Penny says hello

The past few weeks have been a bit of a stressful blur – I went from having 4 clients to 11 in three weeks’ time, and adjusting to the added workload took a while. Once I had a chance to step back and look at my schedule, though, I found some ways to make things flow more easily from day to day, and that helped. I went through a period of time where I was getting phone calls from interested parents daily (after a round of report cards went out, apparently, and people started to panic), and I ended up just slapping them onto my schedule wherever I could fit them. Going from tutoring two kids per day to three doesn’t sound like a big adjustment, but when you factor in drive time between sessions (I don’t have an office and meeting at libraries isn’t my first choice because they get so crowded out here) I went from working between 3:30 and 6:30 each day to not getting home until around 8:30 PM, which is a pretty big change. Add to that the fact that daylight savings time ended right as my schedule was starting to fill, and I ended up feeling pretty tired and out of sorts while I tried to manage all the new students.

Simon is not bothered, though.

One thing I was able to do after the dust settled was look at my new schedule and find ways to maximize my time. For example, I’d ended up tutoring two kids who lived just a few blocks from each other, but I wasn’t seeing them on the same day. And somehow I ended up scheduling myself an hour break between two of my sessions, which, when you don’t have an office, ends up being just enough time to get restless and irritable between sessions, but not enough time to do anything about it other than sit in your car and check your phone. So, I moved some students around and re-arranged some of my session times to make my schedule more manageable. I’m still getting used to driving around for my last two sessions of the day in the dark, which still feels odd, but the days will start lengthening out soon enough, and it’s starting to feel more normal now than it did when all of the this started up a few weeks ago.

A few weeks ago I got in two new photography tools that I was excited to work with: one was a pink popup backdrop that was rather pricey – pink isn’t a very popular color for these backdrops, so I did end up paying quite a bit for this one – and the other was a fairly inexpensive ring light for portraits. Unfortunately, the ring light turned out to be more challenging than I remembered it being  -I had a cheaper one years ago that could only be used when attached to my camera, and it broke after a few months of use – and my first pics with the pink backdrop didn’t turn out as good as I’d hoped they would because I was also trying to figure out the best way to use the ring light at the same time. But, I did manage to get a few good ones, which I’ve shared above.

A REALLY RARE decent selfie I took with my phone

I’ve been trying to be active on Instagram again since leaving Facebook, but I completely SUCK at phone selfies, and I was hoping the ring light would help with that. Here, it worked out great, and this was a real one-off, barely-planned photo, so I had high hopes it would always be this easy to use. But so far, that’s not how it’s going. Yes, it creates a lovely catchlight in the eyes, which is one of the main reasons it is used for portraits, and if you get it just right it can also create a lovely halo of light on the face, BUT for me that’s turned out to be trickier than I imagined, and I’m still not sure how best to use it to get this effect every time. Another issue seems to be that to get this effect you have to be VERY close to it (and therefore, the camera) and I don’t do a lot of super close-up photos since I like to show the hair/wigs and usually the head and shoulders to show off an outfit. You can see in the pink backdrop collage above how the shots where I’m closer to the camera worked better than those where I wasn’t, and even then, the ring light blasts out a lot of the nice soft shadows I like my portraits to have. So, I’m still working on how to use this thing best, and it may not end up being a big part of my normal shooting gear. Fortunately this one wasn’t expensive either, although I did spend more on it than on the previous one (around $80).

So anyway, about those Instagram selfies. What I’ve done so far is use one of my DSLRs to take the selfies, then use Instagram’s filters to edit them before uploading. It’s not totally in the spirit of IG, but my iPhone selfies are literally the worst I’ve even seen and I just don’t have the skill to improve them – they have always been horrible with the exception of that ONE ring light photo. For the most part, though, even though I am still taking these shots with a DSLR, I do them quickly, with whatever amount of makeup  I have on at the moment, and wearing my own hair and pretty regular clothes and standing wherever I happen to be standing at the time. So, they are still way more ‘candid’ than the stuff I post on Flickr.

All of these were taken around the house

I am hoping that through Instagram I can also get back into photographing outfits and fashion-y shots like that. But I’m SO picky about them that we will have to see how that goes. Using a DSLR instead of my phone already ups the amount of time photos take to shoot, and since I really prefer the full length shots to have good lighting that would require even more prep time, which isn’t really in the spirit of what I’m doing. I’m going for another photography avenue that can be more spontaneous and take less time, and even though I think I’ve found a way to do it with portraits and still be happy with the results, it remains to be seen if I can pull that off with full length photos.

Another random thing this photo makes me think to mention: the last time I went to get my bangs trimmed, I had my stylist cut them blunt and without thinning them out or making them look piece-y. I felt that a heavier bang might look better and so far, I am liking the results, although they still need to fill in a bit. Then, once I started playing around with hair looks and got my new cat-eye glasses in (from Zenni, of course) I started playing around with my makeup to create a more Rockabilly vibe (my new favorite thing to do, since I have the time in the morning, is to shut myself in my bathroom for an hour, watch CNN, and play around with my makeup and my hair). In order to do this, I’ve gotten into really pigmented, colorful lipsticks – something I have never done before. As much as I’ve always loved the look of a dark or bright red lip, I never EVER felt comfortable wearing it myself. My lips are quite thin, first of all, and the darker or brighter a lip color is the thinner the lips will look. But it’s more than that – for all the talk of how women over ‘a certain age’ shouldn’t wear bright red lips, I am actually finding that I really LIKE wearing it for all the exact same reasons the fashion industry says more mature women shouldn’t. To put it another way – I really do think it ‘ages’ me – but in a way I really like! I do think I look older in a dark or bright lip color as opposed to something pale and neutral, but in an “I’ve earned the right to wear this” way and not in an “I shouldn’t be wearing this” kind of way. To me, it looks really sassy, confident, and yes, mature – so I’m having lots of fun with that right now.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving to those of you that will celebrate it this week. I am looking forward to slowing down and catching my breath since I only have two students to tutor, then it’s off on the mad dash to the winter holidays!

Oh, and if any of you want to follow me on Instagram, this is me: Instagram. Just don’t be an asshole or I’ll block you.

Since getting off Facebook, I’ve gotten back onto Instagram and been finding other ways and places to share my photos.

One thing I decided to try was participating in Free People’s “community” they have on their website. I used to upload photos of the things I bought from ModCloth years ago, but I was still teaching back then and when some of my students recognized my photos on the site I got nervous and took everything down. I never liked having my students view my photography, but I don’t have to worry about that anymore. And since I no longer shop at ModCloth (does it even exist anymore?) and buy pretty much everything I wear at Free People, I decided to get back into the swing of taking photos of my outfits and try uploading them there.

I’ve also been playing around with the new portrait editing software I purchased when Portrait Pro bit the dust. The demise of PP turned out to be short-lived; miraculously someone DID respond to my help ticket, and within a few days of losing it I had it back again. In the time I’d gone without, though, I’d started using a program by CyberLink called Makeup Director that is pretty damn cool. So, now I’m using it combined with Portrait Pro to get some really nice results – although I’m still learning, and my first few attempts came out a bit heavy-handed.

