Saturday Studioday

Yesterday in Studio 318. Even if the early parts of a studio day involve cleaning up and re-arranging, it proves to be a good day. A few thoughts which wandered through my head:

- The new dark blue backdrop works well. Being so dark, whatever or whoever is on it, and lit, is what the autofocus will grab rather than the background. Yes!!!
- Unless, of course, whoever it is that's on the backdrop is Madame Queen Mary Kitteh, who is entirely small enough that the camera's autofocus might not find her at all...
- Music, provided via external speakers independently powered and connected to the iShuffle is a marvelous means to bypass the fact that iTunes does not play well with other image software.
- 4 Gb compact flash cards are 4 Gb. Really, like, ginormous. No pausing for card swap, though, potentially leads to making way more photographs than might otherwise be part of the plan. *G*
- Setting up laptop in Studio 318 office room, rather than in studio room (because of the arrangements re. music above) is a good thing as well.
- I need to re-stock on studio light bulbs. This is an indicator that I've spent rather more time in Studio recently. A good thing. Oh, for the non-photographer types these are not standard light bulbs; they are daylight-balanced 500 watt bulbs. Expected life span, 6 hours.
- Said light bulbs are warm. Improvising pedestal fan goes a long ways to help cool models during a session, when the heat pump/AC still doesn't work. (Sorry, Beth, didn't get the up on a pedestal part improvised until after you left).

Yesterday also needed Hippie Birdbath greetings, however I do not feel bad about not posting them yesterday because the Hippie Bird received said wishes earlier when they posted they wouldn't be home. Even so, Hippie Birdbaths go out to arirobin, who I am hoping enjoyed a marvelous time in Mr. Mouse's Larger House. *G*

This morning I woke up way too early for a weekend, and couldn't get back to sleep. So, I ran file recovery software and salvaged images from sessions not too long past where odd glitches occurred. Now to run through the salvaged images, and get them into their proper places in the Catalog.

Wore Out

For those who do, Happy Easter.

Helped Herself in garden space today. For those who recall I've frequently mentioned the black thumb, this is exactly what she wanted. Clearing areas in her old garden spot, and extending it. Pulling up scrap aluminum (formerly skirting on Studio 318), moving a couple other large objects, digging out the walls of two composters. Pure physical labour. Started that off with mounting two new handles on the old wheelbarrow.

Well, maybe not quite so new. She'd purchased two steel replacements. Turns out, they are for a slightly smaller wheelbarrow. So we couldn't use those on this one. No worries. Turns out I'd purchased a couple spares a while back, wooden ones. These merely need to have holes drilled at the appropriate places, rather than coming pre-drilled. Did that, as well as two tiny holes at either end of a crack in the plastic of the tub. Should serve to hold the crack from becoming larger. Now Herself has a functioning wheelbarrow again. The old handles are old... no Homer Simpson moments here. Seriously, one of them rotted through and the other, while not rotting through did show significant rot at the distal end.

That second handle was made from mahogany, so much more weather resistant than the first. I've kept the portion of it which is free from rot. It weathered very nicely; should make an interesting Studio prop, or other tool in Studio. The two new handles are also mahogany. Herself is happy.

I was going to do other things afterwards, but just now I'm somewhat fried. I will relax for a bit, then work some more on office kinds of things.