The Good, The Bad, & The In-between.

Since you heard from me last I have been up on stage at The Open Stage, gone to A-Kon handing out about 200+ business cards, gone to a new Egyptian based circle that I plan on attending again in the future, have began cooking more at home to eat out less, on my 4th week of summer camp, & have learned so much more about the world then I can begin to explain. 

Getting up on Open Stage was quite a whim but, as you all know, I have been wanting to do that for quite a while now. There was a small audience due to other happenings in the area so I took my chance when I could. It. Felt. Great. The best part is that I want to do it again but with something much more light hearted. I originally wanted to read off the poem I had written not to long ago I Have Died but I'm not too comfortable  getting up in front of people & reading something I haven't memorized due to my Dyslexia. I would rather not make an ass out of myself my first time on stage at a place I would like to be respected for who & what I am. So I went up & talked about something that was much closer to my heart. The good times & how we need to remember them more then the bad because they will get you through no matter what. Because the reason I am a photographer is because of the good times. Because of this one photo that I always remember seeing that has been burned into my mind now of a photograph of my mother & I at our first house front yard smiling like nothing else matter. It's the best memory I have sometimes. Of my mother & I. seeing how we don't exactly get along now. 

I guess you could say it's my personal creation story to my business, if that makes sense.

When I go up on stage next I think I am going to get everyone to do a summer camp song. Should be fun!

A-Kon...every year I saw after the passing weekend that it takes place I say that next year that "I'm not going next year!" but when time comes...there I am. Standing there wondering what the fuck is wrong with me to keep me coming back. This year it was all business though. 

I handed out 200+ business cards this convention to everyone that I took a photo of in Cosplay & since A-Kon my business' Facebook page has 17 more so likes then it did before & it's still counting! I'm I have a bit of the photos I have edited up from A-kon but I'm no where near done with them all. I actually have about 200+ photos to still edit after three different files dumps. We will see what happens when I get them all done. I am hoping to have 100+ likes by the end of it & have a big client base in the Cosplay world. The other exciting thing about A-kon was that I was on press staff! One of the people that volunteered got sick & wasn't able to make it, so I was given the spot. The lighting arrangement in the Sheraton was a challenge with no other light source, I know I did my best with what I had though & I will get the best results that I can out of them. Next year will be better for sure in that area!

I will be doing the same thing at A-fest with my business cards as well! Anytime I take someone's photo I hand them a card. Then more people will come to me for their photo needs! It would be even more amazing to be invited to a con as a photographer. That is a long ways off though. 

The last day of Kon however, was not so pleasant. 

Saturday night Girlfriend & I were getting ready to go to the rave when I received a text from a mutual friend of my ex-roommate & I saying that she needed to talk to me ASAP, she had something on her chest she needed to get off about ex-roommate that impacted Girlfriend & I in a big way. Girlfriend finished getting ready after we both kinda rolled our eyes at it thinking that it was the ex-roommate pulling shit again & strutted our way down to meet Mutual friend. 

Needless to say, when we got there, it wasn't the ex-roommate pulling crap. Mutual friend told us that she had stolen 300+ dollars from the dealers & that she had been barging about the things that she had stolen from me along with purposefully over charging me on rent because "I don't like her." Needless to say I was not okay. I CAN NOT wrap my mind around that. Doing something like that to someone because you simply "don't like them"... You know what? I don't fucking like you either but I would never over charge you on things that you couldn't afford to begin with. I would never go into your personal space & take things that didn't belong to me because I wanted to "get back at you" or what every. The only reason I can that that she doesn't like me is because I didn't do exactly what she wanted me to at one point & pushed away from her. I had other things in my life besides her & she didn't fucking like that. 

Needless to say I am still fairly angry & upset by this because I just don't understand it. I don't understand the though process, or the actions of it. I don't understand how you can live with yourself knowing what you can you have that isn't fair, or right to others. 

We tried to make something happen that night to get her booted out, but we had to wait until the next morning. By the end of it all, from what I know, she is now black listed from A-kon AND Ikki-con. We are also going to take actions at AnimeFest when we go this year to make sure this doesn't happen again. 

After all of this though I will say that I have gotten a much large back bone. I don't put up with much of anything unless I HAVE TO for some reason. I've even stopped putting up with things from Girlfriend. 

Sunday was also the day that Girlfriend's ex decided to cause whatever drama she wanted. It has finally gotten Girlfriend to agree not to talk to her at all anymore which makes me more then beyond happy, but that's another story for another day. 

