Tuesday, August 31, 2004

I'm having an affair (???)

So I'm out at a photoshoot Sunday afternoon when I called my wife to just check in and talk while I waited for the model to change into another outfit. She says that she's just had a disturbing phone call. Apparently someone named Suzy called my house to tell my wife that I was having an affair with her. Uhnn hunh?!? Riiiiiight (you should hear me drawl it - typing doesn't do it justice).

For the record, I'm not having an affair and my wife had confidence in our fidelity and kept her wits about her and simply asked when was the most recent time I had been "creepin' around". Apparently Suzy's answer was something to the effect of "Right, bitch, don't f**kin' believe me. Yo man's been wid me." It appears she was a younger person of less than stellar grammar skills. My wife asked again and Suzy identified the night before (Saturday) as the last time we'd been together. My wife laughed since a truer account of my Saturday evening was watching TV with the family, playing a computer game, enjoying the fact that my wife isn't as innocent as she appears to be and then falling asleep only to awaken to some indigestion in the middle of the night. I subsequently fell back asleep and slept until fairly late Sunday morning. By the time we'd finished the next segment of photos my wife had received a follow up call from Suzy's mother or older sister who apologized for the prior behavior and promised that the instigator would receive appropriate punishment for her breach of etiquette.

It was nice to not have to worry since I haven't even talked to another woman. Frankly I couldn't prove my innocence as you can't prove a negative but I'm happy that my wife believed that I'd stay true to her.

So, in the spirit of mirth with which Suzy called my home I'd just like to happily say to Suzy, "Kiss my rosy ass you sweet little moron." I'm sure you got some fun out of that but it was an immature prank to pull on someone. Call Moe's next time and ask if he has "Amanda Kissinhug" or "I.P. Freely" or "Seymor Butts" or . . . .


BTW, a new addition to the BLOG is the small e-mail envelope. You can now click that to e-mail one of my blog posts to someone.


Thanks for reading,

Kev

Monday, August 30, 2004

Latest photoshoot

Shot with Brandy yesterday. We got some good shots. I think they're slightly different from other work in her portfolio. I don't have all the sets edited yet but here's one from the session:


You can see the rest from this photoshoot at http://www.pbase.com/kevinriggs/portraits/


Thanks for reading,

Kev

Thursday, August 26, 2004

Famous Model

Its always nice to see good things happen for people and see them realize some of their dreams.

A model with whom I worked recently just posted that he's in line to play the part of Danny Partridge (originally played by Danny Bonaduce) on VH-1's "In Search of the Partridges".



Congratulations to Peabo and his family on this success as well as the new Ford modeling contract he landed.

You can read Peabo's modeling info and find out how to contact him via his OMP portfolio (#81142).
WARNING: OneModelPlace is a storehouse for models and photographers; it contains images that some viewers may tend to find offensive. Surf to OneModelPlace.com at your own choice.


