Moving on

I'll soon be moving my blog to WordPress, and giving it a new name "Jan's Words and Pictures". Of course, it will primarily be about writing and photography, but I'll still address travel, knitting, cooking and food as well. It's just time to use something that will get my name out there more. See you over there!

Stock...not

So, I've gotten a flurry of rejections from Bigstock and Fotolia. I think it's time I go back to the drawing board and figure out where I'm going wrong with these pictures. Some are out of focus, others are poorly exposed, and the one reason for rejection I get most of all is "limited value for stock". This is so much harder than I thought it would be, and now it's become a vendetta. I'm determined to make this happen, so I will do what I can to get this off the ground.

First, I'll take pictures every day. Lots of them, and see if I can get the controls of my camera under my command. Second, I'll study everything I need to about the technical aspects of photography, and relearn then as much as I need to. Third, I'll keep studying the stock websites and understand what they accept. It's about all I can do at this point.

So...does this look like a stock picture or not?



Apparently, not. But it's still lovely.

Another article done...

I've finished another romantic travel article for Examiner.com, this one is on skating on Evergreen Lake for a date with your significant other. At some point, I think I'd like to try to move to being a national Examiner, which would give me more to write about.

Here's the picture I used for the article:



I'll post the article through hyperlink on Facebook, once it's been approved. Probably on both the Travel Writer's page as well as my own. Hopefully someone will read it!

Also, I have to get cracking on taking more pictures. I suppose that's something I can do today, since I'm home with N who is sick. Having pictures to submit to stock would be a good thing, I think. :)

Today's the day...

I'm hoping to become a paid photographer. With stock, yes, but now I'm thinking about doing portraits as well. I have some good equipment for taking portraits, such as some rolls of muslin backdrop, studio lighting units and a good solid tripod. I've also thought about doing real estate photography, something I learned about one of the AWAI workshop recordings. It sounds like something that is doable, makes decent money and doesn't require dealing with difficult people.

Until then, my younger daughter N is a willing model, as shown by the portrait I did below:



This is supposed to be one where I'm demonstrating a rainy day. Kind of hard to do that when there's still a foot of snow on the ground, and our last rainy day was back in October. Shooting "rain" shots was difficult, and this was probably the best one out of the bunch. Oh well, you do what you can...

Up on the mountain

We're skiing today at A-Basin - or, more accurately, I skied this morning, R is skiing now because he likely didn't want to spend too much on two lift tickets. So we split the day. Even though i'm getting work done, I wished I could've gone with him, the girls and our friends. It's kind of a bummer being here stuck in the lodge (with really poor wi-fi connections and no cell phone service, natch) and everyone else is having fun on the mountain.

I'd like to include some pictures in this post, but I can't even do that, since my cell phone battery is almost dead. So, no proof that we actually skied today other than my own word. Which you trust anyway, right?

So, I'm thinking that I can get the article done tonight, upload my photos to the agencies (here's hoping some of all get accepted), and maybe get some ironing done. Oh yeah, and take a shower. Perhaps my outlook would be better if I took one now.

My apologies for such a whiney post. But if you were here with me, seeing the clear blue day and feeling the warm temps, wanting to be out skiing and getting really annoyed with this nonexistent tech connections if I have to be waiting for everyone else, just maybe you'd feel the same way.

I'm a writer!

Here it is

Woo-hoo! I'm finally on my way. Now I'm writing my next one, and going through my pictures for stock submissions. Finally making things happen!

An attitude of gratitude

I have an Apple app called Gratitude. Since downloading it about two years ago, I hardly ever use it. I think I've made about three entries total. If I actually used it as intended, I'd be writing down five things every day that I am thankful for. I could do that in my written journal, but as with everything in my writing life, it gets shoved to the background. In this case, almost off the cliff.

Well, I probably should take that app up again. I have an opportunity to write travel articles now. I'm making a concerted effort to get accepted to stock agencies and set up portraits with my photography. My family and I will travel to the Bay Area and to Seattle and Vancouver this year. I just ran my first marathon, and I'm itching (believe it or not) to run another. Yes, I have plenty to be thankful for. But this is the most important one of all (and my wonderful husband too, who took this picture):



They are the reason I strive to be the best person I can be, every day.

Snow-pocalypse, Rockies edition

Yeah, I know. We're supposed to be getting lots of snow anyway here in Colorado. The state name is practically synonymous with snow (even though Denver has on the average 300 days of sunshine a year). But this system proved to be our Big One, an average of 2-3 feet in most areas of the Front Range. And here's just some of the proof:






This is from our backyard, where it always looks like this when we get major snowstorms. And here's another view:



A lame revelation on my part - now that I have this awesome camera phone, I can take really good pictures for this blog in a pinch. I guess I've take the snobbish attitude that photography really isn't if it's not taken on my DSLR and I haven't processed the pictures to look stunning. But this little Android phone will do, especially when I'm writing here and want to do more illustrations.

R and I both home today - he because it's his flex day, mine because it's that rarest of rarities in my line of work - the snow day. The kids of course are also enjoying this day, but at their dad's house. I'm not sure whether it's a good or bad thing. A little of both, I suppose.