The summer camp job is going over swimmingly! I love being with the kids & having such a strong influence on their life. I love walking into the buildings in the morning & have 5-10 different kids run up to me screaming my name while telling me how much they missed me. Even the camp songs are pretty awesome! It's all a joy, though the main boss is still a pain (the one above my site director.) but I only have to deal with her once in a while, so it's not so bad.

My most recent holiday was Midsummer in which Bitfrost is celebrating today, but last night I went to a circle that I had been trying to go to for MONTHS now & it finally all lined up. I loved it. I made some new friends & it was Egyptian based. They also do full moon circles with I am excited to attend in the next months. Today I am actually acting as High Priest of Bitfrost & calling down the sun energy then giving it to the circle. One BIG step for me. Here's to having the faith that I don't fuck it up. 

Over all I am well~ish..I am taking some me time out of life to get some of my personal internal issues settled after A-kon's drama. (You can never get away from it free.) I may post up a story or too soon once I get a clear vision of what I want in my head. It will be a Kradonous story because his thoughts just don't sound good written like a journal. 

Hats to you until then.

~Cyran J. Harrington~

Relic Photography, Memories Fade, but Photos are Forever.

Busy busy busy, what is what I have been really. I honestly shouldn't be taking my time out to write this but I feel like some me time now & again is a good thing. 

Business is good but not as good as I want it to be. Mainly my friends are the one's paying for photoshoots, which I beyond appreciate but I want to get gigs from people that look at my stuff & just think that it's that good that they would be willing to pay my price for it. I honestly think the price I am telling people it's bad at all for what they are getting. 75 dollars for a shoot, they usually last 1 hour or an hour & a half depending, I usually come out with about 300+ photos. I go through them pic out what shots would be best to edit, I usually get about 40-50 depending, then I spend about 5 hours editing (sometimes more). This bundle also comes with a free CD of any photos that I have edited with no watermarks. If someone is a close friend I drop the price for them or we work out something that is in their price range. If the customer wants prints it does cost extra due to having to resize the image, order it then drive to pic them up. I'm still working out price ranges for print packages though. 

I feel as though my work is quality even if I don't have all of those fancy things other people have. I just don't have the money for them right now & when I do I will be buying everything I need as I can afford but getting there is the hard part. The thing that I am looking at most right now is the Nikon D5100. It's a beautiful camera & something I need to upgrade to. It has a 100-6400 ISO & either 16-20 megapixels, there are a lot of other functions to it as well but those are the main ones I look at when I look at camera sections. I have found it as cheap as 700 right now & after my first check from working at summer camp (if things go my way) I will be the owner of it. This doesn't mean my D40 is going to just sit on a shelf. It will take me a while to get used to all the new functions for the new D5100 so I will still have my D40 out & about for a while until I get a chance to play with my new one until I am comfortable with it. 

If anyone reading this blog would like to check out my work then see my page at Relic Photography. This is as professional as I can afford right now but it has served me well so far, I look forward to it serving me for a bit longer until I get a stand alone site up. I kinda want to go out & hawk my camera abilities on a street corner like they do at the ren fairs, "Come come & see a magic trick of me freezing a moment in time for your viewing pleasure for the rest of eternity. Know that while you buy a shot or any photo from me then you are helping me towards making the moments I capture of you better & better." Who knows if it would sell anything or not. I'm sure I can come up with much wittier lines if I truly wanted to but that was the first thing off of my head. 

Lets see...this week I have to finish up a shot of my friend from Friday, then start on the photos from Scarbi on Saturday, & then I may have a shoot today for a friends mom with the kids & then tomorrow is Open Stage. I feel like I have to have all of this done by then end of the week too. My life will be much less crazy when I get caught up in all of my editing. It's happening slowly but surely but I need it to happen a bit faster. I want to get all of this done by the end of the week because next weekend is A-Kon 23. It's going to be nothing but three days of shooting (4 if you include Thursday.) but I know I will be better come out then going in. This is going to help me build up my portfolio for cosplay, get my name out there more in a world that always needs photographers, & lets me work on my indoor lighting skills along with doing things without having a real set up to it all. I will be grabbing people as the walk by & asking them if I can take there picture then handing them a card afterwards. I may take 4 hours out of the day to really look around & shop but for the most part this is a networking thing now not a pleasure thing. That's how I see it anyways. 

