Tuesday, February 26, 2008

The unjoy of computers


So for those of you that don't know. I'm also a photographer for another company. I've photographed half a percent of Indy for this company. That may not seem like a lot, but I'm close to 6000 people that I've spent at least an hour with individually which has got to stand for something, right?

Now I've really enjoyed my work, until I started to deal with computer issues and video uploading. I'm not a videographer. I'm not a computer tech. I'm a visual artist, and video isn't an area of expertise. Even more extremely, I'm not a computer support guy. God bless them! Honestly, they work the computer like I try to work light and lenses and stuff and I was grateful for Kevin@ Nerds On Call for sitting down and helping me try to get my USB plugs to work with my external hard drives and have somehow came to the conclusion that for some reason my Kodak 1400 printer puts a wrench in the USB playpen. So I've now sent an inquiry to Kodak to see if they know what to do. All the while, I've got a massive backlog of videos to process and upload and this computer is powerful enough to do that and photos, but right now, it's like a corvette stuck in rush hour traffic. If and it seems so impossible, but if it gets squared away, I'll be so happy that things will work and I can do my job. But as it is, I didn't get paid for the 5 hours I spent today or the other 20 hours that I've spent with this whole fiasco....
So I'll stop complaining and pray for answers and someday the whole world will be Mac.

Do I have an amen????

as a post script. For some reason, when I went to my blog without logging in, I only saw one photo that my wife Lisa took of Beverly Bookwalter. Forgive me if some of you see it and perhaps I'm in the dark, but I'm going to post the Buttresses of the church that Lisa took at the Bookwalter/Jeczmionka wedding. She loves these series and I think they are lovely too. Nice job Lisa!

Monday, February 25, 2008

A Special Thank You


To all the photographer's that have a spouse help them, you can understand the relief of the extra eyes, hands and grace that can accomplish a lot when you've got to deal with the overall process of the day.

This is the case with Lisa. It may seem a little out of place at this moment in time if you knew the whole story, perhaps down the road I'll elaborate, but I want to make sure I say thank you to Lisa for all her help and her assistance and referrals and her eyes.

As you can see by these photos, she's got a great talent in photography as well and I always am glad to have her loaded with a camera to get what I don't and bring some new options to the day's story.

We're going to be photographing Kristen and Lowell's wedding in a couple weeks at the Rathskellar and I'm excited to see what she comes up with. Not too many photographers have the support that she's provided me, nor the ability and in this time, I just want to make sure it's voiced for the world to know that I appreciate her and what she's done for me with DPA.

Thanks Lilo! You rock!

Bee

Sunday, February 24, 2008

It's Sunday!...a parable of light and life


This photo was taken around Trafalgar Indiana. It really reminds me of heavenly things.

Sunday's good for that too...

Rays of light are how I make my living. Fortunately, we have a pretty good understanding of how light works and there are some laws of light that make it easy for me to look like I'm pretty darn good. But trying to harness the power of light and "tame" it, also tames me.

In the studio and doing weddings, it's not so much the light that is the variable, in that venue it's the people, but it's in the outdoors that light really amazes me.

Growing up out west was where I cut my teeth in the world of photography doing landscapes and it is there where God lit up my life literally.

You see, just like Sunday is my Sabbath, nature is a church to me too. Now I'm far from an environmentalist, but when you're in nature and you watch the sunrise or sunset through a stand of lodgepole pines at 10,000 feet you get a great appreciation for all of creation and it's grounding and has helped me think of life in perspective of creation and how amazing life is.

Now while I love photographing outdoors, the longer I go, the more I find people more interesting. The wierd thing is is that we don't admire ourselves (unless you count models/stars/etc.). Our uniqueness isn't obvious, well not normally. (We can't all be as cute as my wife) But the truth of the matter is that despite how amazing The Tetons are or the Maroon Bells or Patagonia or Banff, people really are the most amazing part of creation. We just don't realize it. So as I work, I always think to myself, what makes this person unique, what light can I cast on them to make them shine. How can I get them to be who they are. Some of that is light, some of that is talent, all of it is God.

