It has been a busy month…

I spent a week in New York for my 20 year class reunion.  I had a good time as I was able to see a friend I’ve been wondering about since Fall 1991 but have never been able to contact.  I also got some good photos.  Some were tourist-y, but I did get some good artistic shots in as well.  It took a while to go through them all as in the end I took nearly 300 photographs.  Some of them were bracketed shots and I even got some on the tripod in order to attempt some HDR processing (more on that later).

After that I spent time catching up on work that serves to finance this blog.  After some nail-biting over the labor negotiations, we finally have NFL Football back in our lives.  My season tickets arrived just the other day.  Now I need to print some tickets to attend the open training camp days so I can get some new pics this year.  Last year I also attended a Minnesota Vikings training camp, which was fun.  I would like to attend a different team training camp this year, but for some reason I don’t think it’s going to happen.

And today I started the path to my formal photography education as I attended the new student orientation at the University of Houston.  I was surprised to find that I’m classified as a senior even though I have at least 4 semesters worth of work ahead of me.  The advisor told me that it’s probably based on the hours I accrued at Lonestar in pursuit of my AAS Management.  As I’m completing my core requirement (2 courses left!) at the Community College level, I didn’t want to take too many University-level courses.  It’s actually a good thing at this point – only 1 course I needed was open for registration as of today.  So, I am now taking an course in “Selected Topics in Art History.” There is a digital photography course I am required to take, but again that’s full.  I was told that a there is currently a pending request to add another section, but they are not sure if it will be approved in time for the Fall Semester.  If it isn’t approved I will need to sneak in behind someone who didn’t pay on time or try to get the instructor’s permission to take on another student.  On a good note, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I completed 9 of my 12 required hours of fundamental studio art courses (the digital photo course will make 12) and the advisor is giving me permission to take Junior level art courses as soon as they become available!

So, in a nutshell, that was my month of July.  I have also been making photographs, as you may have seen in the gallery site.  I swear I will one day unify both the gallery and the blog, I just need to find the time to work that out.  August will be a flurry of activity as I figure out how to pay for classes, start classes, and try to make art.  I hope you all are enjoying your summer.  For those you who have not seen my body of work, the link is below and on the home page.  Have a good night, everyone.

Rick’s Picture Corner Gallery