The life of a photographer is maybe 10% about photography and 90% about doing other stuff, and that's a very optimistic view, since I don't want to put anyone off.

I spend most of the time making a living one way or another, editing photos, fulfilling orders, answering emails and other fluff.

Included in this other fluff is the smooth running of my server which wasn't so smooth lately and the web design tasks. I got repaid by an awful drop in traffic and even lost some Search Engine love. Finally, I was able (or so I hope) to get the problem solved by a technician at Servint. Seems like there was an errand eAccelerator running, although I was positive that I had disabled it a while ago.

Most of my readers aren't coming here to hear me whine about this or talk about other web design projects, although I occasionally do drop a few pearls of web server wisdom. It is a part of this business and may be of interest for those of us who aren't just about flickr and blogger. I think I also owe my regular readers an explanation for the performance drop and my tardiness with new articles.

Hopefully, the problem is fixed and things will run more smoothly from now on, but I guess it will take at least 6 months to regain my former traffic numbers. I am somewhat stomped by how fast the search guys reacted and dropped rankings. Lets hope they are just as fast giving them back.

San Francisco is one of my favorite cities in the world. I live close to it and yet I never really updated my San Francisco Gallery until now. My backlog of photographs of San Francisco is now almost gone. I still have one some more work left to do, but the San Francisco Gallery is now in much better shape. As my website and my number of photographs grows, my time shrinks.

Today I was able to structure the Gallery into many smaller galleries, necessary to accomodate the amount of pictures I uploaded (and will upload soon). Check out the result of my work. Hope you like it.

As I drove home today, I noticed a strange mist over South San Jose. The closer I came to getting home, the eerier the whole scene got, when it finally dawned on me.

The wind had turned and suddenly the smoke of some of California's raging wildfires blew our direction. Fires are burning in too many places at once while California is facing one of the worst droughts in history.

As the evening came and the sun set, the whole landscape was suddenly bathed in an eery red light creating a surreal atmosphere as if the world would come to an end. I just had to draw my camera and walk the short distance to Blossom Hill road to capture the feeling of the night.

People were swerving and driving strangely while looking at the sky and when we climbed one nearby parking garage we found a small crowd of spectators gazing at the sunset as everything got covered up by thick smoke clouds.

Looking up, I can now see a blood red moon shining through, which leads me to believe that the clouds were thinning.

I am still months behind with a giant backlog of pictures on my hard drive. It seems like I have finally been able to sort through my computer problems and can now start uploading again.

I put some pictures of Goblin Valley State Park (Utah) online. The stone goblins almost seem real and it is not hard to see why the park is named this way.

Originally called Mushroom Valley by its discoverer, Chaffin, Goblin Valley is a much more fitting name for this place.

I also took the opportunity to put some new pictures in my Bryce Canyon Gallery.

As always, enjoy the photos. More are coming soon.

I took the chance that Memorial Day offered me to go on a trip to Oregon. Taking a few days off was exactly what I needed after all the recent stress.

Unfortunately, the weather in Oregon was mostly bad with the exception of last Saturday. Somehow, it is always raining in Oregon when I am there. On all my trips, I never even had a full day of sunshine. Oregon is amazingly green due to the amount of rain it gets. It is one of my favorite places to photograph, if I have any visibility.

I wanted to evaluate my new Rebel XSI and take a few cool shots of Oregon. I got a few nice snaps on Saturday but not much else. Photographically the trip was not very exciting but I was able to relax quite a bit and since so many people stayed at home due to rising fuel cost, I did not even hit the mandatory traffic jam coming back after the holiday weekend.

I added some more information to my Rebel XSI Field Guide and I will probably add the pictures to my Oregon Gallery this weekend.

Having your work reviewed by either a professional committee or other fellow photographers is one way to improve your technique. Putting your photographs in front of a photo community is always a bit of a gamble. Many people on forums focus on minor technical imperfections rather than the art aspect of your photograph. It is important to find the right community to review your work to leap ahead and improve your work rather than reading through endless pixel peeping discussions.

Daily Awards is one of those communities where you can have your work reviewed, compete against other artists or just see what kind of work people notice and recognize. For a relatively new site, they already have a sizable community. Even the free reviews are excellent and encouraging. Rather than putting people down, the young aspiring artist is motivated while getting exceptional feedback. I like to read other people’s feedback to compare the opinion of the reviewers to my own. It is an incredibly valuable tool to learn and see photographically.

Viewing and learning from other peoples reviews is easy and free. Uploading and getting reviews requires a paid membership at a very reasonable price. I think it is a great way to keep the members at a professional level. For your $26.10/yr you get an immense value in return. A yearly membership is a good option. Although the price declines when you sign up for a longer period, I prefer to reevaluate all my memberships on a yearly basis.
The concept of the website is refreshing and new (to me). There is a lot of value in gaining exposure and popularity. Like any social based website, you can get more exposure by contributing more but most importantly by getting positive reviews. It is a great concept and if the owners find ways to identify that their system cannot be manipulated it is also a very fair system. For aspiring photographers with lots of time it is certainly a great way to get noticed. For me it is yet another way to learn what gets good reviews.

The site also offers paid reviews where one can request a review from any one of the paid professionals over there. This might be something worth looking into when you are seriously thinking about getting published.
 

In March i was walking through Downton Los Angeles one Saturday when I saw a Waterslide unrolled in Downtown and tons of cameras all around. I didn't bother much and took a few photos that you can see in my L.A. Gallery. On my way home I walked right by the slide, took a couple of shots and went on.

One month later, while watching TV i saw the advertisement for the new Dodge Journey when I discovered the same scene again. I only took 3 shots, but I really liked the one of the actor in the suit.