nate update

Now Hiring Studio Manager Position:

Fun, energetic, and savvy person who can meet these requirements:

• Punctual, reliable, creative and professional.
• Web-savvy. Able to operate & edit websites similar to MySpace & Facebook. Uploading image descriptions and photos to websites will be common. Some creative writing skills are a plus.
• Know or able to learn QuickBooks on a Mac. Ooooh, scary, right? Wrong. It’s just the basic billing operations that can be taught relatively quickly. We have a CPA for the heavy lifting.
• Proofing and proof reading will be common. Pleas bee able too spel and use propre grammer. (See how whack that looks?!)
• Interest in commercial design & photography. There may be some design, photo & retouching opportunities.
• Be the “glue” that keeps schedules, deadlines and phone calls under control.
• Pay: negotiable, based on experience and skill set.

Studio Intern Position:

Fun, energetic and savvy person who can meet these requirements:

• Punctual, reliable, creative and professional.
• Adobe Photoshop skills for photo editing is required. Basic knowledge of the entire Creative Suite on Mac Platform very helpful. Will train to advanced level.
• Interest in photography, primarily for product photography, but some location sessions, glamour, restaurant and real estate will occur.
• Organizational freak! We have large photo libraries that need to make sense.
• Able to follow directions and work without heavy supervision.
• non-paid position, 20-30 hours weekly. May lead to full time position as market demands.

Those of you who know me, know that I’m a freak for Rage Against The Machine’s music. They introduced me to the exploration of my political views, taught me to question authority, and they also just play fist in the air kickass rock music. They’ve broken up and reunited a few times in recent years. I was lucky enough to catch them last year at Vegoose. Lots of my friends say the show fell short, but I didn’t notice because I was too busy enjoying it.

Today, the RATM lead singer and one of my personal idols, Zack De La Rocha, released a 5-song EP with the drummer from Mars Volta called One Day As a Lion. It’s not Rage, but it’s pretty intense. Zack is playing with some ballsy new territory – singing some choruses! Whoa. Not very hip hop. Very clever and enjoyable overall. His lyrics are just nasty – in a good way – and they snap like always. It’s hard hitting, fast, and electronically groovy. 4 stars from me.

If you’re into Zack’s lyrical style – grab this EP. It’s only $5 on iTunes. Then, go to http://www.onedayasalion.org/ and read the lyrics while you listen. You’ll thank me later.

I read many blogs and sites every week, and occasionally, I’ll pick one up that makes me say… “no shit” or “hell yeah” or “duuuude” – in other words, a damn fine article.

This is one. Every photographer has run into the ISO dilemma, and said – why would I need to change my ISO, which used to be called film speed when I learned it. Hell, it was easy for me to figure out, because it was whatever my dad had on hand, or whatever my professor gave the class. Now that we’re all digital, what the hell would we need to care about film speed? Read this article from Digital Photography School’s website to find out.

This morning I was introduced to the website for a friend and client, Don Michael. His work is really diverse in style, and saying his palette is colorful would be a huge understatement. Check it out if you have some time. 

Here’s the link to http://www.donmichaeljr.com/

Last night was a blast. Our friends at Wicked Creative invited us to attend Bottle-Rock-It, a concert event at the Red Rock Hotel & Casino put on by SpyOnVegas.com. I guess the first week was awesome, with some really killer musicians playing some long sets and rare cover tunes. Bummer that I missed that one. It’s back in a couple weeks, if you have a chance, meet us there.

I also got to meet and talk with Peter Lik, one of my favorite photographers. His work is truly amazing, and you can find it in galleries all over the world. Visit his website to see what I mean by amazing.

Visit SpyOnVegas.com for some other killer photos of the show, like this one…

If you have an opportunity to get to either the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone in the coming months, it sounds like these free Canon Classes are pretty great.

Thanks to Dave Etchells at the Imaging Resource website for reviewing one of the classes at Yosemite last week. I’m considering heading over to the Grand Canyon for a photography adventure next weekend. I hope scheduling allows.

In the meantime, check out this link to the review and schedule.

EDIT: I did some more digging, and found this really great Grand Canyon Newsletter download. It’s full of interesting info, even if you’re not planning a trip… Check out the PDF

I do. Love it. We use it to sync 3 macs at our studio every hour during the week. I love it. When I had a Treo 650 a while back, I never knew when or where my calendar events were, my mail was either old, new or nowhere to be found. Now, my iPhone, laptop, Mac Pro and Accounting iMac all sync seamlessly. So, why screw with it, I say, it’s working perfectly!

Uh, not quite sure about that now. Enter Apple.

.mac (dot mac) is changing to me.com very soon. As soon as tomorrow, some say. (new iPhones, and I assume a new iPhone software release). My prediction is grim. I think this little update is going to cost me thousands of dollars. You see, .mac is fine running on an older G3 or G4 iMac. MobileMe, not so much. My G3 800 iMac is about to become a very odd shaped jukebox. Well, I guess it had a good run.

Hey, hopefully I’m wrong. I’ll try everything first, before running out to Best Buy to pick up a new iMac. We need to sync in business, and if it means spending a little coin to do it, so be it.

Do yourself a favor if you’re on  - back your stuff up sooner than later. Read very carefully the system requirements before you do anything brave. I know I will.

EDIT: I upgraded on Sunday. So far, so good. I’ve read a lot of horror stories, but I have not had anything drastic occur. The “push” synchronization was a bit over hyped, and Apple recognized this. Here’s the letter I got from MobileMe this morning: 

“We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately, it was a lot rockier than we had hoped.

I have one of these in my office. Pretty fun to play with. Slow as can be, by today’s standards, but still fun. Check it out.

 Wikipedia Feature