March 10th, 2010 by Brian Cooney

Titmouse Bird Photo 1/320 f8 400mm

Its been a slow couple of weeks for photography , as I have been traveling and working way too many hours.  Nearly three weeks ago, at Middle Creek Wildlife Preserve,  Jennifer and I drove out and just sat and watched the birds for probably over an hour.

Redwing_Blackbird Photo 1/320 @f10 400mm

It was a Perfect day and time for Bird Photography.  There was Plenty of Daylight, but it was close enough to sundown to put the sun right where it needed to be.  The light was coming over from behind us, so it was lighting the birds well as long as they were not in the shade.  The ground was still covered with snow, so the birds food sources were limited.  This led to a huge concentration of birds at the feeder station….. and the areas around it.  One surefire way to get pictures of animals is to find their food… and when all the other fancy restaurants are closed from snow….  they all end up going to the McDonalds of the bird world.

Cardinal Photo f5.6 1/400 at 400mm

My strategy for the day was simple.  Experiment.  A lot.  I was playing with different exposures,  different shutter speeds,  different apertures.  The camera was on a tripod the entire time.  I was using my 100-400mm lens,  mostly at 400 the entire time.  I was also using my remote shutter release to make things easier on my body.  I was shooting through a large plate glass window, into the feeding area at the wildlife preserve. Wherever I could, I was trying to catch the birds when they landed anywhere but on a feeder.  I foumd that most of the pictures I liked best were the ones when sun was hitting them directly, which I attibute to better shutter speed,  and smaller apeture.  I was NOT just going as fast as I could….. because I wanted to have enough depth of field to try and get the whole bird sharp.  Instead, I was just trying to keep the shutter speed at 1/320 or faster.  This was enough to freeze most of the birds motion if they were staying put… but not enough to catch a takeoff or landing.  When you go to shoot birds, and you find many of them in one area, experiment.  Try different apatures,  different shutter speeds,  and different exposures.  I found that setting the camera to Spot metering may help with getting the exposure, since Birds are so small and you don’t care as much about the exposure of the background/foreground which is constantly changing.  I believe I did quite a bit of manual mode to try and guess close, using the spot meter and a larger surface that was in the same light as my target birds.  As far as auto-focus,  it was a big help to set the camera to only use the AF point, as there is just way too much non-bird for the camera to get tripped up on if you let it auto-select a focus point.

Bird_on_Snow Photo 1/320th f8 400mm

If you have an oppertunity like this, experiment.  Get as close to the birds as you can.  Try to find the right light….  so you can have a crisp subject.  The hardest parts are finding light that makes their eyes come to life, and their details stand out, and getting close enough.  If you can do these things, you will be happy with the results.

February 22nd, 2010 by Brian Cooney

Crow Silhouette

Sometimes you get lucky.  This was definitely one of those weeks for me.  Lately,  when I drive,  I have been throwing my camera on the passenger side seat, with my 50mm lens. Usually, the camera is set up with something  in the 1/250th or faster shutter range, and as large a f-stop as that will allow.  The idea is simple: If I see a grab shot, I might get it.  I try not to pay too much attention to the camera,  and sure as heck am not messing with it if I am around other vehicles,  but with Live view and a quick framing, maybe Ill get lucky.  This week, I got two shots this way… one that my beautiful wife Jennifer and I love,  and one that I just think is neat.  The one we love was actually a terrible shot.  I was sitting at a redlight, and saw some low flying crows overhead.  I grabbed the camera and snapped the above frame.  The exposure was terrible, because the camera was not set up for shooting a backlit bird in the sky. I was way to far away.  When I looked at it on the computer however, I noticed that it was a perfect silhouette, and that it was fairly sharp.  I Cropped about 1/4th of the frame,  dropped the exposure,  played with the levels to make the sky a sexy deep blue,  and did a little sharpening and de-noising.  The result was a beautiful silhouette,  and in fact the only good silhouette shot I have ever taken.  Lucky accident, and even luckier I decided to take a look at the file on my computer. I should have just thrown the file away, but I am glad I didnt, because I love it. The second shot is the Kit Kat truck.  It isn’t well framed, and I didn’t put too much time or thought into it, because I was actually moving and really couldn’t be looking through the viewfinder.  The only thing I could really control was getting closer, to get the framing angle that looked good.  Its not a great picture,  the sky looks like crap,  but its neat because it is literally, a Tanker Truck full of awesome…. and I like it.  I always used to steal the Kit Kat bars and Resses Penut butter cups out of my brothers trick or treat bag, and replace them with Smarties for a reason. As far as editing this one,  I just played with settings to try and make the tuck look shiny, and make the pavement look black.  Nothing I did was having the effect I wanted on the sky,  so I just focused on my subject, the truck of happiness.

