what ways other people are doing things, what technologies they’re using in their day-to-day work?
I actually spent less time talking about web development than I thought I would, and more time talking about topics like corporate organization, business process, and random things like photography and videography. Next time I’ll have to see if I can push Perl on anybody.
I’ve never thought of myself as a videographer, but after talking to Jason Hawkins for a while, I think I’ve come to realize that I am a dormant videographer. Videography and video editing takes a considerable amount of time, and since that’s something I don’t have right now, it’s simply something I don’t engage in. However, if I do ever get back that kind of time, it’s something I’ll definitely want to look in to.
Everyone says this, but it’s really surprising and awesome how many quality web design people there are in this area.

Five Photos I Took At Build Guild:

See more of my photos from the Build Guild at flickr.

July 4 Weekend

I hope that our American readers had a terrific July 4 weekend! We were on Martha’s Vineyard for the weekend with my in-laws. Though Rebecca, Catherine and I were all suffering from colds, we still managed to have a good time, with a trip to the beach, many games of croquet, sitting on the porch and rocking/swinging, and doing some web surfing thanks to the new wireless connection at the cottage. I also enjoyed a great many photographic opportunities. You can see more photos from the weekend.

This week I’m on my own, as Rebecca and Catherine are staying down on the island through this coming Sunday. I hope to get some work done in the basement, and am also looking forward to the Build Guild meetup of web developer/designer types in Salem on Tuesday night, and the NECCC Photography Conference this coming weekend.

Using shared email accounts?

Something that I don’t quite understand is when two people use a shared email address for both of their email communications. Most often I see a husband and wife who have an account together. I know that several of our family members use such shared accounts, so I’m certainly not trying to pick on anyone. I’m more curious than anything. Why, when it’s so easy and free to sign up for an individual email account, do some people prefer to share one? I can think of some pros and cons to sharing an email account:

Pros:

Ensures that email messages sent to one person are always read by the other (avoids forgetting to tell your spouse about an email you received).
Provides a single point of contact for friends and family members wishing to get a hold of the entire family.
Only one place to look to find email messages sent to your family.
May provide some measure of accountability by not allowing spouse/family members to receive unauthorized/secret email (though they could always secretly sign up for a separate account if they wanted to).

Cons:

Lack of privacy/secrecy for reading email messages. What if you want to plan a surprise party, via email, for one spouse without the other one knowing? Or purchase a gift for the other person and receive the receipt in secret?
Confusion as to the intended recipient, both incoming and outgoing. If I’m reading your email, and you forgot to sign your name, how do I know who it’s coming from? And if you’re reading an email I sent to you, but I forgot to address it to someone, how do you know who it’s for? Contextual clues might help at times, but not always.
Clutter in the inbox. Takes extra time to sort through messages. May result in many messages being unnecessarily read twice.

I’d be interested to hear from anyone who does use a shared email account. Why do you do it, and how do you manage things?

As an aside, Rebecca and I do have separate email addresses, but we also have a separate third address that other people can use if they want to email both of us. However, it’s not a separate account that we both check; rather, it is an email forwarding alias, so it simply sends a copy of the message to each of our individual accounts.

Walls ‘n’ goop ‘n’ such

Walls and goop

Ken and Dianne came over on Friday of last week to help with some more work in the basement. They got a lot of the drywall “gooping” done, and filled in a few remaining spots where DriCore was needed. We’ll need one more coat of goop, then we’ll have to paint, put up the door and trim, and put down flooring. Once that is all done, we’ll have the electrician come back to do his finish work, then we can get our finish inspections and move in! You can see some more photos of the wallboard and goop work.

IKEA flooring in the Legacy!

Speaking of flooring, we recently made a trip to IKEA to buy the flooring to use in the basement. We ended up buying 10 boxes of HEMSE oak-effect laminate flooring, which should cover just over 250 square feet, the size of the downstairs living room, landing, and laundry area. We were able to haul all of it in half of the cargo space in our station wagon. There are a few more photos from that trip.

I’m always amazed at how simple and hassle-free it is to buy stuff at IKEA. I can’t believe we can just walk into the store and drive away with 250 square feet of flooring without having to talk to a single person. I think it’s a testament to great design.

Summer Dress: the Sequel

The cute stripey dress I made last week (Yes, I think it is fabric from Ikea! Thanks, Kinda!) was really just a practice project for another dress that I’ve had in mind for some time now.

