happy love day!
Happy Love Day, everyone! Here's to celebrating all the love we have in our lives, romantic or otherwise. I don't know about you, but I could always do with a little celebration, so go out and show a little love to someone who deserves it today, I say.
To that end, I feel like I owe you guys a whole lotta love -- while I expected to get some feedback on Friday's post, I honestly didn't expect to get the outpouring that I did. Thanks so much for your detailed thoughts, really-really. I read every single comment, and have taken everything into consideration; furthermore, your words have given me renewed energy toward this site. For that, I'm fantastically grateful to you all.
So! As a result, you might have noticed I've spruced things up around here a bit. During the last week, my awesome designer Krystyn Heide and I have been busy-beeing away in the background to tighten up the site for some personal career goals that I have (thanks, in part, to inspiration from a certain friend who recently told me how the cow ate the cabbage). Most of the changes were made to the landing page (which I can't even express how much I love), but also there have been some enhancements made throughout the site as well. That said, for those of you who come here just to visit the blog, you won't see any major changes here -- I'm not planning any modifications, except as a great majority of you might have suggested on Friday's post. This means:
1. I'm going to continue to post once a day during the week. It's great for me to take the weekends off, and it seems that most of you do the same -- so keeping the current schedule totally works for both of us, I believe.
2. I was actually quite stunned how many readers are looking for more technical stuff on the photographs -- I've been remiss! I don't think I really understood there were so many of you looking for information as you followed your own photography journeys. And so, going forward:
a) I'll put more detail on how I shot the images (aperture, shutter speed, ISO) at the bottom of every post; and
b) I think I'm going to institute Occasionally Technical Tuesdays: I'll feature some posts on things like choosing a camera, how a camera works, how I choose lenses, how I use Photoshop, how I pack for a photo trip, that sort of thing. Understand that I'm not an expert; however, I've certainly figured out how photography works for me, and if you think sharing some of this experience might help you, then by all means, I'll do it.
That said, it's going to be called Occasionally Technical Tuesdays because I can't promise that I'll do it every Tuesday. But certainly more than I do it now. Deal?
3. When it makes sense, I'll put more than one image in the posts. Thanks for the encouragement on that -- I'm happy to do it.
With that, I'll otherwise just continue sharing observations, images and stories from my home and in my travels as I go along in my little life with Marcus and Alex (and, of course, Rufus the SuperMutt). I might have 1 or 2 ideas for projects I think I might share here at Chookooloonks, but I'm not entirely certain -- I'll be sure to share them with you as soon as I've thought them through a bit more.
And now: some housekeeping. First, the winner of the Flickr Pro account is Rebecca, who said "I come for the photography - I want to improve my photos and one way is to see really great photos from people I admire. The posting schedule seems right to me - I appreciate that you added weekend posts in the last few months. Since I want to improve my own photos, I am interested in technical aspects as well as what inspires you when you shoot." Congrats, Rebecca! I'll send you an email to confirm the email address you'd like the account sent to.
Secondly: if you've ever friended me on Facebook, I wanted to let you know that I'll no longer be updating that profile page; however, I will be actively updating the Chookooloonks page. Simply go here to "like" the page, and join in on the community and the fun.
And finally, if you're looking for a way to show love, might I suggest voting in the 2011 Bloggies. There are some great blogs being featured over there (disclaimer: I'm in some awesome company in the photography section), and this is the last week to vote. If you do vote, please, vote your heart, and be sure to visit the sites highlighted -- the talent is pretty spectacular.
In the meantime, Happy Love Day, friends. And thank you so much for your continued encouragement -- you all have seriously enhanced my life in more ways than you know.
Images: photographed with my Nikon D300, 60mm micro lens. aperture: 3.5, shutter speed: 1/5000th of a second, ISO: 200
Song: The beat goes on as performed by The All Seeing I