Necessary Disclaimer:  Be careful.  You are responsible for your actions, and I am not.  Especially if you read this article and then screw up.  If there were other cars around me besides what you see in the frame, I wouldn’t have been handling my camera.

February 14th, 2010 by Brian Cooney

Robin Couple 1/400 f11 400mm ISO800

I often leave home not expecting to get any pictures at all,  but with my 100-400mm lens attached to my camera, and my camera out of the bag hoping to see something.  Usually, this proves to be a waste of time.  Today,  I got a few images I liked out of it, and one that I love.  Birds are flirty little things.  You always see them being all pretty and showing off when you dont have your camera with you, but when you are packing a long lens they will be nowhere to be found.  There are two ways around this.  The first way is to go after them at known feeding locations.  Bird feeders in a park work well…. bird feeders in your back yard are perhaps even better.  The problem with is is that My lease prohibits feeding any animals, and I don’t have time to drive to the park every weekend.  Besides,  getting them when they are foraging for natural food sources usually makes for much more natural pictures. So, I just leave the house with a lens and a camera around my neck, and hope for the best.  Today, I lucked out.  Ironically enough, I had went to the bird store, to buy bird food for my love bird.  I had my car windows open on the way there,  but didn’t hear or see a thing.  When I got home,  I heard a Chickadee in the trees above our parking lot.  I couldn’t get very close, even with my 100-400mm lens,  but I steadied the camera on a SUV in the packing lot to get the best shots I could.  I wasn’t expecting much, as the bird was still tiny in my viewfinder,  and I would have to crop it hard to make him even visible.  If only I was dumb enough to climb trees with a camera…. but not in this lifetime.

Soon enough, I got boared with the Chickadee, figuring I probally wasnt getting anything good anyway.  I walked around to the front of the house, and Jackpot….. it was Birdy Lunchtime.  There was a large tree in front of the neighboring townhouse row, and under that tree was the most Robins I have seen togeather… possibly ever since paying attention to such things.  They were enjoying lunch together, courtesy of that same tree.  As usual with wildlife,  I started sneaking closer and closer to them….. taking a few pictures each time I got a little closer.  I wanted to expose well for the birds…. but I wasn’t sure of best way to deal with the snow when it was the Birds I care about.  The snow was just throwing way too much light at me, and making my camera all kinds of cranky. I tried a +1 and a +2ev,  both of which were of marginal quality when I saw the files.  Im not sure if Spot meeting was helping or hurting me here.  Close to the end of my shooting, I did the right thing, which yielded the beautiful results at the beginning of this post.  I set the camera to full manual, the metering mode still set on Spot meeting.  I Metered a correct exposure off the trunk of the Tree that they were under,  filling the frame with Tree bark and setting the aperture and shutter speeed to expose the tree trunk properly.  The birds were in the same light, and this took the snow out of the equation for proper metering, and in my opinion, worked wonderfully. The reason this works well is that the color of the Tree bark is MUCH closer to the color of the birds feathers than say… snow.  The thing to remember is this:  If you just cant nail down the right exposure on your subject…..  nail the correct exposure on something nearby that will react to light in a similar way, and is  in the same light…. lock it in as a manual setting, and then go back to your subject.  This is also very useful if your subject itself is bright or dark.  For example,  If you are shooting a picture of a big black ape,  and you want him to look like a big black ape, and not a big grey ape,  you might get your meter reading manually off of the green tree next to him, as a green tree is much closer to neutral than your Black furry critter.  The key is in remembering that you camera wants everything to be neutral. If you want to get really fancy, and have free time and subjects that don’t care,  you could even break out a Grey card, and use that to set both your exposure and white balance, but how often are the birds going to be that patient?

February 8th, 2010 by Brian Cooney

Briarcrest in Snow +1.3ev

This week I would like to talk about shooting in Snow.  People often have trouble with this, but its actually very easy.  Shooting at the Beach poses several of the same issues, and the same solutions.

The basic issue is simple.  Digital cameras expect every scene to be average.  An average scene, when you average all colors, ends up being 18% grey.  If you let your camera do all of the thinking, and it doesnt know its shooting snow,  it will try to make the entire scene average… which will make the snow average.  Average being 18% grey is just disgusting and dingy.

