Looks like my site was down for the night and through the morning. I’m glad my hosting company, eleven2, was right on top of it. They’ve always been great with support and that’s what counts the most. I was making some changes to the domains I have under my account and I guess photosbyrowell.com got mixed up somewhere in there but all is good now!
As I promised, here are five awesome photos of Eli during his celebration. Isn’t he the cutest little baby you’ve ever seen? He has those large wondering eyes, looking at me and wondering what in the world I was doing with such a large device in his face. Luckily, he did not cry and just took in all the attention. Thanks Doris for inviting me!
On July 26 2008, Eli Conner OCon was baptised at St. Gregory the Great in Poway. The church itself is absolutely beautiful, at least one of the most beautiful I’ve seen in San Diego. Upon entering the church you approach the Holy Water in a large stone bowl. It’s slightly over flowing with Holy Water and when you lean over and look at your reflection you will see a halo around your head. Pretty awesome! The baptism itself was fairly short and I managed to snap a few portraits of the people who attended. I’ll be showing just the guests and the baby, Eli, will come in Part Two.
I ordered a BBQ shortrib lunch and Barbara, my beautiful girlfriend ordered an awesome salad. Forgive me, I forgot what it’s called. You can read my review on yelp but I do recommend this place if you want some good food.
Hey everyone! I’m taking the wordpress app for a ride on the iPhone 3g. Let’s hope that this app is worth the time and space 
This reminds me of when working with photography. I’ll shoot shoot and shoot, eventually having tons of photos to process. Sometimes it can get overwhelming to the point where I’m just burned out. I’m sure many of you have felt this and continued to work through the night because you needed to have the images complete by the deadline. I’ve realized that I need to plan ahead and make sure I take frequent breaks. All day I spend my time in front of a monitor, hands on keyboard and mouse in a sitting (often non-ergonomic) position.
As we speak, on my plate, I have baptism photos from Saturday to process and also a ton of photos from Pop Noir fashion show on Friday. Of course, the paid work will take priority but if you work full time, like me, things can get quite hectic and tiring.
So, I’ll need to work on my system here and I’ll post the pictures!
5.4 magnitude earthquake
I was at my cube when it shook the building and around 11:45am. It was pretty scary and I’m sure I wouldn’t know what to do because I just sat there and looked up. Got that image from www.usgs.org which keeps track of earthquakes here in California. I haven’t felt one this strong in a while. At first, I thought someone was jumping up and down but after realizing that there isn’t anyone that large here at work.. it had to be an earthquake. My co-worker thought it was the same. Near our desks we have a weak section on the floor where, if someone were to jump, you could really feel it. Luckily, nothing big came after that but there were numerous aftershocks after the big one. Please, Earth, do not scare me during my lunch. kthxbai.
0 emails (click image to view large)
I’ve seen numerous people who’s inbox is just cluttered with unread emails. I don’t know about you but I can’t stand to have unread emails sitting there. I used to mark emails unread as a way of letting me know that I would have to follow up with that email. Now, I use gmail’s built in tools such as “starring” an item. If you look at the image, all my spam is actually in the spam folder.. all 600+ emails. The best thing about gmail is the anti-spam system. So how do I keep my inbox clean and clear?
1. Set specific times to check email.
I think it’s terrible to constantly check emails.. possibly unhealthy. I’ve done a pretty good job at closing my email client so that I cannot see it.
2. Don’t sign up for newsletters.
I suggest using a different email account if you’re going to sign up for any newsletters or sign up for something that offers a free product or trial. These sites may sell your email address to those who spam.
3. Empty the deleted items.
The trash folder is for trash. It’s not an organizational folder for important emails. I’ve had people come up to me asking how they can recover emails from the deleted items because they’ve used it as an organizational folder.
4. Next Action
Do what you need to do to clear that inbox. Reply to the email now or put it in a “need to process” folder. Develop a next action to get to zero.
I had the pleasure of working with Tina Ontiveros from Model Mayhem, #735403. Shes a young beautiful woman just getting into modeling. I contacted her a week ago ask asked if she would be up for a photoshoot downtown and sure enough, we planned it. For this shoot I used a Canon 5d, 24-104mm and 50mm lens. I brought my strobe out, Vivitar 285, shooting through an umbrella. This was my first time shooting all manual and the results made me happy. If there is anything that I would improve on with this shoot it would have to be the amount of poses I knew. I never knew that I’d have to know posing in order to get my creative idea out there. I may look foolish but it’s the model that will bring out the quality of the shot.
You can see more of Tina by viewing my flickr page
They tied the knot in beautiful San Clemente right on the beach. It was beautiful out with a few clouds which made it a perfect time to take some photos. There were some train tracks close by where the kids layed down some coins for the train to crush which looked quite awesome. Hanging out with Coral and Glenn’s family was a blast as they made it very fun and comfortable. Here are just a few of my favorite shots that day.