I’d pretty much stopped taking full-length shots entirely because over time I became so disappointed in the results. The truth is, my studio space is SO SMALL that I really must use a wide-angle lens to get my whole body into a shot, and wide-angle lenses are really the WORST for portrait work of any kind, even full-length shots. But, if there’s one thing that is consistent about photography, it’s that at least 50% of it is learning how to make do with what you’ve got to work with, because the absolute ideal setting almost never happens, so I decided to accept the fact that I had to use a wide angle lens and read up on shooting full-length fashion shots and use all the tricks that I could to make up for the ones I couldn’t.

The biggest changes I made from how I used to shoot full length shots was with my lighting. After much reading and researching, I decided to layer my two umbrella lights one over the other, so both of them were positioned on one side of me and angled towards me at about a 45 degree angle. My usual lighting setup would have one umbrella stand aimed at me from either side, but putting them both on the same side not only created more shadows to add detail, it also ensured more even lighting from head to toe without having heavy light falloff starting from about the knees down.

Kind of like this.

Then, I took a third umbrella light and moved it directly off to my other side, and aimed it at the backdrop. I’d never heard of this before, but the information I read claimed it would help to distance or ‘separate’ me from the background, and once I saw the results of doing this I understood what that meant.

Even though I’m up against a solid background, I definitely see more depth in these shots than previous full body photos I’ve taken – the flatness of those was what really started to turn me off even trying to take them. There definitely is some separation here, I think, between myself and the background. At least, it feels more dimensional to me.

I just LOVE a good baggy pant! Although technically these are jeans. 

I also made sure to stand as far away from the backdrop as I could – not easy to do, because again, my space is really really tiny, and I couldn’t get as far away from it as was recommended at all, but even the little bit I did helped. I do have a bad habit of squashing myself right up against my backgrounds (again, because TINY STUDIO) but I stuck a rock on the floor as a marker to remind myself to move up a little.

That corset top is technically a mini-dress, but I honestly don’t know anyone who could (or should) wear it as one.

Now by this time, I’m sure you’re thinking why does she keep saying these are full length shots when clearly they are cut off right below her knees? Well, that’s because I actually took full-length shots, but had to crop them because I was lazy and used my gray popup backdrop rather than my really long muslin one that actually covers the floor. I did that because I actually got started on these photos rather late in the day, the muslin is much more time-consuming to set up, and I really didn’t expect to like these photos at all anyway so I didn’t bother with it. And even though my popup reaches the floor, it doesn’t cover it, so the effect of a solid gray background is completely lost when you can clearly see that I’m standing on ugly-ass carpet. So yeah, I cut them all off to conceal the floor. But when I really wanted to show the pants I was wearing for some reason (above it was for the wide flare leg, and below, it was to show how the pants cinch in at the ankles), well, I just contorted myself into shapes on a stool that made it work:

How to cram your whole body into a shot when it really doesn’t fit in the frame. I’m pretty sure I fell over right after the flash went off.

Here’s the thing though: I uploaded these to the Free People site several days ago, and they’re still awaiting approval. I think, like Instagram, what they really want is mobile phone photos and not studio stuff, so I’m wondering if they are going to reject them all. I’ll be bummed if that happens, but in the end I’m glad I gave this a whirl anyway. I’m pleased with how the shots turned out, and I learned a lot more about how to take these kinds of photos properly, which is always a good thing. Learning is fun, kids!

Remember what I said about baggy pants? Yep, I love ’em. 

Man, it has been awhile since I last posted – almost a month – but things suddenly kicked into gear a few weeks ago, and it’s been a bit of a blur ever since. Tons of pictures to share as I babble on, so let’s get to it.

Someone challenged me on Flickr to post a ‘just me’ photo without makeup or a wig. I didn’t do it – I actually have a TON of foundation, contour, and highlighter on in this photo, and yes I did edit it – but this is as close as I’ll ever get to a truly ‘naked’ portrait (I was actually just test shooting my lighting here).

A few weeks after Harvey, my business phone starting ringing like crazy. I have picked up FIVE new clients in the past three weeks! I am now at 10 students whom I tutor, and have had to start turning people away or referring them to other tutors. I really didn’t do anything differently this fall to promote myself, but two of my new clients are referrals from parents whose kids I am already tutoring. I also think those two weeks students had off while districts in the area dealt with the aftermath of Harvey (many schools functioned as shelters and it took time to prepare for the return of students, plus schools that were damaged by the floods had to figure out where to send them) threw everyone off, and grades are low as a result. On a psychological level, I am so much more confident this year than last that I think that has to be vibing out into the atmosphere in some way; I know last year I often stumbled when I felt I had to ‘sell’ my services to a parent, whereas now I just do what I know works without feeling nervous. It’s a good place to be.

I found this shirt at Goodwill, and I can’t help but wonder what happened to the other half!

Most of my clients are for English tutoring still, which is actually fine as I enjoy it now. They’re mostly middle-school students, for some reason, which is age 11-13 here in the US, but I also tutor one fourth grader, one ninth grader, and a high school junior as well. The student I coached over the summer and had such a hard time with (as far as feeling like what I was doing was actually helping) has texted me several times since his new school year started to update me on his progress – he made all As and Bs on his first report card, which is a HUGE improvement over his grades last year. That has really given me the confidence boost I need in relation to that aspect of my business. I am now coaching another high school freshman, and am meeting with a potential coaching client this afternoon; it’s fun work to do so I am still hoping to build up that side of the business as well.

I often get comments questioning why my ‘job’ isn’t photography instead of tutoring, but let me reiterate that I really enjoy teaching and consider it the best work I can do. And honestly, a “busy” working day for me involves tutoring for three hours, tops. Houston is very spread out and most of my clients do not live near me, and since I drive to their homes or a nearby library I do put in another hour of drive time each day, easy, but I really don’t mind that. Having grown up here, driving is a part of life and I am used to it; plus, I have always enjoyed getting out and taking a drive. Since aside from my tutoring I’m pretty much a homebody, it gets me out of the house and helps me feel like I am still a part of the world. Plus this one particular drive I make several times a week is actually a nice, pretty drive, which helps.

This wig is called a ‘bump’ wig; Paula Young came out with this line years ago that literally has a pouch in the crown that closes with a snap! It came with a little foam piece that you were supposed to tuck into the pouch and snap closed for extra height, but of course I had to shove as much wadded up newspaper as possible in there to see how high I could get it. 

