Google Provides No Help

Day 2 of my missing blogger photos.  Looks like they're not going to help me as I notice other bloggers have posts as far back as 2012 about the gray circle with the white slash in the middle!  There is the Blogger Forum, with Dark UFO as one of the Top Contributors - and even he sounds like he's frustrated with giving help on this particular subject.  I finally found a phone number for help (again, Google doesn't make it easy to find it!).  It was an automated number and there are only four choices to go with.  Forget about asking for a "Representative".

So be it, I will stop wondering if I'm going to hear from them - I'm positive I won't - and just continue on with my up to date blog!   As I have time, I will try to go back and fill in the missing photos, until I get tired of doing that!  I am not a computer geek by any means and I can get just as frustrated as anyone with computers.  Why does it have to be so complicated?  Enough of this!

A  recent painting I did from a calendar picture for inspiration was bought by a close friend of mine for her son and his wife.  That was good news!  They love it.

Today is Auburn Artwalk night.  Spent the morning passing out the signs in Auburn with Rosie.  I will head back out there tonight from 6 - 9 p.m. on Lincoln Way and in Old Town Auburn.  It was a little on the warm side today, but hopefully we will have a great turnout.  The artwalks are always on the 2nd Thursday night of the months of April, June, August, and October.  Artists works are on display for two months.

Getting Back on Track

As you can see it's been a year and a  half that I have been absent from my blog!!  As another blogger wrote one time, "...sometimes life gets in the way!"  Got that right.

I am currently working on this new website to bring it up to date.  I will be adding new Galleries, both black and white, as well as color, and in addition, artwork that I have created from my photographic images!!

Been working on some technical difficulties with this blog, specifically, why have all my images disappeared from it??  I almost deleted my blog and thought oh well I'll just use RedFrame's Blog.  Well, it's been so long that I have been actively creating on the website and blog, that I forgot that RedFrame DOESN'T HAVE A BLOG OF IT'S OWN!  Whew!  I missed the bullet on that one thank goodness!  So I'm waiting from anyone from Google's Blog Help to respond to my issue.  If anyone reading this knows the answer please don't hesitate to email me.

I have been out of the art loop as I left the High Hand Gallery in early 2014 because I needed a rest.  And that rest worked out, but then we ended up moving.  So that was a year in the making - 6 months packing up the old place and 6 months unpacking and settling into the new place!  Glad we made the move - love it here and have been doing some of that painting I was mentioning on my updated website.

So if you can put up with the crazy missing picture icon on the blog, I will continue to write on my blog and hopefully you will continue to read it!

Glad to be back!  I think I'm getting back in the groove here! ; )  Maria

HAPPY NEW YEAR??

I know I've been away for several weeks.  The holidays, sick family, and now it's my turn for this cold/flu, but I managed to find my way into my studio and try to get a step up into the new year with changes to my photography, my website, and art in general.

Whatever your art form is, I'm sure you subscribe to some online sites that are pertinent to you.  Mine being photography I receive emails from several photography online magazines and one of them is Shutter Magazine.  I've made the conscious decision to leave the gallery I am currently in - this being my last month.  Getting back to Shutter Magazine, there was a very timely article by Skip Cohen titled "Stop Procrastinating, Do some Serious Cleanup & Start Building for the Year Ahead."  So I started with my website and made a few changes about the layout and the verbiage about myself and my artwork.

The next item is the Blog!!  So if I'm going to be successful with the blog I need to comment at least twice a week, or shut it down!  That's his advice and I agree.  Blogging keeps yourself in your own 'loop'!!  Get involved with your community!  Now that I do, but there is a project in the back of my mind that I've been wanting to do free gratis, and I think I just need to do it.  More on that as it transpires.

Education is another area I want to spend more time on.  There are so many new processes, techniques to use on old processes, etc., etc.!  So to me, that means spending time in my studio.  Sometimes being so involved with a co-op which I am currently participating in, I've lost my photography 'mojo' and I want to get it back!  So that's it in a nutshell.  If you want to check out that article for yourself and maybe even subscribe to it, go to:  www.ShutterMagazine.com .

MERRY CHRISTMAS SNOWMEN!!

Not much happening with photography - but I did want to share something with you pertaining to Christmas tree lights, LED lights, Snow Men!! ; )  Went to my family Christmas Reunion last weekend, and my cousin brought us all a fun little treat!  Made us feel like we were kids again!!  Hah!  He brought 3-D glasses that have been programmed right in the cellophane lens to see at every LED light - snow men!!  How fun is that!  It works on little tree lights as well as big store lights - as long as they are LED!  So I put the 3-D glasses in front of my Canon lens, and took a few shots of the Christmas tree lights so I could share it here with you!

