This is a loophole a prolific writer can exploit.  Take a really nice 500 word flash fiction story, a fictional history of a fictional you, perhaps, and chop it up into 50 word increments.  Label each piece (Part 1 of 10) and so on at the start or end of the text.  Let cool for 20 minutes.  Now you have 10 ready-made bios to go out with your next ten short story sales.    At the very least, you’ve saved yourself the time spent agonizing over whether to write about yourself in first person or third person, and whether you should mention your cats or not.  And you’re being creative, instead of cutting and pasting the last one you used, updating it to remove divorced spouses, dead pets, or jobs you no longer have.

The best part, however, is that you’ve also created a treasure hunt/puzzle quest in your readers.  “Huh,” they will say.  That bio was weird.  Part 3 of 10, you say?  I really need to collect the other 9 parts.”  It’s viral marketing! Wow, I just threw up a little in my mouth as I typed the v-word.

There is a risk is that your writing career will crap out and you’ll only get 3 or 4 of the 10 published, but that’s a risk we all run in creative endeavors. Keep at it, and I think you’ll get them all out there.

I almost want to get writing a bunch of short fiction again just so I can try this idea.  If you do it, let me know how it goes for you. I figure only a couple of us will get to pull this off before they start closing the loophole.

Admittedly, this is a silly idea, so if you think it’s ridiculous, know that it was presented thoroughly tongue-in-cheek.

The Solution

File->Save as->HTML

(I know, *shudder* at the thought of Word’s HTML.  But we don’t need that!)

Word generates an images folder and creates a gif and a jpeg of each image at the maximum resolution. I was able to pull full 300 dpi photos from word files with this technique with none of the image screw-ups that you get when you try copying and pasting.

It’s just that easy.  Do you know of a better way to get those embedded images out of Microsoft Word?  Let me know in the comments!

1. You will never have enough reach.

I thought that buying my 70-300mm lens (equivalent to a 600mm on a standard  crop camera) would finally give me that power that I had always wanted.  I daydreamed about sitting comfortably in a lawn chair on a hill and taking portraits of animals hundreds of yards away.  Without having looked through a lens and seen just how much magnification I could get, i had no idea what to expect until I put the lens on the camera.  At first, I was disappointed.  To take the kinds of animal shots I wanted, I still had to get much closer than I imagined.  But slowly, I realized, I still had to get close, but not as close. I had more distance between me and my subject, which meant I had an even better chance of getting my shots before my subject became uncomfortable and fled.

I could buy a teleconverter and double that at the cost of a full f-stop, and I might, some day.  But if you’re like me and can’t afford the ten thousand dollar fast zoom lenses, then you will probably never be satisfied with your reach.  There will always be a perfect shot you just can’t get close enough to get.  You learn to make do, and how to get the shots you <em>can</em> get.

2. Good things happen when you have patience.

It’s been a struggle for me, because I have that hunter’s instinct.  I don’t feel like I’m working if I’m not moving around, trying to come into contact with birds and animals.  But when I can calm myself down and settle into one spot, be in the moment and take in the sights, the scene around you comes to life.  A moving human is much more threatening and visible than one who is relatively motionless.  So far, my best shots have been taken while I was relaxing in the grass on the banks of ponds, just soaking in the sunlight.  Its almost like the animals can sense your desperation and they taunt you by running away.  When you relax, they do too.  I know that’s a bit of an anthropomorphization, but there’s some truth to it too.

3. You are not a silent ninja.

I am fairly good at keeping quiet in the wild.  I’ve spent good chunks of my life tracking game for fun and working on my skills at moving quietly in underbrush.  I may be quiet by average human standards (and when I go out with others, I am constantly reminded of how much quieter I am by the stomping and tromping others do).  However, I am not a silent ninja that can sneak up on, well, anything but the most pre-occupied animals.  In the wild, most animals are on the look out for predators.  They’re constantly in danger, and their attention is focused because of that.  You may think you can slowly, slowly sneak up on that beaver, but he knows you’re there already.  He knew you were there before you were aware of him.  He simply hasn’t decided if you are a threat or not.  Nine times out of ten,  threat distance is the same as how close you need to be to get your shot.  Funny how that works.

