It’s been a few days, and I apologize. Normally I steal some time away from work with which to write but time has been fairly short - not to mention, we’ve been taken things easy lately - beginning to wind down.

I may head to the Minnesota Music Festival today - it’s a mile away, well within walking distance. Not sure though, tickets are $30 a pop and there’s the 2 of us.

Today marks my month anniversary of not smoking. I’ve gained some weight - though I’m not sure if it’s because I’m eating more or because I no longer take the 5+ minute walk to the smoking area several times a day. It doesn’t matter, I’m taking care of it - need to exercise more, but the eating side is under control - a lot more water and a lot less soda. In fact, except for coffee I’m slowing down on the caffeine consumption as well.

I bought Mishka a couple dozen roses last week and a balloon. She’s spent a lot of money on me for my birthday, I can just tell, and I feel so guilty about it - no one ever really spends money on me, girlfriends included. So I had to ‘give something back’.

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It’s raining.

So I suppose tonight I’ll just stay home and watch Season 2 of Robot Chicken and play with some circuits.

Oh, and Mishka gave me an early birthday present - a professional waffle maker! I <3 her so!

Setup an Etsy store too - see if anyone will buy my stuff.

The Jane Eyre photos went well I think. And I’m quickly learning that if you’re under 40, seemingly single, and lobe or are involved with the arts, you’re never to far away from a date. Yes, once again I was hit on. And to be honest, I love it!

This shot is from the cast & crew VIP after-party. In an odd moment of calm vacancy, this lone rose was discarded on a table used to hold spare candles and empty beer bottles.

Yesterday Nikon announced 2 new cameras; the full-frame sensored D3 and the D300. The D3 is an upgrade for the D2, and the D300 is, surprisingly, and upgrade for the D200.

Of course they would announce new cameras just a few months after I picked up my D200. Though I’m still considering it. I’m going to be starting an eBay blitz soon enough, get rid of a ton of old computer hardware - some of it worth a decent amount of coin. If I include my D50 in there, I’m sure I’d have more then enough to pick up the D300. The one big thing I like about it, beside the 51 points of autofocus, is the new  Live View system - live view allows you to preview what the camera sees in the LCD - that makes grab casual hidden shots a lot easier. I don’t know though, I want a new laptop too.

I really need to invest in some studio lights now, as I have 3 potential models I’m working things out with now, 2 of whom contacted me because they liked my work!
At first I didn’t think I wanted to do any model work - but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I have some creative ideas that I’d like to try that involve other people - why not get some models into the mix?

This weekend I’m looking forward to a great new opportunity - a photo shoot with a local young folk-rock singer. We’re meeting tonight to discuss ideas over at the Coffee News Cafe, and I think we’ll get some good shots this weekend.

We’re already thinking about the old Ford plant, Minnehaha Falls (Which, because of the drought, is dry and not a waterfall right now - should make some interesting shots that wouldn’t otherwise be possible), State Fairgrounds, and some other places. She’s looking for promo and album work so it’s your basic portrait + pseudo-live shots. I can’t friggin wait!

It’s interesting - the more I read Rangefinder, the more I begin to see an overall view of how it comes together - and it seems like a lot of photographers never went to school for it. It was a hobby, then they took some shots for a few bucks, that person showed people who in turn called him for a shoot of their own, then those people showed other people who also called for their own sittings and before you know it you need to quit your 9-5 job and open a studio because you have so much work.

I wonder if that will happen with me some day. I’m not saying I wouldn’t mind that, either.

I forgot to mention, I got a check the other day from Minnesota Public Radio as payment for all the photos I’ve taken for them. Made me happy, and technically a professional photographer, too.

Something neat about some of the other websites using MPR photos to read (Photo courtesy MPR/Jeremy Pavleck) associating me as being an official press photog for them. I’m not, but hey, I’ll take it anyway

 Indeed, I went to Mishka’s family reunion and made it alive! Not only that, I had a lot of fun as well - they are truly a great group of people, and I’d be happy to call them my family if I had the choice!

I’ll put up a few pictures later, maybe try to tell a story. But right now I’m sore from bowling (I think I came in second, overall) and I still, 2 days later, have a bit of a hangover. I’ll tell the story of the Best Buy purchased karaoke machine and the hotel bar later.

Needless to say, there were…. well, a ton of weddings going on that weekend - we were probably the least fruity dressed people in the hotel - except for our reunion T-Shirts in festive primary colors!

Also, I’ve made a real main page here, especially now that I’m passing out business cards with the address on it. It’s more of less a PhotoBlog now, though I’ll be a lot more choosy with what pics I upload.