Thanks for reading,

Kev

Monday, August 23, 2004

Annoying Precautions

A family member this last week decided to do a "manly job" of cleaning up the chicken shit from the manure spreader on the farm. He took a hammer and proceeded to whack the rusty blade; trying to dislodge some manure and some rust so that the blade would turn more freely. In so doing, he dislodged a piece of metal which flew into his eye. Well, it wasn't enough that he'd made a stupid decision to save 5 minutes and not put on safety goggles. He decided that it was just a small piece of something in his eye and that it would just get flushed out at some point. He awoke Sunday with impaired vision and was told that his eye had specks of color throughout it. He finally (on Sunday afternoon) went to the doctor to be told that he had an infection in his eye and that it was threatening the eyeball. He was ambulanced (I'm sure that cost something too) from Bradley to Erlanger. He had emergency surgery to remove the original piece of metal from his eye and try to clean out the infection (cha-ching!). He now has to stay in the hospital for at least 24 more hours (cha-ching! again). There is no guarantee that he'll keep his eyeball and he will probably have impaired vision. All this for the time-saving process of living free and dying young!! Woohoo!! Aren't we rebels flaunting those safety rules!! How much money did it cost? How many people had to adjust their schedules on Sunday or Monday? Ya know, I'm not really pissed at the guy; I feel for the problem he is suffering and what may happen to him. What I am pissed off about is the "devil may care" attitude about just taking the precautions that can be proven to save time, money and emotions. Wear your damned seatbelts when you get in the car. I know people who have said, "I don't like how restricted it makes me feel." or even "It wrinkles my clothes." Who gives a rat's rear? Put the damned thing on. Wear safety glasses when you are working with something where you could reasonably expect pieces of debris to be flying through the air. If your goal is to knock some rusty metal loose from some other metal, then put the damned goggles on! Save yourself some time overall and save all of us the hassle of having to take care of a preventable situation. If you want to go get drunk, have at it. Drink 'til you piss yourself. Just don't get behind the wheel, numnuts. Insipid behavior like this just annoys the crap outta me. Well, I guess I should go back to feeling sorry for this guy and say how sad and tragic a mistake it was . . . next time, put the damned goggles on!


On a separate note I shot a set with a model this last weekend. I'm writing a tutorial on modeling photography and this shoot was so that I could demonstrate some lighting skills. You can see photos at http://www.pbase.com/kevinriggs/portraits/

Thanks for reading,

Kev

Friday, August 20, 2004

Dragon NaturallySpeaking and things

Yes that's true, which are reading now was composed using Dragon NaturallySpeaking and a headset. I'm talking, the computer is typing. This is a pretty cool way to blog.

I picked this software up because recently I've been asked to critique numerous photos and typing just wasn't getting the job done fast enough. I also was recently asked to write a tutorial on modeling photography, and I felt that a multipage document would go faster with speech to text. I found that I tend to pause and compose my thoughts and the computer takes that as an opportunity to place a comma into the text. Perhaps I will have to change my mode of dictation or teach the computer to understand my halting speech.

Katie is over 18 months now, and she's beginning to move into that time of life where she has nothing but nervous energy. She doesn't want to settle down. She wants to be on the go all the time I definitely need to trick my wife into having another child (oops. I mean, negotiate) before our daughter's behavior becomes to wearing.

I am getting older. Yesterday (August 19) was my 36th birthday. It was a good day; of course, according to what accounts were told me years ago it was a day and I either enjoyed or didn't. It was neither good nor bad merely a 24-hour period of time. It was nice to commemorate the event with my wife, my daughter, my mother and stepfather and my wife's parents. I got a phone call from my father who is out-of-town so I had an opportunity to share with the people mean the most to me; that's a day that I enjoy.

Thanks for reading,
Kev

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Life and Timing

It's been a little while since I published anything on my blog. Almost 2 weeks. Heck, its been a little while since I did pretty much anything I say that I like to do. You ever get those stretches where you just don't seem interested in the stuff that normally interests you? I don't know what it is; blaise attitude; too much mental focus on one facet of life or what.

I've been putting pressure on myself to produce at work. I'm not sure that is a formula for success as its caused me to be less enjoyable to be around and I don't seemed to have been any more productive. Well, that may not be true. I do seem to be more productive in some senses but only because some of the work I'm doing now isn't my normal fare.

Ran into someone the other day while photographing my wife and daughter at a local park. He commented on my gear and mentioned that a national business is looking for experienced photographers to shoot product shots for its catalog and websites. I followed up and found that they're wanting any time they can get and they aren't paying much at all. Now I'm conflicted. On the one hand its a paying gig (albeit not very much at all) and on the other I don't want to spend too much time shooting stuff that I don't really want to shoot.

Cons:


  1. I am a programmer


    • I'm paid well for my ability to focus and write problem solving code or provide solutions

    • I enjoy the job I have now and would like to retire from it someday after contributing to the corporation and building up its value so that my shares of stock are worth more than they are today

    • This other work just doesn't pay much of anything so the extra money wouldn't really be that much

    • While I would like to put together a fashion studio where I can express myself artistically using lighting, models, props, etc this doesn't seem to substantially contribute to that goal


  2. I'm a husband and father


    • I only get so much time with my wife and daughter when we're all awake and interested in interacting

    • I can be a righteous pain in the rear and taking on more pressure just doesn't seem worth it

    • I worked to get a better job so that I could have more time for myself and my family.


