A Camera Raw First

Our daughter Candice ('Noisie' is my nickname for her) celebrated her birthday on Saturday so my Bonnie Ronnie and I decided to visit her and husband Brett in Nanango for a couple of day's. We thought this would be a good opportunity to familiarise ourselves a little more with the camera's and lenses in the country.

In the meantime our son Jason ('Jay') has had to lay off an employee and this has added pressure to his workload so he and his wife Natalie ('Nat') needed a much deserved break and planned for the grandparents to take the children for the weekend. Since Noisie loves her little nephew Lachlan ('Locky') we all decided that it would be a nice treat to take Locky to Nanango for the weekend. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on ones perspective, Caydence ('Cades') would be with her biological mother for the weekend thus giving Locky free reign over the household.

Brett and Noisie have recently relocated to a new rental property, again out of town but on the opposite side. The previous house was riddled with wood borer discovered when Brett fell through the flooring in Caydence's bedroom. Whilst these old Queenslander houses are quite attractive, they do require significant ongoing maintenance and it seems that the owner couldn't be bothered. The new house is brick under iron, not as attractive and lacks the character and charm of the old Queenslander but warmer, more secure and less maintenance. They still have 5 acres and once again have a dam.

Noisie reckons that this was the best birthday ever since she had Locky for a couple of days, she really enjoys his company as he is 'less complicated than the girl's'. I think Locky enjoyed himself more than anyone since he was the centre of attention.

We were given the royal tour and took a lot of photographs, some of which we have included, others will be posted to our Facebook page. We have tried to keep them interesting as we practice our post production technique using Adobe's Bridge and the Camera Raw format. This is a first for us, using  the new Apple platform and Adobe software so please feel free to critique our work ....any and all feedback will be appreciated. :)

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InDesign delight

I'm having a ball with this new InDesign CS6. Of course the learning curve is huge as I was used to using applications such as Microsoft's 'Publisher' on a Microsoft 'Windows' platform but I do remember how powerful other platform's such as unix and linux were compared with the more popular but less efficient Microsoft products.

No! I'm not about to bag the heck out of Microsoft, not that they don't deserve it but I am having a wonderful time with my iMac which is running OS X v10.8.2 Lion with a 3.4 GHz  Intel Core i7 with 16GB 1333 MHz DDR3 Memory literally right next to my Trooper Pry-GFX8123 AMD FX 3.1 GHz Window 7 with 16 GB Memory and Dual liquid cooled Radeon HD 6800 Graphics cards - Gaming Machine.

Both are really quick machines but the graphics on the iMac (nothing special, stock standard actually) are simply blowing away the gaming machine which needs to constantly have the drivers reloaded. Windows 7 updates require frequent restarts and invariably require that I remove one display driver and refresh the hardware configuration which in turn reloads the missing driver and re-sync's the display thereby fixing it once again.

Having bored everyone to tears with the above comparison, brought about primarily by Microsoft's launch of 'Windows 8', I will boor everyone just a little longer as I say that I am looking forward to trying out this revamped old platform but am more than a little sceptical of the old 'Microsoft Hype' as I recall frustrating and unrealistically expensive flops such as 'Vista' and other equally frustrating and equally expensive, previous 'incompatible' platforms such as 'CE',  'Windows 2000' and the early 'Windows 98'. But.... I'll be trying it on the Trooper since I no longer have a use for it and not on my laptop which I do use frequently, after all one does not place a valued tool at risk on the advice of a known prevaricator.

While catching up on overdue assignments with Grenadi and having tremendous fun in the process I have been boosting the learning curve through 'lynda.com' and I do believe that this is what is making it so enjoyable. Yes there is a small cost but I do have to say it is without doubt the best value for money that I have ever received. I find the video tutorials well structured and the Authors delivery without exception to be fantastically clear and concise. I have learnt so much in a very short space of time and with the ability to bookmark both movie and time code I have any information that I need to review or revisit well organised and easy to recap... believe me at this stage in my life this is essential, the old brain is not the sponge it used to be, sadly!

Today I submitted my fourth Grenadi assignment a couple of days ahead of time but I'm about 4 days behind on the fifth tutorials. The weather has been a little overcast with the odd fine sprinkle making it ideal study weather so I've no doubt that I'll get caught up this week. 

