I Married a Photographer

To brief you all on our events of the week-

Sunday, Dean was in crisis mode ready for the panic button. As he was doing something on the computer, he turned his squeaky chair toward me and said “It doesn’t see the hard drive.”

I looked up from my homework, “What?” To which he repeated, “It doesn’t see the hard drive.”

Until I could pull myself out of my readings to understand what he was saying, I realized that all I had to understand was Dean’s expression. It was one of fear.  The main computer we use for all the photography business, all of Dean’s processing software, etc.  We were smart in backing up all our work over the past years and investing in off-site backups just last year -good move.

After hours and hours of testing the computer to get it to see it’s internal meat, it froze.  Dean made it to bed late Sunday night, woke up with me at 0515 Monday morning to check on the status of our baby (the computer).  Frozen.  UGH!  Hence, why there was no blog post on Sunday, I was stressed out formulating plans B-Z for our business!

I don’t recall the exact time but Dean sent me a MMS featuring his monitor . . . up and running.  I don’t know what scares me more that it didn’t see it’s harddrive or that it is working fine, now.

Until Sunday. . .

Photographing the remnants of an old stone house on rt 204 in Kratzerville, PA

This post is going to be a little more personal than previous ones.   As a wife, mother, student, nurse and the business manager, I find that my attention is  pulled from one role to another all day long.  This alone, can pose a challenge especially if there are tasks to complete (and there always are)!  Sometimes, I seat myself at my desk, hoping to have inspiration for writing a blog post, glance at the unsorted mail or  random objects on my desk then slowly but willfully, I wander into a pool of thought, “How did this get here?”  Thus, begins my procrastination journey.  After spending 20 minutes think about why there is a clean fork in my desk or sorting and filing our household mail, once again, I’m ready to write.  About what? Aha, I know.

No matter what kind of business you are in, there is no room for excuses.  Everyone has had a coworker or relationship with the ultimate ‘excuser’.  Nothing is this person’s fault, everything happens to the ‘excuser’  he/she has nothing to do with these events.  Right?  You know about these folks?!  I had a classmate in high school, he was a nice kid.  He played sports, and for some reason in 10th or 11 grade, it seemed that he and I were in every class together.  So I had a hefty dose of seeing how he functioned on a daily basis.  One day, I remember sitting in class (I’m being vague for humiliation purposes) talking about how great it would be if I could work and practice hard enough that I could dunk a basketball.  I thought that would be a challenge that not every 5′ 10″ woman could meet in a lifetime.   Given my drive and effort, I could do it.  Though I have been tall and slender all my life, this guy was the same height or maybe a smidgen shorter but weighed  30-40 pounds more.  Because of his weight advantage and build I didn’t find his disclaimer to be completely ridiculous.  Of course, he overheard me talking to my girlfriend and chimed in, “I can dunk.  It’s not hard, you have to get the right angle.”  At this point, I don’t recall if I scoffed at his statement, responded or just ignored him (filing the claim in my mind to use at a later date).

In any event, a few days later the biweekly gym class was upon us.  Thankfully, I remembered  to ask him if I could witness this event.  Part of the class stood on the basketball court waiting, watching, hoping to witness a miracle.  I had, only on 2 occasions, seen high school basketball players dunk, and these guys were huge!  They stood upwards of 6′ 4″ or taller and even they couldn’t perform it with finesse.  So watching this guy run from the foul line to the basket, then jump, using all his strength and force to only touch the net halfway to the rim.  Ho-hum.  After safely landing back on his sneakered feet, he carefully inspected the bottom of either shoe then said, “Hmm, I think there was a stone in my shoe.”  I thought, Really?  A stone would prevent you from dunking? Oh did I forget to mention, he didn’t have a ball in hand; it was a warm up and already he had excused himself out of completing something he was boasting about just days before.

Now I didn’t type this story to make fun of this person, it served as an example to me.  As I was learning to live on my own in New York city without family there to bail me out, I kept this kid in the back of my mind.  I didn’t want to write checks that I couldn’t cash so-to-speak.  He probably grew up to be an ok person and though I don’t recall anyone making fun of him in this instance, I think he had a few more entanglements that weren’t so kind.