On the photography front, I hadn’t taken many photos at all since Harvey. In what at least felt like an unrelated decision, I took myself off of Facebook for various reasons, and almost immediately  began taking photos again. I also got back to being active on Flickr, which hasn’t been the case for well over a year now. I’m assuming these things are related, somehow; I do think it got so easy for me to load a photo to Facebook and get so much feedback that contributing on Flickr lost its panache, and while I do miss getting to share my photos with my friends there, cutting some social media out of my life for now has had more benefits than drawbacks, so I’m sticking with the decision. Interacting with other photographers, I think, is important to me, and Facebook had a tendency to make me feel like I was doing so much more than I actually was – not just in the photography arena, but in other ways as well. And I admit that social media is freaking me out more and more every day I read about how American voters were manipulated during this last election. My biggest concern is how easily Russia got us all to turn on each other – pitting opposing sides against each other by playing to our worst instincts, fears, and prejudices. I was as susceptible to this as anyone – understanding that people I  may have fought with in comment sections weren’t even real people but foreign agents just trying to get me to feel hatred for conservatives was the nail in my Facebook coffin. I do not want to be manipulated into hating other people, and I’d gotten to a point where at least 50% of the time I spent on Facebook I felt pissed at someone or something. So, I’m done with that.

So, as I said, I almost immediately started taking more photos, and getting active on Flickr again (and hopefully, keeping up better with the blog). I had a marathon photo session last Sunday; on Saturday I went to Goodwill and purchased 5 or 6 tops to use, then spent Saturday night planning out what wigs, accessories, and makeup to wear for each one. Then I pulled it all together that night, so I could just get up in the morning and get started. I do not usually do this – in fact, I usually take photos when I wake up with the urge to do it; I rarely plan things out in the detail that I did this last shoot. It made for a really long day of shooting, and by the end I was pretty bored, but my goal was to get as many looks as I could out of the stuff I’d bought and have lots of different looks to work with when I edited the shots – when I only do 3-4 looks per shoot, I get bored with them all quickly and then run out of stuff to process.

Something I have done a few times before is start off with a ‘naked’ face – which really just means all the foundation, highlighter, and contouring is done but I haven’t added any color (except a  nude lipstick). Then I figure out which costume would work best with a neutral face and take those shots, figuring I can always add makeup later in post if I want (although I’ve hit a snag in that area that I will discuss later). That huge necklace came from Banana Republic; I bought it at least a decade ago, and at some point had loaned it, and a ton of other accessories, to my sister-in-law for a party where they wanted to have a photo booth. I totally forgot about all of that stuff until she returned it to me a month ago – they were moving and came across two bags of old wigs and accessories they’d forgotten they had, and she gave them back to me. Most of the wigs were already shot before I gave them to her to use, so I pitched all but a few of ’em, but the accessories made it into a lot of these shots because they were all pretty cool, and I’d totally forgotten about them.

My face was ‘naked’ in this shot, too – I added the makeup using Portrait Pro.

So back to the makeup: for my second costume change, I will add a little more makeup for a slightly different face to work with later. Again, this is easier to do when I plan in advance, so I can be sure the makeup, or lack thereof, will work with the costume and not be a problem later.

Actually, all I’d added as far as makeup for this costume change was blush, a brighter lipstick, and mascara; the eyeshadow was added in post. And yeah, that necklace is one that was in the bag of goodies my SIL returned to me. It was broken before I loaned it to her, so I had to just wrap it around my neck. And the other hearts are cheesy, but I couldn’t resist them. 

I think you get the idea now for what happens  next, and next, and next. With each costume change, I just keep adding makeup until the end of the shoot. It certainly does make for a greater variety of photos to work with later – I took almost 600 this day, which I haven’t done in a long time.

This is one of the returned wigs that I kept. Also, I think those glasses were originally from a cheap Halloween costume I bought on sale after October 31st at a grocery store. They’re actually vinyl and really floppy. The top was actually a dress that was too small for me, so I cut the skirt part off to be able to get it on! 

The tops I found were amazing, and taking the time to even plan which backdrops to use was helpful. It made for a lot less thinking during shooting, and a lot more posing, and things went really smoothly even though it took a long time having to stop between costumes and apply more makeup and change backdrops. I even got use out of that pastel one that I almost never use, because it has never really worked with anything I’ve used it for in the past. This time, it was perfection with some of the brighter colors.

Now for the problematic bit: Just this past week, my most-used Photoshop plugin, my beloved Portrait Pro, started crapping out on me midway through working on a photo. I’d just “upgraded” (I put that in quotes because even though I already owned a previous version of the software, I had to pay full price for what they called an ‘upgrade’) to their newest version, which is fantastic – it has a sharpening tool within the skin softening category that solves the issue of skin looking ‘too soft’ perfectly – so at first I thought it was a problem with the upgrade. But then, it started happening with a few of my other plug-ins too. The oddest part was how it would happen out of nowhere, sometimes right after I’d just used the program and attempted to access it again.

Yep, another prop returned to me by the SIL; the nails used to light up but the batteries are dead now, and they never showed up properly in photos anyway. The sweater is another one from the Goodwill haul. 

I took the error message I kept getting when trying to access the plug-in and typed it into Google, which sent me down a rabbit hole to figure out what the hell was going on. I got Doug involved, and together we finally figured out that a security update to Adobe Flash Player was the culprit: we uninstalled the update, which sure enough had been installed the same day I started getting the error, and then I had to uninstall the plug-ins that had been affected by the update and re-install them. And then I stumbled across another problem: Portrait Pro would not let me re-install the software. My license key was only good for one download, and since I’d already used it once, it wouldn’t work again. I get it – no one wants their software to be purchased once and then shared all over the world, but this was on the same computer and simply needed to be re-installed, so there should have been a way for me to manage this. However, I’ve actually dealt with this issue with Anthropics (the makers of Portrait Pro) before, so I knew there was going to be no way to get this remedied.

This is actually a pajama shirt, but I liked the colors on the sleeves. 

See, I ran into this issue when I got my new laptop last year. I had to reinstall all my photo editing software, and of everything I’ve purchased, Portrait Pro was the only one that wouldn’t let me use my license keys a second time to get what I paid for installed on my new machine. I opened up a help ticket, which went nowhere, and because this program is my primary portrait editing tool I gave in quickly rather than waiting, and purchased the software a second time.

The lace sweater is from Goodwill and it’s so comfy, I now wear it around the house (which I don’t do with most of my costumes). That ‘necklace’ is actually a fascinator that I’ve worn in photos before; I spied it at Nordstrom and even though it was expensive, I had to have it. The colors are fabulous! Oh, and I changed the color of the eyeshadow on the right in post. 

I admit that in this case, I was itching to finish a photo I was working on, so I just said to hell with it and bought the software a second time rather than deal with waiting on a support ticket that would probably take at least a month to get answered, if it got answered at all. So yeah, I bought another copy of the upgrade I’d just bought a month prior. Stupid, I know – especially when, on the very next night, the plugin quit working again.

Come on Portrait Pro! Will you deny the world this beauty?! And yes, that’s a Goodwill sweatshirt, and it’s AMAZING. 

