Seeing like a Canonite

The importance of your Headshot

2013-07-05T12:24:00.001-07:00

Today finds us browsing a sea of blogs, and connecting through social media more each day. Standing out and making a good impression is important in success, and more than ever we have to promote our own personal brand. For myself my brand is my photography business, Worrest Photography, but more than that, my brand is my name: Peter Worrest the photographer, or Peter Worrest the singer, the designer, the actor... you get the idea. Presenting your brand in an honest way is important, letting your personality shine through, and a headshot is a great place to start.

Whether you are an actor or performer, a salesperson or service worker, a headshot that presents you will help make an impression with your prospective employer (or director). Keep your headshot current with your look to be sure that it represents the current you. If you go through a major hairstyle change or especially a color change it's probably time to call your friendly neighborhood photographer. Be sure to wear something simple, and field appropriate, to keep the focus on your face. Multiple outfits are always a good idea for more variety, but stick to solid colors.

Ok, lets fast forward to after your session... now what? The procedures are pretty standard for the actor, get yourself some 8x10s printed and staple, paste or clip your resumé to the back. Hand it out at casting calls, bring it to auditions, mail it out to companies. This is all work you can do yourself, but look into working with your photographer. In the first place you cannot reproduce your headshot without their permission in most cases, but consider that they will have an interested in producing a high quality print of their work, showing you (and them) in the best light. consider integrated design from your photographer if they do that kind of thing, and get two-sided headshot/resumés printed. Consider smaller printed items as well for in-between resume overhauls. Keep your face fresh in companies you've worked with before with a postcard with your recent work. small postcards present great options for showing off a couple different images as well.

shameless self-promotion follows

Feel free to choose any photographer you'd like, but here's the low down on what you can expect to pay when you hire me. as a note, buying images from me entitles you to reproduction, but my quality and price for prints is quite good.

1 hour headshot session with 1 selection and 25 resumé/headshot sheets: $145 ($95 without prints)
1 hour headshot session with 4 selections and 50 resumé/headshot sheets, plus 50 postcards: $375 ($190 without prints)

special event option: for multiple subjects, such as a theater company, share the booking time and save. (up to $500 deposit applies, call or email for details)

one example cost breakdown(and some alternate services): (allow 2 hours) company of 10 performers, 4 poses per performer, single high quality headshot for lobby display, 500 postcards promoting a show: $1000
same 10 performers, same four poses, 25 headshots each: $1000
either way, save $140 per person, and optionally snag a few group shots along with your headshot selections.

PotW #6, assabet river national wildlife refuge

2012-03-21T12:34:00.002-07:00

For this picture of the series I headed over to the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, a recent acquisition from the US Army to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. I was a little pressed for time, or I would have spent a lot more time down in the trails. Looking ahead I will definitely revisit this site and spend some time down by the old abandoned ammunition bunkers. The purpose there will be both the bunkers as a subject, and as a place to hang out quietly, waiting for some wildlife to shoot. In the meantime here is a sort of still life, au natural.

This tree looks quite dead for the moment, but I have hope that there's life in it. Tree's are pretty crazy like that; what one could only assume is a dead shell miraculously sprouts leaves as long as it still has roots in the ground.

This picture is taken with the 18-55mm IS kit lens, all the way out at 18mm, and in a "shoot from the hip" style. I used auto focus, and held the camera as close to the ground as I could, then I took some shots with slight adjustments to the angle of the camera. I had already set the ISO, Aperture, and Speed of the shot from doing some framing of a different angle, but I decided on this one, and needed a short series of shots to get the framing just right.

The other exciting thing is that I started playing around with new Photoshop CS5 to do my final adjustments, and boy is it fast! I don't have to really modify how I handle my workflow, but they put shortcuts right in there for me. Adjustments are automatically paired with a layer mask, so the selective editing of HDR processing is much easier to accomplish quickly. I may have to bite the bullet and order up myself a new license for Photoshop, since CS2 is 7 years old now, and does not run on my iMac, since it is not compatible for OSX on the Intel chip set. Thankfully for me there is an upgrade license. unfortunately it's still almost $200, and I don't have enough portrait sessions booked to afford my lease, insurance, and a new Photoshop. Anyways, hire me for a portrait session and I'll buy Photoshop to edit your shots!

