I would spend hours shooting and developing. But when I got into an art program, reality set in. I was going to have to start shooting digital. At first I really hated digital photography. I felt like I had to relearn everything about my camera again.

No longer did I only have 36 frames to get the shot in, I had an unlimited amount. No longer was I waiting till I pulled the film out of the canister to see if I got the shot, I could see right away. Sounds like it would make it easier doesn’t it? In fact it made me sloppy. I trusted the camera too much instead of trusting my instincts and what I know the settings should be. Everything looks in focus on that tiny screen, but when you get back to the computer you can see it wasn’t really in focus.

I feel in love with digital when I was in a photography program in Florence, Italy. For the first time my digital pictures weren’t just images on a screen, but I could print them out, hold them up, step back and take a look. The same way I would after I printed something in the darkroom.

When I came back I started doing some work as a freelance event photographer. It was hard at first but a had a good run of weddings and events. I don’t think i have touched my digital SLR in a long time. And I miss it. So I thought I would share with you some of my favorite photos that I have taken.

They capture real emotion and life moments. Some are from events, some are from work I have done on my own.

See the whole set here

@danlavelle said:

@sarahcooley love the format, very simple and easy to read. What don’t I like? The fonts. Too industrial and not enough personality conveyed

I mentioned in my last post that both themes (old and new) have had the same font. Helvetica.

It’s the type of font that does display anything, no personality, no emotion, and yet…it says everything. It’s clean, simple, timeless.

I never really noticed Helvetica has a font until I saw the documentary film, Helvetica.

From the website:

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which celebrated its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type.

The film showed me how much this simple little font had already affected my life. It’s everywhere!

So I stand by my choice of font, and I think it says a lot about me!

If you are on iTunes to check out Helvetica, you should also check out the other documentary by Gary Hustwit, Objectified. They are both really interesting.

Also from the website:

Objectified is a feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the designers who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability.

(p.s. if you are reading this in a feedreader or via the email subscriptions, please take a moment to vist the site and let me know what you think of the new theme)

I have been wanting to give Random Sarah a face lift for some time, so I finally did!

I know many of you liked my old theme. But the good news is that you can download it for your own blog if you like!

The new theme keeps a lot of what I liked from my old theme (still Helvetica, my favorite font) But now the blog is my favorite color green! (You might remember that was the color of my wall in my old room in NYC, so I’ve been missing the color)

This new theme has a few fun extra features that I will be tweaking over the new few days, so please excuse me if something don’t look right just yet. If you scroll down you will find a section just for videos. (Not everything is playing correctly just yet, because they are not all formatted correctly) There is also a section at the bottom called “talking points”. This pulls up the posts from my archives that have the most comments. (I thought it was a really interesting way to highlight old content)

The theme also has a special tabbed module in the sidebar showing most popular posts, most recent posts, and recent comments.

The theme is originally supposed to be used as a magazine theme. It has other “magazine like” features. One in particular is a featured posts module at the top. (which I have not yet decided if I want to use) although it might be helpful in highlighting content from my blog, while still incorporating content from my tumblr.

I’m hoping that Random Sarah will be a place that shows everything that I am up to online. I will incorporating more content from my tumblr, and there is also flickr content in the sidebar. I also think this new theme will help me get back to providing some of the random content I used to post on this blog. It is a personal blog after all.

I would really LOVE your feedback on this theme, so let me know what you think!

When you’re traveling this holiday season, you can enjoy free WiFi at 47 participating airports and on every Virgin America flight. Just bring a WiFi-enabled laptop or mobile device and stay connected to family and friends for free while you travel now through January 15, 2010.

Here are the participating airports:

There are all the times people have put me on their list, right next to my followers. I couldn’t help but think, will being “listed” become the new benchmark people measure twitter success/popularity against?

Suddenly I wanted to see how many times other people had been “listed” and what lists they were on. It wasn’t about what lists they made anymore.

Then I saw this tweet from Alex Hillman,

Twitter lists illustrate the most important shift in the internet: your bio is now written by others, and what they say about you.

Take a look at some of the lists I’m on:

It’s true, I’m a blogger, I live in Philly, I’m noisy, I’m in “techmedia”

When you look at it that way, lists say a lot about you!

