July Update

It's been a very busy week-and-a-bit.

• I watched the judging of the NSW/ACT APPA competion (part of VIVID photography festival). Very interesting watching the judges score the photos, and even more interesting when they have mini-debates to convince the other judges one way or the other.

• Attended "Magicians and Travellers" conference (put on by AIPP also as part of VIVID). The standout talk for me was Phil Kuruvita. Peter Eastway had a good presetation, as did Phillip Andrews.

• Use DNG. I never really saw the point of DNG, but the main reason to use it is for better workflow going from Lightroom to/from Photoshop. I've gotta test this out soon. The other benefit is that you get around 20% storage saving over NEF files... which actually is a good enough reason in itself to use DNG. Now I've just got to convert all my photos...

• I've finally registered "t8 photography" as a business name.

• All my insurance has been finalised. I got a couple of quotes and in the end went with photoinsurance.com.au Quite good value and email communication was pretty smooth.

• I put an ad in the "A day to remember" wedding liftout in The Canberra Times. I was the only photographer who did so - I'm not yet sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing... it could mean it's a waste of money! I have had two enquiries from the ad so far though. I'm also advertising via Google Adwords, which seems to be more effective so far. I've had most enquires from people who have clicked on the Google ad.

• 5 weddings booked. Yay! Next wedding is in two weeks.

• I've moved my email from GoDaddy (which is attrocious) to Google Apps (ie. GMail). So far so good. I'm going to see if I can do the website hosting with Google Sites, then I can get rid of GoDaddy for everything except domain registar. As part of Google Apps you get Google Calendar - which imports iCal calendars and iCal can subscribe to Google Calendar (and still syncs the calendar to my phone). I would have prefered that Google Calendar do proper two-way syncs with iCal, but I suppose you can't have everything.

• Still doing photography work for ALVA media on the weekends. I'm now doing the team shots by myself (sometimes with a little help from George). Next weekend I'll be showing someone else the ropes.

• Sent in the form to join NPS Lite. Nikon Professional Services. You get stuff like priority equipment servicing, free CCD cleaning and a few other minor things. I'm not sure if they'll accept my grey import Nikon gear though. Does anyone buy from authorised Nikon resellers these days??

• Talking about grey imports - just got my first macro lens: Nikkor 105mm with AFS and VR. Looking forward to using it when I've got some time!

• Took some photos in the rain halfway up Black Mountain (the hill, not the tower) with a couple of the guys from the Canberra Photography Society. One I liked below: