Brett Long Photography

An ongoing debate in our household is whether or not I can call myself a "photographer." I've been assisting Rebecca for every wedding and been with her for 95% of all other sessions outside of Samford stuff. Am I on her level of skill? Absolutely not. However, I've picked up some stuff along the way. I can operate a camera pretty efficiently and she does actually use my pictures a good bit. She occasionally threatens to fire me, but there's no way she could find somebody to work as cheap as me. I really like taking pictures. Its always different, challenging, and a nice change of pace from my business. Its also great getting to work with my wife. A lot of shoots are at inopportune times, nights/weekends, but we're together so I don't mind.

There have now been two occasions in which I have acted completely solo. I joke that I am going to break off and start my own photography business, but that would quickly take away the fun. The first time was last spring when I shot the Southern Conference Track Championship hosted at Samford. Rebecca and Caroline were tied up with Samford stuff, so the conference photographer hired me as his side for the weekend. It was a good time, but weird being on my own.

The second time came this past Thursday night. A family friend called last minute to see if Rebecca was available to shoot a small premiere ceremony for the movie Courageous. The photographer they usually use had backed out. Rebecca was already doing something at Samford, so I called the guy back to tell him she was busy, but I was available if that would do. He would take whomever at this point in the day. So I drove to the theater and went to work.

The movie is the fourth production from Sherwood Films, a ministry of a church out of Georgia. This film is about the importance of fatherhood and depicts the lives of four sheriff's deputies. So the premise of the premiere was to honor the local police officers around the city. Along with a bunch of officers, the state Attorney General Luther Strange was there. Overall attendance was not that great, but the people there were excited.

We had already planned on going the following night with our small group, so I did not stick around for the movie. So my payment for my time was free tickets for Rebecca and me on Friday night. With movie prices these days, its a decent amount for my skill level.

Rebecca touched up my photos when I got home. She even said they were acceptable enough to but her company name on them for media release.

So Brett Long Photography is available for all your photography needs.

The extremely tall man is Attorney General Luther Strange coming in at 6'9"

Data Dilemma

We recently had a minor disaster at Rebecca Long Photography. I came home one day to Rebecca telling me that "Fat Bear" (Rebecca gives all of our hard drives names involving a bear) was ejecting itself from the computer. Trying not to panic I examined the situation and came to similar results. All our photos from summer weddings thus far were on the hard drive. Now, we had multiple back-ups of these photos, so completely losing clients photos was never in the picture. However this is the hard drive we were working off of, so all the time put in to sorting and editing on those weddings was potentially lost. I'd estimate about 60 hours of work.

We spent most of that night exploring different options for our situation. I read some forums about similar problems and we tried the drive on different computers ruling out various potential issues. Nothing worked so we figured the drive had "crashed." We then explored various recovery options. They all had one thing in common: expensive. I had no idea about the world of data recovery. It must be much harder than I imagined and not many people doing it.

The next day Rebecca went to a guy here in Birmingham who had a nice website. He ended up running the business out of his home and looked like he had not left his home in a long time. Jorts, unshaven, ratty t-shirt, and open fly were just a few of the first things noticed. He then proceeded to tell Rebecca the doom and gloom of data loss. "Your hard drives will probably only last 6 months and all the things you've been doing have been wrong. At this point I wonder why the manufacturers don't tell you the proper way to use their products. He told Rebecca even he can't do the recovery himself and has to send it off for a mere $1200. We decided to keep looking around. She found a company in Florida that actually does the recovery. She talked to Richard and after her sob story he gave her a quote of $800 if they are able to recover your stuff. We decided it was worth it and sent it off.

In the mean time we decided to revamp our back-up protocol. We purchased a Drobo S. I'm not the best at explaining this, but I think its like a mini server. It has 5 slots for 3.5" hard drives. It uses the RAID technology and automatically makes back-ups of your stuff. So if one of the drives fails, everything is still on the other ones. So we also got four 1.5 terabyte drives to put in it. I also bought a battery back-up for her computer and new storage device in case of a power failure. So $2000 later, we feel more protected and now follow the "3-2-1 back-up method"

• Make 3 backups of everything
• On 2 different types of media
• Take 1 to a different location

With there being lots more digital information and all of it needing to be stored, the ability to do this indefinitely seems like quite a challenge. Hard drives keep getting bigger and files themselves keep getting larger. The fear of losing things can be quite haunting.

