Moved!

The blog has moved to scottlawrence.me for now.  If for some reason, I move back to Blogger, I'll let you know.

iChat Expert

iChat Expert
Originally uploaded by scottlawrence

Watch out Etrade Babies...

A Website

The past day or so I've been thinking about moving my photo sites around a bit. I have two objectives. First, I'm looking for a powerful, marketing focused portfolio web site. And it must be relatively easy to maintain. At the moment, I'm considering the entry level option from Livebooks.com.

Second, I'd like to gear up a photo blog within that website. This blog would be targeted to my photo business - discuss shoots, techniques, equipment etc. Blogger is quite good, but I'm looking for something with a little more flexibility. Wordpress may be the ticket, but doesn't come without a learning curve.

Ideally, these two sites shall be one, all under a single domain, with a seamless appearance. Wordpress, while powerful as a blogging platform, can handle some image management. But as I'm finding, a computer science degree would be helpful to follow all the lingo and code.

Here are a few samples. Note the jump (or lack of a noticeable jump) between blog and portfolio.

Chase Jarvis

Joe McNally

Lisa Bettany

2010

I made a fair showing against my 2009 resolutions. Blogging more, however, was not one of them. Noted. With a full year in as a father, I look to 2010 with a different perspective. Balancing parenthood with my aspirations of getting Scott Lawrence Photography (SLP) up and running has been challenging to say the least.

SLP in 2010 has a few simple objectives:

1. More paid shoots than 2009
2. Continue my education with Kelby Training
3. Nail down my model release and contract forms
4. Marketing with Google AdWords or Facebook
5. Develop a social media presence on Facebook
6. Adopt QuickBooks or other bookkeeping software

The Hiatus is Over

I'm back. Actually, I never left, just haven't posted anything since the summer. Parenthood is time consuming. So here we go...

The year has picked up for me photographically. In October, I attended a lighting workshop in Orlando. The workshop gave me just the push I needed to get things moving. In the last few weeks, I've done three portrait sessions. Two were families with young children. I had high hopes for using some lighting techniques I picked up in the workshop. But before I took the first shot, it was clear that wasn't going to happen. It became more of a natural light photojournalistic shoot. Given the challenges, I was happy with the results. The last shoot was just husband and wife, so they took direction considerably better than the 2 year olds. More to come...

It's no secret that building up a little photo business requires a lot of marketing. To that end, I created a Facebook Page for Scott Lawrence Photography. The ability to target advertising by age and gender is very attractive. I may also give Google AdWords a shot.

Baggage

Like most photographers, I have a bit of an obsession with camera bags. Over the last week or two I've debating over a couple different options to replace my Tamrac Expedition backpack. This backpack is not bad actually, it's got a nice little section for non photo items like snacks, a small book, ipods, etc. But the camera section is now a bit small for my needs. It won't fit my two main pro lenses. My increasing pickiness towards the higher end lenses has further agravated the issue. So it was time to shop.

I've been eyeing the Think Tank Street Walker backpacks for some time, but I wasn't sure which size to get. Tenba also makes a decent backpack, but after ordering one to play with, I found it to be more rugged than I needed. Half the depth of the bag was in the padding and straps. At the moment, I need a bag good for airline travel that'll carry my larger lenses. So the decision then was between the two Think Tank models. While I don't think I could go wrong either way, I'll probably end up keeping the smaller version. The larger pack is close to the size of my largest bag - so it would be rather duplicative. The smaller version offers sufficient room without allowing me to take all my gear - which isn't the goal. Photography isn't typically the primary goal of trips this bag will make. Yet there's still plenty of room for my D300, 24-70, 70-200, 50mm lenses, and a flash. If I can make a great shot with that list, I need a new hobby.

The bag is light weight and should fit under an airline seat with room left over for my feet. It'll be easy to lug around in the airport, and it doesn't scream 'photo bag, steal me!'

iPhone 3Gs First Impressions

After waiting maybe 30 minutes or so, maybe longer, in the ATT store, I finally walked away with my new iPhone. I had the pleasure of getting my phone at the ATT store because I had recently changed my phone number. Doing that apparently reset the upgrade timings, which ATT had to override. Over the ATT employees blamed the slow servers, but I'm not sure that was the whole story... So I was cheated the retail experience that I deserved.

Once I got home, I simply restored my last backup from the old phone to the new phone. This took another half hour and then I let the phone charge for awhile.

The new 3Gs is definitely faster. I just ran a few side by side Safari comparisons with apple.com, nyt.com, and npr.com. While I didn't actually time it, it's probably fair to say the new model is twice as fast.

Probably my favorite new feature is the voice commands. It seems very accurate and has yet to error. The array of commands are quite broad really. I'm wouldn't be surprise to see voice commands to show up in OS X in a similar fashion.

The camera is much improved. Focus and exposure is controlled by touching the desired area of the frame. Very slick. The exposure range is significant in a contrasty frame. The focus has less of an impact. I've yet to play much with the video capture, but it appears quite easy to use.