Ronnie and I are hoping to spend a couple of days with our little girl and her family for her 31st birthday this weekend. We might even get a chance to take some good photographs with a bit of luck but if not, ....not to worry there is no rush:)

Till next time, God bless.

Enjoying Grenadi

You are probably wondering what a Grenadi is. Grenadi School of Design is the institute that I am doing my course through. The course that I'm doing is 'Advanced Diploma in Advertising and Graphic Design (Online)' which is a three year full time course using multimedia. Grenadi's main campus is in Melbourne Victoria but I have noticed that there are quite a number of students from my neck of the woods (so to speak) undertaking the same course. I have managed to look at each of their profiles and have to say they did make me feel old, outclassed  and not just a little daunted. I quickly pulled my thoughts into line though with old cliche's like "you're never too old to learn" and  "I have the advantage of (a helava lot more) life experience''.  The most important thing though in all seriousness is to have fun with it and enjoy myself.

I must say that whilst I still suffer from self over-performance expectations (I think in part brought about through an unrealistic desire to win my Father's ever elusive approval. Dad used to say, "Aim damned high so that when you inevitably fall short you're not seen as a total failure but remember Peter that a miss is as good as a mile and if you're not first you may just as well be last")  I am slowly learning to ease up on myself and have some fun. Even my children say that I'm mellowing and I can't tell you how much that encourages me. I suspect that whilst I have never wanted to put that sort of pressure on my own children, I probably have even though I have made a point of telling them how proud of them I am and how much I love them. They are the best!

Anyway I digress, back to Grenadi. So whilst it has only been a week of study, I have managed to thoroughly enjoy myself and catch up on two of the three assignments that I was behind on. The first assignment has even been graded and "Satisfactory" will do me just fine,  I'm feeling pretty stoked.

I have a couple of home projects on the go so I'll take some time out to work on them today. My Bonnie Ronnie want's an arts and crafts area for her scrapbooking and we also need a small photographic studio. We have decided that utilising the same space for both is not practical so we will use the garage for the photo-studio and one of the bedrooms for Ronnie's art's and crafts. We want to try and make the photo-studio portable but we need to familiarise ourselves with the equipment thoroughly so it's going to be setup in the garage for a while initially. The plan is then to take our little photo-studio on the road as we offer our niche market services to small business as a low budget but cost effective professional marketing and advertising service. 

Till next time - take care and God Bless.

Playing Catchup

The last couple of weeks have had its high's and lows. My Bonnie Ronnie came down with the flu which would be bad enough but she managed to get an eye infection and an ear infection and of course she is a loving, caring and sharing person so passed on the inflictions to me.

I had planed to take Ronnie on BBB (Big Blue Bertha - our 1600 Kawasaki Nomad) to an exclusive restaurant on the Sunshine Coast for her Birthday with the surprise of friends that we have not seen for 20 years joining us for the day. Sadly however I had to cancel the reservation as the eye infection was getting worse. Unfortunately I practically live on these computers so the eye infection was devastating as I could barely read the screen even with magnifying glasses, the constant streaming and scratchy feeling drove me to distraction. This put me a further week behind in my course so now I have missed three assignments and am as many weeks behind. I've got to put nose down and bum up to catch up:)

On the bright side our friends of old were not at all concerned about our illness or infections and told me that wild horses couldn't keep them away so they hired a car to surprise Ronnie at home. When the doorbell rang I told Ronnie I couldn't see past my nose and she would have to answer it. Well, you should have seen her face when she opened the door to Bill and Fiona standing there singing Happy Birthday. Did I take photo's? wish I could have but my sight really was a mess and the last thing I wanted to do was try and focus a camera ....so we did manage a couple of snapshots later for Facebook.

Today has been spent catching up on email, my favourite inspirational blogs, sorting a few more of the holiday photo's and converting all the MTS format files to MP4 for the Mac...... what a pain in the rear this is!

After lunch I'll have a crack at the first of these assignments - Aussie flag and wine commercial, should prove interesting but hopefully not too challenging as I'm still a bit wasted from this bronchitis.

