I may be the biggest procrastinator in the history of photography blogging. So, how about a new one? I have been trying to edit and post my photos from the WIAA District 4 2A Fastpitch to see who goes on to play in the state tournament for Woodland High School. What I found is that my Adobe Lightroom was almost unusable and could not get anything to work at a speed I have been accustomed to. So last night I decided to uninstall the program and then thought, clean slate, delete the folder that kept most of the catalogs and related items while keeping my presets. It turned out that one folder had over 400GB of data that was, based on how it performed after reinstalling and syncing back up with my Smugmug website, eddevereaux.com, where I hold those images for viewing and purchasing along with the two sessions, I needed to get done. 

Yes, I did loose a lot of previous edits but let me be honest. If I revisit those I want a fresh view with a more current look along with AI technology. But when you have tens of thousands of images, it is just easier to accept what you did and the final images uploaded to the cloud.

Well, maybe I won't share they are done until tomorrow, or based on my procrastination I may just go ahead and post on Instagram they are up but it would be nice for this site to get a bit of love and traffic. 

Last August was my last post, so what have I been doing with all that free time? Soon after I posted, and stepping out of my fears, and went ahead and contacted the Athletic Director for the Woodland High School here in Woodland Washington. 

At the time of this writing, I just uploaded my forty sixth game or event gallery for 2022-2023 school year. I hope to get many more games in before the end of the school year.

Woodland Washington Beaver High School Sport

It is now August 1st, 2022, nine months after my previous post. I was so enthusiastic at the beginning of the year. But life happens, and also I have a confession. I also have a full-time day job where I am on the computer most of the day so writing a post is not the priority in my mind.

But today I am on my first day of vacation so I thought, it is time to get some of that side hustle stuff taken care of. I wanted to set up an Amazon affiliate membership but the auto caption after several tries did not work for me. But, I remember I have another one that I need to check into and here it is.

Smugmug

I have used Smugmug for over a decade to host my portfolio. Why would I do this, the size of my photography catalog is vast as you could imagine. My hard drives have so many more but my site hosts over 80,000 images. 

Using the Smugmug company's service is an easy way to market your photography and if you think creatively probably much more. If you are new to photography and watch all those YouTube tutorials with  Squarespace sponsorships you might think that they are the only simple option available. Personally, the customer support I have always received from the relatively smaller company, I mean Squarespace is an NYSE company and you can buy stock in it but I like to work with a smaller organization where I feel more important to them.

So try it out for free for 14 days. Want to see my SmugMug site, that is easy.  https://www.eddevereaux.com/

Today is January 1, 2022, and I recently just turned 55 years old. This year I watched way more TikTok videos than I should have. The lady my wife and I met at the bar at Nana’s Irish Bar in Newport this past week told me that no one over the age of 29 should be watching TikTok. But she bought my wife and me a birthday drink so why argue. It is her opinion. 

So, what I am going to do with all those opinions I have this year about photography? I think I know but here I am writing, well typing, this out to start me off. For many years I was a constant TFP photographer. Most people have no idea what TFP is so that is my first thing to talk about. 

TFP is a pretty old-school term that means “Trade for Prints”. This has been a thing in Hollywood and Fashion under various terms. Check out this video about Chris Pratt and his headshots back in the day. 

Chris Pratt's Most BEAUTIFUL Picture - The Graham Norton Show

Photographers offer or are asked to photograph a person, business, house and give the subject, owner, or realtor the photos to use in their promotions. This has been standard practice for decades but with the advent of the cell phone camera, the demand has decreased. My experience with TFP was mostly models and people who just wanted professional free photos. When Instagram became a thing, those were your photography advocates. 

Now TFP refers to more as Trade for Photos and is mostly digital. TFP serves a purpose in a photographer’s lifespan in my opinion. But it can be relied on as a crutch or even a roadblock from excelling as a photographer and a model. TFP subjects and working with a photographer who offers TFP should be thought about. TFP photographers own the rights to those photos. In my experience, they should not make money by selling those photos. Once a photographer starts selling them or a model starts selling them on their social media the rules should be different. Now using these TFP photos to book paying gigs and self-promotion is what TFP is, creating content to use in that role, self-promotion, be that advertising, social media, or job interviews. 

Sunday I did something very hard. I went to a wedding where I was not the photographer. I was asked to be the photographer but Trinity and Isaiah are more like family and it is very hard to take photos while crying. 

I did, however, bring my iPhone and my DJI pocket Osmo video camera. So, yeah, I recorded the wedding on video, as any proud surrogate daddy would do for his daughter. Trinity and I have worked together so many times in the past and we were even able to get her hubby in the shots after much nagging. 

I finished the video today for them, the day after the wedding. Since I am not a videographer I was quite proud of the results. No, not going to show it. This video is for them, their families, and friends to see first. 

Did I take any photos, yep. Did I use my professional camera, nope. I know how it feels with uncle buddy gets in the way as a photographer and I let the photographer do her thing. But soon a family member had me using their camera for a portrait and Isaiah said, "I knew you could not resist" and he was right of course. 

I still stayed out of the way mostly but might have crossed the line at the end of the night. But so would any proud parent so there is that. I took a few shots with my phone just in case. Those were for me but I feel no shame in sharing a couple. 

Last Friday it began, OSAA (Oregon School Activities Association) had the beginning of what, I hope, will be a full Football season for the high schools in the state. Once again I have the privilege to photograph one of the Portland Oregon high school's efforts. The team looked excited, the coaches looked dialed in, the athletic director was there making sure everyone stayed safe and it was a good experience for the kids. 

But, I have to say this, I am disappointed in the support in the stands from the parents. I just never could understand the lack of support the parents are willing to put into an away game. Especially as hot as it was, water would have been a good thing to have. Maybe they could not have it due to Covid? I don't know but I am hoping that the poor turnout was more to do with the holiday weekend and less to do with the 45-minute car ride. 

The Ida B. Wells (formally known as Wilson) high school hung in tough against the McMinnville Grizzlies and due to a couple of missed tackles and a couple of penalties came away with a non-league loss. There is some talent on this team so opponents, don't take this team lightly, they come to play. 

Want to see all the pictures I took of the game, check out my website.

Recently I've received a lot of Facebook and Internet advertising for Jarvis which is an AI program that will create a blog post in text for you. I honestly don't believe that AI blog posts will be good enough to make it personable on a blog post for a small business. Yep, photography is a people really connected kind of thing and so if you're fake it's going to come off as fake and it weighs a know you're fake, and if you might as well just go out and buy your 10,000 Instagram followers like  Omi and just you just hey would you would be unpopular, so no is not the same.

So here I am using voice to text instead of typing my thoughts. Would it really work for me cuz it's kind of like a dictation service and of course I'll have to go do my own spell-check and everything else but still is just it's amazing what is available to us in 2021?

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Cape Disappointment

I am not a Halloween fan myself. I don't really enjoy getting into a costume at all. Horror movies are ok but I can't say I find them a must-watch. That said, photographing a few people last year after Fear PDX  closed was a challenge.