PotW #5, my new car

2012-03-13T17:57:00.000-07:00

With this post, I am back to only 3 days late! I am probably the only one who cares, but that's enough. I went and got my car a quick wash (for the last time for quite a while probably) to get it looking all shiny for this week. If you happen to see a Fit on the road that is that shiny, it probably isn't me.

Another fun thing about this week? I did the processing and finishing on Photoshop Touch for the iPad 2. check out the results in the full post below.

Fitzgerald, the 2012 Fit Sport

This picture is shot with the 18-55mm IS kit lens for the XSi, with a neat cross screen filter in addition to the UV filter I have on there at all times. The lens lacks the wide aperture I was really looking for for this shot, so I separated out the background with Photoshop Touch. PSTouch is a great little application with some of the great tools of the new Photoshop CS5, but missing some of my favorites. Dodge and Burn (and any of the brush tools, really) seem like they would be a real natural for a stylus interface. (I used a stylus for the benefit of the added control. I'm a fan of the squishy tip, but not everyone agrees.) But for 10 bucks, I can't really complain about my workflow being a little different. It's certainly enough power to produce results in a pinch, just not with the speed of my work on a desktop.

I did a couple of different angles, and edited it all on the iPad, as sort of a shake down for the app. I contemplated removing the license plates, or editing them out, but I'm getting a door magnet soon that will associate my website and business with this license plate just as readily, to anyone who cares to note it as I drive around.

This second shot is done without any filters, and has also had the background blur exaggerated to simulate the wide aperture of a lens I should be getting soon. Let me know how you like my car, or share pictures of your wheels in the comments section below.

PotW #4, night time.

2012-03-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

Shooting at night is a real challenge. On top of that, my favorite subject at night, the moon, is much, much brighter than everything else. It's kind of like wanting to take a photo of the sun. Both require specialized equipment to do it all in one shot, so you have to end up doing what I do to cheat.

There were some beautiful clouds rolling by the moon last night, so I took several pictures at a speed that captured the clouds, until I got a set I liked. I then took a picture much faster, to capture the craters and shadows on the moon, which is waning gibbous in this picture. The watermark on my gallery site really blows the clouds out of the water, but you can get a good idea of how it looks.

Here is the final composite of clouds and moon together. With some careful blending I manage to get the moon not to look blown out at the edges, while still getting the illuminated clouds.

This shoot was very impromptu, and I ended up getting shots I liked using my car to steady my shooting, instead of getting a tripod. Whenever possible I prefer to use hand-held shooting, for the added speed and fine control over framing. I guess that means that I need to get myself a nicer tripod to get the framing control back, while upping my stability. This PotW is technically a day late, and is #5, but for simplicity I am posting what I intended for last week tomorrow. It didn't go up last week because I didn't bring my camera with me when I took my new car on it's shake-down (stupid), and because my car got all dusty on it's shake-down (of course.) After I get it washed tomorrow I will do a shoot of it and be back on track for number of posts.

In the meantime, post responses to my photograph, or share your own night time or lunar photography in the comments section below. Like my page on Facebook to keep up to date on what I'm doing.

I'm here, I'm here.

2012-03-06T08:37:00.001-08:00

Sorry for the delay. It's been a little while since I blogged, but a lot has happened. Worrest Photography officially went into the black for book keeping with my first happy client. Thanks to New England Breeze Solar, based out of Hudson, MA, and congratulations on your completed install (though, of course, there is all of that overhead to deal with from the utility company).

Worrest Photography also has new transportation today. Yesterday and today has been a marathon of searching, then dealing with salesmen, then lots of paperwork, and the end goal is just in sight. Now that I'm not sort of stuck with almost no way to get around it will be much easier to transact more business.

