As promised, here’s a post of photos I’ve been re-working in anticipation of a show that may not happen now, since I’ve emailed the gallery owner twice and she hasn’t responded. Oh well. I’m still having fun re-working all these shots, so i’m going to keep on keeping on. Because it’s a lot of photos, I put most of them into collages, since in general I’ve processed several per set. This first one, though, hasn’t had any companions so far, so I’ll post it by itself first. And before I talk too much about the photos, I have a little Sandy the Massage Therapist story to share.

I quit going to see Sandy a while back because I made two consecutive appointments with her that I forgot about, and I was too embarrassed to try again. But eventually my arm started hurting enough to motivate me to make the call, and I’ve gone to see her several times the past few weeks. She has been her usual chatty, bizarre self, but hasn’t really given me anything to write about until today. Today, though, she went in on a topic she talks about often: all the men who come to see her and try to flirt with her or, erm, get buck naked instead of staying covered up. I didn’t realize this was a “thing” with massage therapists, and maybe it’s just Sandy exaggerating, but she swears that most of the men she works on constantly want to uncover themselves while she is working and, according to Sandy, she has to chastise them to make them keep their towels on.

I kind of wish I’d had a normal wig on here; the pastel hair distracts from the shocking balletic movement I managed to pull off in this shot. I didn’t think I’d be able to change it to a plain color without it looking fake though. 

“Do you know how many of those things I’ve seen over the years?” she said with an exasperated sigh. “Puh-lease, it is not like I need to ever see one again.” Then, she went on to share with me just how many of those things she actually has seen (and in case it isn’t clear, when Sandy says those things, she means penises).

“I mean, I’ve been married five times, so that’s five right there.” Five times? I asked, amazed that I’ve been coming to see Sandy for over a year now and this is the first I’ve heard this. “Yes ma’am. And then there’s all the guys I dated before that. I dated one guy for seven, eight years, and let me tell you, he was hung like a horse. I remember asking him how many times it would take before I stopped being sore every time, and he said about ten, so I said well let’s just get those first ten times out of the way now so I can get on with life. We’re still friends, you know, and every time I see him I ask him – so, have you tore any women up lately?” (I know, I totally should have warned you that was coming. Sorry.)

It’s a good thing I’m always lying face-down on the massage table when Sandy tells me these stories, so I can freely allow my mouth to drop open in awe and disbelief at whatever it is she’s just said. Feel free to do the same at home. But hey, my arm feels loose enough now to type this up and share it with you, so maybe that’s the plus side. Then again, maybe not.

But now, about these pictures. The shots directly above are macros of some roses Doug got me for our fifteenth wedding anniversary (March 11); I was taking pics of the Fendi purse I wrote about in my last post, and while I was at it I decided to spritz the flowers down with water and shoot some macros. I took a ton, but these were the best of the bunch. There was some freesia in the arrangement as well, so I may process some of the shots of took of it also, but I haven’t had time yet. I don’t have them anymore, because Simon kept looking at them and thinking, hey look, lunch; plus they were slowly dying anyway. But they were pretty while they lasted.

For most of the other shots, the main changes I made in re-editing them was to do less with them, rather than more. For most of these, when i shot and processed them originally, I was just learning how to add textures and filters and in many cases had gone overboard; I’d always wanted to go back to some of the best ones and re-process them in a more straightforward way but never got around to it until now. Also, I am using this opportunity to format my TIF files at 300dpi instead of the 72 I was using as a default before, so the files are a lot bigger (which makes them slow to work on at times, as my little laptop struggles to keep up).

Some of these shots were old enough that they were taken before I used full backdrops, and would instead hang a sheet on the wall and place a matching one on the floor, creating a very obvious line between them. When I couldn’t get that edited out properly, I did add some background texture to help conceal the edits, but I kept the textures subtle so as not to overwhelm the subject of the shot (the very first shot, and the second one in the collage above, are both examples of where I needed to add some texture to the background).

More coming from this set – I can only stand to do a few at a time before I get bored, but lots of interesting shots from this one

In the two curtain pictures above, I did use one of Topaz’s Re-Style filters to change the color pretty radically; in the original shots (some of which you can see here), I had a brown background and a purple curtain, but I decided I wanted a more unified color to entire shot, and I liked the underwater feel this filter created. I’ve got a few more to edit from that set, but these are the only two I had ready by the time I wrote this post. To get the color exactly right, I have to add more of the filter to the background than to the curtains, so it’s a rather tedious process to get it just right; I get bored with working on them rather quickly, but I’m pleased with the end result nonetheless.