There are two ways to deal with this.  If you have a point and shoot camera,  look for a setting for “Snow” or “Beach” and set your camera there.  If you have a DSLR,  dial in a Positive exposure value.  If you don’t know how to do this, check your manual…. its always easy, and fundamentally useful.

If you are really serious about getting the best shots,  Bracket your exposures.  Some cameras can do this automatically, or you can do it manually by just setting different Exposure compensation values.  Again, check your manual, and look for Auto Exposure Bracket.  Either way, the point is this:  Get 3-6 images at different exposure levels.  Then, when you get back to your laptop, pick the best one.  Don’t trust your camera,  bracket, bracket, bracket.  Then when you get home, decide what you like best.

Snowboarding EV +1.3

If you shoot DSLR, shoot raw.  This will give you more power to adjust later as well.  If you Cant bracket,  say for example, because you are trying to shoot kids instead of landscapes,  try to find a positive exposure compensation value that you think will work, and you can massage the raw file a bit later…. but definably don’t just go full auto.  As a base line,  try +1ev.  This might not be right on, but it will be much better than having your camera set to neutral.

It may also be a good idea to shoot a little wide if your are trying to get a moving subject, especially if you have a descent Megapixel sensor.  Its better to crop the picture than to miss the shot because you couldn’t keep up with your subject.  For the snowboarding shot, I actually had the camera on a tripod with a shutter release, so I could watch the subject better, and shoot when i knew he would be in the frame.

Today the sky was a wonderful Blue.  I used a Circular Polarizer filter to really bring it to life… and loved the results.  The blue sky with white clouds,  and the white snow played great off of each other.

Shutter speed was not an issue today, as it was quite sunny, and I was using a tripod.  I think I had my camera at iso 100, on a tripod for most of the still shots, and I increased to ISO400 to get my shutter speed into the 500 range for the snowboarder, while keeping a deep Depth of field with a high F-stop number.

The other camera setting to watch is White Balance.  As it was a bright sunny day, so I shot all of these images on Daylight white balance.  If it were cloudy, I may have needed to adjust as such.  If you shoot raw, you can tweak this after the fact, but I didnt find that I needed to to get the affects I wanted on my images today.

Next time it snows,  keep these tips in mind.  Dial in a Positive exposure value,  Check your White balance,  set your ISO as low as you can while getting the shutter speeds you need, and go have a great time!

February 1st, 2010 by Brian Cooney

My brother Shaun with the ball

This Saturday I had the opportunity to shoot my first basketball game. My little brother Shaun and his friend Tyler were playing for their East Pennsboro team.  According to Mom, this is considered to be a JV team, so everybody gets to play. Next year they will have to try out.

Before going to the game, I did considerable reading on forums and  the Digital Photography Schools website to look for any extra tips that I hadn’t thought about…. hoping to have a good first outing.  Im not terribly happy with the results of these pictures, but the research and thought processes I went through are valuable, so I will share them along with my best images.   I knew from my research that my equipment would pose some limitations.  The main issue when you are shooting fast moving action in a middle school gym is lack of light.  Our eyes do a fine job adjusting, but to a camera, its just not a bright environment.  I took two cameras, and two lenses, because I didn’t know what I would be in for.  I ended up using my fastest zoom,  a 24-105mm f4L on my 50d body.  I set the camera to 1/250 Shutter priority, since I figured that would be the SLOWEST shutter speed that could provide acceptable results.  Anything slower would guarantee lousy results, and indeed I think 1/250 was probably too slow.  I set ISO on automatic, which is something I normally never do.  The camera got to pick ISO and Aperture.  The reason I choose these settings is because I knew the ISO would be painfully high… ranging from 1600 to 3200.  By letting the camera pick, I figured I would have at least some shots with a lower ISO… which I wanted.  The Aperture pretty much stuck at f/4 the entire time, which is what I expected.  I also could have probably set the camera to manual 1/250-f4, but I wanted to give it some flexibility in case changing the ISO wouldn’t give quite a correct exposure.

I expected noise to be my biggest problem…. and while it is noticible, its not as bad as I thought.  Next time I do this, I will go with a higher shutter speed, at the cost of more noise, and see which works better.  The good thing is that they will be playing in the same gym next weekend, so I may try to make that game.

