Well there's really not much going on over here in my life at the moment. I'm feeling really sick and shitty right now. My whole body is aching and my head hurts.


I'm thinking about getting a new computer. Not an apple yet(or maybe never). The transition is just too great for right now. Here are some of the specs on the computer:

HP Pavilion Elite m9550f Desktop Computer - $ 1,199.99

* 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q9300
* 8GB (4x2GB) RAM
* 1TB SATA Hard Drive
* SuperMulti DVD Burner with LightScribe
* ATI Radeon HD 4850 Graphics
* 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi
* Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit)

What do you think?

Well I'm off,

Peace

So in the past couple weeks some exciting things have happened(to me they are anyways)and I thought I would let you in on some of it.

Equipment wise I bought the Canon 580EX II Speedlite , Canon Normal EF 50mm f/1.4 USM & the Gary Fong Lightsphere II Cloud . Everything works wonderfully and has really helped my photography.

As for the jobs, I did a family sitting a couple weeks ago(which you can see in my gallery of the little blond girl)and a Quinceanera. The Quinceanera was my first solo job and it went great. It was a very long day(eight hours)of Spanish and crazyness.

On Monday Lynnette and I went to Doug Gordon's workshop in Oakland, California. Check out my latest photos and scraps.

It was an eight hour workshop for only $59! We did both learning in the classroom and live shooting. Here he was showing us his posing techniques which he refers to "Flow Posing". With his flow posing system he was able to pop out 50 DIFFERENT poses in a matter of 30 minutes! Just imagine how quick he could have got them done without explaining to all of us! It's a major time saver when you're under the gun at a wedding. Doug is a genius when it comes to posing people naturally. Probably because he studied alongside with the great
Monte Zucker, R.I.P. for ten years. In part with his posing skills he is also a spectacular business man. "Remember, as a wedding and portrait photographer we are paper salesmen", he said. Meaning don't just give your clients a CD/DVD with their photos on it. SELL THE PAPER(PRINTS & ALBUMS). When you do that, all you are doing is putting the professional labs out of business. You know that your client is just going to go to their local grocery store to get them printed. Then the college guy working there trying to pay off his college debt isn't going to have a clue how to print your colors or custom size you made special for your client. Along with just giving them a CD/DVD the client most likely won't get the album done on their own or they won't be able to because it will cost too much. No other photographer will put it together because now they have to work with someone else's work. So in the end your reputation and credibility is on the line. We all know that's the last thing we want for our business. Anyways, that's just a tad of what Doug Gordon had to say.

Doug Gordon

Peace,
Brian C. Racine

"First Place & "Best of Category" Winner"

Me and the first place winner and "Best of Category" "Mill Creek" at the Sonoma County Harvest Fair photography contest.

Until next time,
Peace

Yes I'm still alive, if anyone was wondering. I've been trying to stay busy as much as I can. Lately I've really been getting into portraiture and meeting as many people in the business as possible. A while back I meet this 81 year young landscape/nature photographer named Roy Crockett at one of his exhibits. We got to talking and he took me under his wing. From then on he's been my mentor, friend and a little of of grandfather. He introduced(and still is)me to so many professional photographers. One being my most favorite, Jerry Dodrill - [link] . The most recent person he introduced me to was portrait photographer that has a studio here local in my town. Her name is Kay Field - [link] . She graduated from The Art Institute of California — San Francisco and has been in the business for thirty years. I've been hanging around her studio a little bite trying to absorb as much I can.


So now for the REALLY good news! The other moments I've been keeping myself busy with are PAID PHOTOSHOOTS. I've only done two so far but I'm still getting more to come. A friend of mine that does portraits and has been doing it for a long time lets me use his Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II and all his pro photo gear. The first one was with a family of four(5 counting there little chiwawa, Kenny). The mother, the father, their seven year young boy and their four month young daughter... oh yeah and Kenny. It was a lot to deal with for my first photoshoot. I made many mistakes and I for sure learned from them all. Then second shoot went much better and smoother. I'm now trying to build a business. Such as a website and advertising, all that good stuff. Well that's about it. Take a look at my gallery to see the shots from the photo shoots.


p.s. the reason my says I'm grumpy is because it's like 90 degrees at 6:45!


My Beautiful and Awe-Inspiring Girlfriend

Check Out Her Words:



Clubs I'm In



Some Deviants I watch



Deviants Watching Me

...The big FIVE, ZERO ZERO ZERO. It's taken little over a year to get here, I guess that's reasonable. Thanks to all you watching, faving & commenting I've been able to even get that many. So again, THANK YOU SO MUCH. I truly appreciate all the support.

Unfortunately there's not much new going on in my life so I don't have much to talk about. I got some early Christmas gift cards to B&H Photo Video and am going to get a decent tripod finally. I've been looking at the Slik Pro 700DX. It's gotten great reviews all over the web so I'm thinking I can't go wrong. It has everything I need and want so it should be fine for now. I also was thinking about getting a separate ballhead but I'm not sure yet.

I've ventured out of dA and found another great art community called RedBubble. So far it's wonderful and everyone seems to be nice. The buying/selling is fast and easy. There's may people from here over there as well.

Check out my Bubble

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year. Be safe, don't drink and drive.

Peace




My Beautiful and Awe-Inspiring Girlfriend

Check Out Her Words:



Clubs I'm In



Some Deviants I watch



Deviants Watching Me