There is a company that creates website just for us little 'ol photographers. Blu is an amazing company that offers such creative and intuitive sites and blogs I could blather about them all day long! They run these wicked cool contests constantly for photographers with varying and inspiring themes. Wow I love adjectives. Anyhoo, I entered recently to about oh, five of their contests at once. Now while I didn't win...yet...there's still two to be judged....they did post two of my shots in their blog. Maybe to inspire others? Maybe cause they thought they looked cool. Either way, I feel special. Below are the two shots that they hosted on their blog, it was a political theme, like of course!

If you are anything like me when you upload a picture you want to upload it to like 40 places all at once! Since this isn't possible I end up denying my flickr/facebook/myspace friends multiple megabytes of magnificent montages! Ok, it's not really that bad and I'm not under the illusion that everyone in the world want s to view my pictures...but...there are some people and they do comment on being left out of the loop at times!

I recieved an email today from the wonderful people at photojojo, one of my favorite photography sites, about a service from Pixelpipe. You create a FREE account and you can upload one picture to many places AT ONCE!! This is huge for me! You can add "pipes" for your photos to be whisked to, you can also add a blog link to update!

This might be the most exciting thing that has happen to me all week!

So yes it's possible to have a lovely family portrait taken at your home with a black background. It's also possible for us to shot at that really nice park in your area, or at the beach. I love all these types of shots and it's whatever you are comfortable with, where ever your family will shine.

I just wanted to take a second to pint out that for those of you that are interested in something different, something unique I'm up for that too. I was at the laundry mat the other day washing our comforters and I had an epiphany, and my camera with me! THE light was great, the backgrounds were stark white or shiny metal. The atmosphere was, well, kinda fun. I ended up making some new friends and loved a shot of this little boy Phillip I met.

I started thinking where would be my favorite places to shot in Tampa. Here is a list, some idea starters for you. Your home is a wonderful place to have your portrait done but maybe so is an abandoned warehouse you know of!

• Laundry Mat
• Railroad Tracks
• Farms
• Downtown Tampa
• University of Tampa
• Trip Park (does anyone know what it's really called?) on the water in Tampa
• Downtown Lakeland, Lemon and Florida are some amazing streets
• Your Church
• Empty Fields, we can bring props
• Ybor City, a personal fav, so much history and texture, during the day of course!

I just wanted to let you know, I'm up for it all. Life Portraits not just pictures!

As with all photographers I think we love shooting our families most of all. It practice for what I want to try with other people's families. Repetition is the mother of skill, Ben Franklin always said! Also our families are far more patient than I would expect any client to be! I'll adjust the lighting a million times while I bride you with better Christmas present, really ask my daughter.

My child is of the age now though where pictures are no longer fun and mom is just kinda annoying at times. That's cool Tracy's kinda annoying at time too! So I have a new skill to hone. Ninja photography! I have started to perfect the art of ninja photography. I can pop out of nowhere and get off 10 to 15 good shots before she knows what has hit her! I pretend to be doing something else and just happen to take a few quick shots from the hip or shoulder or under the arm.

With the baby now at 8 months, and wanting to grab everything and quickly insert it in his mouth, ninja photography has now included balancing and holding weird positions for unnaturally long periods of time. Over the head on one foot with the camera strap wrapped around my arm. Wiggle it to get his attention...now pull it out of the frame and shoot like mad! Sure I may have too much time on my hands but check out some of the fun results below...

The other day my wonderful parents came over for my birthday dinner. They brought the dog they were babysitting,er, dogsitting. Her name was Lady and she really never stopped moving. I gained a new respect for people that are able to photograph dogs. It was fun though, trying to focus quickly, keeping her form eating the camera strap. We found that a good pair of socks would calm her down, if only for a minute.

So here's Lady both peaceful and frantic. Also it was a good excuse to use my baritone all day..."Lady, I'm your night in shining armor and I love you." It was so much fun that I'd love to try and shoot another puppy. Kids and dogs have always been my biggest fans and the recipe for my best days!

So I love my logo. My design, exactly what I wanted. I've always loved logo with a black background. Black is so stark, it really makes everything POP! Well, witht he new print house I am working with, they require a version on white. Ok, they don't require it but...I'd have to have a big black box around my logo and that was, my friend, a no go!

So I hunkered down tonight (is hunkered really a word?) and changed it up a bit. Now I am O-K with Illustrator, though I really love Photoshop, I just can't resist the cool clean lines of a wicked sweet vector image...

I set aside a couple of minutes, in between editing a mini session from this weekend, and put my lovely logo (if I do say so myself) on a plain ol' white background. It was dull and sad and lonely. It lacked the edge of going all black and dark, mysterious...

I decided for the white version to funk it up a bit with my brush tool. Now it's multi colored and a bit more artsy. Maybe I'll use that one if I ever change over my site, maybe not. It's nice to have options now though.

So whatdoya think?