Weekends are always too short, and this one was no exception, but today (Sunday) I did get a chance to go out with my camera and tripod and work on some photography. There are a few photographic locations I've had in mind for some time, and today I explored a couple of them. One is a long, straight road that cuts through the middle of a big grassy marsh area. I like it, because the road hasn't been used by cars for many years, as it's blocked off on either end, and the yellow line is still visible on the cracked pavement.

I'd driven by this old road many times while at work, and I've always thought of the artistic potential it may have. I guess today was more research than photography for me. I set up and shot the long stretch of road several ways from a few different angles. I used myself as a model in different focal points along the road, so that I could gage the effectiveness of the whole perspective composition. I think I like it so far. Now what I'd really like to do is get some people in there to model for me.

I've got several ideas for this location for stock photo purposes. I'd like to set up a card table with a nice table cloth and feature a couple having afternoon tea, out in the middle of this road. Or playing chess, or something interesting. The ideas will come. I think the hard part in deciding where to set up, is over now, because I know it works. Now I just need to come up with some catchy original ideas for subject matter.

Yesterday (Saturday) it was raining "Cats and Dogs" outside, so I did go out much, except to the mall in the morning--oh, and a couple small yard sales before the rain started. But I spent most of the afternoon and evening working on the photos I have stored on my computer. I've been going through a big pile of RAW images and working with them to decide which ones might be acceptable as potential stock photos for an agency. Most reputable stock photo agencies are very picky about the image quality and size of digital image submissions, and so I've been working extra hard to adhere to these requirements as I decide which photos may and may not qualify. You know, it's almost like starting over for me, (now that I'm pursuing the field of stock photography) because even thought I've shot a lot of photos that I really like, most of them are too small to be acceptable for the agencies, because I shot them in JPEG mode. Sure they look great on the internet at 600 x 400 pixels, but the original JPEGs blown up to 3504 x 2336 pixels, well, as you can imagine, they look pretty pixelated. I know it doesn't seem fair, but that's just the way it works, and it's something I've got to accept. I can still use my old JPEG images for the web pages, they'll do just fine, but from now on I'll be shooting in RAW mode most of the time.