Tyler takes a foul shot

If I had my choice of equipment, I would definitely have a full frame camera for better noise control. I would defiantly trade my 24-105 f4L for a 24-70 f2.8L.  Finally, if possible, I would be packing a 70-200 f2.8L.  In this type of scenario,  Image stabilization really doesn’t matter much, because your subject is moving fast.  Image Stabilizers are great for using slower shutter speeds, and I will always get them if I can, but in this situation a aperture that is one stop faster will beat three stops of stabilization every time, because it is the subject motion that is the issue, not your caffeine shaking hands.  If you are buying a lens because your kids play sports,  spend your money on F stops, NOT IS.  Period.  If you can have both, great, but the IS wont help you here.  I would also consider an even faster prime lens.  I will probably try my 50mm 1.8 at some point.  In fact, that is what was on my second body, but I really didn’t use it this time.  I tried going to f5.6 to see if my 100-400 f4.5-5.6L would be useful to bring next time.  No way,  that extra stop killed any chance I had at a sharp image.

My position was a big help.  I was able to hide on the floor down at the end, about 10 feet behind the basket, off to one side.  This allowed me a good camera angle to get faces on my brothers team as they moved twards their basket with the ball.  My favorite pictures would not have been possible from the stands.

I sharpened all of these images.  No choice… hopefully next time a higher shutter speed proves to be less evil than the higher noise that will come with it.

I would love to get flash involved, but I dont have pocket wizards to put the lights where I would want, and I dont know the coaches well enough yet to feel comfortable asking.  Ill let them get used to me first.  I think even a little fill flash would help a lot, but i’m just not sure about distracting the players.  I wasn’t sure if the coaches would have yelled at me for being too close to the court…  but they didn’t.  I don’t want to push my luck.

The color temp of this gym is horrible.  No setting on my camera other than Auto looked even remotely ok….. so if I did get flash involved, I would defiantly need to experiment with Gels to find a mix of different greens to make it match close enough.  Definitely a problem for another day.

Needless to say, I had empty memory cards to start, and my camera on its fastest Burst mode.  I actually didn’t burst as much as I expected, or use as much memory as expected,  but I also didn’t know they only play eight minute quarters.  I used a lower quality raw file… which I have never done before, because I didn’t want to run out of memory.  I think the second biggest raw file on my 50d is about the same quality as the raw files on my Rebel XT……  so I know they would be acceptable if everything else is ok.  That being said, I still would love to have more memory……  you can easily burn a lot of pixels shooting hoops.  My main memory card is 16gb….  I don’t think it would be enough if I shot a normal length games with full size raw files.

If I didn’t have the 50d,  I would have used the 50mm 1.8 with my digital Rebel XT.   I would have used ISO 1600, RAW, and TV of somewhere in the 300-500 range.  This could have given me some great shots, but probably only when the guys are fairly close in.  That being said, I think some of them would have been superior to what I got with my Zoom, but i’m lazy, and love my zoom.  My point is that if you have a Rebel, or some other camera that won’t go over 1600,  try that nifty fifty.  I might too.

Regardless of what camera you use, don’t forget to think about what focus mode you use.  Refresh your memory by reading the part of your cameras manual that talks about focus modes, and do what makes sense.  You probably want to set it to only use the middle AF points,  and set it to track your subject for you.  This might be called AI Focus or something similar. Again, a feature I have never used, and need practice with… but it could be a big help with running kids.  Setting to the middle focus point just gives you a predictable focal point.  There is just too much going on to let your camera decide for you.

Broady Cruise playing at Halftime

The mistake I made most often in composition was framing too tight.  Because I love my zoom, I want to see faces.  Many times,  this meant not seeing where the ball was going, like mabey… the basket.  Besides… composition is kinda hard with this game… its probably a good idea to be able to recompose with the crop tool later, which I found myself doing on nearly every shot in this case.

One suggestion that I liked, but forgot about… is if you get a good action shot… especially one that might matter  to the story of the game, shoot the scoreboard for an easy record of when it happened.

Keep shooting when the action stops.  One of my favorite pictures was of my brothers cousins playing during half time.  Or you might catch some good interaction between the players and coaches.  I didn’t catch anything I liked off the court with the teams, but thoes shots are sometimes more engaging and personal than the action stuff.

