Doug Hilton's Blog

New Years Resolutions

2006 is drawing to a close, much quicker than I could have imagined. Not the greatest year, given all that has happened, but not the worst either. I don't remember making, or if I did, what they are, any new years resolutions for 2006 so I can't report on my progress. It's time to make some for 2007. I'm going to break these into categories, one for general life, one for "green", and one for my photography. Included in my resolutions will be a list of "must buys" for the year.

UPDATE 12/29/2006 - 15:25 - added new Photography resolution.

General Life:

• Going Vegetarian (Ovo-Lacto)


• Rebuild the server. It has not been done for over 2 years, and is in desperate need of a rebuild. First, I need to purchase a new drive to rebuild onto


• Keeping up with my oil changes on my car. I have let it go way too long between changes, sometimes up to 10,000 miles.


• Memorial garden for Ashleigh Elizabeth


• Clean out garage enough to put studio and one car in there

Green:

• Going Vegetarian (Ovo-Lacto)


• No more than 12 plastic bags for the year. I already mostly use reusable Chico Bags, but occasionally get a plastic bag. I'd like to try to keep this to 12 for the year of 2007.

Photography:

• Shoot, Shoot, Shoot


• I will again be volunteering with Castaway Critters to do pet photos with Santa this coming December. See this years photos.


• Attend some workshops or group outings/shoots. I will be attending the half day Strobist.com off camera lighting seminar in January. I'd love to go to this years ANPAT or DLWS, but they are booked and not in the budget for 2007. Maybe 2008 will bring one for me.


• July will bring a one week vacation down in Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains. Of course, this means I will get one day to myself in the park to photograph. I'm tempted to rent some lenses if I don't have my 300mm f/2.8 and go wildlife hunting. I'm also hoping to be hooked up with a ranger that a good friend knows and maybe get either a private guide or a ride along for at least part of the day. I know I definitely plan on taking advantage of this opportunity.


• Participate in the Project 365 group on flickr. http://www.flickr.com/groups/project365. This will keep me shooting every day, which is part one of my photography resoltuions.

To Buy:

• New Computer - Thinking about either a 24" iMac or an MacBook Pro


• Adobe Photoshop CS2/3 - I've played with Photoshop Elements, and it's lacking in a couple must have tools for my photography, the history brush and a dodge/burn tool. Worth the extra $400 for the full version.


• Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 VR/AFS lens


• Nikon 300 f/2.8 AFS


• New tripod and head. Thinking about the Gitzo 1340 and an Arca-Swiss Z1 sp ballhead.


• Miscellaneous photography equipment such as super clamps, an anti-fog eye piece for the D2Hs, new camera bag(s), pocket wizards (3), Nikon Capture NX, a CCD cleaning kit, various backgrounds and gaffers tape.

Digital Photogarphy Guides from Adobe

Through Strobist.com, I found a link to some digitial photography guides posted by Adobe. Taking a quick look at these, they should prove to be invaluable.

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2006/12/new_digital_photo_guides.html

EPA May Abandon Health Standards for Lead Air Pollution

The More Hip Than Hippie podcast had a link to an article on about.com talking about the EPA's plans to remove lead from the list of regulated air pollutants. Their rational, the concentration of lead in the air has dropped 90% since 1976 when the EPA began regulating it. They already did their job, now it's up to the market to regulate itself. Yeah, right!

The article is nice and harsh, and a good read. Should be interesting to see how far this gets.

Read the article here.