Diary of a Network Geek

His best investment was his studio.

No, seriously, Jay Maisel bought a 6-storey, 35,000-square-foot, 72-room building at 190 Bowery in Manhattan for $102,000 in 1966 and it was the best investment he could have made. Why? Because he sold it late last year for $55 million. Not a bad profit.
Personally, I think his setup is every photographer’s dream come true.  I mean, who wouldn’t want a large, multi-storey, live-in photography studio, complete with enough room to showcase your work?

According to the…
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Yes, this implies at least a “Part Two”.

Maybe even a part three.  We’ll see on that part, but at least two.
I’ve been at my new job for five weeks now and, frankly, I’m so exhausted by the end of the day, I haven’t really had anything left over for hobbies.  In fact, I’ve barely had any energy left over for watching television or reading.  So, you know, my photography has been, well, languishing, just a bit.  What that means, too,…
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Two things I love are photography and free.

This week, I’m sharing a link to links. But, it’s in keeping with the theme of free photography stuff.  The link comes from PetaPixel and it, in turn, links to their pick of the 25 best free on-line photography course and tutorials.

These tutorials run the gamut from beginner to advanced level of experience and cover a pretty wide variety of topics, including, but not limited to documentary and photojournalism, Lightroom and Photoshop, “Tilt+Shift”…
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Since I start my new day job this coming Monday, I’m slacking a little and just sharing some kind of random links about basic photographic technique.

One of the things you see a lot of photographers do, especially if they want to “go pro” and shoot portraits, is something called “seamless paper”.  Basically, it’s a huge, long roll of colored paper that you tape up to a wall or hang from a pole to get a smooth, uninterrupted, but still plain…
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With Apple’s recent announcement that they’re letting Aperture die, without really replacing it, photographers of all kinds are looking toward Lightroom as their photographic management and processing tool.

I, personally, have used Lightroom for years.  I can do most of the editing I would ever want to do faster and easier in Lightroom than I would in Photoshop.  Of course, I’m strictly an amateur and don’t do any other fancy art stuff with my photography.  And, I try to follow Syl…
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No, I don’t mean New Year’s Resolutions that are “creative”.

Rather, I’m talking about making some New Year’s Resolutions regarding creative output.
I’ll be honest, this year hasn’t been my most productive, creatively.  But, to be fair, I did get married and merge my life with another person’s and that did take a lot of time and no small amount of effort, for both of us.  I think marriage is a pretty good excuse for not being as productively creative as one…
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So, yeah, I’ve got pretty much nothing this week.

Pretty much every bit of time and energy is going into either getting married (in just over two weeks!) or getting my fiance’s business, The Organizing Decorator, more customers.  So, that means I have little left to come up with too much that’s interesting here.  As it turns out, that’s okay because Haje and Daniela over at Photocritic have plenty to keep you amused, at least if you’re a photographer.  In particular,…
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Do you feel stale?

I know I complain about this all the time these days, but my photography, such as it is, feels really, super stale.  I’m completely uninspired and just feel, well, “stuck” when it comes to my creativity in general and my photography in particular.  I have the photographic equivalent of “writer’s block”.
I have photographer’s block!

So, what to do?
Regular readers, and you know who you are, will know that I mostly try to share something interesting, fun and free…
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It’s been said that every writer creates the world in their fiction, even if it’s not science-fiction, for their characters to explore.
Photographers can do the same thing.

I’ve always been a fan of science-fiction and fantasy in all its forms.  I remember as a kid seeing Star Wars in the movie theater and being completely captivated.  And, of course, like most geeks of my generation, I played Dungeons and Dragons and other table-top role-playing games.  Games that were born from the…
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Cool light techniques.

I love doing tricky things in camera.
Look, I work with software all day long at my regular gig, so when I get home, I don’t really want to spend hours and hours working with Photoshop to make a “photograph”.  To me, the whole point is to make photographs with the camera, not with software.  I know, it probably makes me an antique, but, well, there it is.
I’ve done some work with light painting, though, thanks to my tragic…
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