How do you think lists will change twitter?

What has it changed for you already?

And when I moved to Philadelphia there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to need Yelp more than ever now.

That being said I have noticed some things that I really wish Yelp did that would be especially helpful when visiting, or moving to a new city.

Recommendations!

There are a lot of places that I love in NYC but I have not been able to easily find their “Philly counterparts”. If Yelp had a way to show you places you might like in a new city based on places you have reviewed and liked before, I think it would be very helpful.

Also if there was a Yelp feature similar to Urban Spoon for the iPhone, but using the data that Yelp already knows about me and places I like to eat. For example if I could select a radius on a map, and just press a button that would give me some suggestions, that would be awesome.

But unlike Urban Spoon, these suggestions would not merely be random, but would be tailored to me.

I have been settling into a new city and  a new job, not to mention helping crush cancer!

It sure has been a crazy few months, but I do really miss blogging. I never really stopped blogging, I have kept up a constant stream of content on my tumblr.

What I blog on tumblr is a lot like the kind of content that I used to post on Random Sarah. Random things that I find around the web that interest me. Over time I started to blog in a more focused way and tumblr became my outlet for all of the random stuff I found. But Random Sarah is where my twitter profile (and almost all of the other social sites I use) point too. When people are trying to find out more about me, they are dorected to a site that I don’t think currently reflects my level of activity on the web.

That being said I have decided that it’s time for a re-design of Random Sarah! I would really want this to be my home online, I want it to accurately reflect my activity online. I don’t want you to come to randomsarah.com and not see a post for a few weeks and think I dropped off the face of the earth!

As you can see, there doesn’t really seem to be any consistent design element, or branding across all of these sites that I use.

I am not 100% sure how I want this to look, of course I have ideas of my own, but I would really like to work with a designer on this.

If you would like to be considered for the project, or you know someone who has experience with wordpress and tumblr, please leave it in the comments. Or you can always shoot me an email at sarah.k.cooley@gmail.com

Here is a great post by my friend Peter (@krisis) explaining it all:

So, you’re a cancer blamer but you’re not sure what this whole Blame a-Thon thing is about? Never fear – we’re here with answers to all of your questions (and, by “we” I mean me talking about myself in the third person).

What’s Blame Drew’s Cancer

Actually, that’s “#blamedrewscancer” – a twitter hashtag that turned into a viral charity movement through the enthusiastic support of over 11,000 twitter users beating up on cancer.

It jumped into the real world with a series of fundraisers in Philly and San Fransisco, plus a literal leap out of a plane at 14,000 feet for the #blamedrewscancer team.

Who is Drew?

Drew Olanoff is a Philadelphia native who was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma on May 20. Since then he has kicked cancer’s ass every day in words, actions, and about $10,000 of fundraising in under 100 days.

How was your summer?

And all this money goes where, exactly?

Drew’s efforts have benefited a few different cancer-related charities over the summer, but both Drew and #blamedrewscancer are official partners of LiveStrong AKA the Lance Armstrong Foundation. All of our current fundraising goes to LiveStrong, and Drew emceed the LiveStrong Challenge in Philly.

Lance even blamed something on Drew’s cancer. We like him.

Have I heard about this somewhere else?

Maybe. Do you read or watch the Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post, AOL Health, CNN, Fox29, Mashable, Tech Crunch, Philadelphia City Paper,Download Squad, or The Mendte Report? That’s just a portion of the press and blogs that have covered #blamedrewscancer in the past 100 days.

Oh, and we have a really catchy theme song.

What’s Blame-a-Thon?

Blame-a-Thon is a 24-hour party and benefit concert held on 9/9/09 in Philadelphia where you can blame cancer all day while enjoying live podcast tapings, film screenings, and amazing bands.

If you aren’t there in person, you can watch on the web and enter our web raffle for big prizes – like gene research kits from our sponsor 23andMe or a signed hockey stick from the Philly Flyers. All proceeds go towards a giant contribution to LiveStrong.

Where is Blame-a-Thon?

Blame-a-Thon will be three places on 9/9/09: Indy Hall, North Star Bar, and the internets.

Blame-a-thon starts when Tuesday ends, kicking off at Philly co-working space Indy Hall. It’s free, and it lasts from midnight to noon. Just drop by. More info below.

