Rick Allen Photography Blog

There is only so much time in the day, and one bog one for me is getting RickAllenPhoto.com up and running.

• I have re-keyworded a few of the galleries and hope to complete more as time allows.  So keep watching.
• I have posted two new galleries: one from Arizona/Utah (the topic of my last blog post) and another Strobist portrait shoot at the Minneapolis Photo Center. The picture above is from that shoot.  This is no Joe McNally or Chase Jarvis shot, but I hope David Hobby would find it acceptable from one of his class attendees.
• I was deliquent getting the TFP images back to the models from the January Strobist shoot, so that took time as well.  I also reconnected with one of the models who unknowingly broke the copyright agreement.
• Regarding the galleries, a big thanks to Sylvia who always gives me detailed and direct feedback on how to improve not only my photography, but the web site.  She has been just awesome.
• I posted several different series of Book Reviews on topics from Advanced Lighting to Travel Photography.  And I even included links to Amazon for anyone who is interested in learning more about any of those books.  It is always a struggle to know what to include.  There are so many good books, and I do not care to duplicate too much on any topic.  I expect to remove some books and add others to keep any single page readable.
• Behind the scenes, I have been trying to figure out how to post video tutorials to the site, a far more challenging effort than I ever imagined.  While the videos take time to produce, there is a dearth of programs which convert Apple’s QuickTime movie format to the more web-friendly Flash FLV format.  The advantage is for you, the viewer, by cutting your download time by up to a factor of ten. But nothing is free, meaning the little program I use produces videos with poor visual detail and lower color gamuts.  Thank God there are people like my brother, Gary, and the web hostess with th most-est, Kel.  The web site would have gone the same way as three others on Google Pages.  (Who says three times is the charm?)
• I’m still geting my hands around all of the information Steve sent me on how to improve the site.  (Steve, I’m not ignoring your last email, just trying to figure it all out.)
• If Nick ever gets back into town for more than a few days, I will complete an interview with him on displays for photographers.  The first interview will be all about notebook computer displays - why so many people have trouble with them, and which ones are the best.  While I cannot divulge confidential information I have received from the drawing boards of these companies, many of you will be pleasantly surprised with future products, assuming that the economy ever gets back on track and these companies go back to funding their R&D efforts.
• Josh was good enough to invite several of us down to Albuquerque for shoot that unfortuntely fell through.  That one would have been a tad bit too much.  But keep those invites coming!!

And that’s the stuff off the top of my head.  If I’m really lucky, a video slideshow from Arizona / Utah will be posted by this weekend.  Depends upon if I can resolve my QT to Flash conversion problems.

See you soon!
Rick