State of Culture

A couple of weeks ago I was at a rehearsal for a wedding ceremony. It was held in a Cathedral, and our rehearsal was scheduled next in line to a local college practicing for their Baccalaureate Mass. We were informed that our time slot was for 1:00pm - 2:00pm to use the church. However, it was way past 2:00pm when the college group began (yes, BEGAN) their practice. You can imagine how that hurt the whole daily schedule for all of us waiting. The kids in our group were getting impatient and the grown-ups were getting irritable. That meant additional expenses for snacks to pacify the children, and additional effort to keep our tempers in check.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, the college practice was over, but not before the teacher in charge had a few reminders to her group. I believe it went a little something like this:

"OK, tomorrow, when you arrive, please take the seating positions that you have now. For late-comers, since it will be unavoidable, please try to find seats where you won't cause a lot of noise getting to, to avoid disrupting the ceremony."

Oh, My God! She was seriously saying that being late was a completely acceptable thing (she was very cheery as she said those words, lol). These were college graduates in front of her, and her words implied that for her, they need not be totally conscious of time. We were taught since pre-school to value other people's time, and now, on their graduation day, she is taking it back. Punctuality is not just for school, teacher, it's going to matter a lot more out there in the real world.

I can only hope those graduates make it in time for their first job interview.

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Work! Work! Work!

So far 2009 has been a wicked year project-wise for me, and I guess for freelancers everywhere. I figure because of the recession more and more people are leaning towards outsourcing for competitive pricing.

My site, http://www.mockup2markup.net, a PSD to CSS conversion service, has had lots of hits, despite being still relatively low on the search rankings. That just goes to show that more and more people are looking towards freelance web developers and companies for their projects and web management needs.

On the freelance site where I'm based, I've noticed an increase of around 25% project postings since fourth quarter last year (from ~4K to ~5K+ postings), further confirming my earlier observation.

So if you are a full-time freelancer, or just doing it on the side, now might be a great time to polish up your online portfolio and resume, and start landing those projects.

Social Network Marketing

As a freelancer I always try to get my portfolio out to as many potential clients as possible, at the LOWEST cost possible. It used to be that investing in Google Adwords (yes, I've tried it) was THE way to get targetted traffic to your site, and consequently, to your services. Now, with the advent of social networking, reaching the potential clients is made easier than ever, provided you post the right stuff.

What I'm trying to learn by observing is how the people who've had success with Internet Marketing compose their posts on Twitter, Facebook, Plurk, and other social and professional networking sites. That way, I don't have to waste time repeating what doesn't work, and can concentrate on improving what does.

Happy tweeting!

Favorite Quote

“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.”
- Ansel Adams (American Photographer, 1902-1984)

My A200 is gone.

2:00AM last night, our house was broken into. Among the things stolen was my Sony Ericsson w850i and my 3-week-old Sony DLSR-A200.

Nothing could suck more.

New Phase

I'm going to try something new with my camera. I just ordered a couple of lens filters: a Hoya HMC (multicoated) Circular Polarizer, and a Graduated ND filter. I'm going to see if I can improve my landscape and seascape shots.

Wish me luck.

MSU-IIT Debating Teams Wins it All!

Texters' Choice!

Best Debater!

And the debate goes to... MSU-IIT!!!

L a n d s l i d e ! ! !

My first sunrise!

NEWS!

I love the comments my sunrise album has been getting on my recent post on the group Digital Photography World. Check out the album here

Sun-chasing

I went sun-chasing with my wife and 2 little kids yesterday after I picked them up from school. We had talked about choosing between two possible places where we could catch a sunset (and maybe shoot it). In the end, we decided to go with the more scenic, albeit farther, choice.

We drove for about 30 minutes - we had timed it just right - we would get there 15 minuted before the sunset, in time to catch some great colors and watercolor sky like we'd witnessed several times before while driving past the site. 

UNFORTUNATELY, when we got there, the vegetation had grown very high, and it was difficult to get a nice frame of the setting sun. It made me realize that the world, indeed, looks different when you're seeing it through a viewfinder.

Today we're going to go after the elusive sunset again. This time, in our other choice location. Wish us luck.

Once again, I try to come back

I got my new DSLR last week, a Sony Alpha A200! I'm pretty excited about it. So excited, that I've been taking around 100-200 photos per day. I guess it's good practice, though; the world's top photographers take around 10,000 shots a week! 

Out of the 150 or so pictures I take each day, around half make it to import, and a lot less make it to the "picks" folder. That leaves me with around 5-10 chosen picks a day that I post here as an album. Of those that i've chosen, I can only hope that even one of them catches your attention, or the attention of some other passerby, who just happened to glance at the right time at the right place for his/her attention to be caught.

That is inspiration enough to continue squeezing the shutter the next day.