4. Get up early.  Really early. No, earlier than that.

Most animals are active at dawn and dusk.  I think it’s a matter of safety.  A lot of animals are active at night, but there isn’t an ISO high enough to take those pictures, so we’re stuck using at least some form of sunlight most of the time.   I find that I have very little luck at dusk, and that’s because the areas I frequent are frequented by other humans as well.  By the end of the day, countless people with dogs have been through the area, traumatizing my subjects.  They flee the area to much more inaccessible locales.

But at dawn, or just before it, things are quieter.  Sane people stay in bed.  I find it’s a good idea to get up well before sunrise, get to your location, settle into a good spot, and then wait.  The area will come alive and surprise you.  And plus, the light will look much cooler at a low angle, improving your shots considerably.  When the sun is high and bright overhead, you get much deeper, less interesting shadows.

5. Know your camera and lens.

All of the above will be for naught if you do not know your lens and camera’s capabilities and limitations.  At full extension, my lens is only capable of f5.6.  This is not a very fast lens.  Dialed to this, you’re not getting a whole hell of a lot of light.  And remember the rule of thumb that your shutter speed should at least be equal to that of your mm, and take your crop factor into consideration.  So when I am shooting at 300mm, my shutter speed needs to be 1/600th of a second to minimize camera shake when not using a tripod.  I didn’t believe this rule of thumb until I took a couple of days worth of slightly blurry photos.  I carry a tripod with me, but you don’t always have a chance to set it up, so you should know how to take an in-focus, properly exposed shot with your lens without one.

Now, at the time of day we’ve discussed, getting a 1/600th or faster shutter speed isn’t easy if want a properly exposed shot.  This means you have to change your sensor’s light sensitivity, the ISO.  The higher the ISO, the more noise, but also, the less light you need to get an exposed shot.

I have learned that with my lens and camera, I have to shoot at ISO 400 to get the shutter speeds I need to shoot fully zoomed in in the light I am usually dealing with.  If it’s overcast, I am basically screwed, because the noise above ISO 400 on my Olympus is unacceptable, and I really, really hate shooting with tripods when your subject can run or fly away any second.

I’ve learned to be much more aware of my camera’s settings. I don’t always shoot in manual, but I do more so now than I ever have before.  I generally shoot in aperture priority mode, bringing my aperture down until I get the shutter speed I need.  Most of the time, I want the bokeh that comes with having a narrow aperture anyway, unless I am shooting macro work.  But that’s the subject for another post.

Concluding Thoughts

The more you’re out there shooting, the more you learn about your subjects.  I shoot wildlife photography because I find nature the most beautiful thing there is, and I want to share the beauty I see out there with others. My camera is a kind of Noah’s ark.  I want to get two of everything inside it.   With this tips, hopefully, you can come closer to nature too.

Below is a screen capture of a footer of a blog I’m designing for a client. Typically, I like to include the navigation redundantly at the bottom of a page so that, rather than scrolling back to the header, a user can jump to wherever they want to go next. You’ll see this kind of basic redundant navigation in a lot of places.

The little line between links is called a pipe, and as a separator, it is pretty common. It’s just a simple little visual element to help delineate between the nav items. The trouble comes in when you want to use these in combination with dynamically generated code from WordPress.

The List Code

First off, navigations should pretty much always be a list in html. That’s what lists are for, and styling them is great and easy. And, coincidentally, WordPress returns a call for pages with list code. So the HTML for this list of links looks like this:

<ul>
<li><a href="#" title="Home">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="#" title="Blog">Blog</a></li>
<li><a href="#" title="Fiction">Fiction</a></li>
<li><a href="#" title="Other Writing">Other Writing</a></li>
<li><a href="#" title="About Rudi">About Rudi</a></li
</ul>

I stripped out some classes that WordPress adds automatically, as I don’t need them here. All of the above is contained in a div with an id of #footer. So, note that nowhere in that code is the pipe iteself. That’s because I am adding the pipe with CSS. You can add characters with CSS, you ask? Yep!