I know I am missing some Ideas… but hopefully some of the ones I touched on are helpful.  If you have experience with sports shooting indoors, please share.  Sadly,  point and shoots probably wont cut it for this stuff, but if you have a SLR, get out there and give it a go for a fun, challenging night of photography!   If your shopping for Lenses,  don’t settle for higher than f2.8 if this is the type of shooting you want to do.  If you are shopping for a camera body,  look for ones that do well at ISOs above 1600.  Its suboptimal to shoot like this with any camera, but you are probably going to need it. And finally,  don’t forget that if you have a SLR, but your lens wont cut it…. you can alway rent a lens to catch your kids big game this weekend.  Selection, availability, and prices of rentals are a great perk to those of us who shoot Canon or Nikon.  Just don’t loose track of how many times you need to rent something before its better to just buy it.  Throwing money away is low on my agenda, or I would have all of these wonderful lenses, and live in a cardboard box.  At any rate, even without the right gear, you can use what you have to get out there and learn something, and when you have better gear you will have one up on the folks who have money but no practice.  And who knows,  you might even make some good images along the way!

January 25th, 2010 by Brian Cooney

What a day.  My birds wouldnt shut up this afternoon, and they were actually starting to hurt my head,  so I decided to take a drive and ended up at dads house.  Dad and his wife, Sandy, were watching the football playoffs.  The only light sources in the room were the Television,  a dim tungsten light in the kitchen,  and a candle.  I liked the look of this light mix, so I decided it was a good time to get a picture of Sandy.

The main thing lighting her in this frame is three candles on her tray table.  I know the TV was dark when I snapped this frame because I don’t see its reflection in her glasses.  In this dim environment, I had my canon 50mm wide open at f1.8.  I had the shutter speed at 1/8th of a second.  There are a few things you need to think about  in this type of shot.  The first thing you need to think about, is what your camera wants to do.  You camera wants to make an image that looks like a well lit room.  I don’t want that…..  a candle lit room shouldn’t be bright….. so you need to tell the camera what you want.  You can do this by taking full manual control of the camera, or you can use an exposure compensation.  I used Exposure compensation, dialing in -2 f-stops.  The second thing you need to think about is motion.  Sandy was rocking… so I had to ask her to stop blurring my picture.  Sandy kindly kicked her feet up with the recliner, which also made the chair lock into position.  Good thinking Sandy!  The next thing is…. unless you are a robot, there is no way you are going to get a sharp image with a 1/8th shutter speed, unless you throw the camera on a solid tripod or object, and use a shutter release or timer.  I greatly prefer a shutter release cable…. because with a timer I can’t snap when I see her smile.  Timers are for when your waiting for somebody to buy you a release cable for Christmas, or or when you accidentally forgot the cable.  Think about the ISO.  I used to always try to go high on ISO in a dark enviornment, but this isnt always best.  If your trying to hand hold the camera, you might NEED to go as high as you can on ISO….. but if there is a tripod involved, go as low as you can while getting a sharp image.  This will make the image look much less noisy. Also, watch your white balance.  If you have it set to auto, you aren’t going to get the pretty warm candlelight… because your camera is going to want to make the candle light look like daylight.

I also used my camera’s Live view mode…. which lets you “zoom in” on a small part of the frame that will actually be captured…. to make manual focus on the eyes easier.  This is a huge help in a dark room, as long as things aren’t moving. I wouldn’t even want to waste my time trying to autofocus with light like this…. unless I was trying to handhold the camera, which would be silly.

Dont try to follow my exposure formula for this image by the numbers… just think about what you are trying to achieve, and push your camera around to get it.  I wanted a candlelit environmental portrait… one that shows you my wonderful stepmom and tells a little story about her at the same time, and I feel thats what I got with this image.  I moved some things on her tray table, slid the tray table a little closer, added the seocond two candles, and moved her book into the frame… but otherwise this is what I saw when I showed up to visit.

January 12th, 2010 by Brian Cooney

So this post is a little early…. because I am boared and in a hotel room all by myself.

I am here in Cincinnati tonight, after flying in for work.  I decided to try some of the magic I have learned form reading Strobist, and came up with these pictures.  I am pretty happy with the results, given the tools at hand and it being just me, myself, and I.

How did I do it?  Well,  I re-arranged my hotel room.  The room has UGLY two tone striped wall paper.  I hit that wall paper with my Vivitar 285 at 1/2 power, from about four feet away.  The flash was tied to one of the rooms wall lights (which was de-shaded and de-bulbed) with a big piece of Velcro.  My crappy little radio triggers werernt working right, so I ended up putting a second flash on the camera and using an optical slave to trigger the first one.  I was planning on using two flashes anyway… I just didnt really want the one lighting me on the camera.  Oh well.

