and er. happy new year
truly lucky i didn’t make any resolutions this year, particular any regular blogging type resolutions.
the biggest impediment to my blogging this year has been a photographic one. whilst everyone loves their iphones and camera phones, i really didn’t save up a heap of money a few years back for my dslr and beautiful lenses to go forsaking them now for the lightweightedness and convenience of a point and shoot, no matter how niftily it’s wrapped up in a smartphone. i’ve got a good galaxy s2 with an awesome camera, but there are only two situations i’ll use it – when i’ve forgotten/left my camera because i didn’t plan on taking photos, or when there’s something i want to send directly to facebook/social media.
so i haven’t been taking less photos. but i changed the format of those photos. i’ve started shooting in raw and i think i’ll continue to unless or until i really nail white balance. it’s one of the few photography things i’m super-sensitive to – i’m more than happy to overexpose a shot (in fact it might be a trademark of mine!), focus might be off, composition mightn’t be perfect, but if the colour’s wrong it just sends my eyes spinning. and it’s way easier to fix bad colour in raw than in jpeg so that’s what i’ve been doing since around november last year.
this has affected my blogging because (i’m starting to feel like i’m writing an essay here!) though the original plan was to edit my raw images as i went, convert to jpg and perhaps even delete the raw, that kinda doesn’t happen a whole lot.
any time in the past i wanted a pic for the blog i’d mostly just drag it over unedited (because i’m lazy like that) and now i can’t. in fact i have to plan what pics i might use, edit if necessary, convert to jpg and then drag over. which is a world of too-hard for someone who just liked to shoot off quick blog posts with a couple of pretty pictures.
so this year christmas came and went went un-posted, (but not unscrapped!)
… new year.. summer holiday.. phoebe’s birthday and party.. back to school.. and somehow we’re even facing the end of first term this month and ne’er a photo (and barely a post) to be found.
i’m giving thought to solutions. one of which might be that i’ll just post my layouts, which will be the more popular solution in the scrappy camp. because they will have already been cropped and converted.
the other is that i become more disciplined with my raw images. heh.
another is that i do that planning and converting thing. meh.
and the final one is that i (god forbid!) resort to posting the camera photos!
and if anyone has another option, i’m all too happy to hear it.
phoebe got a little digi camera for christmas this year and i uploaded her pics this morning. i am proud to say that i did keep my resolution and my own, smiling-with-love mug appeared in her photos several times.
anyway, because this post is more about thinking aloud than announcing a conclusion, i’ll end with alternative 1. above. a few of my recent pages. because if you’ve actually read this far, and are still interested, you deserve a thank you of sorts.
has the minecraft obsession hit your house? it has ours. alex saved and did extra jobs for pocket money to buy the damn program. phoebe fights him for laptop time – it’s the first electronic game of any sort to really hook her in lock stock and barrel. this page is almost as arty as i get these days – a little crafters workshop chevron template with the glimmer mist.
the girl in her new purple bedroom. i remember when we painted it pink here and there’s a page i scrapped about it here. so i think i should document the change which happened around two months ago!) as well.
anyway, perhaps i’ll find some kind of system and blog more. i’d like to as this is such a lovely way of recording the moments that don’t, as well as the moments that do, make it into albums.