Is that fun or what??  I know it's getting late, but if not for this year - maybe next year - you can purchase them online at:  www.holidayspecs.com  or 800-767-8427.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Tamron Lens

A couple of weeks ago I purchased a Tamron lens, 18 - 270.  I did this because I was getting tired of carrying around two lens: my primary 18-55, and my long lens 75-300.  Changing out my lenses only happens when I'm really out in the field on a trip and so actually, I rarely did whip out my zoom.  But still I'm carrying two lenses and I thought by getting this all-inclusive lens my problem would be solved.  Well, I wasn't happy with it.  Number one, the zoom was not that smooth and so hence not so fast.  Secondly, when you pressed the shutter button there was a lot of movement, which I realize (and was also told by the professionals in the store) that was the stabilizer.  There was movement when you pressed the shutter button and movement after the shutter had closed and re-opened.  So you didn't really know if you were taking a solid, focused image.  I went back and forth in my mind over this purchase and finally took it back.  I hadn't registered the lens as I wasn't that sure about it in the first place.  So the store did take it back, with a 10% less re-stocking charge.  But, hey, that's okay, I just didn't want to be stuck with a lens I wasn't going to use.  I don't have that kind of money.

I've been working on and off on some images I took for a family portrait session.  As I'm working on these images, I'm wondering how many images other portrait photographers take in one sitting??  Just curious.  I mean, when is enough, enough??  I'm being more and more selective as to which ones I pick to include in the CD.  When the customers are friends, it's always kind of touchy in that they are going to want even the ones that aren't so good.  But again, I am being more selective!

Christmas is keeping me busy with decorating and starting to shop, so don't know how much will get done in the way of photography this month.  Will be working at the High Hand Gallery two times month, and I just posted more images on their FB page.  And I will have to come up with two or three new pieces for January.  Hope you are having a wonderful holiday season so far and wish me luck with sales in the gallery!!  I need it!! ; )  Here's an image of mine that is 'seasonal' to say the least, and I've hung it up in the living room for the holidays!  It's printed on metallic paper and looks fabulous, I must say!

Alcatraz Prison, CA

Here it is another week gone by before I've made my next post!!  That's crazy!  Pretty soon it's going to be Thanksgiving, then Christmas holidays!  Life just goes by, just like missed photo ops!!

I was driving down the canyon road this morning into town, and I had my camera in the back seat.  I wanted to take some shots as the fog was creeping in making for some sweet views, and then in the misty rain the fall colors of the live oaks really stood out in shades of orange and yellow!!  But it was raining - I missed the opportunity.  So now I'm hoping I'll find it again tomorrow morning.  It's still raining now.

I have been working and re-writing on my new web site.  Added my photography history with galleries and shows I've done, as well as, adding some helpful links.  I plan on adding more links.  Don't know if it's that necessary now that the internet is so THERE!  All you have to do is type in a description of what you're looking for and two seconds later it's there.  Added another gallery the other day:  Alcatraz Prison, CA!!  You might want to check it out for yourself.  Here's one of the images from that gallery:

When I was there standing on the first floor of the prison, I looked up through the grate to the second floor.  And it was eerily drawing me in.  That place can be creepy, but also pretty awesome.  I know it takes your mind back to when the prisoners were there under the surveillance of the guards.  The building was cold, wet, dark and dingy, but made for some awesome black and whites.  I love old historical places.

One thing I'm struggling with is whether or not I want to make a Facebook page of my photography only.  I don't know.  But then if I did, my blog could be posted there too and draw in more viewers to the website.  I'm still thinking.  Beyond that I need to make a decision as to "if" or "when" I put up my prints for e-commerce.

EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE

So apparently my external hard drive is full with only 24 kb left.  That's probably why my PC is running slow??  I don't know.  I'm heading over to Best Buy to talk to a GEEK and probably purchase a humongus hard drive to make my life easier - hopefully.

Well I am back from a 5-day excursion to the big City of San Francisco.  We had great weather - sunshine every day.  Hardly any people during the week - but WHOA come Saturday it was as though it were a great big ant hill with people scurrying all over the town!  Crazy!  If you're headed that way anytime soon or just any time, go during the week!  And if you want to go see Alcatraz Island, purchase your tickets way ahead of time online.  That's the only way to go.  I did that for us and I notice the sign said, "Next available tour date - MONDAY"!, which was almost a week away.

I stopped by the High Hand Gallery to check out the re-hang that went on while I was out of town - and it's really awesome.  I had two artist friends tell me how great it looked - specifically my black and white photos of The Getty Museum and Bodie Ghost Town!  They were right.  During the last two months of the year, the gallery puts up two Christmas trees to hang some art pieces on them.  I didn't do any small pieces as I have in the past, and it just doesn't work for photography - at least not for me.  I thought I would just make Christmas cards - people like cards, so that's what I'll do.

More pics later when after I install my new external hard drive and get things settled on my PC!!  Again, thanks for spending time with me and for your support!