This turned out to be one of my favorite shots even though I was specifically told to focus on the “children” (since two of them are taller than me, I get to put that in quotes). Since parents are the foundation of the family, I love to document them, too–their closeness and familiarity is awesome. I loved this shot in black and white, but I have to tell you, the color of Cherie’s eyes is incredible. That version may end up on the facebook page (you are a fan, aren’t you?). Thank you so much, Cherie & co! Loved it!

On the photographer’s end, however, it’s really really hard, because every slideshow is set to music, and one thing you can know about me right up front is that I am not musical. I don’t actually listen to a lot of music, even though I love it, and I have no sense of rhythm, either. Just being real, here! John King of Metta Audio is super musical, though, and he just saved my sorry self, because, get this: he writes music and now sells royalty free music for photographers, and what’s even better, he includes custom timings for ShowitWeb (remember, I said I had no rhythm? Sad, but true!). Thank you, thank you, thank you, John!

So, for the visiting photographers, check out John and his work on my little slideshow. For the potential clients who are visiting, check out Betty’s family, the new and improved version (family, not pictures)! Yes, the gorgeous redhead, Megan, was David’s girlfriend for this session. She is now his fiancée!

My first edit:

Dirty Pictured (Dirtied Picture? What’s the appropriate verb?:

Original (clean and lovely but kind of austere):

Dirtied (I really love how this one warmed up):

I have to say, I really enjoyed the layout and interface of the plugin, and I loved that I could make it render previews of all the textures using the actual image I was working on. It made it super easy to decide right away which textures I was interested in using and which ones I might have to delete from my computer entirely.

First, because I think I’ve favored my girls in pictures over my son (mainly because he is a reluctant photo subject):

Disclaimer: these plugins are ones that I personally have found to be useful. They are all listed in the plugins directory on wordpress.org; or, if you are running WP 2.8.4 or higher (and if you’re not, whyever not?), you can also install them from within WP itself.  Please note: I am not an expert and am therefore advising you that you can use and install them at your own risk. Always backup your website before making significant changes in case a new plugin doesn’t play nice with something you’re already using.

General Blog Tools: These are good to have on any blog to help keep you safe, backed up, and search engine friendly:

• Askimet: Every WP blogger should use this plugin. It does an amazing job of weeding out spam comments.
• All in One SEO Pack: for helping make your blog search engine friendly.
• Google XML Sitemaps: more search engine friendliness. If you don’t already use Google’s Webmaster Tools this one won’t mean much to you.
• WordPress Database Backup: If you are not backing up your WP database frequently and often you are just asking for something bad to happen. This plugin backs your database up on any schedule you like.

Image Display: I use these to present my images.

• NextGEN Gallery: I use this plugin to place images in every post. It’s easy to use once you get it set up to your liking (adjusting thumbnail sizes, etc.). One caveat is that it apparently only sends the thumbnail size images to your blog subscribers’ readers and emails, which kind of defeats the point of the whole subscription setup. Erik of Erik Teichmann Design solved this problem for me by adding some code to my blog. I recommend contacting him to ask for his help with that, because it’s certainly beyond me.
• Lightbox2: NextGEN Gallery has a variety of image display options to use, some of which require installing an extra plugin. This is the one I personally chose but there are others listed in the NextGEN resources.
• SlideShowPro: This program is not part of WP at all, but it’s what I use to display my gallery images and I really like it. It does cost money and requires either Flash (not the player) or Lightroom.
• Kimili Flash Embed: I found this plugin and instructions on the SlideShowPro user forums to help me embed my gallery into a blog page. I believe it has other uses as well but that’s what I’ve used it for.

Social Networking:

• Sociable: I’ve just started using this to make it easier to share blog posts via email, twitter, and facebook.

For other resources I like, and friends I recommend, and random good people, visit my page about the people I’m glad to know. For those of you who are interested in this list, I hope you’ve found it helpful. And if you’ve been on the fence about buying ProPhoto, using referral code RCORNETT232 (in all caps) will save you $10.

Here’s my fun news: my canvas provider is having an incredibly awesome sale!! Which means that I, too, can have an incredibly awesome sale!! Doesn’t matter if we did your pictures last week, last month, or last year, if you have been wanting a canvas, you should buy one now! Here’s the details:

• 16×20 gallery wrap canvas is $105 (add to cart).
• 16×24 gallery wrap canvas is $125 (add to cart).
• 20×24 gallery wrap canvas is $145 (add to cart).

These prices even include shipping! This is an awesome sale, because normally the 16×20 is $250. You do the math, and then shoot me an email (or click the “add to cart” links)! You don’t even have to pick the image out first, and if you’re not sure, it might be safest not to, because the sale price for me only goes through Sunday. To reserve your canvas at the sale price, I need to your order in to me by 3pm on Sunday (that would be August 1), so that I can get my order in to them.