The story. (There’s always a story, isn’t there?) Way back in college…7 years ago… I bought a cute little skirt. I loved it and I wore it a lot and then all of a sudden I didn’t like it. I mean, I didn’t like it as a skirt anymore. I still loved the fabric and couldn’t bear to part with it.

From college, to my parents, to Beverly and finally to Danvers it traveled with no specific purpose in mind other than “someday I will use this fabric for something.” It survived massive rounds of purging and organizing and evaded many bags bound for the Salvation Army. “I will use this someday!” I continued to tell myself. The skirt’s saving grace was that it was small and light and easy to tuck into a box or drawer. By being so cute and being stealthy the skirt outlived all of its comrades.

With this dress as inspiration, I knew that my skirt was destined to become a summer dress for Catherine. Having already tested out my “trace the dress on the fabric, cut and sew” theory I went forward with confidence onto dress number two.

I was particularly careful with this dress, as I wanted to try and preserve the skirt’s original hem. I was successful and was also able to position the dress so that I could also make use of the original zipper right up the back! With this dress I only had to sew the side seams, finish the neck and arm holes and connect the shoulders. It really did work out quite nicely.

Reusable Tulle Produce Bags

Lately, I’ve been noticing that more and more people at our local Market Basket have been using reusable grocery bags. I think it is great! We’ve been using our cloth bags exclusively for some time now and have been very happy. Recently, I’ve decided that it is time to go whole hog and I’m no longer going to use those little plastic produce bags.

I’ve been putting larger or single items right in the top basket in my carriage, but it is hard to buy several lemons or green beans without putting them in a bag. Why not use a reusable bag for these items as well as the rest of my groceries? It’s a great idea and there are several mesh, gauze and tulle bags for sale out there specifically for this purpose.

But,before I buy anything I look to see if I have something that can serve the same purpose, or can be crafted to my needs. (then I try to find it secondhand from Freecycle or a Thrift Shop and lastly, I buy it new) In this case, I knew that I had some tulle in my fabric box that would fit the bill. It is a dark, hunter green tulle that I was especially happy to reuse. In fact, it has lived a couple lives already! It started out as a little shawl for my friend Joanna’s wedding. I wound up with three bridesmaid’s shawls and once we got back home they shawls quickly became window valances in our ‘office/sewing room/ nursery. They hung in the windows for the next five years! One of the three had a brief career as the arms of my Princess Fiona costume, Halloween 2006. They’ve been in a box since we moved just waiting for the perfect opportunity to be used again.

I made myself several little drawstring bags from the shawl/curtain/sleeves. Then I tucked them into my shopping bag where they sat until their maiden voyage today. I am happy to report that my new produce bags worked out quite nicely. The cashier didn’t even bat an eye as she rang up my tomatoes and other veggies. The tulle is strong enough to carry produce in and translucent enough to read the PLU numbers on the veggies’ stickers. Nice.

It will probably take a few more shopping trips before using these bags becomes second nature. I’m sure, though, that like recycling, shutting off the water while I brush and using canvas shopping bags, soon I’ll have forgotten how ‘new’ it was to bring my own produce bags.

Endicott Park Day

The Danvers Family Festival is underway here in the Town of Danvers, and today we started off with Endicott Park Day. There was a firemen’s muster in the morning, which actually turned out to be regular folks competing in a number of games involving fire equipment, but supervised by firemen. There was also a little carnival, with food, crafts, kids’ games, and entertainment. We enjoyed walking around and seeing the various activities, and also enjoyed some fairly inexpensive food. Hot dogs, sausages, and hamburgers (sponsored by Kelly’s Roast Beef) were only $1 each, including chips! And they were delicious! Catherine and I also enjoyed some ice cream from Goodie’s. Yum.

More photos here

Father’s Day Weekend, 2008

This past weekend, Rebecca, Catherine and I traveled up to Quechee, Vermont to see the Quechee Hot Air Balloon Festival. We camped out at Ascutney State Park, as the Quechee campground was full, but most of our time was spent in and around Quechee and Woodstock. It proved to be a very enjoyable weekend for all of us! Read on for more details and photos!

Continue reading…

Homecoming Day

Today marks two years since we were able to bring Catherine home from the hospital.

Here we are on June 10, 2006

and now, June 10, 2008

In celebration, I spent her naptime sewing her a new dress. She has this dress that I love and have been wanting to copy and make her more of. I came across a great piece of fabric at the Beverly Bootstraps Thrift Shop and knew it would be perfect. I traced the original dress onto the new fabric and an hour later Catherine had a new dress. And it only cost a mere 25¢ !

Here she is modeling her new frock!

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