  3. I'm a hobbyist photographer; granted I'm pretty involved but still a hobbyist.

    • I'm not looking for legitimacy. Other family members are impressed because of the household names that I'd be shooting for their catalogs & websites. I think its easier for some people to explain the kind of money or time I put into this hobby if I have some "legitimate" job attached to it. This isn't me. I don't mind telling people that photography is completely a way in which I try to find some expression of myself and what I see. So people look at me weird when they see that I use better equipment than they do in their own photo studio. I don't care. This is about me finding some artistic expression. It's my bass boat, hunting trips and little red hot rod all rolled into one.

    • Any time I spend shooting for pay takes away from the time I have to shoot artistically




Pros:

  1. I don't shoot often enough now and this would give me some structured time where I'd be expected to shoot and produce quality output

  2. I could work a relatively small amount of time and pickup some cash on the side (photography is a relatively expensive hobby)

  3. I could gain experience with my camera in controlled lighting setting

  4. It does yield some legitimacy to my investment in photography




Well, there you have it. Guess when it all boils down to it I just need to make a decision.

Thanks for reading,

Kev

Friday, August 06, 2004

Funny little group fight on City of Heroes last night

For those of you interested you missed a funny, funny session of CoH last night. What's so funny you may ask. Well, as Eric, Bryan (a friend of ours), Rachel (some player we'd never met but were teamed up with) and I were traveling down a road replete with enemies we all noticed some superhero dude bouncing like the Incredible Hulk (tm). He apparently chose to bound into a group of 10-12 mobs and take off again. This action upset their otherwise quiet repose and enticed them to give chase. On his next contact with the asphalt our erstwhile hero landed in a similar group and doubled the number of his feral followers. As he touched down for a third time he lit up the final street gang in sight and had somewhere between 30 and 45 mobs chasing him. Now our little team of 4 heros had been about to start a fight with the first 10 or so bad guys when they were taunted by the concrete-buckling leaps of this interloper. To show just how intelligent we all were, we had, without discussion, all chosen to follow along as the crowd grew. Suddenly after the bouncy freak's 3rd landing he bounded over a very high wall which caused the computer controlled gangs to lose interest and begin to disperse back to their little piece of the street. Hmmm . . . now why would that be a problem? I wonder . . . . Oh yeah! Because the four of us were standing immediately in their path.

At this juncture it might be worthwhile to point out that Bryan's character cannot kill anything quickly. Not a fly, not an ant. He's built for the long haul and designed to wear down an opponent. Eric's character is designed to fight all on her own but not when surrounded by 30 or 40 mobs. The young lady that was along with us had chosen a character who's main mission is support; her job is to protect the other members of her team. My character is designed for one main purpose: to heal my teammates.

Yeah, OK. So back to the story. We have about 40 mobs bearing down on us and only 2 chars that have any hope of dishing out punishment. As the team member who always trails the team (so that I don't get killed, in which case I can then heal no one) I got a perfect opportunity to see Eric's char continue to run at the mobs for just a second, pull up short and then start running backwards. It became comical just about the time his char turned around to run directly at me and I saw his life bar drop to about 50% as he got hit by the front wave of mobs who had ranged attack. Bryan's character went down without a heal from me because I was trying to keep Eric alive long enough to get him out of the tidal wave of street violence. I decided the best thing I could do was run and try to teleport him out of the fight but before the teleportation finished he was killed. The young lady was gone with the merest whimper as I tossed a heal or two at her but she never turned to run.

The next two fights were similarly humorous but not on such a grand scale. I can only hope that Eric managed to get a screen capture of all those mobs headed for him before he bit the big one.


Thanks for reading,

Kevin