I'm still new at this blog thing. My creative writing and journalism days are over 5 years in my past. I'll try to make sense. I promise, if I don't, ask for me to clarify. Who knows, someday someone may actually read these.!

Thanks!

Friday, February 22, 2008

The Revision Vision

Thanks to all my friends from my PUG group. I spent some time going through your comments and critiques and think I've tightened up the ship some. Less scrolling, more succinct.

More focused on me helping my clients. Focusing, not on focus, rather vision.

I know, I get all into poetic phrasing Sometimes, like this last statement, it gets a little confusing, unclear. My wife always gets after me with how I phrase things and word ideas. But this is my blog and that's how I think sometimes. I like to Think. I like to get from one idea to another through words. That's how my vision works too. A good example of this is in my website under the Things gallery. My Absolut ad. You'll notice the phrasing "there are absoluts". Well it's based on the philosophical argument that all things are relative. I counter that that is not the case. A lot of things are. But since not everything is, "all" can not be used. There are absolutes in the world. And there are Absolut's also. So I got the idea obviously from that. With the bottles on all these different philosophical books, kind of like a counter. Emphatically stating that despite what the world may say. "There are Absolute's".

So the revision of vision is the same. Just with a lot less philosophical flair and less fervor. After all, it's just bits and pieces of my approach to service put on my website, but I want to make sure that my clients know that They as a client are important. My focus. Not the Masses. (Thanks Janet)!

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

It's alive!!!!


the website is finally fully realized. a fully functioning totally polished snapshot of what DPA wants to do. I'm sure that as I move along it will evolve but that's one of the lovely parts of the site, so keep tuned in to the cool parts of what DPA is and where it's going!

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Go "Live"

Today was a good day. I just submitted my website to "go live" and it should be up for all to see officially on Thursday at the very latest. Also, I saw some fruit from my labors of "knocking on doors" and getting business through meeting people and pitching myself and my idea to bring a good face to go with a good name.

I photographed a guy named Tony. Interesting fellow, retiree of the auto industry, he has a taste for good guitars and exploring America on his BMW moto, so we had a good time chatting while snapped a great set of photos for him to use on his online dating pages.

After photographing him, I had Anne come in. Anne is an RN from the lovely country of New Zealand. A 48 y.o. widow, she's lived in the states since '89 and her husband and her were in the auto racing biz for many years all the while she has been in healthcare since attending University in the New Zeal Land. We had a great time talking about travels, I learned a bit about blue diamonds, and working at Wishard and giggled about for profit medicine and Wishard being in the "black" which I guess is pretty rare for a State Hospital to be profitable. Oh well, I digress. I hope that I've made a difference in these two single people's lives. I know they've made my day a lot more interesting than what it would've been otherwise.

Monday, February 18, 2008

The Final Countdown....


So here it is, 10:47 p.m. the day is done, mostly. I'm waiting for BluDomain to do the final tweaks on my site to go live.

I looked at a place to rent/buy and have fallen in love with it. It's in Woodruff Place. AMAZING! As if anyone's reading this right now, but perhaps in a month or 2 when people will be compelled to browse my stories perhaps, hopefully I'll be living there and Loving It!

I'll keep me posted and you too, if you want to know:)

My first Blog posting, Words of Wisdom....


"If at first you don't succeed, try try again...."

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"

"Don't let college interfere with your education"

These words of wisdom will be part of my backbone as I go forward. Diehl Photographic Arts is about to have a new identity and a new life. With my new website coming I'm so excited to see "If you build it, they will come"...

So stay tuned and I look forward to seeing what the future has in store with DPA.

Who's this Brian guy?

My photo
I'm one of the few people from Wyoming in the midwest. Born and bred, by default I'm a cowboy, through life though I guess I've kept the wanderlust and taken it urban. Having lived in 11 states now, I feel safe to say that I've found home in Indy. I'd never have dreamed I'd live here but 5 years later, I have no complaints! I've been a "lifestyle" photographer for quite a while. Cutting my teeth in landscape photography and photojournalism out West I've developed a style that focuses on simplicity, beauty and life lived well.