Way Later

And here I am again. Much has happened and most of it has been energizing--though a bit nerve-wracking. I got started looking at the concept of starting a business. Using my degree in Graphic Arts and my graphics software and my camera. Put them all together and see what I can do. So, here's the final product--thus far: http://smichelesmith.imagekind.com/ and that's just a small start. I'm also going to be working on ideas for CafePress shortly as I want to design smaller pieces and such. Not to mention getting back to my mandalas. But more on that another time--like when I get to that point and actually have something to offer you.

We took a vacation this year. Two, actually. Went back to Arizona and visited friends. Went up to Washington State to visit family. Wonderful! Have not taken a vacation like that in, well, forever. Never, actually. I got a massive amount of photographs going on little side-trips with my sister and her hubby. Beautiful. Sadly, the DVDs that I burned the shots to did not "take" the images so most of them are still sitting up there on their hard drive. Ah, that means another trip to go fetch them! Yes, that's good--another trip is good. LOL

My just paid off Nikon D40X bit the dust shortly after we returned home. Early demise, only a year old. And I was just learning to do wonderful things and getting better at it. But, thank God for warranties! Took the camera in and they traded straight across for a Nikon D60--since they no longer stock the D40X and the D40 would have been a downgrade. And, yes, the new lens that I'm paying on that I got for the D40X fits perfectly on the D60. I'm happy and learning what a great camera it is. And learning...and learning.

So, as you will see when you wander through my galleries at imagekind, I have decided to take a fully professional approach with my work. I'm good at it, so why not *do something with it* as my hubby is always wondering. ;-) I take a *lot* of time and care with each image before I upload it into a gallery. Doing a highly magnified scan of each image searching for dropped pixels is pretty intensive--and makes me wonder if that's how it felt to be in a darkroom with film. My computer has become a digital darkroom, I guess. One dropped pixel can have an impact on a wide area around it. I won't go into all the gory details. Suffice to say it is fixable in most cases, and I'm getting faster at it. It's *really* interesting to zoom in on a shot so that you are at the level of seeing individual pixels of color. It feels like getting lost in an alien landscape. Really! Not that I have to do that with every picture, but sometimes... They all get scanned at 100% zoom, which allows me to see where there might be a problem.

I am becoming intimately familiar with my photos. And it becomes a more personal, deeper, experience when working on those shots that have a connection beyond just taking the shot because it will be a good shot. For example, we went last weekend to visit the wild horses again. We walk around with them and interact with them--keeping in mind that they are *wild* horses and not pets. They don't mind us as long as we maintain proper dignity and respect for their space.

There are far fewer this year than there were last year. They've culled again. We saw about fourteen this time instead of the forty or so from other visits. I did not see Toughie, Aunty Girl, NotsoTough, Little Boy, or any of the others. (Yes, I name them...) I went back into my older image files from those days and looked through them again. I had thought about not using those photographs at imagekind because they will not be large enough to print the very large sizes. But, I decided that they are still good images and a smaller to medium sized print would be fine for lovers of wild horses. So, they are going into the collection as a tribute to Toughie and his band. I will miss him.