Turns out the Flash Player update had automatically installed again, around 8 o’clock at night. I know this because I had just been using the plugin when all of a sudden it quit working, and I went to see what updates had been installed, and there it was. So, now I realized I had to figure out a better solution, or every single night my damn software would stop working again once the update installed. I spent a long time trying to figure out how to stop the Flash update from installing only to discover that it is actually a crucial update that is needed to  fix some massive security flaw or another. I hemmed and hawed on this for a while – should I just uninstall Flash altogether? Turns out that’s not so easy to do, although it is possible. It just started to turn out to be a hell of a lot of work to do just to get one stupid Photoshop plugin to work (the others that keep failing I don’t use that much anyway, and the help tickets I submitted to those companies will most likely be addressed since they actually have real online support) plus, it was already clear I would have to purchase yet ANOTHER license to fix the damage done to the program by the new Flash install.

I am not gonna lie, I was seriously upset about this. I use that program for everything and it is a major part of my workflow. But this is the downside of utilizing a product that has no support; when something goes wrong, you’re on your own, and I saw no real way to fix this one without a lot of ridiculous work and spending yet more money. So, I am now on the search for other software that can at least get close to what Portrait Pro could do, which sucks. I’ve found a few things to noodle around with, but so far nothing comes close to that program. But I’ll have to make do for now. I did go ahead and submit a help ticket, but I have no hope anyone will ever respond or fix this issue. A perusal of their forums made that clear; it sounds like no one ever gets responses to their issues and it’s a real shame some other company can’t buy this software from Anthropics and service it properly,  because all of their photo editing tools are really great products.

This about sums it up.

So that’s my life as it stands. I haven’t talked about my injuries but I’m now out of time, and I’m fine anyway. I need to go get ready for a day of tutoring, so I’ll catch up with you all another time. Happy weekend everyone!

For a long time now, I’ve been admiring photographers like Miss Froggi on Flickr who create such lovely, soft, vintage-looking light in their photos, and I’ve been trying to re-create that look with my own photos with spotty results at best.

I didn’t want to steal any of her photos, so I am posting a screenshot of her page instead. But do check it out for more loveliness!

I finally ended up searching for tutorials on how to create the soft light and vintage look of photos like this, and started learning about and working with the curves tool in Photoshop. This seems to be the key to achieving the tonality and richness that I’ve been trying to create using various photo filters; the filters work to an extent, but you don’t have to total control over the final result with presets and plugins.

The curves tool

I certainly was familiar with this tool, but had never tried to use it because it looks intimidating. It’s generally known to be a trickier tool to use, but once I watched a few tutorials I felt I knew enough about to be able to work with it instinctively until I got the results I wanted.

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Portrait before and after using the curves tool

One thing I noticed while browsing tutorials is that most of the photos people were working with were taken outside for some reason; I’ve found it easier to use curves on outdoor shots than my studio ones, and I”m not sure if that’s because the tutorials I watched were using outside light sources or if it’s really true that people use the tool more under those conditions. I don’t think it’s that curves works better that way as it is that it works differently, so I still have lots of playing around to do to figure out how to make it work – which is fine, because noodling around and learning new things about photo editing is my favorite thing to do anyway. I did, however, try to find out shots taken outdoors to play with; since I rarely do that most of them are not great shots but were fine to use for learning purposes.

Terrible shots, but they were good for editing practice.

I’m actually not finished with this one, but I wanted to show it anyway.

But since most of my shots are taken in my studio, I was working with indoor lighting and backdrops for most of my practice. I started out with shots from recent sets:

But soon I was dipping into the archives, looking for shots to work with that I thought could benefit from some “curving.” Looking at old photos through this lens (no pun intended) prompted me to work up shots from sets I’ve ignored for a long time, so that’s been fun.

Overall I found darker portraits with dark backgrounds more fun to work with; seeing the tonal shifts in the darks and shadows of the photo is the most interesting aspect of using the curves tool to me, for some reason. Perhaps because it’s easier to see the changes in the dark spaces of the photo – who knows. But I also used the tool to edit some shots from sets I never got anything good out of before, like these:

I still don’t really like this one, but it’s a better attempt than I’ve gotten in the past from this set. Something about it just doesn’t work – I think maybe it’s because the color of the wig doesn’t look good on me. 

But the best shot I’ve edited so far is from an old set I did back when I was still obsessed with full-length costume and movement shots (something I haven’t been into for quite a while); this was taken when Simon was just a kitten, and at one point while I was taking some shots sitting down he wandered onto the set and sat down on the skirt of the dress, and got into a few of the pictures while sitting there. I picked him up for one photo, and even attempted to put him on my wig (which really didn’t work because as soon as I took my hands off he started to leap down, so the shot that had him up there also had me making an awful face and holding my hands up right near where he was standing). When browsing through old photos I came across this set again, and got to thinking I could probably take all the shots with Simon in them and composite them into one shot – it was really easy to do, so I’m not sure why I never thought of it before.

I did use the curves tool on this one too, but obviously that’s not the reason this is a new fave for me. Again, not sure why I didn’t think to do this when I originally took the shots, but that’s what’s good about going back through old sets from time to time (I save everything; every single shot I’ve ever taken is on a hard drive somewhere). Once there’s some time and distance from a set, you can go back and find pictures with value that you missed last time you looked.

Now before I close this out, I’d like to add one more picture. It’s not one I took, and it’s not a picture of me. It’s also not a ‘good’ photo in that it’s a scan of a picture that was taken in the 90s at a Halloween party – but it DOES have a costume! It’s a picture of an old friend named Jody Smith; he was best friends with another one of my friends from college, Erin, and we hung out a lot back in the day. With a name as common as Jody Smith, though, once we lost touch it was damn near impossible to find him again, until Erin found him through a mutual friend on Facebook about a year and a half ago (for a lovely write-up about Erin’s experience connecting with Jody again after so many years, go here). It was nice to hear from  him again, and see that he was doing well, but I admit after an initial catch-up conversation or two we didn’t keep in touch all that much. But we were still Facebook friends, so we could keep up with each other through that platform.

Unfortunately, a little over a month ago Jody was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, and it was too advanced, and Jody was too weak, when it was discovered for the doctors to do anything about it. He was given 3-5 months to live, but ended up in hospice care just a few weeks later. On August 1st, Jody passed away. Fortunately, I got to talk to him via Skype before he died; I shared what memories I had of him that came to mind in the moment (although I realized later I forgot a few good ones I wish I’d mentioned, like the time we went to see Forest Gump together then wandered around the neighborhood after it ended lamenting how little we’d done with our lives) as well as a dream I’d had about him the night before, wherein he, Erin, and I were in an airplane, headed nowhere in particular, just hanging out in the clouds and chit-chatting like in the old days (well, without the clouds part).  So, as I said to him on his Facebook page the day he died, I want to say another farewell to dear Jody – we will see you again in the clouds one of these days. Rest in peace, friend.