At noon, the party shifts to venerable venue North Star Bar, where we’ll host live music past midnight, followed by a DJ’d farewell. Tickets are an absurdly low $15 presale, or $20 at the door. More info below, too.

I’m not in Philly, but I still want to give to LiveStrong. What should I do?

You can still buy a ticket – 100% of proceeds go to LiveStrong whether you show up or not. Or, you can buy into our major twitter-based raffle. Or, just give straight to LiveStrong on our behalf.

Or do all three.

Indy Hall: A party from midnight to noon? What are you going to do all night … and morning?

We’ll kick off with a live, super-sized, back-from-hiatus version of Drew’s Best Damn Tech Show podcast, followed by staying up all night for film screenings, video games, acoustic music, and a wake-up call from La Colombe coffee. Heck, bring pajamas if you want.

We’ll cap off this half of the event with a live taping of Two Guys on Beer, which just celebrated its 100th episode! In addition, a DKMS Americas sponsored bone marrow registry will take place from 7am – 12pm.

North Star Bar: 12 hours is a long concert – who’s playing?

Bamboo Houses, Dark Horse & The Carousels, Filmstar, Goodnight Lights featuring Jonah Delso, High Kick, Reed Kendall of Up the Chain, Kill You In the Face, Christie Lenee, Thom McCarthy, The Press, Elizabeth Seward, Swift Technique, The Traded Series, and Billy Woodward & The Senders, plus award-winning spinner DJ KASH.

Not in that order, though. Check back for a schedule. Or, just buy a ticket and see them all.

That’s a lot of bands. What if I get bored? Or hungry?

North Star Bar will be selling food and drinks the entire time. We’ll also have the Taco Bell Truck and the Philly Buttercream Cupcake truck, plus complementary drinks from Victory beer (while supplies last). Plus awesome raffles and a DKMS Americas sponsored bone marrow registry.

Oh, and Drew.

So, buy your darn ticket already.

You keep mentioning this bone marrow registry? Sounds painful.

Totally not. It’s a simple swab of your cheek to be registered, and we’ll have plenty of info from DKMS Americas about what happens if you’re matched.

Wow, that’s a lot of stuff. How did you put it all together?

Drew has an awesome team of friends helping with #blamedrewscancer, all of whom are dedicated to kicking cancer’s ass in every way possible.

In the long-term, we plan to work with LiveStrong bring the amazing support Drew has found on social networks to EVERYONE fighting and surviving cancer.

Who’s paying for all of this?

We could have never done this without the amazing support of our presenting sponsor, 23andMe, and our generous supporting sponsors blip.tv and Level 3 Media. You can multiply their support just by showing up!

Also, Indy Hall and North Star Bar have been incredibly gracious in providing their services for little or no cost.

Yesterday I started to think about what moving means for all of my profiles all over the web. Most of the sites and communities that I am active on have a location, or a city in the profile. I will have to go through and change my current city on all of these sites. I know this doesn’t seem like that hard of a thing to do, but it can become very time consuming.

Even harder then physically changing your current city, is keeping everyone up to date with your location. People perceive you to be living somewhere, but that might not be where you actually are.

Sites like foursquare help with this. Letting you know where your friends are in your city, or when your out of town friends are in town. But one of the big problems with foursquare is that you can’t see where your friends in other cities are. You are only shown who is in your current city.

I have found that checking in on foursquare had helped my friends to be more aware when I am traveling, or in a new city.

Yesterday I tweeted “Are there any social media sites for moving to a new city”

One person responded and said “Does craigslist count?” Craigslist is great when you are moving and need to sell large pieces or when you need to find and apartment.

But sites like Yelp! can also be very helpful when you are living in a new city. Yelp can help you find everything from good places to eat, to a great place to get a haircut. Yelp has been great for me in NYC, but I am hoping that the Yelp Community in Philadelphia is as active.

Do you know of any other sites that have been helpful for you during a move? Or sites that have helped you settle into a new city? I would love to check them out, so please let me know in the comments.

Of course I have my own personal tour guide to Philadelphia, Drew Olanoff (@drew) <3

But if you know me, you know I am always looking for new sites and communities to check out.