Back to school

Well I should know within the week if my application to iLearn is successful. There are only 10 positions left for the 'Advanced Diploma of Advertising & Graphic Design for Multi-Media'. I'm so excited it's ridiculous... feel like a kid on Christmas eve.  Staying positive - I then have to suspend my studies through Murdoch University. I don't want to give them up completely just yet, sort of hang on to something I know is a walk in the park until I'm comfortable with the new road I've chosen.

In the meantime my Bonnie Ronnie and I have had a chance to get closer to our family, visiting children, cousins, aunt's and uncle's and since the grandkids have been on school holidays we have had a great time having them stay over, separately - a lot more pleasant to have some one on one time with therm. I take my hat off to Nat (my daughter-in-law and mother to the quads and Cameron) and Jay (my son) who live a life of organised chaos at best. In amongst this my son Jay and I have managed to find time to take in a couple of movies at the cinema.... life is AWESOME!

Locky (eldest grandson) had a bee in his bonnet over some 'Fireman backpack' and since he is only six he know's exactly what he is talking about whilst everyone else is somewhat at a loss. The weather was great and Ronnie and I wanted to spend some time with him at the beach whilst getting familiar with camera's and lens's etc. sort of combine our two loves, which we did. We subsequently posted a few photo's on Facebook to the family's delight. Every time we stopped to catch our breath Locky would ask if we would take him shopping for this 'Fireman backpack' and we of course would humour him by going into the shopping centres looking for this item each time we passed by a shopping centre, on our side (nearside) of the road. Needless to say half the weekend was spent wandering around in the various toy sections where dozens of substitutes for the desired item could be found.... all at the most outrageous prices (If I don't say this I'll be broke next week - lol) but no sign of the desired item which I must admit I was beginning to believe was a product of his active imagination.

Jay popped over early one morning to upgrade our security system and we all got to talking about this 'fireman backpack' which resulted in Dad promising to take Locky to Chermside Target (deduced by dad to be the 'tall target building' that Locky kept referring to.) These kids don't miss a trick I tell you, Dad was held to his word and sure enough the next time Locky visited, it was with his 'Fireman backpack' on his back. "This is not the exactly one ....fire-man backpack poppy" he declared, as he started pulling it apart to show me "..but it's got this cool ... um... canon". He was as happy as Larry!

Unfortunately when the girls Hayl's and Tilly stayed over, the weather was miserable and both had colds so we spent time indoors for the most part instead of the beach. At this age (six) they of course want to do everything one of the others has done and so Hayley would frequently ask, "Pops... can we go swimming at the beach .. um ... like .. Locky?" - must say I just love the way she call's me "Pops". We did manage to take them to the Redcliffe Pier so they could see the beach and the sea but the good weather window was small so the visit was short. 

Back to school for the kids tomorrow, me included.... well I'm young at heart and I am a student, haha!

Social Media

I came across a clip recently on the advantages of marketing through social media and twitter in particular, The clip is very slow with a little too much bla.. bla.. and if one can stay tuned, interesting... but what struck me was the attention to detail by Richard Merritt an artisan of hand crafted fountain pens. I went looking for Richard's web site for some inspiration only to find that his site is no longer, just goes to show that it's a tough world out there.

I think that one can become overawed by the sheer number of talented artists and artisans marketing themselves and their product online through the social media which in itself is growing with many new app's.  The advantage that one gains with the advent of a new marketing medium or even strategy can be quickly lost as people jump on the proverbial band wagon.

The most successful marketing appears to come down to timing more than anything else, this is not to say that strategies and all the other elements are not important but we all know by now that it's not the best quality product or service that wins out. People have so many choices today and these choices are provided by companies attempting to find their niche and actually hoping for more than one. Large companies will attempt to muscle out any competition and even influence legislation to minimise the choices to the public at large.

In Australia the banks (the big four) have this down to a pretty fine art and are becoming a little cocky with their success, to the point that they no longer follow the Reserve Bank's lead or advice and rather than focusing on growth for the overall good of society and a tidy margin for themselves, they focus on profit and profit alone for the sake of profit. I believe that this is very dangerous as I think about world history repeating and some of the revolutions that have taken place when the greed of the wealthy becomes too much for the poor and disadvantaged to bear.

