What have I gotten myself into...

I've been searching for a theme that could help me understand how/why I'm doing this. Providing a journal of my experiences as I attempt to become more literate in the technologies available to me now seems to be it. Coming from my introduction to photography when I first picked up a camera in high school to where I am now seems to be a worthwhile effort.

Where I am now is learning how to use the "iLife" suite of products to capture, edit and share my photos, videos and my musical tastes. The primary audience is Glendale High School here in Springfield. I have nephew who plays on the team and the parents are more then happy to let me 'have at it'. The boys seem to enjoy the results but the primary feedback I've gotten (it's been limited, a common issue for all of us I'm sure) is that the musical choices I make don't really pump up the young men, or 'boys' in the vernacular of the soccer team.

I've branched out a bit, doing some shooting at some SMS Women's soccer matches, a Drury men's game and then tonight a Middle School match. I also have experimented with using my Nikon Coolpix 2100 in MPEG mode and it turned out pretty well although I miss the lack of audio. I've transfered some 8mm movies to DV and from there onto my homepage. That's going to become a larger part of my efforts as the soccer season slows down with the fall season's end and the upcoming holidays. I am a genealogist which is what really brought me back to my photography habit as I struggle to learn about the issues involved in archiving these important parts of my families history while also creating new ones as we go forward.

The biggest issue I'm going to face with this blog is finding the time to use it effectively. I spent the majority of the day today creating DVD's of previously edited videos while also working on my first photo DVD in an effort to find a way to get my work out to the folks who should most appreciate it, the families and friends of the players. Once I take the time to identify photos for the DVD covers, printing and trimming them it all adds up to almost a whole day of effort to create five copies of the video DVD and five copies of the photo DVD, in their final marketable form. When do I do this?

I did get some very positive reactions from the Coach and the few players that were around when I delivered a copy of each of my productions to him after practice today. It's definitely a step above what they have been used to in past years although the 2003 video was professionally done. The problem we ran into there was that there were some "mistaken identity" caused by the time constraints we faced along with the distance (our producer was in Chicago). I'm going to be facing some time constraints myself if I don't get started on the end of season video, I'm procrastinating on the final storyboard. So, on that note, I'll close this so I can get some rest and be prepared to complete that important task early tomorrow!