Cartoons can mirror life

As anyone who reads this might know, I write for a web site devoted to photography called Enticing the Light and we try to educate and have some fun. Being a wedding and portrait photographer, I come across some photography work that doesn't make the grade in my humble opinion. I'm sure you do as well. Then I had (and still have) my own issues with web sites.

As a reader of  What the Duck, the great comic strip from the mind of Aaron Johnson, there are sometimes strips that just hit the spot perfectly on a number of levels.

So I came across this one. Perfect for my web site trials and tribulations lately. Yesterday I was checking on some ads I run on an online classifieds site and discovered that a guy I had tried as an assistant is now out flogging his 30+ years of experience as a wedding photographer. Lots of people say that. "I got a camera for Christmas when I was 12, Now I'm 43 and starting to book photography work...."

You'll notice I used the word "Had" in that sentence. He doesn't have what it takes IMO and that relationship ended quickly. I could go into the quality of work etc. but that's boring. Now I see those very same discarded photos posted as a gallery of wedding work. The cartoon fits exactly what I thought about the content.

Aaron brought a smile today and I hope the brides out there understand what the message is. Choose carefully and look at the whole body of work. Then you'll know.

Now back to my dear friend CSS, I'm sure real web designers think it's easy. Hummmm there's a parallel there somewhere. I ain't no web site developer.

Cheers and good shooting -Peter Zack

It's been a long long time....

I've neglected this blog for far too long. Anyone who is coming here has seen that I've been putting my energy in Enticing the Light and my photography business, PEI Wedding Photography. It's been a very hectic year. 33 weddings, Lots of portrait sessions, some family health issues and the challenges any small (read: unable to delegate ) business.

The biggest news is becoming a Grand dad. Wow what a gift. Beautiful little boy. Funny seeing that in type when I'm only in my 40's. But hey, I started young and so did my son. Only downside is he's in Halifax and I'm in PEI. So I don't get to see him nearly enough.

I've added a second shooter to the photography business. She's even doing some of my overflow business (see I can delegate! - well a little anyway).  Nice to have a female perspective in the wedding business. It certainly adds to how I see things. Plus I've always enjoyed teaching and she's eager to learn as much as possible.

So I'm going to make an effort to post something here at least once a week or so. The big project right now is a new web site!

I'd been using Googlepages sites for a couple of years. Nice, decent look and for a non programmer like me (I use software, not create it) it was easy. I didn't have to call the webmaster to make a change and wait to see if the changes were right. Yeah I don't delegate well. Plus I always find when I make a change, it takes 16 edits to get it just right and the inspiration was always at 2 AM. So I'd drive a webmaster nuts I'm sure.

Google (aka Googlepages) in it's infinite wisdom, decided to shut down the service. 3.5 million users, some like me with a small business and others who just had a personal story to share. Amazing. To make people happy ;) they were moving everyone to GoogleSites. That new site doesn't have JavaScript or CSS. Astonishing and useless. Must be something to do with advertising. Mr. Google isn't rich enough I guess.

So all that has pushed me to get off my butt and learn how to write web pages. CSS and HTML are challenging when you've never done it. Fun, frustrating, boring, tedious would be a few words to describe the process. But being a photographer, I don't have to buy stock images! But it's very much like learning a new language. Easier than something like Pascal for sure but challenging none-the-less.

So it's back to CSS code for the next few days.

Cheers and good shooting,
Peter