I see on the world news that there are a number of growing groups that are beginning to gain notoriety and with that notoriety comes support which I have no doubt will develop into a global movement against the disparity between the 'have's' and the 'have-not's'. Unfortunately this disparity is not minor or growing at a slow but steady rate, it is spiralling out of control and on the brink of creating a global financial melt down. The sad thing is that only the 'have-not's' will bring it into check because once greed takes hold, nothing but poverty can bring it into check.

You are probably wondering how I have gone from marketing and the social media to global upheaval in five paragraph's. I tend to think about consequences and ramifications an awful lot and even more so now that I have a little life experience under the belt. I'm well aware that some of the decisions that we make in our lifetime are very serious with dire consequences that cannot be changed no matter what and others can only be changed at great expense. 

Now what once was only one social media application with more pro's than con's is now at least ten social media applications with just as many con's as pro's...... It is no longer possible to utilise them all efficiently regardless of the minimal financial cost, there simply are not enough hours in the day so it comes back to making choices. Which of the social media will be most effective and cost efficient (time as well as financial) to meet my needs? Where do I need to position myself in relation to my financial responsibilities and needs moving forward?

I have created a portfolio for myself on Fine Art America's web site because it is at the top of the google (and other's) search engine. Of course the 46,000 artists who are already registered with their own portfolio's, were instrumental in the site's ranking. The first goal is to get into the top 10,000... and always looking at the positive... I'm currently in the top 50,000:)

I'll start off by linking everything back to that portfolio I think and use Facebook along with twitter to help promote and market my art for a start. In the meantime I'm moving from PC to Mac and Coral to Adobe so I've a pretty big learning curve on the go.

Stanford Who's Who

Quite some time ago I applied for inclusion to Stanford Who's Who to better market my professional experience. To my pleasant surprise I recently received a call from them advising that I had been short listed for a telephone interview.

It was a wonderful opportunity and I seized it with both hands. What a great interview to promote my 40 plus years as a security provider, adviser and consultant. When it comes to accreditation I learned a long time ago to dumb it down, people feel threatened by those who have academic achievements and this can make life pretty uncomfortable.

So why try to promote oneself through a 'who's who', especially a world renowned organisation based in the big apple? ...for the networking potential of course. This as an opportunity to network with other like minded successful people and their organisations. One can't buy experience but one can take advantage of the experienced individual's teaching.

I really am tickled pink as I didn't expect a look in let alone inclusion when I advised my interviewer that I am trying to move away from security and focus on my passion - art. This is going to open new doors for me I believe and where it will lead, who know's but it's exciting!

Now I have to see if I can transfer my current studies away from security, counter terrorism and toward graphic art. I hope the Uni is going to be as obliging with me as they have been in the past. Why do I do these courses and studies if I'm not going to advertise them. The answer is simple, I do them for me.... to challenge myself and to keep me motivated. My brother Guy understands this, we tend to set goals for ourselves, tough ones and we get a huge buzz out of achieving them if and when we do ...cut from the same cloth I suppose. Anyway enough about this.

I had a wonderful fathers day. Firstly my daughter invited me to the Nanango  Markets which are held monthly and she was right I had a great time... Thanks for the cap 'Noisie'. Brett wanted us to stay a little longer but I really did need to get back to put my fitness training regime back on track. I tend to let things slide a bit if I get off the regime and have found I'm fine as long as I can measure the results and stick to the timetable, let either slip and I'm in real trouble as my motivation takes a nose dive.

On our way home from Brett and Candice on fathers day my son 'Jay' called, wished me as I did him and invited my Bonnie Ronnie and I to dinner. Well we had a wonderful time with the grandchildren, Nat, Jay and Charlie (Nat's father) at the Warner Tavern. I got to play my favourite character 'tickle monster' for the grand kids and it seems all the kids at the tavern that night... I think a few of the parents were more than a little concerned for their precious bundle's of joy with the level of shrieking that only a child about to vacate their bladder can produce.

The kids must have had a ball cause they tried to drag me back into the play area after I begged off through exhaustion.

I did take some pics but I'm really struggling to get through sorting all the holiday pic's that I'll give them a miss this time. I will make up for it and attach some at a later date.