For these next floral dress shots, I decided since in the originals I hadn’t covered up the floor at all and it looked kinda sloppy, to just go with it and create shots that appeared to be outtakes; I left the remote sitting on the floor instead of editing it out to add to that effect. I kind of wish now that I’d had more junk sitting around I could leave in, but alas, I was rather neat on this day, I guess.

This was such a thrown-together set but I got a lot of good shots out of it. Also, favorite wig. 

As I said, I haven’t heard from the gallery owner anymore, or the woman she asked me to email my questions to, so who knows if that will ever really happen. My plan right now is to leave things alone for awhile and keep editing my photos, then in a few weeks contact her again and ask her directly if she was serious or not about a show. If she was, great, and if she blows me off, oh well. Next time someone asks at least I’ll be prepared.

That jumping one gets tons of reactions – so much orange! – and the portrait I liked because it’s an unusual expression for me.

In preparing for a possible show, I’ve both emailed someone the owner of the gallery put me in touch with to ask her about how to best format my photos and started re-working old, favorite shots, since I now know without a doubt that in order to print them I’ll need to completely re-process them from the original RAW files. Moving forward I will be sure to save a TIF version of an edited document with enough size and pixels to be workable, but until now I haven’t done that, so while this is a lot of work to do, it’s also rather fun. Sure, I’ve dipped into the archives before when short on new shots to process, but only to find different things to work with; I’ve never gone back and re-edited old shots that were clearly the best ones to begin with, if that makes sense. When going back trolling for new stuff, I’m always choosing from the shots I rejected the first time around, so it’s infinitely more enjoyable to work with the best material again. Plus, I am finding more shots I think are valuable, AND I have also always wanted to re-edit some great photos that I now feel I didn’t quite edit right. So, fun all around.

The first oldie I edited. Definitely an all-time favorite. Interestingly, this was only the second shot of a 200-photo set, and it’s the best one (partly because I didn’t yet realize the importance of brushing a wig every 2-3 shots during a set, and this one was completely trashed within the first ten minutes).

I figured by now I’d have a ton of re-worked oldies to share with you, BUT. I got completely sidetracked by a weird health scare over the weekend. Before I get into it, though, allow me to share the only other photo I’ve edited from an old set – this one is an example of a shot I ignored the first time around, but decided this time that had potential:

I’ll get more into what I’m doing differently to make these more print-worthy, but it involves MUCH bigger files, so I’m most likely going to have to re-learn how to save them best for the blog so they aren’t huge here also. Haven’t had time yet to do that though, so – moving on.

I was working on some of these old shots Sunday afternoon when out of nowhere, I had a pretty bad stomach upset. It came on quickly, and rather painfully; within ten minutes of the first stomach cramp I knew I was in trouble and contacted my boss to let her know I wouldn’t be in the next day (something I usually wait until the last minute to do because missing a day of work as a teacher is a pain in the ass, for reasons I won’t get into right now). Now. I’ve had stomach bugs before, of course; everyone has. But this one was just weird. Not only did I feel terrible, but I felt…confused, and panicked, when really there’s no reason for that. At times, I struggled to stand up or communicate what I was feeling, which my husband was demanding I do because I was freaking him out. One of the worst symptoms I had were chills that were almost violent in nature – on the scale of chills you might get when you have the flu, but my other symptoms didn’t match up with that. I would lie down somewhere for about ten minutes and groan, then get so uncomfortable with the chills and body aches that I’d have to move to some other spot, only to feel the need to move again ten minutes later. Through all of this, I was insanely frantic and confused, as if something were happening to me I couldn’t understand, when really, it was just a stomach bug so why all the panic and tears? Doug started taking my temperature, and when it started to climb over 100 by 10:30 PM we both decided it was best to go to the ER in case whatever this weirdness was got worse before morning.

So off to the ER we go, where they clearly thought I was wasting my time coming in – I get it, there are people with serious emergencies and here I am with a stomach bug – and I immediately felt embarrassed and foolish. But again, there was this panic to the whole experience I couldn’t get rid of, which was what prompted me to go in; this feeling that something was much more wrong than I realized and I might get dreadfully sick if I didn’t. So there we were, waiting for an hour to get some blood drawn and an IV of fluids since I was ridiculously dehydrated, and then sent home afterwards with me feeling not necessarily better but at least not panicked anymore.