    I’ve been to the Taste of Chicago, I’ve been to the Taste of Milwaukee, and the Taste of Minnesota…. pales, in comparison. It really does. I was shocked but just how few choices they had there food wise - do you want cheese curds, or a tube of meat?

Regardless, I still had fun. The Village People played, that was fun to watch - though they certainly were looking their age hehe.
There were also some rides and games - mainly a Ferris Wheel, a whirl-you-around-in-a-circle thing, a few rigged throw something into and/or at something to win a prize, and an interesting game that was packed - you launched a water balloon at the other side and tried to hit a few areas that would soak them. It was fun to watch, and I was half tempted to give it a go as I made the horrible mistake of wearing black jeans, a tshirt, then a black overshirt - I was sucking up the rays and sweaty.

The Ferris Wheel, that was cool. The guy operating it saw my camera and said he’d pause at the top for a minute or so to let me get some good pictures, and boy did I - even though it was my first time on a Ferris Wheel and I was freaked the hell out hehe.

See the whole set I’ve uploaded over at Flickr. 
The 4th was fairly uneventful - Mishka worked, I stayed at home playing video games. Went to meet up with her at around 4, we had some dinner at Tony Roma’s (Another first, the food was excellent too!) then we went to go see Transformers! It was one hell of a movie, I liked it very much - I heartily encourage you to go see it if you haven’t done so - especially if you’re a child of the 80s like I, and grew up watching them AND went to see the first movie.

Mishka’s family is having a reunion this weekend, so she’s heading over there tonight, I’ll be heading there tomorrow - expect some pictures next week.

Anyway, I’m oncall, so I’m making this short - I’ll write more later.

Well, Saturday I got to the Dinkytowner at 8:30pm with all my gear, as the Unknown Prophets were supposed to go on at 9. Nine came and went. So did 10. Then 10:30. Then 10:45 I said screw it, lets get outta here - we have a big weekend and can’t be out so friggin late. So I sent them an email apologizing, hopefully they will allow me to reschedule and that they understood.

Sunday, that was Father’s Day. We went to go see Mishka’s parents, and gave him our gift - an elite Mork and Mindy Board Game, circa 1979. I was originally looking for some Bob Dylan screen printed gig posters, but didn’t really find anything I liked - not to mention we weren’t able to get her mom anything for mother’s day, and I didn’t want to make it seem like we were favoring her dad, which we aren’t, we just have the means this time.

New lease is almost finished and ready to be signed, 60 day notice is given - there will be a month were I am paying rent for 2 places, but that’s actually not a bad thing - lets us move on the weekend instead of Wednesday the 1st and lets us really spend some time cleaning the apartment - I’ve only been at this one for a year, and hadn’t really hung anything on the walls, so there isn’t much except some broken blinds due to the dang cat. Oh, and a Washer/Dryer combo unit I need to reassemble after a failed attempt to really really clean it. Oh, and the overlap allows Mishka to get to the new place and paint it - she’s got the color scheme all picked out and her mother to help her do it, so I’m quite happy. No way I was about to climb up 13 feet to paint pfffft.

Yesterday, In The Loop had a private show at the Dorothy Day center in St. Paul, and I was on hand as usual to take photos. I think this is possibly one of my favorite episodes thus far, and the people were great. There was even this homeless musician that played a mean jazz harmonica, with Jeff and The Smarts joining in - made of the most soulful shows to say the least. It was originally going to run from 2pm to 3:30pm, but ran until after 4 - and that’s with a lot of the pre-recorded pieces (all but 1!) removed. There was that much audience participation, everyone had something to say.

Sadly, there won’t be an episode of ‘In The Loop’ next month, and he’s really not sure if they will be given another season - so why don’t you voice your opinion and tell them that WE WANT MORE! I’d hate to see the younger, hipper version of the Prairie Home Companion laid to waste, cast of as if another animated FOX comedy.

All in all I took over 200 photos, and haven’t edited a single one. I’m quite happy with my new lens, though I forgot the lens hood turns, then ‘clicks’ into place. I forgot the ‘click’ part, so some of these have vignetting on the corners, which sucks but I’ll make I suppose. Though I think I’ll end up still buying Nikon’s 17-55mm f/2.8 lens for shows like this - it seems to pull in a significant amount of more light, even though it’s the same aperture. If you’d like to see the slide show, then feel free - or check out my photo set on Flickr - and comment on it damn it!

Oh, it also looks like I’ll be manning the MNArtists.Org booth at the State Fair again this year, come by and say hi! Other then that, not a whole lot more going on. Still trying to decide whether to chill all weekend, the first time in months, or to swing by the large pride parade in Minneapolis and take some shots. We shall see. Anyway, until next time!