My new car is a 2012 Honda Fit in sleek black, and I couldn't be more excited. I'm leasing this car since I had about enough money to buy a car about as good as my last one, but I didn't want to deal with the headaches of a car in the end of it's life. Hopefully new Honda engines are still just as reliable as my dead accord, who made it to 350k. R.I.P. Gramps.

Picture of the Week will be coming up tomorrow (4 days late now) since I want to put up a picture of my car. :) I'll get the following weeks picture up on Saturday and get back into my intended schedule now that the epic car headache is done (knock on wood).

If you're reading this I'm going to let you in on a secret. my post on March 1st? I'm going to write that next. ah, the joys of back dating. That is our little secret, just between you, who clicked on the read more link, and me, the sneaky photographer.

Attention Classes of 2012 and 2013

2012-03-01T10:34:00.039-08:00

Are you graduating from College soon? or graduating from high-school next year? Boy do I have a deal for you! If you book a session with me before July 15th (7/15/12) for a session to take place before December 31st (12/31/12) and you can get half off on the processing of second or third poses. These savings work out to get you a one hour session and a full package of prints for three poses for under $200, tax included.

If three poses sounds too extravagant for you, A basic package with prints for one pose is as low as $110, and if you are looking to get your own prints, the download only package is $94 for a single pose. Please note, I have very reasonable rates for prints from my professional printing studio, but there is a shipping charge. Even with the shipping, one 8x10 costs less than $12. (compare at $46)

All of these prices include tax, but a travel charge applies for sites outside of Hudson, MA, at the federal $0.555/mi rate. Coordinate sessions with your friends and split the miles!

E-mail peter@worrestphotography.com to schedule your session now, or call at 978.212.9532.

PotW #3 delayed due to my birthday

2012-02-28T22:52:00.002-08:00

Well I should have done this on Saturday by my blog schedule, but I was taking some personal time, and so the final work on the photos I took had to wait until after I got some contract work done. This week's theme for a picture is Winter Scenes, in honor of the snowfall during the weekend. I went off on a mini vacation, and brought my camera onto the mountain for some downhill skiing. I was having a leisurely day so there aren't winter sports action shots, but I did capture a few scenes I really liked.

I don't have to much to say about the scene or this photo, except that Really getting snow to look dynamic and stay realistic takes some creative painting with some of my favorite tweaking tools in Photoshop: dodge, and burn.

Hope you like the photo! share your comments, or wintery scenes of your own in the comments section below, and remember, prints of all of my pictures are available.

Hobby Photography Day: Cooking

2012-02-27T15:04:00.000-08:00

Here's the first post in my Hobby Photography series. I decided to start somewhere pretty easy, and since I need to eat every day, and since there's such an established style for it, I am starting with a cooking post.

So what's on the menu? Marinated Steak Strips over Garlic Rice with Scallions.

doesn't that look tasty?

But first... it has to all come from somewhere. What you will need for this dish:

In order from the top down that is:

White Wine (some of this is for drinking)
Garlic
Scallions
Steak
Salt (a pinch)
Bay Leaves (3)
Rice
Rosemary (1/2 tsp)
Sage (1/4 tsp)
Olive Oil
Thyme (1/2 tsp)
Black Peppercorns (12)
Butter (don't worry, not the whole stick)

Not pictured, but you will also need:

Flour
Honey (optional)
Red Pepper Flakes (for heat, or because they are pretty)

The Marinade:

Chop up about 3 scallions and 2 cloves of garlic

Pour a cup of wine into a medium sized bowl, and add to it 2 tablespoons of olive oil, the chopped garlic and scallion, and the spices. Whisk together, then add the steak, cover and let sit, refrigerated, at least 2 hours, and up to 24 hours. (more is better) If the meat isn't completely covered, you can always add more wine until it is, then stir once more before setting aside.

