Create

It's a late start for us this week. I get to sleep in this morning till about 6:30. Not due at class until 8:00. And I end up getting there late by lolly-gagging around the room till it's too late.

Our early morning session is spent on scanning. Film scanning versus flat bed scanning. I'm interested because somewhere I have thousands, and I mean thousands, of slides and prints that are laying out there rotting away that I need to preserve. It's cool what you can do. An all digital world is here.

About 09:30 we head off for the marina on Melton Lake. Our goal...To photograph the rowers on the lake. The NCAA rowing finals are being held here (Oak ridge) this weekend. Alas, there is little activity when we arrive. A couple of teams on the water rowing, but mostly things are quiet. However, I get in to photographing the artifacts of rowing...boats in storage, oars on the dock, abandoned shoes on the doc, oars in the water, and so on and so on. I really get in to this kind of shooting....Story telling. I shoot for over an hour. I think everyone else gets tired of waiting for me, so we soon off to town to download pictures from the shoot. I've shot over 100 pictures this morning.

While downloading, the conversation turns to laptops. Al is extremely frustrated with his, so we go to Staples at lunch so he can pick my brain for information. Afterward we eat lunch at The Soup Kitchen. Then back to class.

This afternoon we're given a project...take some of the images we've shot this week and create the cover for some sort of brochure. I concentrate on my images from the morning and produce Oars on the Water for the Oak Ridge Rowing Association. It's a fun afternoon. Quiet but fun.

I should say quiet except for us trying to buy a laptop for Al over the internet. We start looking at Alienware machines. I've never given these folks a second look, but am impressed with what I see this afternoon as we poke and prod for Al. I'm going to consider them for our next computer purchase. Good value I think. And the equipment is getting good reviews.

I finish a bit early, format some compact flash cards and we all depart about before 5:00 so Bill can make his soccer practice. On the way out he praises my afternoon creation as being done well. Asks me if I have any more of my work with me. If so, bring it back. He'd like to have the other students see some of what I've done.

Talk about stroking my ego.

I come back to the hotel to finalize my change in plans for going to the Smokies to shoot Saturday and take some drugs (The Soup Kitchen gave me indigestion) and check to see what images I can share with the group. The good news is I have some of the Yosemite pics on the laptop, so I have something to share.

After supper, Al orders his new laptop. Bill brings in Krispy Kremes, fresh off the truck. And we begin talking about printing. Techniques, paper, and sizing are all covered. When Bill decides to print a couple of examples, we take a look at my 'portfolio' while we wait. Generally speaking, I get favorable comments. And then we just talk. We seem to do that well. This group gets along pretty well.

Tomorrow, no shooting. We'll meet at 8:00 to edit photos and print them. We expect that to take most of the day.

Today's picture of the day is the project I created this afternoon. Nothing terribly exciting, Just a practice in some of the techniques we've learned this week.

Don't know if there will be a picture of the day tomorrow or any posting. Don't know if I'll have internet connectivity in Townsend. If not, I'll wrap this road trip up on Saturday when I get home.

Goodnight.