Click-Click-Give-Give... Oh what a relief (fund) it is!

Ok, so what's wrong with this picture and the title to the post. How does the Apple website mesh with the thought of giving, donating, or anything humanitarian. Wasn't Apple under some kind of environmentalist hit list. So what gives?

Seems the people in Apple orchard like to reach out and effect people on a larger scale than is realized. Oh! Isn't it American Idol that directs millions of dollars towards different humanitarian programs. Yes Bertie, I think it is. But what is the vehicle that is being used to gather those millions. Ding-Ding-Ding, you guest it... iTunes. The uber megga successful music machine of Apple creation.

So back to the story at hand. You see that little cross at the bottom right of the Apple home page above. 

Yep, you guessed right again, it is  for the Red Cross. Go to Apple.com and click on the red cross and you will be directed to the following page.

With a simple click, you can direct funds directly to the Red Cross in support of the Earth Quake-Tsunami-Nuclear Disaster in Japan.

I am not here to pull on your heart string and plead for a donation (unless you are interested to donating to the Doug Peek Early Retirement Fund) on behalf of the Red Cross but if you want to continue to see really cool and advanced camera gear from Japan, they could use a hand up in rebuilding there country. Take some time and watch some YouTube videos from the "Japan Tsunami" and you will see more devastation than you will care to.

Anyhow after you click the amount you want to donate, all you need to do is confirm the donation.

It is billed directly to your iTunes account and viola money gets to people who can really use it. WHAT! You don't have an iTunes account! Ok so write out a check and send it to the Red Cross, I'm sure they will not return it.

Take care all... Doug

Madness Finished

So it is not the same day as it was yesterday when I talked about shooting the basketball event at our church but it is close. I stopped shooting at 2:40 and went through 446 images. I knew I would some more images after the closing ceremonies and awards but there would not be that many. So after some quick work in Lightroom I whittled it down to 88 images to be tweaked if necessary. About 20% need to be edited with some form of adjustment other than basic white balance and sharpening. SOme needed a good bit of fill light but for the most part it was pretty well what the camera captured.

Once that was done it was an export and upload to Animoto to see how things went.

It is only at 360 as I it is going to be projected on large screens and it has a high frame rate so any quality problems from the low resolution will not really be noticed.

Take care... Doug

March Madness - Heritage Style

This morning I am at our church getting shots of an activity that started last year with great success. It is a neighborhood basketball tournament that culminates in an awards ceremony at the end of the day. It has been a great source of enjoyment for all who enjoy the competitive nature of basketball. The thing is, there is no game. It is all individual competitions. The funds brought in will be going towards a missions trip our college and career age people will be taking this summer.

Stay tuned... Doug

It's Going to Get Busy - Update 2

Here is one page of the contact sheet in Lightroom from last weeks work on the churches pictorial directory. It started off a little slow last Tuesday night but starting Thursday it took off full swing. I shot for six hours on Saturday and then for a short time before and after the morning services on Sunday. It was first come, first served on Sunday for many of the families that just could not make the evening schedule. The count was up to 19 by the time I left the building at 12:50. Not too bad. So far for last week the count is up to 84 families or individuals. Next week is starting to fill up nicely.

The more I got into the project, one of the biggest question was "Why can't we buy these pictures?" I stood strong on my position that I was giving my time to the church for the directory and the images were not going to be of a photographic quality that I would feel good about selling. Not saying the care taken in posing and composition was at a sub-standard level. It was very much a production line at times. I really did not like not being able to allow myself the time necessary for the level of portraiture I feel is necessary, but the timeframe allotted just did not allow.

That is the position for now, I may take a closer look at the results and if the images are nice enough to reproduce in something more than a directory thumbnail, I may do that. It just is not planned at this time.

When I found out the directories will be printed on the churches color laser printer I just sank inside. I suspected this was going to be the case so I was not surprised but as critical as the print end of the photographic workflow is... I am just nervous about the end quality and how it will reflect on my part. This may be a smidgen narcissistic on my part as I really do not have any control of the out put. Oh well, it will be what it will be.

Take care and cya tomorrow...  Doug

It's Going to Get Busy - Update 1

I had an original thought of naming this post "Biting Off More Than You Can Chew" but it really has not been. What it has been is a serious commitment of time and energy to pull this project off. The project being of shooting families at church for a pictorial directory.

Again Ii certainly do not mind donating my time to this project for the church. As a side benefit, it has been a lot of fun getting to see people in the church that I may not normally see as there are two services on Sunday morning.

I have been shooting between 6:00 PM and 9:00 PM at ten minute intervals and that has worked out very well. Only a couple of times have I had people waiting but when I checked the time, they were early and the shoot schedule was right on time. I was even able to squeeze in a call-up at the last minute.

Today was the only day I got a little rushed as I had to do a family shoot before the directory shooting started. We had agreed to meet at the church as this was where all the lighting and background was et up. Arriving at 4:30 the mom was already there with her children and I had to put up a white seamless for this shoot. Rather than taking down the grey midnight muslin I simply took more gaffers tape and secured the muslin to the uprights and removed the hanging rod to slide into the seamless tube. Back up on the stands it worked like a charm and when I was done I simply took the A-clamps and clipped them to the muslin and let their weight take out the sag while over the topside of the seamless.

Of course the 6:00 family showed up at 5:45 which put me into rush mode. BUT! I relied on my flying background that says when you rush, that is when you make mistakes, so I consciously made an effort to slow down and get everything set the way I knew it needed to be.

Being Friday night, there was not a big load on the schedule so I was able to wrap it up a little early, get home, download the files to the Drobo and kick back and watch some TV.

Tomorrow is Saturday and the schedule will be quite busy so it's off to be for now.

Cya... Doug

It's Going to Get Busy

This was the announcement slide that was projected in the lign-up at our church since last Wednesday. The e-mail our pastor put out was titled Pictorial Directory - Not a joke. This was funny as a number of years ago the church accepted an offer by a studio to have a pictorial directory. This became a sales tool for the studio and a bust for the church. When a family had their sitting they were presented with a number of packages order right their. This did not sit well with much of the membership and certainly id not go over with the pastor when he found out there would be no directory form the studio as promised.

Jump forward to present day, the church management software the church uses now has the capability to produce a directory with images. With the ability to produce this document in house, we just needed a photographer. Hmmm... I can do that.

After looking at it more closely, it will be a couple week commitment to get the images captured with my flying schedule and all. It will be a fun time to see as many members come through for photos. In talking with our pastor I proposed what I wanted to do.

It is not about selling prints form this shoot but; I wanted to have a table set up with some simple marketing material displayed so people could ask questions and schedule a session outside of the directory shoot. He had no problem with that so one of the marketing displays I have for this project is shown below.

The idea of this project is to provide jpegs to the church for the directory. They will not be for sale and are not to be distributed for personal use. There are a couple of reasons why we determined this to be the condition.

• To do so would be detrimental to any future income stream.  
• The images will not be retouched as they are not intended to be enlarged but for a photo directory.

The time it would take to retouch to a professional level each of these images would not be a good business decision. When working with families that subsequently employ our services of course we will produce a high level product. Yes we are having special pricing as a promotional during the directory project.

Anyhow it is off and running today. Got to get over to church and set up lighting and such so take care and I'll give an update later in the week.

Cya... Doug