The Rice:

To jazz up an otherwise ordinary rice I like to add some minced garlic (about 1 clove per cup of rice) and i like to toast the rice before boiling. Melt about a tsp. of butter with a tsp. of olive oil per cup of rice. Add the garlic, and cook it until it is translucent, but not yet browning. Add the rice to the pan and stir frequently until the rice turns from transleucent white to opaque white. Add water (about 2.5/1 for a water to rice ratio serves me pretty well) and cover. stir occasionally to prevent sticking, and try not to burn it, because just like for me, that will make you sad.

The Sauce:

I love me a good sauce. And since we already mixed up the meat a marinade, my simple solution to sauce is to reduce my marinade, and to add a thickener. For dish consolidation, and because I work in small volumes it goes in the other order. Start with a Roux in a sauce pan large enough for your marinade.

Cook equal parts butter and ordinary unbleached flour, stirring constantly, until a paste is formed, and be careful not to burn it or everything will taste like burnt toast. There isn't a photo of this process because the chef and photographer are the same person, and the cooking can go wrong in seconds at this point.

Strain the marinade into the roux, and stir until you are sure there isn't roux stuck on the bottom of the pan still. Simmer and reduce by two thirds. Allow this to cool, and remember, the sauce will thicken up as it cools, so don't judge your sauce by it's boiling thickness. If you like having a sauce that is more glaze like, only reduce by half, and add a tablespoon of honey or brown sugar.

The Meat:

Take your meat out of the marinade. Definitely remove the bay leaves, as you don't want to eat those, but feel free to strain the meat, scallion, and garlic out of the marinade all together, and just cook it all in the pan. I removed the bits for photographic reasons, but they would make a fine addition to be served up all together.

Brown up the meat. Get your pan ready with a little oil over medium to medium-high heat, and put the meat on just before the oil starts to scorch. It's pretty simple. don't over do it or it will get all dry and tough. I added a little wine in the last minute or so in the pan to deglaze and get as much of the flavor stuck back on the meat instead of on the pan.

The Scallions:

I went with a simple green side dish. You cant get much easier than blanched greens. Scallions have a mild onion flavor, and they are green, so they must be good for you, right?

To blanch, boil some water and get an ice bath ready (a large bowl of ice water). Boil the scallions for under a minute then scoop them out and get them in the ice water to shock them, which preserves color and stops the cooking process. This left the scallions slightly crunchy but with a milder cooked onion flavor instead of the raw bite. very pleasant. Do this step right before serving so that the scallions don't get slimy from sitting around being wet.

and so you don't have to scroll back up, here's the plated complete meal again, garnished with red pepper flakes because they are pretty (I mean for heat).

the Week in WOW

2012-02-26T08:59:00.000-08:00

I know that I wrote that these things were going to be weekly, but this will have to serve as a two week update (mostly because I felt like waiting for something good happening to blog about.) In my last WOW post, I mentioned how Rebelution moved on to Dragon Soul, and how we were hoping to progress. Well in the next week we only managed 2 bosses, not the three we already had, and we lost one of our raid healers.

But with the loss of a healer, and the negative progress there are some good things that happened as well. We dropped one of our other healers, Nymuela, into a majority healing situation; a trial by fire as it were, to very promising results. Hopefully the setback of the beginning of the month is just a minor one, and we'll move forward again very soon.

The holidays are over for a little bit, and Karnium has the "Love Fool" title. that's one more step complete in the "Long Strange Trip" I'm working on. coming up next will be Noblegarden ( all about painted eggs and weird bunnies) and Children's Week, which is all about orphans, or something. Noblegarden is based on Easter, which means that it's hard to figure out when it's going to be. I have a hard enough time tracking the days of the week, but knowing where Easter falls takes knowing moon phases and the mood of the pope, or something. In Noblegarden you have to eat lots of candy and find eggs, and I'm sure I'll run across some classy Jesus jokes.

Children's Week comes in the first week of may, so more on that later.

