Hi everyone.

Let’s see if I can get through this update with as few Coronavirus tropes as possible. I’m going to do my best to limit any and all references to “these trying times” and the overwhelming feelings of uncertainty that are floating around everywhere these days. I’m fairly certain none of you have been living under various rocks or without any sort of connection to the world at large. It’s pretty clear shit is thoroughly fucked right now.

First and foremost, my loved ones and myself are all pretty good to go. The family is all pretty much doing their thing in the South, and I’m doing my best to stay safe here in Atlanta. I miss my friends, I miss my clients, I miss doing work that I enjoy…but we are all finding ways to keep safe and (mostly) sane.

Looking back at my last posts it becomes very clear to me that for a Photographer I sure haven’t picked up my camera for several months now. Sure, I totally could have shot some cool macro stuff, I could probably safely take a walk in the local nature preserve, hell…I probably could have shot various “Porch Sessions” or “FaceTime Sessions”, but honestly none of that stuff really does it for me. Nothing against anyone doing any of these things…it just doesn’t feel like me.

So I guess that leads into what I have been doing. Pretty early into all of this Serif graciously opened their arms and offered 90 day free trials to their suite of softwares (Photo, Designer, and Publisher) and offered them all at 50% off. I already had my copy of Photo for iOS that I had briefly played with back when I first bought the 2018 iPad Pro (more on this soon) and earlier this year made the jump to Photo for Desktop for all of my retouching.

So I figured it would be a good time to start teaching myself some other graphic design tools. After some time messing around, I think that I have developed some talents when it comes to making logos and other text based items.

I also drew a bird:

I also broke down and have been making some other assets for an upcoming project that I don’t want to let all of the air of yet. But let’s say that it involves comic books (and directly correlates to me re-making logos inside of vector art programs). I’m sure if you keep up to date with regular clients you can probably guess what is going on, but I’d rather not share too much until it’s time.

I’ve also been experimenting with the Gameboy Camera again, and have purchased the tools I need to print it’s photos onto large thermal paper (or at least larger than what the old Gameboy Printer used to do). It’s going to require some additional assembly before I can really play around with it…and I still may buy a doo-dad to physically rip files off the cart itself, but be on the lookout for some more of that type of content coming soon.

Editor’s note: Everything after this text box has been re-typed from memory after it was lost in an unfortunate accident while having multiple windows open at the same time. This incident really made me screaming mad after losing hours of work during troubleshooting.

Speaking of possible poor usage of funds, I bought an iPad Pro…again.

I know. I should have learned my lesson last time. But they hooked me again and this time for the better. iPad-os is now much more of a fully functional OS. The USB-C port on the tablet can now be used to manage files on an external drive, and the file system has been beefed up to handle that management. I’ve even been able to find an FTP program that allows me to connect to my NAS when I’m not on my local network, and with some kludging I can even drop RAW files from my camera straight to it.

And I can even edit this very website from it (mostly).

I’ll spare you my full review because we’ve already gone down that road. I mean, long story short, I love it. And now that I can actually use its power for editing photos and designing, this becomes a much more worthwhile purchase. I can see myself being able to travel with this in my bag and be able to crank out quality work without needing to have a laptop around.

On a non-photographic note I’ve also been teaching myself how to make pickles. What started as a craving for pickled carrots and hummus has turned into an adventure that fills the bottom half of my fridge. I am now well on my way to being the pickle-king of the South East. There is a joke here about surviving the apocalypse here somewhere, but I’ll just come right out and say it. No, you can’t have any of my pickles.

Unless you ask nicely.

Thanks, everyone for keeping tabs on me, I hope that soon I’ll be able to safely travel and be around other people again. I have a ton of ideas rolling around the old brain box and I’m so ready to get them out. But, until then, I encourage everyone to stay as safe and as sane as possible, keep washing your hands, stay away from people you don’t live with, and most importantly…be nice to one another.

We’ll all get through this together and I don’t plan on going anywhere any time soon. <3