"Where have you BEEN?"

This image is for the funeral for a biker I never knew. It was commissioned by a student of my wife, who actually took the pictures. I just did the post processing. But I am pleased with the way it turned out. This was the cover to the funeral service. Cool, huh?

I look at the blog and I think: what should we cover today?

All conventional blog wisdom says that you really need to post something every day so that you develop committed readers that come back over and over again. This makes sense. I need to encourage you folks to subscribe so you get updates each time the muse moves me to write something down so you KNOW the very instant these pearls of wisdom drip from my lips – or more appropriately – this laptop.

But if I wrote something every day, two things would have to be different:

1) I’d have to be making money at this. Since I am self employed, I need to make the things that take my time make money. This blog may one day do that, either by selling the courses at
http://www.photoshopbasics.com or with advertising.

2) I’d have to have something to say every day. And I don’t. So if I wrote all the time, I’d wind up talking about things that don’t interest me much and that would result in a great steaming pile of cyberpoop delivered fresh to the reader every day.

I can state with certainty that I have wanted to write every single blog so far. It may have been a new photography technique or something cool I learned in Photoshop. Sometimes it had to do with a place I had been and really wanted to tell you about. But I’ve never written a blog “just because.” I respect both your time and mine too much to clog it with junk.

Having said all that, you should know that I am always thinking about you guys. When I am on a trip, I think of what aspects I’d really like to share with you. I want it to be like you are standing right beside me, looking at these wonderful people, sharing the travel experience with me. Isn’t that what real writing is all about? When I am working in Photoshop or behind a camera, I am usually wondering if I have learned something useful enough to do a blog on it.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the emails from you folks wondering what’s happening. I do. It reminds me that I am not talking to myself. Keep in mind that I am still running the special events company, doing magic shows and doing a great heaping bunch of my own writing and photography projects.

There’s some very cool stuff in the future: Sheree and I have planned two wonderful trips for 2009.

We’re leaving New Year’s Eve for a trip down the Amazon. I am trying very hard not to count the sleeps, but this promises to be a fabulous adventure into South America, Devil’s Island and all points in between and beyond. I may be able to talk Sheree into taking a side trip to a place I’ve only been to once, but has elevated itself into legendary status in my mind: Key West. We’ll see.

In April, we’re taking a trans Atlantic crossing (which sounds just too cool to NOT get all excited about.) We’re winding up in Southampton, England and will visit some friends we’ve made on flickr. We’ll also visit the countries that make up a little over half of me: Ireland and England. And Paris. (Did you just hear me sigh? I did.) I am literally aching to travel and see more of this great world and the people who live in it. I am dying to photograph them and bring it home to you…whoever and wherever you may be.

So I will be around. And if I see something I’d like to tell you about, or a flickr artist or a Photoshop technique, I will be posting here. But we are coming up on high season, so I don’t know how much spare time I will have.

Let me suggest that you SUBSCRIBE to this blog. You’ll find the button up top in the upper right hand corner. That way you’ll know when I’ve got something new for you.

Until then – be well, take lots of pictures and relax: it’s only a digital world.

Okay?

Okay.