nano’s rumble rag

I've lived to tell the tale. PhillyBuster event is over. I went through a lot of "aids" to get me through the four days: 18 Motrin caplets, gallons of Diet Coke and coffee. This is paltry stuff to help. The real help was from the istockers in attendance. I was totally AWOL from any socializing. I had to keep my head together. I certainly look forward to just being an attendee someday. Emails are coming in from models, location owners still—after the event.

Behind the Scenes
Azurelaroux dropped off paperwork before she drove her 4 hour drive home. I'll be signing all the model releases, going over the banking, receipts and assembling the property releases and agreements all into one folder.

There are 100 model releases and we're probably missing a few. I will need to chase them down and fill in missing info for zip codes, etc. on the ones I have.
istockers were recruiting like crazy.

At point, I have to thank the organizer team for all their efforts.

Diane handled all the models. She had 60 responses to the initial casting call. Imagine her emails. Had she not taken that responsiblity I would have been over the top. All the models were calling her on her cell throughout the event.  I think we had 17 paid models. Her hubby even posed for us at CORT. I literally had him take off his shirt and tie to use on another model.

Azurelaroux (NanW) handled more details than I could imagine. Spreadsheets, calculations for headcount, the handouts, cell phone lists, Yahoo group administration, etc. Brett aka periwinkle helped out with the MRs and was Azure's right hand person. They both handled the registration and also scanned MRs every night after a shoot. Neeley aka inkspotts helped them and also made signs, name badges handled all the model cards and collected at the end of each shoot.

Ethan was an ace. Setting up a website for registration, coding the thing—egads, Paypal and the back end for uploading our shots electronically. I was in his face for months.

Bonniej handled all the presentations, handouts for the educational shorts and direction of the lighting set ups, metering lighting stations and a ton of helping to the other photogs.

Carolyn and Howard handled all the travel/directions. Pickups/dropoffs ferrying the non-car owners around.
 
Andi went with me to scout Loews and opened the bank account with me as well as getting us a kickass MUA for the event.

Haze aka Studio 524 did double duty too. She sat for hours to handle the MRs and also posed for us. Her husband, Don was a shooter, but he obtained our event liability insurance and also posed!

Thank you to all the presenters for the educational shorts. Bobbieo, DonC, nico_blue, bonniej, motoed. All of you did a fabulous job.

This is only the organizer team I mentioned. Motoed, bonniej, andipantz, eyejoy, qingwa, nojustice and a host of others helped out with the lighting. The guys helped lug equipment and heavier stuff for set up as well as whatever was needed. I barked at people to help with the lighting and they did. Poor Nicky, I always pick on him and he's so good about it. Will, Maury, Travis, Loretta, Mari, Michelle, Val were pitching in too. Eyejoy's hubby, David did whatever we needed done.  We had so many set ups so the set up and breakdown of equipment was critical to our shooting time at each location. Straycat was sent running with Howard for flowers and props. Ask her about her "sheet story!" Bobbieo did a lot of set up for the wedding with Diane. It took time away from both of them to shoot. Ditto for Bonniej who even loaned out her D2x to inkspotts and bobbieo to take shots.

Life continues
Forgive me if I didn't mention your name and exactly what you did. I have a lot of paperwork to do after the event and my normal life is calling out to me. Some of my design work clients are starting to bug. Egads.

I didn't see everything but know that all of the group helped each other throughout the 3 days.
It was just the right mix of people to work together in something of this size. I treasure meeting all of you and thanks for coming.

My humble thanks to all of you for what you did. AWESOME stock to come out of this one and great memories.

What was I thinking?
OKAY. I am examining if I have lost my mind or not.
I have wanted to have a 'lypse in Philly since Boston last Sept. '05.

Guess if I want one, I gotta do it myself!  So, if you only read Vox-y stuff, do visit the Events Forum on istock. There is certainly interest. Looks like a good lineup of attendees are interested.

PhillyBuster

Andrea is going to get dragged in. At least to shoot. She's kinda busy with her new studio.
I would love to meet so many of you in person. New or old. It matters not! :D

Popeye is hurting

The FDA has expanded and continued the ban on eating fresh spinach. Turns out the E. coli infection is spreading from more than just a few isolated outbreaks.
*cries* I just bought some Spring Mix at the Italian Market on Saturday so it's gone bye bye.

I receive alerts via email from emergencyemail.org. Not bad since I watch very little TV. I originally signed up for weather forecasts but they have added national alerts for other events.

Affected states:
There are now 21 confirmed states: California, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. However, product was also distributed to Canada, Mexico, and Taiwan.

Time out for spinach until further notice is in the advisory.

I'm going to enter a few banners into the Vox Banner Contest. I have more pix to sort through still so I don't know what I'll end up with. I hope I do this right!

Cripes, even if I won I don't have a designer's website, but I'll take the 5 invites for entering.

Infringe or impinge? Does might make right?

I've been friends with Terry for the last 17 years when we were both starting our own businesses. We started out together through a Mac users group. We'd spend hours on font talk. The friendship has lasted past the business level. My first venture out of the house after my daughter was born was swimming in her pool. She's always been the "artistic entreupreneurial" type of person whose company I enjoy so much. If she wasn't into making stuff like leather baskets and doing illustration, it was photography and experimental 3D stereograms.

An innovative soul. Make no mistake about it, she's not all right-brain. She's terribly tech-savvy. She has a fair list of credentials in her background, including some writing for a book on Quark and pattern development for Photoshop.

I dragged her into istock a while ago, but the woman is a busy woman. Terryfic3D is her username there.

The Fuss

So what's all the fuss? Seems that she developed a great product for laptops to protect them and began to market and sell it. It's called a TightPod(TM). The covers also fit MP3 players so when she applied for a trademark, it caught Apple's attention. They proceeded to issue a cease and desist letter two weeks ago. Seems Apple thinks that the word pod belongs to them! Does the might of Apple really make it right to push its tentacles into the furthest reaches of the earth? What next? Macintosh apples?

In the News

So, it's now all over the news and Net. If you'd like to read about it, go here for the links and thoughts from the global community and press. It's a damn shame since Terry is such an advocate of Macs and always has been an evangelist for their product. She is prepared to defend her trademark. I wish her the best of luck since I suspect that this could become a landmark case if it goes to court and set an ugly precedent.

How timely. A good article today in creativepro.com's repository of information.

The Pros and Cons of Lens Flare

What those "elements" are in a lens and how they work. Also, a nice explanation of lens hoods.