A few weeks ago, my husband came home from a visit with his father (who is elderly and ill – Doug is his primary caregiver but we recently hired a full-time nursing service to stay with him 24-7) with a collection of old t-shirts he’d dug out of a closet at the house. They’re mostly t-shirts he wore in high school, but there are some from as far back as elementary school. His mother (who passed away many years ago) never threw anything out, so I’m sure this is just a small sampling of what’s over there.

So of course, the first thing I did was take pictures in them. 

I’d also ordered a few new wigs from Sam’s Beauty recently, so I immediately got to work dressing up and photographing myself in some of the shirts. A lot of them are old, original concert tees (Genesis and Rush, mostly), and even though they’re pretty cool, I didn’t feel like they would make very interesting photos so I bypassed those. But there are some rather silly ones, like the Disco’s Dead shirt above, that I just had to use – this one was made for Doug by his mom, in one of those old tee-shirt shops that were all the rage back in the 70s and 80s – does anyone else remember those shops? Most of them were in malls, and you could go in there and choose whatever type of shirt you wanted, and have the shirt say whatever you wanted it to say, in whatever style of lettering you wanted. They also had all sorts of decals and iron-on transfers you could utilize. In the days before the internet, all of those choices and options for personalization were a BIG deal. Who didn’t go into one of these shops at least once and get matching “so-and-so’s best friend” tee shirts with a buddy? I searched Google looking for a photo of one of these places, but the search terms were just too broad – but how I remember walking into those stores with their decal samples plastered all over the walls, and that acrid smell of slightly-singed iron-on-transfers from the big press-iron (not sure that’s a word, but it is descriptive) they would use to steam the letters and decals onto your tee. Ah, memories…moving on.

The flip side of the “Disco’s Dead” shirt. Notice the apostrophe is on the wrong side of the N.

This shirt was made for Doug by his mom – and I just love it because it’s a great example of a mom trying to be cool and failing miserably. No actual teenage boy would have worn this shirt, even in the 70s, which is why it’s still in pristine condition. But hey – how could Mom have known that 30 years later her daughter-in-law would fall in love with it and use it in her photos? It’s absolutely awesome for pictures.

This was a band shirt from when Doug played the tuba in high school. It was actually was worn repeatedly, and was pretty threadbare. This is the back side of it; the front has the school band’s logo on it, and apparently there were three tuba players who all got some phrase added onto the back that described them in a private-joke, you-had-to-be-there kind of way (those were always the best shirts back then). Unfortunately, I hated every single photo I took in this shirt; I’m not sure why, exactly, but I think it had to do with my color settings being off and wearing a wig that just didn’t work with the shirt. That’s why these are so over-edited; I kept trying to make them work when they didn’t. I hate both of them, which is sad, because this was the shirt I was most looking forward to photographing. I may try again with a different approach later, because in spite of my best efforts I never got anything out of these shots that I liked.

I loved this one though; this is a baseball tee from a team Doug was on in fifth grade – it fit me, but just barely; I had a bitch of time getting it on, and was concerned I wouldn’t be able to get back out of it, but I managed. Isn’t it weird how some shots from the same photo session can be so good while others (the I’m Confused ones) suck so badly? I get that the outfit and hair are totally different, but the lighting was the same, as was the makeup I wore. The only difference in that regard was the aforementioned camera settings, which I know was part of the problem, but at the same time – how can it have made that much of a difference? I’ve had this happen before; since I usually do at least two major costume changes when I shoot, there will always be outfits that turn out better than others, but usually I can salvage something even from a costume change that doesn’t yield great results. But every once in a while I’ll come across something I put together that completely and utterly fails – and often when that happens, there will be other outfits from the same shoot that I think are some of my best. I go back over those ‘bad’ shots time and time again to analyze them and figure out the secret to their lack of success, but it still eludes me.

I intended to look like a really burned-out groupie in this shot, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to make myself look good. Sue me. 

I think it might have something to do with interest on some level – most outfits I put together have some detail that takes it out of the realm of just a head shot into something more interesting; it could be a detail of the clothing, or the colors in the fabric, or the movement of either the hair or the clothing. Sometimes it’s actually the makeup that does it, if I really went out of my way to do something different, or sometimes I get all the colors working together so well that it unifies the shots.

Interesting eye makeup and a wig with great movement saved these, for example, from being boring

In the shots that fail, I do get the sense that at least one of those elements is off, but usually it’s a combination of them that knocks something down. If the wig is short and boring and doesn’t have any movement to it, usually the clothing will, or perhaps the hair is in a really interesting color that makes it work anyway even if it’s short. But sometimes a wig is longer and just doesn’t move well, or something about the makeup is so off it ruins things (I’ve noticed some of the more pastel-colored lipsticks I wear at times tend to look ‘off’ on me, for example). Believe it or not, I can still vividly remember shoots from years ago where I didn’t get one good shot out of a costume – those shots haunt me, and I keep going back to them and trying to find some way to make them work, especially after buying new editing software, because I think maybe that new tool will be the one that makes those bad shots work in the end. But so far, that’s not happened. Oh well.

Some older shots I’ve revisited this month, after buying some new software and thinking maybe it would make them work. It didn’t. I still don’t like any of them.

I’ve gotten a bit bored with posing for and editing portraits again, also, so I may back off of them for a while. I’ve gotten spoiled, though, by the relative ease of posing for them as opposed to full-length shots, however – so I’ve taken to trolling more old sets for movement and motion shots to play around with rather than putting myself through the motions for taking new ones.

I’m trying to play around with processing to get more comfortable really mucking things up; in spite of all the experimenting I already do, I have fallen into a big old rut of editing photos the same old way – mostly because I have gotten so used to doing what I know ‘works’ that I don’t think outside of my own little box; for example, I love using the PortraitPro software for my portrait work, but I know that it works best when faces are looking directly into the camera, so I’ve started to limit myself to posing as dead-center as possible. This makes using the PP program easier, but it also gets boring, so at some point I need to lessen my attachment to always using it if I want to keep my photos feeling fresh.

The bubbles are from a fairly new editing program I purchased; it’s a kind of cheesy effect but in order to break out of my rut I’m forcing myself to be comfortable with cheesy-ness.

I also have established a sort of routine when editing, even though it’s not something I’ve done intentionally, so working with older photos like this gives me a chance to break out of that mold as well; purposely changing up my workflow to see if it gives me different results. It’s all a little uncomfortable for me, and a lot of the results I don’t particularly like, but I feel like I need to do it at this point just to shake things up.

I also decided to work with some blurry shots for the hell of it. 

On the work front, summer has been pretty busy; as I’ve mentioned before, none of my clients stopped working with me over the summer and I picked up a few more, so my June calendar was particularly full. But one of my clients took the whole month of July off, and another one has taken a week off here and there as well; I just found out last Thursday that another client isn’t continuing with me for the coming school year, and one of my academic coaching clients finishes up his program next Monday. So, all of a sudden I am looking around and realizing my dance card has gotten thin again, and it may be time to make some noise to drum up some new business as we move into the fall semester. This doesn’t concern me as much as it did last year; I did recently hear that a client I’ve been working with for the summer is going to continue with me in the fall so that’s nice, and besides, I’m just not all that nervous about having to advertise or network a little for business like I was last year. That said, I really want to get the academic coaching aspect of my business up and running – especially now that I’ve actually done it a few times and feel confident that I can coach kids successfully – so in order to move that along, I decided to head on over to Vistaprint and create a brochure I can leave at libraries and other places I think I can generate some interest.

