I still have all of those files, of course, so I may put something back up on a local server, but no promises.

Since It wasn’t being used terribly much over the last year, I’ve reset it back to scratch, and have uploaded our pictures from our first trip to Disneyworld.

We had a great time, and I came away with over 120G of raw files.  Needless to say, there has been a HUGE amount of editing, which was very difficult. We had a LOT of really great pictures.

I’ll also end up doing a post or two on that, as well as my plans for runs. The two tie up together nicely

Of course, there were pictures:

These include the shots of Aunt Janie before the Conde Ball. I thought they came out quite well given the five minutes we had to actually take the shots, and the fact that the best backdrop available was a dark window.
I’m going to have to change how I’m posting pictures… It seems that the aspect ratio gets screwed up a little when I upload them directly here. And I’ll probably start posting the pictures to Facebook as well. It seems that they will end up there, regardless on if I post them or not.
Hopefully, I’ll get the Parade pictures and the Baptism photos up tomorrow or Friday.

Turns out… the backlog apparently works differently.

So… A week before Thanksgiving, the scheduler for the area calls Jeff. There has been a cancellation. Can Greg do December?

Emails are sent to me asking this question. Immediately after reading first email, I notice second email, with answer ‘Yes.’

Oh boy.

(There is only SLIGHT liberty taken there…)

So, It’s pull out ALL the archives, load them up, sort them through, remove the duplicates, rebuild the index, throw all that out, because you should have removed the Duplicates BEFORE adding them to Aperture, and Aperture doesn’t like it when 30,000 pictures disappear at a time.

NOW, you can start actually figuring out which 20-25 pictures are actually going to make the cut. I didn’t pull much of anything from before 2003, so Five years. That worked out to be around 150,000 pictures in the archive library (not counting the years 2007-2008).

2007-2008 were easy. I had already been using Aperture to handle all of my Digital asset management, so it was a relatively simple task to pull photos that were already marked well, and choose there.

But, I wanted to get some the earlier stuff as well. Neither Jeff nor I wanted to put recent pictures of the Kids on display. Jeff does work in the Public, and DOES have to tell people NO. Having the kids up there readily identifiable and letting some upset person pull the comparison wasn’t going to happen. Having said that, some of the early pictures of Mary don’t give you a good indication on how she is now, so those became fair game.

It’s not kosher to sell directly from the Library… So we now have a new Domain and face for some of my stuff. GAN Photo is now up and running, with a separate gallery and blog system. Given that it went up a few days before the pictures did, I’m sure that it is going to change and evolve. Some parts of it I like, some… eh. It’s hopefully going to get more updates than this site has over the next month.

Of course, on top simply getting the photo’s selected, I had to re-edit most of them, as the software available today is SO much more powerful and precise than what I was using 5 years ago. I was pretty happy seeing some of the older images pop back into existence and breath. My old D60 Camera did a VERY fine job, given it’s limitations.

Printing was actually the easiest part, aside from the fact that I was producing about 50 feet of 17″ paper to display. My Epson 4000 did eat some roll paper and drink heavily from the ink well. Combining with the Thanksgiving timing, that meant that I was making multiple trips to the local (Nashville Local, not Franklin Local) Pro Photo shop.

Two of the prints are Panoramas. Those, as well as three of my more recent favorites, went on Gatorboard to keep the cost down, and sizes up. The rest were framed and matted in Arab, AL right before (and after) Thanksgiving. My Dad made an incredible find on Ebay of 22×28″ frames, and we spent some significant time cutting the mats and getting everything just right. I thank both Dad and Mom heavily for their help.

The pictures came out wonderfully. I’ve got the exhibit area COVERED with frames, colors and images, and I’m really proud and happy to see it. I regret the Gatorboarded pictures, because we did SO well with the framing, and they just don’t look nearly as good. And Those were the ones that I personally liked the most.

That said, If I had not done them that way, I wouldn’t have had the space or the weight capacity. It does all work out.

I’ll post more at GAN Photo. I’d like to be able to detail some more of the methodology and stories behind each shot that is going up there. I’m going to be busy.

I’ve got a feeling that my Epson 4000 wide format printer is going to get some duty cycles very soon. And that’s not counting the hard drive beating that will occur in 9 days when we hit the beach.

It’s a good thing the 5d Mark 2 isn’t coming out until November.

The teaser(s) are after the jump….

It’s VERY exciting, isn’t it?

Oh yes, there will be macro shots, WITHOUT macro gear….

Last post, I showed our first look at the Baby Blue jays.

Yesterday, I was able to get a better shot of 1 of them.

Unfortunately, It’s sibling didn’t survive. Jeff and I debated about the nature of Blue Jay’s (we both thought that they were the type to push the sibling out of the nest to maximize the biggest’s chances).

I had thought a feline had taken care of it, but this morning I had to do the duty with a trash bag. Then, this afternoon, we found the remaining sibling. I don’t think there are any left. I don’t know if they left the nest too early, or what happened. I don’t think that a cat got them, they weren’t very disturbed.

Now, the issue… I tried VERY hard to make sure that Mary didn’t know what I was doing. I told her I had to take care of some stuff out in the yard, and get rid of some things that needed to go into the trash. Jeff had obviously mentioned baby bird loud enough that Mary could hear… I didn’t realize that. So, as I brought the bag back in, took care of it, and washed my hands, the inquisition began. I had thought I deflected it well enough, but when I came back in, I heard Jeff explaining that a baby bird had died, and Daddy was taking care of it.

Honestly, that was the last thing I wanted her to hear. Yes, I’m a protective parent. Yes, I have told less than the complete truth to her. I know that she’ll come to age. I want to make sure that she’s emotionally able to handle that when it happens. She still talks about her pet Kosh. I have enough problems in my heart when that comes up. I really don’t want her to make the full connection yet.

I know I can’t protect her from the fact that life includes death. Heck, some of her favorite programming is the Giant squid programs and the Killer (Humboldt) squid from the Discovery channel. She’ll quote facts and figures! from that shows all day long. And yes, it includes death. I think she does know, but it’s a theoretical knowledge.

I don’t want her to realize that it’s a real phenomenon just yet.

I certainly don’t want to field the questions, as even though she does have that incessant ‘why’ that kids have, some of her questions bite a bit, and you can tell that there is a mind behind there, probing, and trying to learn the reality. I want to enjoy the kid in her, and I want her to enjoy it. I don’t want her to grow up too quickly. It seemed that I had grown up quickly because of all of the relocations that my family went through. I feel that I came out stronger because of it and it certainly forged me, but I’d like for my kids to grow up ‘normal’.

I didn’t expect a 4 year old to have to deal with death. I was worried.

She dealt with it much better than I did. I hope it’s done and over with, and my worries were unfounded.

And yes, I’m a bit sad that the ugly UGLY bird above won’t make it to be a prettier adult. I was looking forward to watching them grow.