Thank you! :-)

Thank you both.  I don't remember you either ejn, but it's no big, right?  We can get to know each other.  I look forward to getting to know a lot of people and learning so much from the amazing artists here.

Thanks you guys. :-)  I'll definitely check out scbwi Dialyn.  Another children's writing group recommended it to me, but I hadn't gotten around to it yet.  That group, which is on Yahoo, turned out to be a bit too advanced for me just now..not that I'm a novice writer, by any means.  I've been writing since I was in grade school, right up through college, and now for my course with ICL (Institute of Children's Literature, which came highly recommended), and have always had a talent for it.  The part that I AM a novice at, however, is the business side of writing..word counts, which publishers want what, etc.  I'm sure the scbwi site will tell me that, and I'm supposed to get a Children's Book Writers Market Guide (I THINK that's what it's called..again, I'm a novice at the business side of things) from ICL sometime soon as well.  Anyway, so what DOES everyone here write?  Do you just post stuff?  Are any of you published? 

Yeah, come to think of it, my uncle used to work in the mines..I'm not sure if he still has any of his old gear, but that would be interesting, definitely.

Yeah, that would be neat with the coal miners, if I can find a mine that's still open though.  A lot of them have been shut down.  What do you think about war veterans?  My step-grandpa is a vet, and he hangs out with a bunch of other vets..they're all very colorful characters, for the most part.  This is definitely shaping up to be an interesting idea.

I'm actually going to start from scratch and go out taking shots following the theme.  OMG!! That is an absolutely amazing shot!!!  She reminds me of a gypsy!  Soooo interesting!!  I don't live anywhere that's very interesting, but I bet I could find people...just fill a backpack with model releases and go. :-)

Yeah, I checked atncentral.com, but they don't have any themed borders like that.  I'd like to find someplace that has them for free, but I'm willing to pay $10 or $20 for just a small collection or something like that.

I always keep my a set of batteries in my camera and another set in the charger.  I don't usually "plan" to shoot, as in date and time.  However, when I do wake up and decide that it's a nice day and I'd like to go out and shoot, I do decide where I want to go before I leave the house.  There are a lot of nice parks and lots of wilderness around here, but I can also drive an hour and photograph tons of horses in Lexington, Kentucky (not sure if it's self-proclaimed or not, but the water tower says it's the horse capital of the country.)  Or, if I decide I'd like to shoot the city, I can just go in the other direction and be in downtown Louisville, Kentucky in about 15 minutes, either shooting random stuff along the streets, the waterfront of the Ohio River, or the Louisville skyline.  Or, if the urge hits me, I'll just throw up my makeshift (VERY makeshift lol, with pvc pipe, 2 flood lights, and 1 spotlight, and a white, black, or chromakey green backdrop) studio and shoot either my husband, or my son, or my pets, or cousins. LOL  Just whatever I feel like.  I usually pack both my digital and my film cameras, and I always have my camera phone with me.  I don't keep a camera in the car though..I'm always afraid the heat or cold will damage them.

Thank you all so much for your help. I really appreciate it.  I'll definitely keep practicing, since I'm starting up my own studio. :-)

Hehe. No problem Tunde. :-) He is awfully pretty for a boy.  Of course, I wouldn't be biased or anything. ;-)

There wasn't much I could do with the blown out highlights, but here's my shot at it. :-) 

Krista G.

Great points.  I knew the lighting was a little off..not technically wrong, but boring, because, for now, I have a pretty makeshift setup until I can afford to actually buy a professional setup.  I'm using 2 floods for a main and a fill and bouncing them off white walls (it's a small room), and a spot for a backdrop light, but I think I had actually moved the spot in this one because it was casting a funny shadow.  As with the pose, I was actually only going for dad's hands holding the baby, but I do suppose I should've had him turn Xander a bit more toward the camera.  He loves his daddy so much that it's hard for me to get his attention to turn toward the camera though...well that, and the fact that he's only 6 weeks old, so he doesn't exactly listen well yet.
:-)  I was thinking of experimenting with one cute pose that I'd thought of today, with laying him on top of a teddy bear and hopefully getting him to smile..he's been smiling more lately.  But for the next time I try shots like this, a white reflector behind dad's head is definitely a good idea, and something I hadn't really considered.  Oh, and Babuci...sorry, but, he's a little boy, not a girl. :-D  My husband was a little rigid in this pose because I had him in an uncomfortable position, so making him more comfortable should relax his hands and improve the shot.  Thanks all!

Great movies everybody!! I LOVE vampire movies too...I saw a really good one on Showtime last week called "Vlad". Awww Andreas. LOL *hugs* These are the videos/dvds that hubby and I have actually broken down and bought. We have subscriptions to both Showtime and HBO, and we get On Demand movies from both networks through our cable provider, so, generally, those are the movies we watch. But of course, there were a few collections we just had to buy..old and new Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Bruce Lee, Lord of the Rings...you get the picture, we're both really geeky! LOL Oh, but one of my absolute favorite movies is in the bottom left pic, it's "Dogma"! Jay and Silent Bob rule!!!!

Message edited on: 08/18/2005 14:21

I can see why..it's definitely buggy. My husband also downloaded the little add-on for us here in the US (I know not everyone in the forum lives here, but this is still kinda funny) that shows the little color-coded terrorism alert down in the corner..I forget exactly how it goes, but like yellow is "kinda scared", orange is something like "really scared", and red is something like "Oh Shit!". Of course, we don't make light of the actual event, but come on, did we really have to color code it?? :-)

OMG, this is absolutely gorgeous Rich!! I love it!! The sepia is absolutely perfect for this shot! I've always been SO fascinated with things like this..there's an antique mall in downtown Louisville that said on the side of the building that they have "phonographs"..I'm dying to get a chance to go in and look around!! BTW, awesome work!!