Feeling a little better after an IV of fluid, and thinking the worst was over. NOT. 

So to get to the punchline here I’m going to rewind a bit, back to the Thursday before my ER visit. I arrived at work at 7 AM as usual, feeling a bit unpleasant and realizing pretty quickly that I had a bladder infection (this post is just full of TMI, I guess – sorry). Because, as I previously mentioned, leaving work as a teacher is a PITA, I decided to once again go to one of those emergency clinic-type places so many people I know frequent (seriously, I know many people who don’t even have regular doctors anymore; they go to these clinic, for everything, and while I am not a fan in general, especially after my first experience getting charged $350 for what was essentially a check-up, in this case I figured my problem was a simple one and it would save time,so I did it). I got coverage for my class, showed up at the clinic right when they opened, peed in a cup, and got my diagnosis and some antibiotics, which I had filled at the pharmacy they had on-site. Back to work in less than an hour. Easy-peasy.

Except – fast forward to the Monday morning after my ER visit, when I’m trying to decide whether or not to take the antibiotic again after Sunday night’s illness. I felt OK, although still head-achy and queasy, but I had asked the ER doc the night before about the antibiotic and he told me I should keep taking it, as did the pharmacist at the clinic when I called that morning. So, around 9:30 I took one. And within an hour, I thought I was going to die. Seriously. My ears started ringing. My chest was cramping. My throat felt like it was closing up. And I got the most bizarre head and tooth pain I’ve ever experienced – it was like my entire face hurt. Plus, the nausea came back. I had no doubt at that point what was going on was all about the antibiotic, but I did not know what to do. Another trip to the ER was not something I wanted to consider, but for awhile there I really thought I might die if I didn’t go – I’ve had allergic reactions before to the point that my throat closed up, and I know that is nothing to mess with. I ended up calling Doug down from his office (he works from home) because I was so freaked out, and together we decided I’d (finally) call my real doctor and make an appointment if I could get one. Fortunately I could, and with Doug’s assistance I managed to drag myself in to see him that afternoon. The doc took one look at me, heard about the medication I was taking, and concluded that no way should I have ever been given that drug (Cipro), much less to the amount I was prescribed (1000 milligrams a day), and that clearly I was having a bad reaction and needed to stop immediately. Since it was apparent by this time that I just felt awful and was not, in fact, going to snuff it, he me gave another medication to stop the nausea and put me on a liquid diet for the next 24 hours to get things sorted out and sent me on my way with a doctor’s note to stay home again on Tuesday.

I felt like absolute HELL the rest of Monday, even though the nausea subsided. The weird face and tooth pain continued, as well as the lethargy and chills and horrible headache, until I went to sleep that night. Amazingly, I woke up Tuesday morning feeling perfectly normal, and can now look back at the whole thing with the amount of OUCH it requires. It really was a horrible couple of days, and fortunately for me, I forgot to take the Cirpo a few times (I only took 500MG the first day and 500 the day I got sick) and therefore didn’t get more sick than I did. In reading about Cipro it does seem insane anyone would prescribe me that amount, much less tell me to keep taking it when I have chills and headaches and fever and nausea, but that’s the problem when dealing with medical personnel who don’t know you or your medical history. I don’t care how many people use these emergency clinics and claim they are fine – I will never use one of those places again to save time, because as it turned out I missed two whole days of work by trying to save a few hours on Thursday. Emergency rooms I tend to steer clear of anyway, and because of the panic I was in as well as the level of dehydration I was experiencing (I’d been wickedly thirsty since starting the Cipro, almost to the point of distraction even though I drink water all day) that probably was an OK decision at the time. But that doc sure didn’t give me the right advice about the antibiotic either. So yeah.

God, I remember the days when I could basically take whatever pill a doctor tossed at me with not a problem in the world, but here is the second medication in the past few years I’ve been prescribed that caused me serious problems. I guess it’s another sign of getting older – although I realize some people have difficulty with medications all along, so at least I had a good 40 or so years of having it easy.

Anyway, it’s back to work Wednesday after handling solid food Tuesday afternoon and evening with no problems. Here’s hoping the rest of the week goes smoothly. I’m sure I’ll have a ton of work to do after missing the last two days,