Bummer

I just got a rejection from one of the microstock agencies, because of poor lighting with one of my pictures. Here it is:



It's a little frustrating, because I'm having trouble understanding what constitutes "poor lighting". I'm trying to understand what makes a good stock photo, and I'm not sure where to get the answers. I'm doing on online stock photo program, so maybe that will help. Perhaps too, I can study the Lightroom book more closely. But I've done it, and now I just have to keep trying.

Analysis paralysis

So, have you ever tried to think about something so much, the job doesn't get done? That's kind of what's happening with me. With writing and photography, I'm thinking too much about what could happen, rather than making it happen.

Just like with a lot of things in life, I need a good swift kick in the rear. Forget if things don't look or sound right. I need to take that next step, whether it's submitting those three pictures to iStockphoto, or finding that just-right publication to submit my family travel articles to (who cares if they don't pay??)

Speaking of which, I will need to plan things out a little here. We have decided to go to northern California for spring break and to Seattle/Vancouver for summer vacation. Surely between all of this, I can secure some press passes or discounts, and come up with some query ideas for both of them. And now that I have my studio lights, I can get this photography thing set up, and I will by this weekend.

Kick in the rear, indeed. It's time to get moving...again.

And it's over

Oh, what a painful loss! The Niners are not going to the Super Bowl, and they came so close. Losing it 20-17 in overtime. And now we have to wait until next year. The Super Bowl now becomes a "who cares?" proposition for me. Even though one of my kids claims she is a Patriots fan, so in a way, it would be good to see them win. After the Giants beat the Niners, it's hard to root for them now.

Enough about football. Now it's time to get down to business. Submit photos to stock agencies and query a publication for article submission. Then apply to Examiner.com. I think that's the scariest thing of all, since I haven't applied to them yet. But we will see what happens.

A nervous wreck

I'm watching the Niners, and I don't know what to think. A ticket to the Super Bowl is on the line, a place the Niners haven't been in 17 years. So needless to say, I' m hoping they can make it. It's hard to believe that they'be made it this far. And even if they do win, there's the Patriots to contend with. Everyone thinks they will win it, not San Francisco. I'd love to see everyone be proven wrong!

Call me a marathoner!

I did it...even though I was one of the last to finish. But now I can say I've run a marathon. Woo-hoo!

Surprisingly, even though I felt like I had practically no sleep the night before, I felt the strongest I've ever felt for a race. I didn't have too many butterflies flitting about in the tummy either. The only problem was that they started the race 30 minutes late, because some runners hadn't gotten to downtown Phoenix in time.

I wonder if I could've done any better than I did. The balls of my feet began to hurt and cramp at mile 9 and kept hurting for the rest of the time. I had to stop about 5-6 times along the side of the road to rub my feet, which translated into at least 20 minutes of lost time. It's a little frustrating knowing that this could be a persistent problem.

R didn't greet me at the finish line, but here's a picture of me leaving the Scottsdale part of the race:



You'd think the last thing I'd want to do is run another one of these torture-fests. But I'm already thinking about the next one. How about this summmer??

A space of my own...

So, I call this a knitting/cooking/traveling/photography/writing blog, but one thing that hasn't been evident in a while is my picture portfolio. I haven't been processing a lot of pictures of late, because I haven't devoted the proper time to getting them presentable online or elsewhere. Perhaps once this marathon is done by this Sunday, I can do just that and actually seem like a photographer again.

But one step that I have taken is cleared a space in the basement by getting rid of the girls' toys that they haven't even so much as glanced at in the past year. It's a great little 6 foot wide space with about 9 feet of length, and some natural light coming through on the opposite side. Right now, I'm going to set up my lightbox to take some stock shots, but in time, I'm hoping to get a full studio setup with lighting and a muslin backdrop.

Getting there....

Death march - I mean, marathon - is a week away

So the Arizona Rock N Roll Marathon is a mere week away, and I of course haven't trained nearly as much as I should have. So my strategy is to just walk and run it as much as possible, and enjoy the scenery. Not that suburban Phoenix is that picturesque, but it's a way to enjoy some free time. I'm really not trying to stress about it at all.

I loved being in Arizona the time I was there, but I am glad I don't live there now. Politically, I don't think I would've been able to stand it. And I probably wouldn't have been able to handle the constant heat either. Still, it's great to visit in the winter, especially when coming from a place where it snows.

Hopefully I won't be too incapacitated to write an entry after the race, which is what I plan to do. All the gory details...

A new year, a new start

Welcome to 2012! If the Mayan predictions don't come true and we're still standing by the end of the year, I'm hoping that I'll have done the following:

- Completed a marathon (which I'll see if I can do in the next 10 days here...)
- Publish several articles, preferably in print
- Have photos accepted for stock and/or publications
- Knit a sweater a month (!)
- Cook and bake a lot more
- Travel to Europe

It was very gratifying to review my goals for the past year. The only ones I didn't accomplish were the publication ones, and those just need to have a little more oommph to them.

So here I go...no more excuses. I WILL get this done!