ZachIsHere

Beginning the overhaul of ZCPhotography dot com, this websites poor little brother that should be a much stronger website. It is going to be a source of information about me and the services I offer presented in an impressive way instead of a dumping ground for photos that isn’t updated very often. The design has been selected and is being tinkered with. I expect it up by the end of the week but I may make a crazy run and get a lot of it ironed out on Monday.

After ZCP gets taken care of Ideas and Angles is on the list to be done. Somewhere in between there I am going to start up Vince’s site with the possibility of two other projects popping up in the next few weeks.

As soon as I got serious with photography I have wanted to join a trade organization for its numerous benefits. The person who broke into my car has hastened that process reminding me what a valuable piece of my life this camera is and how I need insurance on it. A special interest organization is one of most reasonable ways for me to do that at this point. Nothing was taken from my vehicle, I think the car looked like it had a lot more interesting stuff in it then it actually did but the happening is a pain in the ass and a wake up call to keep taking care off my stuff. I will be joining the PPA soon. Looking forward to the resources that await me from a group like that.

In news that has nothing to do with the fact that I don’t have a passenger side window…

I listened to the new ‘Elbow’ album as I was working on my computer this weekend. ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ takes some quiet time to really enjoy. You won’t get into it while driving or listening to it on your iPod as you do a million other things. It very well crafted work that reminds me of Peter Gabriel’s classic ‘US’ album.

Give it a listen.

Who would have thought a viewfinder could have a lazy eye.

An bit of visual hilariousness came across my Facebook feed this afternoon. I was tagged in a photo from the age of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Below is a photo from a tee ball team I played on as a little guy.

One of the funny parts is I ended up going to prom with the redheaded girl on the front row my junior year of highschool. Life…coming full circle.

Yesterday I sat in the car with my good friend Aaron. An old song was playing.

Me: This reminds me of being young. When things were a lot simpler.

Aaron: Yea, before all of this social media shit was in my head.

That pretty much sums up what has been happening lately. Chris, Aaron, and I have begun preparation on a really exciting business venture. Our normal brains have been replaced by a flood tweets, plurks, wikis, jaikus, and things that are delicious. It is a venture that is social and tech heavy that has been declared important enough to take over Chris’ beloved Ideas And Angles domain.

There is a lot of hard work ahead of us. The hours we have spent planning just shed light on the hours we have ahead of us to get the game plan in order. Am I being vague? Too bad.

This new project coupled with my other part time jobs consisting of the snap of the shutter and the sling of the drink will make for a fun time crunch. Photo jobs continue to come in with a family portrait coming up and even a paid trip to Springfield that just got confirmed.

All of these roads lead to somewhere.

This blog has been going on for a long time. Even before 2004 when I was changing static html and making a new GIF file for every date blogging manually. A new plugin has come out for Word Press showing you who have made the most comments on your site. The winner? Was me. But I don’t count so here is the top eight.

1. Mego with 79 comments.
2. Brian (68)
3. Bevin (55)
4. Daniel Edward Collins (53)
5. Ole (37)
6. C^2 (32)
7. Joel (23)
8. Patti (21)

Thanks so much to everyone who takes time out to read and contribute. The more input the better.

(This is an actual exchange that took place between my friends on Tuesday.)

Guys,

I realize that none of us send a whole lot of letter via regular mail these days, but an increase in the price of a stamp is scheduled for May 12th. This price increase is only $0.01, bringing the new total to $0.42 for a first-class letter, but it also marks the last opportunity to purchase Forever Stamps (at $0.41).

The USPS has printed an estimated 5 billion Forever Stamps to meet their “expected demand”, and May 11th will be the last day you can purchase them.

http://www.usps.com/prices/

-Danny

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The moral of the story: For those of you who mail out (on average) 3 checks a month, get in your car and drive to the post office to get your forever stamps NOW! It’s a total savings of 36 cents per year! Also, please disregard the cost of the time you spent getting there and the gas you used.

This also goes to my aunt, who enjoys calling my mom to tell her that she saved 4 cents/gallon at XXXX gas station in Liberty, which is a good drive north and costs at least a gallon of gas just to get there…

-Cam

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Seriously, though. This isn’t a joke, Joel.

If I were you guys, I’d get on this fast. You might think it’s really funny now, but this reminds me of around 10-15 years ago. There were these things called the internets. Well, these internets came together to form this really big thing called ‘The Internet.’ A lot of people thought it’d get pretty crazy and actually save people money and at first it did. The problem was that people thought it would never get ‘too big.’ Unfortunately, the ‘proverbial’ bubble burst, and people lost millions of dollars because of their over-investing. Well, as it turns out, it hasn’t been that great for the economy or people in general. Just look how much people are spending nowadays. I mean, billions of dollars are spent on the internet?! If it didn’t exist, people wouldn’t have to shell out that much money!

I’m telling you, this may look really stupid, but as you know, history has a tendency to repeat itself. Get on this bandwagon NOW. Before you know it, the internet will be history and the crazy new thing will be parcel mail. Trust me, this industry isn’t going to crash like the internet. Hell, if the rising stamp prices are any indication, this thing is just getting started!

That being said, anyone want to carpool to the post office?

- Cam

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Ok, now that Cam has talked some sense into me I am ready to get on board. I am openly inviting all of you to invest in my new company. With all the money that we pool together, I will buy as many forever stamps as possible. I will store these stamps in a fire proof safe. Then in 20 to 30 years, I will sell these stamps for slightly less than their current price at that time. If history is to repeat itself, we should see the prices of stamps raise $.20 every 20 years*. So if we could only get $20,000 together we could buy 48,780 stamps. I will absorb the cost of maintenance on these stamps to keep them in like new condition. Then if history is on our side, the cost of a stamp in 2028 will be $.62. So in order to entice people to purchase our stamps, keeping in mind that at lease 2 of the stamps they buy will be used to ship the product, we will set our price $.05 less than the current price or $.57. That will net us a profit of $.16 per stamp. If we move all 48,780 units we will get a profit of $7804.80. This will give us a return on investment of 39%. But not so fast, this 20 year investment has a Compound Annual Growth Rate of only 1.6%**. In hind sight, you might want to just hold on to your money and invest it in something a little more lucrative.

-Joel

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pwn pwn pwn

-Chris

Recently I ran across the post “30 Photos That Inspired Me to Learn Photography” at YouTheDesigner.com. There was some good work in there, a few things I had run across but mostly things that were new to me. It got me to thinking about putting together a collection of photographs that inspired me to learn photography. After some deep thought a problem arose; there aren’t any. I couldn’t really think of photographs that stood out in my mind before this all started. The big source of inspiration I found myself drawing from was music videos. I have always loved music videos, they always add such interesting narrative to songs and artists. I remember my friends growing up not understanding why I always wanted to flip on videos if nothing else was on. Three videos stood out amongst the crowd as inspirational.

Naked As We Came by Iron and Wine

This whole thing is beautifully crafted. The objects, time of day, and sequence in which it is shot make for a very special moment in time.

Life On a Chain by Pete Yorn

I have been trying to recreate and capture some of the moods and lighting situations in this video since I picked up a camera. The constant changes of focus give a great example of how one image can say different things by a change of perspective. You can almost smell the terrible well liquor being poured in this joint.

Remind Me by Royksopp

Much like the music of the group, this video is strange. It does a good job of reminding you that everything represents something. Even the smallest mundane things in life have a story behind them and are connected with everything else. This video tackles some of those stories. If you liked this video you would also like “Epple” by the same group.