This is a proof of what I’ve put together so far; Vistaprint has some really easy to work with templates and really decent prices (100 for $60); I’ve sent this to some friends to review before I place an order, but I really want to get some in-hand before I finish up my work with the coaching client I have now, so I can give some to his mom to hand out to other people if she’s willing. I also want to make up a postcard similar to this one to promote my English tutoring business and leave those at the same places I put my coaching brochures. I probably need to update my website, too, since it’s been a year since I put it together and I didn’t really know what my business was going to look like back then. It’s pretty astounding to look back at where I was a year ago with all this and how far things have come.

I had lunch last week with one of the teachers who worked with me in the program I ran at the private school, and I admit it was validating to have it confirmed for me that things did not exactly improve after I left. In fact, the general sense is that the people who stayed behind at least realize how hard I worked and understand that I had good ideas that would have benefited the program had I been able to stay on. I don’t think anyone feels that the arrangement the school made with current director was the proper one to make, and even though it doesn’t matter to me either way now, it’s still nice to hear that there are at least a few people there who understood and supported what I wanted to do. Moving on.

That’s all I have for now – happy end of the weekend to everyone, and I hope you all have a great week!

Before I talk about my latest portrait sessions, enjoy a random shot of Simon:

Simon likes to sit on this teeny little cat tower we bought for Violet when she was a kitty. It only has one little ‘bridge’ at the bottom but I Photoshopped in a second one for symmetry. 

I hadn’t been much in the mood for portraits the past few months, but two weeks ago I woke with the urge to put on a full face and play around. Ever since discovering the Portrait Pro plug-in about a year ago, I’ve gotten a bit lazy with my makeup application before a shoot, just because I can add so much of it when processing that it at least feels like it saves me a lot of time (applying a full face of photography makeup can take up to two hours). But in going over many of these shoots, I found myself getting frustrated with the limitations of the software, and how my end results just weren’t as good as I wanted them to be. More specifically, I was feeling like my recent portraits were not as good as they used to be, and I looked everywhere to find the culprit, thinking it was primarily some issue with my lighting that was off.

The primary problem I was having with these portraits was skin tone; even with the editing software I kept ending up looking kind of ruddy and ‘off’ or over-processed when trying to correct it, and the tones just weren’t very rich in the end, and it was throwing off the whole photo (in my picky opinion). But I would go back to previous shoots and clearly see how much more vivid and rich the shots looked in the end, and how much more natural the shots ended up even with a ton of processing. I didn’t really know the makeup short cuts I was taking were the culprit when I set out to do apply a full face a few weeks ago, but once those shots were done the results were obvious.

All these shots were so much easier to edit, and I had way more flexibility in how much manipulation I could do with the tones and lighting. And a lot of that came down to not needing to edit the makeup as much as I’ve been forcing myself to do lately. A “full face” for me is no joke – I start with an orange color corrector to cut the darker blue tones I have due to sun damage on my face (drag queens use orange to help conceal their five o’clock shadows) then apply a heavy Derma-blend foundation, and three different highlighters over the forehead, nose, and cheekbones (Derma-blend, NARS Illuminator, and a MAC cream highlighter). After blending all of that out with a sponge, I contour with a powder from MAC under my cheekbones, along the sides of my nose, and heavy on my chin to try to make it look a little shorter since I have a long face. I also apply a lot of highlighter under my cheekbones just to make them look more pronounced – I think you can see the effect of that in this shot:

This was inspired by a photo the drag queen Trinity Taylor posted on Twitter; she had on a brightly printed top, cinnamon-colored hair, and orange lipstick, and I wanted to give it a go myself. 

Because my makeup takes so long to do if I’m really going to do it properly, I’ve started applying it in shifts when prepping for a photoshoot. If I do it all at once, by the time I’m done I am already so bored that I have to re-energize myself to take the pictures, and I also start getting really sloppy by the end of the application process. So, what I now do is get all the foundation and highlight/contour applied, then take a break. I may do a few things to set up the office/studio, like set up my lights or get the backdrops unfolded and propped against the wall, or take the dogs out for a bathroom break – just something to break up the monotony of staring into a mirror and applying makeup.

The eyes take the most work for me; I’ve always known to apply a lot of black eyeliner and shadow, and to darken my eyebrows as much as I dare (even when being lazy and not applying a full face), but one thing I hit on last month was that applying a brightly colored liquid liner to my entire eyelid makes my lids pop in a way they don’t do otherwise; since I’m approaching 50, my lids are starting to droop, and they were never very big anyway, so they tend to disappear in photos. In my first of the two shoots, I’d applied a lime green liquid liner made by Lime Crime, and you can see how it really made my eyelids stand out in a way that, in the photos, actually looks pretty natural (in reality it looked very heavy-handed and costume-y, but who cares).

The trick is to apply it to the entire lid, and then extend it a bit higher than that, so that if your eyelids get concealed a little bit by less-than-taut skin, they will still pop on camera (obviously the Trinity Taylor-inspired pic is from a different session, where I went with a different eye makeup look and didn’t use this technique). It’s amazing how much difference such a little detail makes in a photo, but it really does help quite a bit. In fact, my Lime Crime neon liquid liners are really old, and I need to dash over to their website and pick up some more since the ones I have (a neon green, a bright eggshell blue, and two shimmer liners in gold and silver) are almost done.

For this shoot, I also used some more of my face stickers I bought around Christmas last year; the nice thing is that you can wear them in the shoots and Photoshop them out quite easily if you decide you don’t want them in the shot later. 

Other than that, I sometimes use the tape technique of placing a piece of Scotch tape on the outside of each eye, from the outside corner of the eye up to the edge of the eyebrow, to get a nice sweep of eyeshadow that is even on each side; this works well when creating a cat-eye shape with dark liners and shadows, which I usually do. And false eyelashes are really amazing eye enhancers, but I just cannot apply them properly or tolerate the lash glue, so I do add all my lashes using Portrait Pro (I apply mascara as usual, but in photos it just doesn’t show up at all). I tried blocking my brows to create a more exaggerated eye one time, but ended up losing a lot of eyebrow hairs in the process (and I already have thin brows) so I don’t do that anymore – if I want a higher brow line, I move my natural brows up in Photoshop instead, as in this picture:

Sweaters are tricky for photos; they’re hot, which is a challenge under studio lighting, and the fabrics can look dull and heavy. But this one had sparkle and those two great zippers that I thought would add interest. 