The Light on the camera was probally at 1/4 power, and definatly pointed strait up, with a Lumiquest 80/20 to try to get some even light on me.  So what we have happening here is simple.  Two flashes.  One of them is over exposing an ugly wall so bad it just looks like I am in a softbox.  The wall is at my back, five feet behind me.  The first flash is to my left, blasting the wall.  The second flash, with the 80/20, is on the camera, and is set with enough power to make me look good.  I am fairly happy with the results.

You will be amused to know that not only did I not have a light stand, but I also didn’t have a tripod.  My camera is sitting on the hotel lap desk,  which is sitting on the luggage rack,  which is sitting on the bed.  This whole mess is about 3-4 feet away from me.  Focus is always a pain in the butt when you are doing a self portrait.  I used a ugly floor lamp as a stand-in to manually focus on…. putting it close to where my face would be.  I have decided that… while shooting other people scares me a bit….  shooting myself is MUCH more of a pain in the butt from a logistical point of view.  Anybody want to be a subject so I don’t have to work as hard to make a frame?  Let me know.  On the bright side…. Live view…. and zooming in on what you are focusing… makes focus MUCH easier when there is a bed preventing you from putting your eye to the camera without killing your back.  God Bless live view for this type of case, and to think I would only use it for macro.

All and all, not bad for two flashes, and ugly wallpaper.  I didn’t even have to edit the pictures to get this look…. which is good because I suck at editing pictures.

January 11th, 2010 by Brian Cooney

My Brother went to school for digital arts.  What this means, is that he is kinda descent at hacking with graphics, and layouts, and has some nifty tools on his laptop.  Anyway,  with a little help from him, I am ready to actually let the world see this blog!  As a thanks,  I drug him out in the cold to spend time in front of the camera.  From my first test shot, to my last image, we spent 8 minutes outside.  I would have loved to be there longer… but it was COLD!  Here are the images as recorded by the camera… no editing.  Not bad for 8 minutes.

So heres how I did it:

Take a few test shots with the camera in manual exposure mode.  Underexpose the crap out of it to keep the sky all pretty.  My first guess was right on….  1/200 as f5.0. At this point, Tommy is a Deep Dark mass.  Then I put One light on a stand, and use it to bring him back.  I adjust exposure on Tommy by moving the stand around to control the light power.  If I needed a major change, I could have adjusted the flash power, but for little tweaks varying the distance is better.

A second light would have made him look a little better, and let me control the shadows.  However, its cold out.  I knew going into it that this would be One light job….  thus avoiding frozen (well, too frozen) fingers.

See?  He doesnt look that bad if you get him out of thoes Nintendo shirts  Thank you for helping me with the Blog Tommy!  Feel free to steal whichever pic you want for your Facebook Profile

January 10th, 2010 by Brian Cooney

My name is Brian Cooney. The first time I picked up a camera, I was probably 10. I somehow could always get film, but never manage to get it developed, so I didn’t learn a thing. In High school, I played with SLR cameras in Graphic Arts class… and I loved it, but I never did anything with it outside of the loaner cameras, and in class darkroom. Photography simply was priced way out of my budget as a kid. About five years ago, I finally bought a digital camera and started occasionally “snapping” some shots. Three years ago, I bought my first SLR. Now, I spend most of my free time reading other peoples blogs, and hardly doing any shooting of my own. When I do shoot, I show the unedited files to my wife, and then forget about them. The purpose of this blog is to allow me to share my work with more than just my beautiful wife. It is to help me torture you instead. It is to force me to actually learn to edit those images, and do something with them. Hopefully, I will actually get good enough at this blog thing to have at least one regular reader, besides my Wife .  I have done blogs before… and never update them. Hopefully, this will be a year of change. I will try to keep most of my posts photography related, but dont be suprised to see some tech rants too. All and all, if you have read this much stuff, mabey I can hook you in and keep you here for awhile! Add me to your RSS feeds, and comment on my posts. Finally, If you blog, let me know about it and Ill check out your work!

My first order of business will be to meet up with my brother and make this blog look like…. well not like a default wordpress.  Tommy is a Digital Arts major… so hopefully he can help me come up with a slick, sexy, custom layout.  Once that is one, I will need to move some other websites from my old server back to my new one…. the one this blog is running on, and redirect cooney.cc to this machine instead of my old blog.  Then it will be time to figure out some of the magic of making the blog sing and dance….  and customize it to really fit my needs.  Hopefully, the learning curve of switching from Slackware to CentOS for my server wont get in the way…. but so far so good.  My end goal:  A new blog, and an update once per week!  Stay tuned to see if I can pull it off!