So far in the most recent raiding week we have only done Training Wheel Dragon Soul (LFR-DS), since everyone else was too busy to join myself, our illustrious leader Cjbk, and Nymuela. The week before I got my awesome weapon in LFR-DS finally, after weeks of it not dropping, or some hunter getting it. Hunters have a drop all to themselves in there, and yet they always seem to win Mine. Yes I know they can use both of those at the same time, but I can't. Hopefully tomorrow we'll do something super awesome, and I'll just have to do an emergency extra post to tell the "world."

PotW #2! Water

2012-02-18T12:03:00.001-08:00

For this week's Picture of the week theme, I selected water. I love playing with pictures of water, because water is such a dynamic subject. You can take a fast picture and capture a moment of violence in perfect clarity, with drops suspended in the air, or you can take a long exposure (or several) to give a scene a dreamy quality, with the rushing water quieted into a dreamy blanket of probability. A calm body of water can be like a mirror for the scene beyond, showing you an upside-down world, sometimes blurring the lines between water and sky, or you can polarize the incoming light just right, and look straight through a clear body of water to the bottom.
With so many options available to me, I had difficulty deciding which shot I should look for, but time told me what would work best. The best calm shots I could think of locally would really look best as a sunset shoot, for the extra punch of color. Especially with the winter causing most of the landscape to be a dull color, some fire in the sky would go a long way.

I haven't found somewhere where a shot through to the bottom really piqued my interest yet, though I do keep checking. I'll be sure to put one up if I come across something really amazing. Also, the power of water frozen in a moment really needs to be a picture of some really awesome water, so I elected to shoot the dreamy shot with water flowing over some rocks.

Flowing Water

The smallest available aperture on my lenses, and the light at the time of this shoot meant that to really get the amount of time I wanted to elapse in the picture took shooting multiple of the same shot.

My trusty tripod, and a remote shooting release (a wired one) allowed me to set up the shot, then take several seconds of exposure (spread out on multiple images) all of the exact same framed shot.

There are 3 very slow images, and a faster image which is masked based on it's own brightness to give the sky a chance to shine at a reasonable exposure for the sky in this image. It's an HDR blending trick I've picked up that gets me to a great baseline before I do my final blending adjustments. The only way this could have been more dreamy looking, I think, is if I had used my diffusion filter for the shoot too. But there's something I really like about the clarity of the rocks juxtaposed with the water around them that would be lost if everything was hit with some diffusion.

What are your favorite photographic techniques for water as a subject? Share your thoughts, or your pictures in the comments below, and view a gallery of all (2 so far) of the PotW images here, at worrestphotography.com/potw.

Making a Business from Photography

2012-02-16T20:34:00.000-08:00

Today I got my Massachusetts form ST-1 in the mail, which declares for the world that I can collect sales tax on tangible goods. It's another milestone for my business. The process of going from a person to a sole proprietorship has been relatively simple, and fun for me. what follows is a recounting of the steps I took, and some things I discovered along the way.

The steps to become a business started, for me, with registering in my town for a d.b.a. This is a requirement if you want to do official business under a name other than your own. And Worrest photography is more immediately descriptive than Peter Worrest, photographer. It's a choice that I made, but is definitely optional. I feel more professional doing business as Worrest Photography, and confidence helps in performing ones best. This step costs 25-50 dollars in MA, 40 in Hudson specifically.

From there, I went to the federal government and requested an EIN (Employer Identification Number). At the time I did it under the recommendation of an advice article I had read, and it is something I'm glad to have done, since it shows up on some official forms (i.e. The ST-1) and a sole proprietor without one would have their SSN in the same place, I suspect. It was a fairly simple process, and being the digital type, I even had my confirmation letter and EIN instantly delivered via PDF download. (free)

Armed with my business name and my EIN, I registered for collecting taxes. This was also a simple to fill out form, and is also free. The only consequence is that I have to submit tax information quarterly to the state DOR, via their online filing service, and actually give them those collected tax dollars. It will be much easier to deal with income from prints and art when the time comes to file my 1099s and other income when tax time rolls around next year.

