Thank you for understanding – I apologize for the inconvenience.

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I say it’s tough to claim both sides of the fence. You know what else I say? I say bring it on. You know why I say it? Because we have to.

This is exactly what is running through my head. Here are a couple of reasons I agree.

#1. We were all amateurs once. Never forget that. Because we were amateurs, we put out a lot of junk for a while until we learned a little more. When we were first starting out, wouldn’t it have been nice if someone in the industry said, “Hey, I hear your new at this – let me help you”?  Guys, I started with nobody to tell me how to make a good picture. I learned by a TON of experimentation (many who read this blog can vouch) and reading a lot of internet articles. I was so thankful that people like Chase were posting stuff on the web that allowed me to get some insight into the field.

#2. There are a lot of really bad photographers who have been in the industry so long that they are used to being one of the only people in it and having all the business. It’s time we get some fresh starts – new, innovative, fresh starts. There is so much room for even the more experienced photographers to grow because these new photographers are pushing the limits and consequently, pushing theirs. Everyone is getting better (hopefully)!

#3. What else are we going to do? Just restrict the availability to create art? Of course not! It helps us just as much as those starting out, that everything is cheaper and more available. It helps the industry stay alive.

#4. I want people to experience the same joy I get from making an image or a video. Not everyone gets so stoked about it… but for those of you who do, I want you to have at it!

Let’s all remember to embrace the industry’s growth and availability. It isn’t being contaminated by the amateurs work… it’s being pushed. Pushed to make better pictures. Pushed to stop brewing in mediocrity. Pushed to compete.

There will always be various tiers of skill in whatever industry, so for those of you who are super good – don’t worry. For those of you who aren’t as good – there is a lot of room to grow – so start! =)

At the end of it all I have finally come to a conclusion – I need something more. I finally upgraded my primary camera body to a Nikon D90. Still not the best camera in the world but it was the best camera I could get on a graduation budget haha Ultimately, it fit the bill of providing me with more options to mess around with until I can afford a better camera. The D90, as many of you I’m sure know already, has the D-Movie function that Nikon has recently introduced into their camera product line. I’m pretty excited about this because I’m majoring in Media Communications (that’s the plan at least) and that includes a large variety of media including video. So! Bottom line, now that I have a new camera, ya’ll will probably see some new experiments popping up here on the blog along with some video! Woohoo!

One more little tidbit. I also ordered a wide angle (17-50mm f/2.8) lens to replace my little kit lens (18-55mm f/3.5-5.6). I’m so excited to work with some wide angle – most of my recent images have been taken with my new zoom lens (70-200mm f/2.8).

Now, down to business. I’m sure ya’ll are asking, “But where are the pictures Jacob – don’t leave us with only meaningless piddly words!” Your right, I have taken pictures with my new camera – how could I not! Ya’ll know by now that I have weaned myself off of landscape photography into portraiture. Faces rock! I’m glad you have a face. It’s a good thing right?

Oh yea, we just got a pool too.

Anyway, there are two images to show off my new wide-angle/body combo.

One last thing, I have recently stumbled into this grunge funk. I absolutely LOVE the drama that it provides an image with. I’ll try to be careful about how often I use it and on what images.

NOTE: if you are not familiar with Lightroom, I may use terms which you do not understand. Just Google them.

Beginning with the Import. I connect my card reader with LR open and a dialog box pops up.

I select “Copy photos to a new location and add to “catalog” which  copies the images on the device to my hard drive in my computer and also has LR note where they are by adding them to my LR catalog.

I then select the location to which I want my images to be copied to. In this case:

My Pictures -> 2010 -> 05 May -> Central Community Theatre

Then I selected the “Organize into one folder” option and checked the “don’t re-import suspected duplicates” box.

Below, I want to keep the files original name so I selected the “Template: Filename” setting. In my metadata drop-down menu I have a metadata preset to add certain information to the images upon import that are relevant to Jacob Thomas Imagery. I end by adding key words and clicking “IMPORT”. My images are imported into my LR library.

Once the import has finished I select the folder and the images are displayed in the filmstrip at the bottom of the LR window. I press CAPS LOCK to turn on the auto-advance feature. Then using the keys “P” (select) and “X” (reject),  I proceed to quickly select or reject the photos.

Once I have gone through all of my images, I use the filter menu to turn on the “Flagged” Filter. This, obviously, shows only those photos which have been flagged. I select all of the images and create a “Collection” of those images.