Back to my point, running a business has it’s ups and downs, understandably; not everything is predictable and clean, either.  Part of my job is to roll with the trends and not let the bumpy road take us completely off track.  Dean is great when it comes to creating the art, brainstorming, calculating lighting needs and other controls for photo shoots etc.  Once that is complete, then its up to me to make sure we can do that (ie. finding props, space, making contact with models, finding new ones, keeping a professional rapport with everyone we work for and with).  I love what I do and that I can contribute to the business but I always keep in mind that this isn’t the place for excuses.  People care that it’s completed and completed well.

I promised myself that I would have a blog every week and so far the new year is stacking up with all sorts of time constraining surprises!  Most recently, Dean has had the opportunity to work with some local bands.  He has been excited to take photography to another level and explore a slightly more creative talent.  PA Crude has commissioned our work for a promotional poster, which Dean had a lot of fun creating.  Thanks so much!

Additionally, we have a collaborative art show coming up in the spring of this year; and Dean has teamed up with some friends to work on a completely new project, hoping to launch in early spring-late winter!  Please stay tuned!

We would like to inform you that Dean has compiled some of his ‘office safe’ images into a calendar for 2011. You can find the link and download it for free at www.diestrafbarphoto.com or choose to order a hard copy for $39.99 + tax. Thank you for your support and Happy New Year!

This year has proven to be one of the most trying years I have existed.  Through the personal and professional struggles; we have managed to continue with our small business to help out some new friends while meeting more people in our untapped industry.  Who doesn’t need pictures?  I will be happy to see this year off and welcome new ideas, talents and success with DSP.

I would like to personally mention a few of our new friends and thank them for using our business for their promotion.  First, the Frank Wicher Band they sought out Dean for a promotional idea.  Dean met and maybe exceeded their expectations by mastering a photo composition used all over the area.  We still enjoy walking into venues and seeing our poster, it puts a smile on our faces.  We hope to have future projects with FWB.

Next, Terry from WQSU who has promoted our photography business on her radio show “Home Made Jam”  and “Happy Hour”.  She has been a long time friend of mine and Dean’s and though she runs on a much higher energy level than most people, her zest for new ideas, people and love of the arts; gets us excited to work in conjunction with her!

Next, Michiko Egger and PA Crude.  Personally, I love live music.  I could watch bands play all day.  These are just two pockets talent from this tiny geographical area.  We have been fortunate to work closely with these folks and produce art that may have never been possible; not to mention, attend concerts and speak with them about their musical philosophy. We enjoy being part of the equation when it comes to promotion and helping these bands form their image.

Thank you for being part of our success!  There are many people I didn’t mention but don’t worry, I will.  Happy New Year!  Cheers!

On the side to exercise my artistic and technical skills, I do a bit of web design. A friend turned me on to jQuery and I’ve been consumed with learning the language through pet web projects for local bands. It somehow wraps all my interests together. Because I have had an interesting (read: frustrating) experience, I feel compelled to share.

In building a certain web site, I intended to have blocks of content appear and disappear with certain events (click, mouseleave) but found frustration when trying to animate them using the $().slideUp and $().slideDown methods. To add to the confusion, the block entering from the window top seemed to work with these methods, but a menu that slid up from the bottom did not. I saw unpredictable behavior; blocks would not move yet their successful callbacks would fire, the blocks would bounce in and out, or the blocks would show the opposite behavior as intended.

That last odd behavior made me think. Why would $().slideToggle work but not $().slideUp or $().slideDown as expected. After searching I came to the idea that the “up” and “down” parts of the method names are not absolute directions! So I quickly tested this idea on the bottom block that is intended to slide down upon $(document).ready after a slight delay. I changed:

$(‘#menu_block’).slideDown(900);

to

$(‘#menu_block’).slideUp(900);

et voila! It worked!  Now, using the $().slideUp method I have commanded the block to slide down.  Why?  I suppose the reason for this is that these methods are based on the idea that all elements are relative to the top. Every example I found demonstrated an element sliding down from the top, none that slid up first from the bottom.

So, in the end I discovered that $().slideUp behaves more predictably if thought of as a method to hide an element and $().slideDown acts to reveal an element despite the actual direction the element travels.