After applying my eyes, I’m usually ready for another break, so I eat some lunch or maybe start some laundry and finish setting up my camera and props for the shoot. For some reason, working in shifts like this keeps me from getting impatient and frustrated, and it sets a more relaxed mood for the whole shoot (I can start to feel rushed if I don’t pace myself, and I’ve learned the hard way that bad things happen when the photographer AND the model get rushed. At the best, you just end up with  bad pictures, but at the worst you end up getting sloppy when moving about or handling equipment, and something expensive gets broken).

This top was a fun discovery; in Goodwill I just liked the look of the polka dotted top peeking out from under the black sweater, but when I got home and put it on I was pleasantly surprised by the sleeves! They’re actually quite puffy and it creates an interesting shape; I had to get really creative with my posing to show them off, which happens sometimes when interesting sleeves are involved. Honestly, if this top wasn’t already worn out I’d add to my wardrobe – the sweater is dingy and pilled, though. 

For final makeup touches, I apply one of Laura Mercier’s sparkly powders in all the highlighted areas (you really can’t get enough highlighter, it’s true), apply some blush in both cream and powder form, do my best to contour my nose and jaw line, and apply my lips as best as possible – I’m not good with drawing on bigger lips, and I usually use a liquid long-wearing lipstick for photo sessions, so I just use the wand to apply a line right outside my lip line, then fill that in. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, but even when it works I usually end up having to fix some sloppy lipstick work later. Fortunately, it’s not too hard to fix. Then – and this is really important – I apply Derma-blend to my neck, chest, and arms; I have a lot of sun damage that, if it shows up in photos, is very hard to work with. There’s a million different tones to it, and dark spots, and all that skin ends up not matching my face or even some other part of the neck or chest. The Derma-blend is so high coverage, though, that it evens things out nicely, and makes those sun damaged areas much easier to work with later.

The wig is actually a magenta color; had to use Photoshop to turn it red. I did a better job with that in the second shot; it’s actually tricky to do without also turning the background a different color around all the little flyaway hairs. 

The second shoot – the one these two photos right above came from – was a bit tricky because I got half of my makeup on, then remembered I needed to pick up some medications from the vet before they closed (it was a Saturday, so the vet’s office closed at noon). I only had my foundation on at that point, so even though it irritated me to do it, I put everything on pause to zoom up there and get Penny’s meds. Then, since I was out already, I figured I’d stop by our local Goodwill to see if they had any tops I could snag; I woke up inspired to play in makeup and take pictures, but I was running a little low on new things to wear in them, which is another thing that always ends up frustrating. Sometimes I’ll think, oh I can just throw on any old thing for these photos, since it’s only my head and shoulders showing anyway, but that rarely works out.

Overalls are great, though. As are pom-pom headbands. 

The truth is, interesting tops are super-helpful for portrait shots, and way more important than you might think. A t-shirt doesn’t have a nice drape to it, and that material isn’t particularly attractive in a photo, so a sloppy top really can bring down an otherwise nice shot. When I hit up Goodwill, I’m always looking for tops with interest – high necks, textured materials, interesting details, flowy fabrics, vibrant prints, anything I know will add pizzazz – and on this trip I scored some real winners. The Hotrod Angel photo has to be the best acquisition, though; if you notice in those two shots above, one side is the front of the top, and the other one I have on backwards where there was another awesome logo (wearing tops backwards is a trick I employ often, if the back has more interest than the front). I didn’t even realize the back of that top had anything on it until I got home; as soon as I saw the front of it I knew I had to have it. It was a junior’s size small, though, and I barely got it on, and I even thought I might have to cut myself out of it, but it stretched just enough for me to save it.

So much more to process from these two shoots, but that’s all I have for now. So what have I learned? Patience, and planning, and proper preparation make for better photos. Seems I should have known that already, but shortcuts are always so tempting…more to come!

I mentioned in my last post that I was headed out for my yearly visit to the Villa de Matel Ruah Center in Houston. I’ve written a lot about the place, so I won’t go on about it this time except to share how this most recent visit went. And to share some pictures:

I brought along my Canon SL1 and my Sony camcorder for the hell of it – I didn’t use either one much, because I’ve taken so many photos of the place over the years I hardly needed more. However, I did spend time taking a lot of photos of the interior of the chapel, rather than just the usual quick pics I’ve done in the past. I asked my advisor if it was actually OK to go in and take a ton of pics, and she said it was – she also told me where I could find the light switches to turn all the lights on in there, since they are normally left off unless there’s an event happening. I was still too timid to turn them on myself, but I when I went in there to take photos someone was cleaning it, and they turned the lights on for me when they saw I was taking pictures, which was nice. I’d already taken a ton of photos before they turned the lights on, which also turned out to be great because taking photos of the chapel in low light turned out some nice results too – just very different ones from the photos taken with the lights on.

A low light shot

I went to Ruah this time with a specific purpose, which was to re-focus on my tutoring job and decide whether or not to continue pursuing it or if I should just get a full-time teaching or counseling job in the public school system again. This whole past year, I was basically tutoring because it wasn’t a lot of work and it provided me a lot of time off, which was what I wanted. But lately that’s been feeling unsatisfactory. First of all, whether I like it or not I am getting more clients, and the more kids I get the more work I need to do to stay on top of all their different needs. This is something I wasn’t doing a good job of before going to Ruah, and I knew if I was going to keep tutoring I needed to really commit to it and start taking it seriously. What I decided in my time there was that yes, I do want to keep working for myself as a tutor, and that it was time for me to start putting in the work hours required to do the job properly. Once I realized that I was really on board with this whole thing, and really did want tutoring to be my ‘real job,’ I was able to come back home and attack it with the energy it needs, which has been nice.

One of my low-light creations

I also wanted to dedicate myself once again to eating properly and being more healthy. As a result, I signed up for both yoga classes and a workout/bootcamp class. I need the yoga to stay flexible, and am not interested in anything super-challenging, but the boot camp I really need to get myself back into shape. I am taking the classes with a woman who’s been my trainer off and on for well over 10 years now, so it was nice to see her again and catch up. And as an added bonus, the yoga teacher at the class I attended last week was a former teacher at one of the public schools where I used to work, so I got to catch with her as well.

I really hit the ground running the week I returned; summer tutoring is a lot different from the work I do during the school year, because my students are all off for the summer (with one exception, a student who is voluntarily taking English III during the summer to free up his schedule in the fall) and therefore do not have class work for me to help them with when I tutor them. So, I am having to create lessons for everybody, and when you tutor seven different kids in seven different grades attending seven different schools, it’s kind of like being a classroom teacher and having seven different classes to prep for. Except I am only planning for one hour a week. But still, as I take on more of a workload, the more planning I need to do, and I admit I’m still getting used to doing what almost feels like a full-time job again.

