Tastes and Preferences

While Leanne and Bill were here for a little Memorial Day cookout, Bill used the term tastes and preferences regarding the marketplace. According to him, that is what drives the market. We discussed at length the changing marketplace--we are clearly living through some tumultuous times for businesses. As well, Bruce and I were talking earlier about how iTunes shares the blame in changing the music business dramatically. Used to be people could make mix tapes, or cds, but it took effort on their part, more often than not, many would just listen to an album of songs by the same artist. Not so these days with party shuffle so easy to use. Albums will never recover I'm predicting--nothing too ground breaking, but just one of the things that have changed in the last decade. I told Bill I've benefited from the tastes and preferences model because although I'm not nearly as technically proficient as some photographers, I seem to be able to take pictures that people like. Enough economics?

I always get anxious before a show--this Saturday is Baldwin Park Art Festival. Fortunately it is only one day because I hate to miss the market again. Dana, our market manager, relies on me to photograph the scene. The truth is, I am part of a community of small business owners that we consider a little family. I feel for those who really need to make money there, especially now that the hot weather is coming.

The picture today is a practice shot of some shells I picked up while in Siesta Key taken with Roger's Nikon-yes, I still have it. I've been working on selective focusing, at least that's what I call it. I noticed the cute little coral shell has what looks like a heart cut-out!

I'm clearly not cut out to sit at a computer all day yet that's what I've been doing for most of today. For one thing, my feet still go numb when I sit for so long, but the task I'm working on has been neglected for far too long. You see, I've amassed over 13,300 photos in my iPhoto library which is clearly way too many. Only a tiny fraction of them are any good, so far I've managed to ditch 2,000 of them. I ran into a friend at the grocery store the other day who told me their computer was stolen the night before. Apparently the subject of backing things up had been discussed two days prior; you guessed it, he did not back things up. Thus my tackling this unpleasant task. My photos have not been burned to DVDs since last September. I'm only on November 22 deleting so I've got a long way to go. I figured I should get rid of marginal things before I burned the DVDs, but we'll see. I may just get burned out myself before then!

The Chicago trip is ON!!! We'll fly to Chicago on Monday, and stay until Wednesday morning. I'm just letting you in on the second part of our trip--we'll fly to Atlanta from Chicago, then drive two hours to our friend's log cabin in North Carolina! If you can imagine it, we're trading a visit for pictures of their cabin for a rental website. More details to follow.

I miss Bruce.



----------------
Listening to: Morrissey - Sing Your Life
via FoxyTunes

----------------
Listening to: Stereophonics - Have A Nice Day
via FoxyTunes