Jeff Carlson (.Thought)

Spring

It's now been over three months since my daughter was born, and I'm only now starting to feel like things are stabilizing. Not that she knocked anything out of whack, per se, but that everything is just different enough that I haven't done some things - like update this blog. (I've been blogging about Ellie, of course, but that's different.)

So what am I up to? I've been keeping busy, like a good freelancer. A lot of my time lately, it seems, has been spent in the management and work required to get new work: making article proposals and the like. I'm within striking distance of finishing The Adobe Photoshop Express Pocket Guide, doing some work on the TidBITS site design, writing a few articles, and fielding a request to license one of my photos for a display.

With the weather turning, there's that familiar sense of renewal in the air, so perhaps that will inspire me to blog more often.

Long Hours

Midnight Pavoni Rendezvous
Originally uploaded by Jeff Carlson

On Saturday, I planned on going to bed at the same time as Kim and get a good night's rest. We spent the day with family, watching my 2 year old niece for a few hours and then having dinner at my sister's house. She lives in Bremerton, a little over an hour away (either by ferry or by driving around Puget Sound), so as a result we didn't get home until about 11:30. Still, that was the earliest I'd been to bed all week by about 3 hours.

I'm spending most of my time updating my iMovie/iDVD Visual QuickStart Guide (the new edition isn't yet listed at Amazon), which is more work this time around because iMovie '08 is a completely new video-editing program. I'm starting to warm up to the changes Apple made, and realizing that this version is deeper than I expected it to be (which means more work for me to suss out those depths).

I'm also helping to update a colleague's book in roughly the same timeframe. And since Adobe just released Photoshop Elements 6, the update to the Elements Visual QuickStart Guide is in the mix, too. Sprinkle a few article assignments in there as well.

But why should work occupy all of my attention? Why not do something really out of the ordinary, like have hardwood floors installed in our house (finally)? Heck, I might as well start a family while I'm at it.

This explains why my trusty La Pavoni espresso maker pictured here has become a reliable friend late at night and early every morning. I'm not complaining (much), because I did say yes to all of these projects. It's fun in that overwhelming sort of way. I just don't know where September and October went.

Even More Autumn

I'm utterly swamped with deadlines and home renovation, but I snuck some photos of autumn leaves near where I parked at the office today. (Click to view the larger version)

I Love Autumn

Sunrise 09-Oct-07
Originally uploaded by Jeff Carlson

Behind the Scenes of Cool Sprint Ad

At the movie theater the other night, I saw a really cool ad for Sprint. What appear to be lots of people with flashlights draw all sorts of images, from flowers to giant fish to picture frames and more, all animated using stop-motion photography so that the flashlight beams meld together to create the shapes. You can view the ad here:

Well, it turns out that what you see is exactly what it is. The effects aren't computer-generated; they were created over a period of four nights by people with flashlights. The making-of video is really cool:

How to Purchase My Photos

Speaking of photos, the last post - plus a query from a friend - prompted me to point out that you can now purchase some of my photos, as either prints or fully framed. I wrote an article last year about printing photos for the Seattle Times (see the blog post here), and one of the companies I looked at was Seattle-based ImageKind. I set up a store for testing and then largely forgot about it as I moved on to other projects.

I've now added a few more photos to it, thanks to a recent deal between ImageKind and Flickr that makes it easy to have prints made of your photographs. The print quality is excellent, and the prices seem reasonable considering that you're getting custom framing done and shipped to you. Plus, they offer a "no questions asked" return policy if you don't like the end result.

And if you do purchase one, email me and let me know how it turned out!

Still Life with Cheerios

  Still Life with Cheerios 
  Originally uploaded by Jeff Carlson.

Because my dad said, "You should put this on your blog!" at dinner the other night.

Photo by Jeff Carlson.
Art direction by Larry Carlson.
Cheerios courtesy of (and abandoned in favor of something more interesitng by) my niece Emma.

More Local Photo Exposure

  Eagle Grid 
  Originally uploaded by Jeff Carlson.

Metroblogging Seattle featured my photo Eagle Grid on their site today.

Seattle loves me.

Okay, two Seattle blogs love me.