My little fifth-grade student, however, failed her state exam again, and after working with me since February and failing the test twice, I told the mom I felt it was time for her to work with a different tutor, since clearly I was not helping her. I found her a reading specialist, and now that girl is working with her to get her caught up. The lesson I needed to learn there was to be much more cognizant of how my students are faring during our sessions, and speak up if I feel I’m not much help rather than sucking it up and trying to keep improving things. I don’t like to admit defeat, and it feels terrible to have to say to someone, sorry, but I don’t think I can help your child, but to not say it is worse in the end. I didn’t intentionally hang onto her too long, I just didn’t know any better than to keep trying, but still, I should have bowed out sooner than I did. Lesson learned.

For a lot of time while I was at Ruah, I felt restless and unfocused, so in the end it’s surprising I got as much out of the visit as I did. There were plenty of distractions – the constant political news on Twitter, the knowledge of how much work I had to do after I left, and concern over another student who didn’t end the school year on a good note, just to name a few. And on top of that, my room this time was one of those  really creaky old rooms that makes a lot of noise, which kept my up my first night there; every time I was about to fall asleep a window would pop or a board would creak and I’d be awake again; after the first night I was used to it, but a creaky room in a 150-year-old building can be pretty freaky at 3 AM when one isn’t prepared for that. And I wasn’t, because usually I sleep like a baby when I’m there.  But by the time I left, I really did feel like I’d gotten past whatever barrier was holding me back from committing to my  new job, so Ruah worked it’s magic on me once again.

I did try to take some video of the center while I was there, and one thing is for sure: I am not a videographer. Still, I tried  to capture a bit of the sights and sounds of the center, so I’ll leave it to you to decide if I accomplished that or not.

So anyway, I’m back home now, and busier than ever, which I think is a good thing, even though it’s freaking me out a bit for life to be a little hectic when it hasn’t been for so long. But I was stressed enough when I was worrying all the time that I’d never be  busy again, so I’ll take it.

I’m on my way back to Ruah tomorrow at the Villa de Matel, and am very much looking forward to another week of solitude and reflection. My visits there are hit or miss, as some of my previous blog posts can attest, but usually when I go during the work week and at the start of summer the retreat center is pretty empty, and I can have the place more or less to myself. I’ll share a few new portraits here as I ramble – haven’t had any new ones to upload in a while.

I’m sure that a lot of my time at Ruah this year will be spent reflecting on where I was last year at this time, when I went for my summer visit a mere few weeks after I quit my job. At the time I was so sad, and broken, and frightened about the future that it dominated all the reading, writing, and reflecting when I was there (both times – last year I went in both June and July). I plan to take the old notebooks I was writing in then to look them over and see how far I’ve come, as well as make some plans for the coming year (as a teacher, I still measure my ‘years’ in relation to the school year, so June 1st is more of a “new year” to me than January 1st is). I know I am ready to grow my business a bit more, as well as try to utilize all my free time better in various ways I’ll get into in a moment.

But first, my business. Along with English tutoring, I decided last summer to offer my services as an Academic Coach to middle and high school students. I figured I could use my school counseling background to help kids with low motivation or organizational skills much in the manner I did when I worked as a mentor at the private school. At first, I started offering this service on my own, but I found it wasn’t going so well, so I decided to take a course to get some structure I could follow. I signed up for an Academic Coaching training class, and since I did it in haste as I was already coaching a kiddo and feeling lost, I didn’t pay too much attention to the details (bad, I know) and was shocked to find out, during the first session, that the course was six months long. Yikes. I figured it would be six weeks at the most, but nope. Six solid months of a two-hour class, online, once a week. During these sessions, we’d discuss the week’s concept for about an hour, then spend the next hour  ‘practice coaching’ each other. I admit to finding most of this boring and tedious, and at most times not very useful – but then again, I never really gave it my full attention. For the most part, I would keep the camera on my webcam turned off so I could edit photos or scan Twitter for the first hour when the discussion was going on, then wing my way through the practice coaching the best I could.

I’ve never found practice coaching other students all that useful (in grad school, we had to practice our counseling techniques on each other also) because you’re working with someone who is obviously going to totally cooperate with you every step of the way, and make things easy. This does not translate to real life very well, and sure enough, I’ve already had problems outside of class that never came up much in the training. Then, when I try to ask someone who was either in my class as a student or who is affiliated with the program as an instructor, they all act totally surprised that I’m having issues, which leads me to believe that they either a) are not actually coaching and therefore can’t help me, or b) they are totally having the same problems and just don’t want to admit it. In the case of the other students, I think most of them actually haven’t gone on to coach at all, or are working with adults or college students who have a lot more investment in following through. In the case of the instructors, I’m becoming more and more convinced that they don’t actually coach much at all, and make their money by training other coaches instead. Whatever. In short, I’m not sure how well this whole coaching aspect of my business is even going to work; it’s not going as well as I want it to right now, and I am kinda feeling like the course I took was a ripoff that I should have investigated more closely before even pursuing. Oh well, what’s done is done, and I always have the English tutoring to fall back on, which is going quite well.

One of my other goals for the year is something I make a goal every year and have yet to actually do – I really, really need to be a healthier person. As it is, I get back pains and body aches and stiff joints regularly, sometimes to the point of needing medication or bed rest, and it’s really for no apparent reason at all, other than being stiff and out of shape and therefore pulling muscles by sneezing or walking up some stairs. I’ve always had bad knees – runs in the family – and my right one is getting worse, so much so that I have a hard time getting up off the floor when I need to and it sometimes just gives out on me out of nowhere. I have sciatica that acts up, and the ever-present right arm/wrist/shoulder pain from too much time at the computer, and on and on – you get the idea. Oh, and my diet is utter crap. So, with all the free time I now have, I really have no excuse not to take a yoga class to improve my flexibility, and perhaps some of sort strength training class to get myself back into decent shape. And I must learn how to cook some decent, healthy meals, and stop with all the processed junk I currently consume. So I am going to spend some time at Ruah reflecting on all of this also, and coming up with a plan for how to do it. As I watch my parents grow old – especially my mom, who is not healthy and (like me) never has been – it reminds me how quickly so many years of not exercising and eating right can sneak up on you and steal you of your health, and with so many people in this life who suffer from real, serious health issues, it would be a real shame for me to squander my relatively illness-free existence in my later years by refusing to get it together. The rubber has hit the road, so to speak, and it’s time for me to move forward.

So that’s where my thoughts will be this week, then it’s back to it when I get home next Saturday to fill out my summer tutoring schedule and start planning for June and July. This will be the first summer since the year 2000 that I’ve actually continued to work, but I’m not too bothered by that, because as long as I can stay up late and sleep in I still feel like I’m on vacation, so I’ve basically been on vacation all year. But I do love my trips to Ruah, where I really and truly feel like I don’t have to do ANYTHING at all. It’s what the place is made for. I do plan to bring along a camera, although at this point there’s nothing new for me to photograph there, and I’m going to try to remember to bring my video camera too; I’ve always wanted to film a little walking tour of the grounds, but have never been able to pull it off for various reasons. We’ll see if it works this time.

Have a great week!