I also set myself up with my web presence of course, and have business cards on the way, so I can get my name out in the physical world, since hoping for people to find me just from this blog is just slightly better than throwing a business card into a tornado, and hoping the people in the tornado will grab it. And it's only better because there actually are people in the internet-tornado looking for a photographer in central Mass from time to time.

My next milestone I'm looking forward to is having my business book go into the black, because at least for now, the only entries in my books are about 250 in start up costs... But the future looks good already. You who are reading this blog can help with that! (shameless plug) Hire me for your event, or for a portrait session in the comfort of your own home (or other location of your choosing!) You will love your photos, and there are many wonderful display options available.

An old prime lens made new

2012-02-15T12:36:00.000-08:00

My parents have an old film camera that probably needs some serious TLC to work again. And when I say my parents have it, I mean they had it, and now I have it in my possession. In the bag with the Olympus OM-10 was a Zuiko 50mm 1:1.8 prime lens, and a 2x tele-converter. My friend amazon.com hooked me up with an inexpensive mounting ring to convert the OM system lens to the Canon EOS system. I haven't done too much with it, but I already like what I see. For an example of this lens in action check out my Bio page here. I sat down with this lens in a big room with some natural sunlight and did a self-portrait mini shoot, to come up with my new head shot.

My remote shooting rig is quite a sight to see actually. I have my old laptop, with it's busted screen and all, serving as a host device for screen sharing, and as the platform on which I run the EOS Utility Canon ships with their cameras. I use my iPad to actually control the automatic functions of the camera, and even run in live view mode. With the Olympus prime lens I do have to manually focus with the ring, since there is no auto-focus feature on this bad boy. Even with the lack of remote focus adjustment, It was very easy to get a precise focus, and as with any wide-open lens the focal plane is practically as narrow as paper.

With this self-portrait looking like it does, just imagine what I can do for your portraits. Hire me!

as a side note, my poor glasses are loosing their Anti-reflective coating. And the paint on the frames. Good thing my benefits for new glasses roll around soon!

Picture of the Week

2012-02-11T14:00:00.000-08:00

Well, here it is, the time has come for my first picture of the week! I mentioned that I had some themes picked out for this project, but I managed to get stuck without the ability to shoot any of the themes I originally came up with. What I came up with instead is some urban photography, since I found myself in Cambridge on the day I was shooting. I tried to find an architectural element that could tell a story.

What I ended up finding, after about an hour of wandering through the neighborhood, was a gorgeous set of brick walls at fun angles, with interesting shadows, and this fantastic fire escape staircase. I came up with this image as my final product. This is the product of several different balances of the same shot, out from Digital Photo Professional, canon's raw editor, and into Photoshop (CS2), where each layer was masked using (blurred) brightness information from the shot, then tweaked and balanced until it became what you see below.

I have taken a lot of time, working on shots that i like, and trying to punch them up into something more with various HDR processes. I have tried bracketed shooting for more color data, but with moving shots, or hand held shooting that is impractical or impossible to look just right. The technique I have enjoyed the most involves bracketing your exported images from a single raw file. even if it looks bright in areas, the raw file preserves a lot of color data in anything that didn't blow out to full white (which the preview on my camera can warn me about, or the histogram can demonstrate it).

HDR lends itself well to urban environments, i think, because it implies a high contrast, and deep, rich shadows, with sharp highlights. It lends itself well to a sort of edgy, and well... urban look to the subject. It helps make things look more like how you might perceive them in the world, since your eye will change it's aperture (:D) while you are looking at a scene to compensate for highlights and shadows while you are focusing on those elements.

Let me know what you think of my photo, and share your urban photography in the comments below!

Karnium of Rebelution

2012-02-08T14:13:00.000-08:00

Okay, so it's not been very long since I started this blog, and it may seem a bit early for an off-topic post, but I have a schedule I'm trying to stick to, and it includes a weekly WOW update.

Disclaimer: If you see something that looks like it must be Welsh (sorry Welsh People, but your language is hard to read) then please ask me, as I spend most of my time talking about wow while playing, where everybody already knows the jargon.

