Hello again, everybody out there in bloggie land. It’s been a week since my last posting so I figured that I better write something or people will begin to give up on me. “Out of sight, out of mind” as the saying goes. I still haven’t put a title over my entry for this week as I write this paragraph, as I can’t seem to think of anything interesting to use for it.

Of course, I should also try to find something interesting to write about down here in the text. I’m beginning to realize that there actually are a certain amount of people around the world who follow what I write here -or the photos that I post, at the very least. (If, like followers of Playboy magazine, you only check out the blog for the articles, do let me know.) It can just be difficult at times to come up with something interesting to write about one’s mundane existence, but if “Seinfeld” could be successful being about nothing, I guess I can give it a try, too.

So, let’s see. The two things of note that I’ve done regarding my photography during the past week were to order a book of photos and attend a workshop. First the book.

As readers here will know, I got upset at Kodak Gallery’s book printing service for canceling a book order because of one nude photo that violated their rules of propriety. (Not mine.) I said at that time that I’d take my business elsewhere, and I will – but I will only begin to do so now.

I still had a credit for $33 with them from a previous book order plus a credit for free next day shipping, along with a 25% off coupon (and that $33 credit expired yesterday, forcing me to act quickly). So, rather than compromise what I wanted for my nude book, I decided to order a hardcover book of some of my photos of Asia. I’d already gotten a mini-book of Asia photos through them, so I decided to add some more. I think that first book had 45 photos in it but the new order has 70. Most of these photos I already had scanned, but I scanned a few more yesterday. I’m posting some of these photos (from Thailand, Japan and Vietnam) now. I hope the book quality will be good – even if I don’t plan on using the service again.

I guess putting together a book on my travel photography was appropriate, having attended a two day workshop on travel photography at the International Center of Photography here in New York this past weekend. Overall I’d say it was fair (that being the rating I gave to it on the feedback form). I think this was the first time I’d attended a classroom workshop on travel photography, and to me it just didn’t focus enough on the things that interest me, such as fine art travel photography, rather than editorial-type work.

A lot of time was also devoted to explaining how to use the strobe systems found on or with modern digital cameras – and since I don’t use strobe in my photography, I found much of it rather uninteresting. I guess I was hoping for more travel and less on techy stuff. There’s a six day workshop on travel photography with another instructor that ICP offers, and I may still take that one, as I know the woman who teaches it does fine art travel photography herself and sells fine art prints.

The other thing I’ll write about now is that I’m still waiting for Lulu to print up and send me my revised calendar order. I think I’d already gotten the first one in the time that has passed since the second order, but I’ve been told by someone who’s used Lulu that now is the holiday crunch season. I guess I have no other choice at this point but to wait for it. At least Lulu is a print-on-demand service, so if I put the calendar up for sale too late (or if nobody wants to purchase one for any reason), at least I won’t have wasted money by buying a bunch of them in advance on speculation.

As always, stay tuned.

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