My summer job starts on the 4th of June & I am more then excited for this. I look forward to getting to know all the kids & spending lots of time with them, but I am always looking forward to the pay. Though it is a pay cut I will be working 40 hours, or at least should be. I think I'm going to love it. We go swimming every week one day & then every week we have a field trip that we go on. I'm sad that I won't be able to take my camera on these trips but I am excited to go & enjoy them just to enjoy them. I am freaked out about having to handle 10 kids every time I go in places like the Zoo, or Six Flags but this is just another learning opportunity & test on how well I will do with what situations. Besides watching the kids though I am in charge of working out crafts every week, or skits which I am excited for. I'll be working with another counsler on it & I know I can do crafts but the skits I am glad she will be there for. 

Over all the job is going swimmingly besides my direct boss being an ass. Apparently even though you are are not a christian you have to attend a service at training because it is mandatory for the "experience." I wanted to tell her that if I wanted the experience of god shoved down my throat I would willingly go down the road every Sunday. Sometimes I don't know how I keep my mouth shut. Then on Monday when I went to the main office to do somethings she called me out in front of everyone (which they train us not to do to the kids so I'm not really sure why it's okay for them to do it to us.) about how I didn't take out my lips rings at training. At that time I was still rather tired from the actually over night training so I just let it slid, but I wanted to go off on her more then anything in the world. 

Another big news about my job is that I am in charge of my site for the next week until schools out. I was in charge of it last week too. My site director found another, better paying job which she took. I feel I have handled the kids very well since she has been gone, though I can't say that about the other consuler there. I can't stand her honestly. She's useless unless when it comes to doing her job. The best part is when she tells me how to do my job. I kinda want to look at her & say "I think I can handle it seeing how I have only been here 3 months & trust me as site director when you have been here longer. Just sayin." Or I want to yell at her about not flirting with her boyfriend that works at the program next door, or yelling at the kids like that are dogs, or telling me what the hell is wrong with her when she doesn't run it by me before she does something with the kids. For example, we have a kid that likes to help around the school with her teachers & things. So she comes in & then leaves a bit later (after snake) well she told the other counsler & not me so I ran around looking for her for a good 10 minutes. I could have killed my Co-worker. 

Thankfully I only have to deal with her another week, then I'm done until next year & hopefully she won't be coming back. -Crosses fingers-

In other news Girlfriend & I are doing well now after our rough patch. Things are getting much better. We finally had a long talk with her like I said for months I was going to have with her. After that we are getting better. We now do this thing where very night before bed we say one positive thing about each other & one negative thing. The negative is more of something that is a constructive criticism thing then just bashing on each other. I think it gives us both a reality check after the day is done & keeps us on leveled ground because then we are both working on something together & have a general idea of how the other one is feeling in that time. 

This past week we went to get our ferrets checked up & the rest of their shots so & Ember is doing wonderfully from what I first took her in. That enlarged kidney is much, much better. She is eating ferret food now instead of cat food, & is gaining weight! She plays more & will follow me around. She comes out when I get home to say hi & get some lovin. Apollo & her are glued together I swear, unless one is sleeping. Over all this is a great thing & it makes me over joyed to hear it all & see it all. 

I think to wrap this whole thing up I'll just go over quickly what I am planning on doing other then job & photography wise. I picked up the guitar. It hurts my wrist a lot at the moment & I'm hoping that it hurt less the most I practice. I am still working on juggling, once I get two down it's on to three I'm getting there. Soccer is back in my life though I haven't gotten to truly go & play yet but I just found the keys to my storage unit so I can get my cleats out & head they way some Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday. I'm am starting to cast Runes slowly. I'm thinking about taking a Sunday & going up to a Starbucks or something & just sitting down & playing with them until people come up & ask for a reading. This sounds like a good way of practicing because that is honestly how I am going to learn them past what I have done right now. A friend of mine, who will be called Jeweler, have decided to take a leather working class. As long as you buy a kit the class for it is free which I'm more then excited for. I've wanted to work with leather for a while now so getting the chance to be thought is big in my book. Girlfriend & I have found a reasonable belly dance place that we are considering joining. It's 50 a month for a class a week & 6 moths for beginners, you end with a choreographer dance. I've wanted to do belly dance for a while now too & Girlfriend wanting to do it with me is even better. Jeweler is always going to teach me how to make jewelry too. 

I think that is it for now, there are other things I am looking at for later dates when I get more serious about them I will start informing you of what I am doing. 

I'm in the stage of my life where I am in the business of acquiring skills. 

~Cyran J. Harrington~