The CSS

#footer ul {list-style-type:none; position:absolute;
            left:300px; top:27px; font-size:16px;}
#footer ul li {display:inline; color:#e3bd8e;}
#footer ul li:after {content:" |";}

So what’s going on here? First of all, I am using Eric Meyer’s CSS Reset above this, so all of that default padding and styling on a list has been stripped. This means the only styling that happens is the styling you want, and it creates a baseline between browsers. It really makes my job easier.

So we’re styling the list itself to have no bullets, and we’re positioning it absolutely within the container. You don’t have to do that, but I just found it easier for my needs in this particular footer. Next, I wanted the list all on one line, so I added display:inline. Finally, I’m using the pseudo class :after and the property content to insert a space and the pipe after each item on the list. Say my client wants these items separated instead by an asterisk? Easy enough to change across the entire site with that one line.

Pseudo classes aren’t something I often use, so the next thing I wanted to do tripped me up. The code above will add a pipe after each li tag, but I don’t want one on the last one. There’s no reason for it. How in the world do I do that? I know how to use the :last-child pseudo class, but it alone wouldn’t let me remove the pipe. Turns out, you can and should chain together pesudo classes

#footer ul li:last-child:after {content:" ";}

I probably could have set that to content:none as well, now that I think about it. But a plain space in my case works just fine.

So there you have it. The moral of the story? Chain pseudo classes together to get what you want. Any questions?

Related Links:

• CSS Pseudo Classes
• Eric Meyer’s CSS Reset Stylesheet
• Listamatic

The Model

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a general casting call on a site that connects photographers, make-up artists, and models called Model Mayhem. I received quite a few responses, but most of them were from models in the Denver area, which presented logistical problems. I offered $15 an hour as my rate. I received probably a dozen or so interested responses, and I continue to receive responses over time. Michelle was the stand-out of the group, and also, was local, a huge plus.

The problem with a site like Model Mayhem is that there tends to be a bit of homogeny in the look and age ranges of the models. Many, if not most, of the models are young women in their 20s. This is fine for some of my needs, but I also need older models, and male models.

I chose Michelle because she expressed a strong interest in steampunk and had some portfolio work involving bits of period costumes. She also had some vibrant, interesting (but not super anachronistic) tattoos that really helped her stand out from the crowd. I imagine tattoos might be a problem for some models, but with me, they add character, and character is exactly what I am looking for in my models.

The Costuming

Once I knew the model I wanted to shoot, I next moved on to sketching out in my head what kind of character I thought she could play in the Roundbottom storyline. I’ve been working on a storyline involving a ghost that is related to steam, and so I struck upon the idea of a steampunk mechanic–someone who literally works around steam engines and such. I handed this concept off to Sarah, my costuming goddess, and we bounced around a few ideas, selecting items in our collection that would work as parts of the costume. We used a top and a vest from Sarah’s collection. I surfed the ads on Craigslist and lucked out. I found a pair of 1890s pipe wrenches for $20, and bought them in half an hour, driving far out into the country to pick them up. As you can see from the shots, I think they were crucial to the character concept.

After about a week of going back and forth and trying to sort out scheduling, we met with the model on a Sunday afternoon at a local costume shop called Wear it Again Sam’s, to assemble the remaining pieces. Michelle brought along her boyfriend, who also enjoys steampunk, and who I want to use in a future set. You make connections in the oddest places. Anyway, we tried on a variety of hats, goggles, and a couple of different skirts until finally, we had what we thought would be the final costume. Total cost was $30 worth of boots and hats to purchase, and a $15 rental fee on a 1903 wedding dress skirt, to be paid on the day of the shoot, whenever that would be.

Now that we had the model picked and the costume assembled, we just needed a location. This proved to be interesting.

