Catch up...

Interesting, a guy walks past me at a wedding in MN and says,"hey, nice lens" and keeps on going. I find him on the grooms Face Book page and find out he's very involved in Scouting and teaches inner city kids film camera techniques. Okay pretty interesting. After several typed chats I realize he's pretty amusing and I ask if he blogs. He replies with "I used to but haven't in a long time". I came back with interesting, me too. He throws down the gauntlet of "I'll blog again if you do" I picked it up and slapped him on the face. Last night, he struck first with...Hot Water. So here I am trying to figure out how to catch up on a couple years of absence. Work: I tended bar and continued to do shows for the past 3 years. So much material came from the bar that I never wrote about, some sad, some funny, some twisted sad tales from customers that became regulars and some even friends. Parts of the job I seriously enjoyed. Interacting with people and teaching about different aspects of beer and doing food pairings were the highlights. Being the assembly line drink maker for 10 to 18 girls who some tipped well and some tipped well, not so well and being treated like I was just a dumb bar tender made up the majority of my negative feelings on the job. The shows came back and I started making money shooting pictures so I felt it time to take my departure from drink flinging...so far a decision I do not regret. Three Summers of nights away from Kim. It had to be done and I am thankful for Kim's understanding but no more. Pictures you say? I re vamped Prairie Glen Productions into my commercial photography page. The seed was planted while doing a photographic project I called Bar Shots I had my camera and an off camera 8 inch soft boxed flash and did portraits while I tended bar. I never took more that 3 minutes to shoot a customer or client. It was met with many people actually fixing themselves up a bit to get a portrait done. Soon I was shooting actor & musician headshots, even spending time shooting members of the Lyric Opera in Chicago. Enough encouragement and a serious offer of money to get out of the bar made up my mind it was time to leave, do shows and now do Photography part time to fill the economic gaps. Very excited... I was able to pick up some very serious professional camera gear and I'm doing my best to be responsible with it. Believe it or not all digital camera's have what's called an actuation life. Most cheaper cameras are good for about 100 thousand shots. Mine is rated at 150 thousand. Every shot counts. I do Event, family, portrait and children shoots. Weddings will come later, still learning that part of the biz. So here's my re entry to the blog world, we'll see where this goes.