Check out the armory profile of my character here if you want to check out what stuff I have.

An introduction-
If you clicked above, then you saw my character standing there, looking awesome. But usually when I'm playing I am staring at a polar bear. Karnium is a Tauren druid, so though the natural form is a cow-man thing, my best work tends to be done pretending to be some other woodland creature (or the woodlands themselves).

A Tangent-
For those not familiar with WOW, here's a little crash course in end-game content for PvE (Player vs. Environment). Players run around doing one of 3 main jobs, each with two classifications:
They can tank (shout insults at enemy computer-controlled units and get hit alot) and can be either the Main tank or the Off-tank (for the extra baddies running around).
If you don't like taking damage you can deal it instead in a role referred to as DPS, either up close (melee range) or from afar (spells, arrows and the like). DPS stands for Damage per Second, a metric used in combat that many try to live and die by, even though it is less important than the less-easy-to-interpret total damage done, since your DPS relies on how long you were in combat and not how long total combat lasted.
Lastly, if hurting things is not up your alley you can heal, either focusing on lots of healing on one target (tank healing) or bits of healing on everyone, from everything being on fire, as it so often is in World of Warcraft ("raid" healing).

aaaaaaaaaaaand we're back!
Karnium is a Tank (my friend likes to think of it as me driving my Bear into battle a-la artillery warfare) and secondarily he is a Ranged damage dealer (rDPS), for which he turns into an owl-bear type creature called a moonkin. I prefer tanking, though it's nice to take a break from almost dying all the time.

If you have any specific questions about my guild or character, or if you take issue with my abridged introduction to wow, post in the comments below. Now on to the actual weekly report part!

This week in Azeroth-
Valentines day is here! ... for 15 days... and holidays in wow mean two things to me right now, daily quests that need doing, and titles to earn. This particular holiday allows you to walk around in game as "So-and-so the Love Fool" if you complete all of the listed achievements. This week I finished up a few of the achievements for the title, and have just a few left. I am pursuing these holiday achievements for the meta-achievement "What a long, strange trip it's been" which is an example of the classic nothing-points being worth something, since this achievement comes with a dragon-thing to ride (and also with the fastest flying if you're missing it: a 5000 gold bonus!)

It's also still the lunar festival (Chinese new year) in game until 2/12, but I am done with the Elder title... so I don't care anymore! isn't that bad of me. anyways, happy new year.

Darkmoon Faire is active, which means more side quest distractions for me, and much more to other people. I haven't really gotten too into the Darkmoon Faire, but people spend a lot of gold on quest items for them, and I'd rather not.

Raiding! Rebelution has hung up the towel (at least temporarily) on finishing the firelands. Ragnaros the firelord remains an unattainable goal for the moment, and we are left without heroic modes and worthwhile things until we can beat my old nemesis from the days of yore ("vanilla" raiding was where I learned to play wow.) And me with less than a thousand reputation points to go until I can buy what mr. robot tells me is a Best in Slot trinket.

But with the closing of one door, we open another as we progress along in Dragon Soul, making it to 3/8 boss kills this week after bashing our heads against the Pong boss for hours on Monday, and trying a few different group configurations. Usually group configuration changes can be read as "Peter, switch Karni over to moonkin." coming up this week: Hopefully we will down those thre again, only faster, and move on to more bosses.

Step by Step

2012-02-07T19:45:00.000-08:00

I have put up the start of my portfolio gallery! for now it is hosted at worrestphotography.zenfolio.com/ but if everything goes well, I will switch over to my own domain soon enough. Check out my portfolio, and I'll be sure to add my photo of the week to the gallery each week. My first photo of the week will be this Saturday.

Let me know what you think of my work in the guestbook on that page, or comment here on my blog.

What do you mean "Canonite?"