The Location

I knew immediately the ideal environment for the character. Steam tunnels, or something along those lines. I wanted an old fashioned boiler room. I wandered around Old Town, asking various business owners in old buildings if they had basements. I looked at a couple, but PVC piping has taken over, and I just couldn’t bear to have that stuff in my shoot.

I was about to give up and try something else when I wandered past an empty brew pub building. Through the window, I could see these great copper brewing tanks, and all kinds of shiny metal piping. It fit the bill perfectly. I wrote down the realtor’s number and company and went back to a computer to see if I could find an email address.

I wrote an email, explaining what I wanted to do, and offering to pay if necessary, to use the space. The realtor, Ed, was more open to the idea than I dared dream. He thought that the space was a bit tight for a shoot, but offered to let me in and look around. We met the next morning, and sure enough, the space was quite tight and difficult to move around in, but the equipment was a perfect backdrop, so I asked if I could use it. He agreed to let me use it, but timing was a concern. He didn’t want to have to be around to let me in at the time that I could get my model and costumer together. After some talking, he quite suddenly gave me the passcode to get into the keybox and get into the building. I don’t know what inspired him to trust me, but I was ecstatic. I now had my location for the shoot, and it had cost me nothing but the bravery to write a stranger and ask.

The Shoot

With some hasty scheduling, I secured the model’s attendance and bribed Sarah into coming along. We set up in the narrow space between the retaining wall and the brewing equipment. Lighting was my first concern. The angles were incredibly limited. I ended up placing a strobe on a stand with a shoot-through umbrella on a metal platform where the control panel was. I positioned the model next to a set of interesting looking pipes with glass see-through pieces. Then I set up a bare strobe on my left, and I tried a few angles to keep the stacks of kegs out of the background, or at least to keep them in a location where I could easily paint them out.

With about 15 minutes of experimentation, I had my setup and my lights at the levels I wanted them, and we commenced to shoot. I had a few idea for poses I wanted, but Michelle gave some great ones without my suggestion.

The only technical problem I ran into was with my Cactus II radio triggers firing randomly, sometimes 3–4 times in a couple of seconds. I’m not sure if it was all the metal around or what. They fired when I triggered them on purpose, but I started to worry that the extra triggering that was happening would damage the strobe. Luckily, it doesn’t seem to have done any lasting damage.

We shot for about an hour and a half. I paid the model for her time in costuming and the shoot. Total cost there of $40. At the end of the shoot, we packed up quickly, signed a model release, and took the model home.

Post-Shoot Thoughts

So my total cost for this shoot, not including my camera equipment, was about $100, and around 6 hours of my time in total, before considering the post work I will need to do. I worry that unless I make a big splash with the renewal of the Roundbottom site and the fresh content, I won’t stand a chance of making back that money. Still, it’s a tax deduction no matter what.

One change I will try to make in the future is to do more research on potential locations. Also, I need to do a better job of scheduling ahead of time. Michelle was very accommodating, but she didn’t have to be. I’ll definitely work with her again, and I’m hoping to make her character a big one in the cast because of how great she was to work with.

I need to make a list of the types of shots I think I might want before I go into a shoot. About half-way through, I was running out of ideas, and really, the model gave me some of the best shots, and I hadn’t really thought to ask for them. I have a lot to learn still about working with models. If they all end up being as easy to work with as Michelle, then I’m going to be a very lucky photographer.

I may have to invest in something other than the Cactus triggers eventually. Up until this point, I have had no problems with them misfiring, but most of that shooting has been outdoors. Pocket Wizards are way too expensive. I’ll be looking for a mid-range solution, perhaps the cheaper Radio Popper model that I’ve read about.

I think that the real work is going to come in figuring out how to position myself better in selling Roundbottom prints. Who might buy these kinds of things? I’m not totally certain, but I hope there are a few people out there. I’m looking into Etsy and a few other places as ways to get the word out. I’m also hoping to do a local show in a gallery or coffee shop at the end of the summer.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Sarah, Michelle, Ed, and the fine folks at Wear It Again Sam’s. Without you, the shoot would not have come off as well as it did. Thanks again.