All right, two Seattle blogs have liked a couple of my photos that I posted at their Flickr groups.

Still.

In other photo news, I shot hundreds of pictures at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival on Thursday. I posted a handful that I picked out quickly, but I haven't had a chance to really go through them all. It's the usual: lots of so-so, several really bad, and a few good photos in the bunch.

And in other news news, I'm on an insane deadline right now, not as far along as I'd like, so I expect to sleep little this week.

Back Up Data to Digital Camera

I contributed to a Macworld article that's now available online: "Three for the road: Expert tricks for getting more from your Mac laptop." My section talks about how to use the memory card in your digital camera (which these days are likely to be 1 GB or more) as an easy backup solution while you're on the road.

Also in the article, my officemate Glenn Fleishman tells you how to use voice over IP (VoIP) services to avoid the egregious phone fees that most hotels charge; and, TidBITS contributor and virtual friend Derek K. Miller takes advantage of fast networking via FireWire.

Another Photo Featured on a Seattle Blog

  Dew 
  Originally uploaded by Jeff Carlson.

Metroblogging Seattle featured my photo "Dew" on their site Thursday as visual accompaniment to a blog post.

Metroblogging Seattle is one of a few Seattle-specific sites I track via an RSS news reader (I use NetNewsWire for Mac). As with Seattlest—where one of my photos appeared a couple of weeks ago—the site created a Flickr group where locals can post photos for the blog's readers to view. By posting you agree that the blog can use them for editorial purposes, which seems to be a nice trade-off: the blog gets a ready supply of photography for free, and the photographers get a bit of exposure and the capability to brag like I'm doing here.

New: Photoshop Elements 5 VQS!

Okay, this is a bit belated, but I've been busy. My last big deadline in January was a bit of a departure for me: a book about a Windows program. Toward the end of last year, my editor at Peachpit Press asked if I'd be interested in updating an existing book. The original author wasn't able to do the update due to other commitments, and since I didn't have a big project on my plate at the time, I said yes.

The result is Photoshop Elements 5: Visual QuickStart Guide, now on sale at Amazon.com for just $14.95. From the blurb:

Newly updated to cover Photoshop Elements 5, it details the hottest new features: new advanced color and lighting controls, new customizable layouts, Flash-based web photo galleries, the new Flipbook feature, which lets you string together a series of still photos to create an eye-catching and fun flipbook, and the ability to download and edit photos directly from your mobile phone or handheld device. Both beginning and advanced users will find what they need here--in straightforward language and with readily accessible examples.

I credit Craig Hoeschen for making my job much easier. In addition to performing an update polish of everything throughout, my main contributions were to rearrange the material to better match Adobe's new focus in Elements toward being a photo organizer and less as "Photoshop Lite" (though they didn't rip out any of the features).

Newborn Hair

  Newborn Hair 
  Originally uploaded by Jeff Carlson.

Congratulations to our friends Agen and Parie, who now have a third person living in their house!

Seattlest Photo of the Day

  Reflected Sunset 
  Originally uploaded by Jeff Carlson.

Local-area blog Seattlest chose my photo "Reflected Sunset" as its photo of the day for March 16. I don't know the name of the building, but it's across from the bus-stop intersection at Second Ave and Jackson downtown, just behind the Seattle Lighting Company.

If you've been watching my Flickr page lately (or the thumbnails that appear in the left column of this page), you probably noticed that I've fallen hard for the photography bug. It started last year when a friend convinced me to enter this photo into the 2006 Environmental Photo Invitational, where it was chosen as one of the featured winners.

Last month, at the urging of another friend, I decided to step up from my Canon PowerShot S2 IS into the land of digital SLRs. After lots of research, I splurged a bit and bought a Nikon D80 (with an included 18-135mm kit lens).

So far I'm really enjoying it, although the jump to DSLR requires lots of learning on my part, especially since I never got into 35mm photography in the past. But it's exciting to be learning new things, and I'm having fun looking for photo opportunities.

When the idea of getting a new camera first came up, my wife pointed out that it would be good to find a way to earn money from my photos to help pay for it. Although that hasn't panned out yet (hey, I'm just starting), having some exposure is a good start, right?