2012-02-06T16:57:00.000-08:00

If you couldn't guess, Canonite refers to my Canon camera. But more than that, it refers to my passion for my camera. I really enjoy shooting with my Rebel XSi, which I got to replace my tragically stolen XTi I originally picked up to make the dive into DSLR photography. I use the kit lens that came with my XSi, the EF-S 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6 IS, and I also picked up the EF-S 55-250 mm f/4.0-5.6 IS. For my shooting style the IS is fairly clutch, it affords a few stops of leeway for hand held shooting, which helps with the low light shooting I find myself doing.

From there I take my photos into the default raw editor from Canon for 2 reasons, 1) it's free, and 2) it works. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Adobe junkie, but I am not wealthy enough to keep up, and I don't have anywhere to learn lightroom first. After raw tweaking to produce the best jpg from the source I take them into photoshop, where I exercise my training for editing, retouching, and otherwise mastering for print.

My iMac is calibrated to be as close as a $5 calibration kit can get it to reliably match my printing lab, and since the next level is an auto calibrating tool that costs lots, I figured that color is subjective anyway and close enough is just fine. Nothing has come from them that has disappointed me yet.

Woe is me, I'm running out of hard drive space, and a new external is in order. Thankfully the price per terabyte is going down. I say terabyte because, of course, that is what they market on the box, even though computers tend to have more meaningful connections with Tebibytes, as that is based on powers of 2, not 10.

I'd like to connect with the other Canonites out there, comment on here about your canon camera, or ask a question about my camera or photography.

Hello World

2012-02-05T11:27:00.000-08:00

First post. Here it is! To anyone who happened across (or Stumbled on) my blog by chance, welcome. In this blog, my goal is to talk about my main passions, including but not limited to photography, music, technology, and more. First I'll let you know a little bit about myself.

I am a freelance photographer, and if all goes well I will soon be able to say I am a freelance photographer by trade. When I am not shooting, I can currently be found occasionally making a delicious burger at Five Guys Burgers and Fries in Marlborough, MA. If you haven't been yet, I highly recommend it. Other time is spent on music and art, working with the local theater company (River's Edge Players, which I have also heard referred to as something like "the Worrest theater company") and one of these days I'm going to finish my senior project and pick up my bachelor's degree.

I have about 6 years of seriously approaching digital photography under my belt, and I feel I've learned a few things, feel I can share some advice, and know I can learn more from the passionate people in the photo blog world. The artistic expression achievable in raw digital photography gets me really excited, and I like to think that I've developed a knack for pulling more out of my pictures with raw edits. I shoot my HDR with a Canon Rebel XSi, but I'll get more into that next week.

what can you expect from this blog? I plan to post a picture, or picture set every week. I have a few weeks of topics selected, but please leave a comment with any ideas for what you might like to see. In addition, I will feature one of my other hobbies every week, until I run out. (hah!) Expect hobby related photography and something on how I go about shooting for my hobby whenever practical. ( I won't be taking pictures of sketches, I'm more likely to just sketch directly onto the computer.) Don't think I won't take advantage of this soapbox to talk about the goings on in my life, either. And do expect to hear about the week in the life of my character in World of Warcraft (Karnium of Rebelution on Scarlet Crusade), but just in the one post a week.

I don't expect to be doing lots of product comparisons and side by side reviews. Rating things on arbitrary scales is far to abstract for me to stand it, and I'm far to poor to be able to afford one of every thing to try em. I will talk about the gear I have, and make recommendations on where I have found they perform best, and I will definitely be putting together DIY style posts, and linking to ones I have found to work well, because who doesn't want to be able to work beyond their means. I'm currently writing about lighting for portraiture and still life on the cheap, but I can't finish that one up until my next paycheck, when I can practice what I preach to give some sample shots. Lighting on the cheap is not lighting on the free, and I'm still short. I'm excited for the next few weeks to happen, and for all of you reading this now (in the future!) to come back again and again.

(please?)

Peter Worrest is an award-winning freelance photographer, designer, artist, musician, actor, lighting designer, and technical consultant from Hudson, MA. Consider him for your next event!