NOTE: That is actually supposed to be a “collection set” (the third one on the drop-down menu).

After choosing to create my “Collection Set” I check the “include selected photos” box and title my collection.

I title my collections in a very strict manner. Year-Month-Day_Person/Group/Event_Type of shoot

This keeps my collections organized for easy finding. If you look to the left side of the image above you will see that I have a collection set for “2010″ and then 3 collection sets within it: Other, Seniors and Weddings. My “Other” folder is where I place obscure shoots that I do not often do, for example: stage productions.

It is now time for the actual editing, so I then switch to the develop module. You can see the modules in the top-right-hand corner.

When a particular image has gone through the editing processing necessary, I star it with two stars.

If I find that it is a good shot but thats all – just good – and not an excellent shot, I star it with one star.

If the shot is all together nasty I immediately remove it from the collection.

By the end of my editing I now have a collection full of 1-stared and 2-starred images. Guess what I do then! That’s right, I filter them. I use the filter preset that I created for my starring methods and select the “(2 star) Edited” filter.

Once I have selected all of the 2-star images I create another collection under the collection set that we created earlier. I title it “_LR” for my LR edited images (adopted from my friend Kaylynn’s workflow). Again, the “Include Selected Photos” box is checked and the parent folder is chosen – in this case, the parent folder is the “Collection Set” we created earlier for the CCT Production.

When finished, I do the same with the “(1 star) EH” filter. Remember, these are all of my ok images that I don’t necessarily want to delete but they aren’t the best either.

Once filtered, I create another collection under the same parent folder as _LR and include the selected images.

When I have created both collections, I am ready to export the edited images.

I click the “export…” button at the bottom of the “collection” module. This opens the dialog box seen above. I select “Export To: Specific Folder”. I select the folder that the original images are in and then check the “Put in Subfolder” box so that they don’t go to the folder that the original images are in. I title the Subfolder “_LR” and I check the “Add to this catalog” box so that they appear in LR.

Instead of exporting them with the same name as the original file, I use the “Custom Name-Original File Number” template provided. The Custom text that I want is “LR”. Now the exported images, instead of being the original DSC_0123 is LR-0123. This way I can distinguish between the edited and original file but I know which ones match up because the file number is the same.

Then I click the export button and… you know… they export.

If you look to the left column in the export window you will see “User Presets” and a list of presets I have created. Those presets allow me to not have to go in and manually adjust everything I just relayed to you every time I export something. I can now export an image with specific settings for a particular use.

BTS: Full Sized behind the scenes images

Cropped LR-Edits: exactly the same as the LR-edits except cropped to a custom size

For the Web: These are the LR-edits except their size is reduced upon export so I can post them on my blog/flickr/facebook etc.

LR-edits: Full Sized Lightroom Edits

And finally, once I have completed a shoot from beginning to end, I clean out my hard drive by deleting all of the rejected images that I gave a black flag to at the very beginning of this process. This is extremely important as RAW files can quickly take up hard drive space.

To do this I go back to my original folder (not the collections) and I hit CTRL + Backspace and all of my rejected images are deleted. I choose the “Delete from Disk” option not just “Remove” which only removes them from your LR catalog.

And if there is time and will power, there is one more thing: Blog it.

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Parent #1 – “Hey I have a great idea. Let’s dress all you guys up in dresses!”

Parent #2 – “Oooo I like that idea. You know what – if we make them the right length they won’t trip walking on flat ground but as they walk up those stairs… oops.”

Parent #1 – “Perfect! Oh wait… what about a hat?”

Parent #3 – “Oh that’s easy. I saw my two year old the other day playing around with a square piece of cardboard. He put it on his head and looked so funny. We should simply attach a square piece of cardboard to some sort of bowl. Flip it upside down and viola - a hat.”

Parent #2 – “If we tie a piece of string to the top of it, it could hang in their face and annoy them! We could tell them that it signifies something.”

Parent #1 – “Hmm… speaking of string – let’s give them some rope to put around their necks and tell them it’s for honor. Oh and make them lots of different colors too!”

Parent #2 – “We have to do something involving baby pictures. They all get so embarrassed of those photos. Haha”

Parent #3 – “Oh boy! I can’t wait till my kid graduates” =D

DISCLAIMER: My parents are the best in the world and this is in no way to be used as truth.

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