Paul Lester Photo

This weekend has been dedicated entirely to learning. I have taken a few frames here and there, like the picture included in this post, but for the most part, I’ve been between the couch and the computer reading, experimenting, learning. With this picture I put to use some of the training that I got from one of the Photoshop courses.

Video learning
There are so many things that I want to learn. I signed up for Kelby Training, which is an online video training site. They have some fantastic material concerning Photoshop as well as some pretty good photography related videos. You should jump on ever and have a look. The first 3 lessons of any course are free. If you want to subscribe, it’s $19.99/month, or $199/year. No contracts. No long term commitments.

Books
I’ve received 2 books:

• Book Design and Production. A guide for authors and publishers. If you’ve ever been interested in book design, which I wasn’t, this is a great book. Now, I look at books a whole different way. Very nice. I’m preparing myself to put together a decent looking, somewhat cohesive book for SoFoBoMo. Much thanks to Paul Butzi for mentioning it on his site. It’s worth having. Although the book is 294 pages of content, the first 108 are applicable to me, then there are some chapters on specific ways of doing a book, like using Adobe InDesign, which I cannot afford. I am using open source software, Scribus. The last 97 pages of the book is a quite comprehensive glossary. There is also a chapter on scanning, which I ignored.
• The Moment It Clicks: A beautiful 9×9 book filled with Joe’s wonderful work. The book is not big on technical information, but more along the lines of a collection of anecdotes offset by nice imagery.

Selling photos online
The search continues for the perfect solution. Not really, but I am still investigating possibilities.

Today, though the learning will probably be put on hold. I plan to go out and play, starting with taking the dog for a walk, doing a bit of geocaching with my son, a trip to the YMCA, and then perhaps a movie. I might get back around to the learning sooner or later.

Hopefully, I’m still operating within the rules of SoFoBoMo. I’ve started thinking about my design layout and font choices and perhaps narrowing down my choices of theme … it varies daily. I figure that it will still be lots of work to get 35+ pictures, text, editing, and layout all without 30 days, but it’s a worthwhile challenge, indeed.