All of this was a good reminder on where you store your treasure.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." - Matthew 6:19-20

Role Reversal

I have been helping Rebecca since her very first wedding back in December of 2007 and haven't missed one since. I love helping her and being a part of all her photo endeavors. Rebecca keeps me around because we're married and I'm a cheap worker. She occasionally threatens to fire me, but I manage to survive.

We have talked several time about her coming to help me one day to see what my days are like. However she is usually super busy and it hasn't worked out. Well today she had plenty she could be working on, but did not have to be anywhere and I could use the help. So for her initiation to Longscape she helped me spread 75 bales of pine straw. Today was the first real hot and humid day which does not go well with pine straw. She was a trooper and a tremendous help. I thanked her several times throughout the day, because it would have taken me all day by myself.

We went out to eat afterwards and she got a milkshake. Then we got home we both took a two hour nap. I don't think I'll be able to retain her as an employee like she does me.

Flashbus in Nashville

Rebecca and I are both approaching our busy time of year. This past weekend was a sample of several more to come. On Thursday we drove to Starkville for an engagement session, then another on Friday. On Saturday we shot a wedding before we headed back to Birmingham. Its great having clients in Starkville which allows us to travel to our old home and see all our MSU friends.

On Sunday we had the opportunity to drive to Nashville for a one day seminar called the FlashBus Tour featuring Joe McNally and David Hobby as the speakers. Rebecca, Caroline (Rebecca's Samford boss), and myself made the trip. As the name implies the seminar was all about small flash. Lighting is probably the hardest aspect of photography to me. Its easy to take a nice picture outside, but to be able to light up someone nicely indoors or in low light in an interesting manner, takes some skill. Rebecca and Caroline are way ahead of me on skill level, so I mainly went to be able to have a basic understanding of what Rebecca is trying to accomplish when I help her on shoots. As many of the volunteers had these as name tags, I am the VAL - "Voice Activated Lightstand."

We had a great time and I learned a lot. Both speakers are well respected in the photography world and they were both great speakers which kept it interesting. Lots of great simple tips on lighting to make a picture so much more interesting.

On a side note, I've always visioned photographers as "artsy" people, well the bunch at this stop on the tour was more like a Star Trek convention with cameras. Lots of dry humor comments from the audience and technical lingo on camera workings. We saw several clever t-shirts like: "Do you mind if I shoot you?" or "Ask me to flash you." I would be willing to bet I was the only Agronomist there.

Who are the nerds taking pictures with the bus?

We took these pictures with no flash, ignoring everything we just learned from the day

Samford's Step Sing

This past weekend while I was out of town my wife was consumed with arguably Samford's biggest event of the year, 'Step Sing.' While most schools have tickets scalped for sporting events, this is the one Samford event where tickets are very hard to come by. Step Sing is basically a show choir production where various groups are competing for bragging rights. Rebecca and Caroline brainstormed the idea of creating and selling posters using their photographs to raise money for their photography department. They took pictures opening night, Rebecca designed the posters, and then sold them Friday and Saturday night. Since posters had never been done before no one knew about them and sales were slow at first. By the second night word had gotten around and they were a huge hit. Some groups sold out and had to take additional orders. I joined Rebecca this past Wednesday on campus to set up a table for order pick ups and last chance purchases of extras. The beautiful weather made for a great midday of hanging out with my wife.

Snow Days

The cold weather seems to be dominating my latest posts. The fact that it has been so cold is why I have the time to write this at the moment. I had to take a 'snow day' from work. I even got up with the full intention of working outside today. By the time I got to my parents to get the equipment, the rain/sleet had become quite persistent. I hoped I could wait it out to no avail. With this cold and the amount of precipitation that had fallen, yard work would not happen. So I went back to the house to help Rebecca with photo stuff.

Monday I also did not work outside because of the cold and wind. When leaves are the main culprit being cleaned, any amount of wind can make the job quite frustrating. Thinking I would have plenty of time the rest of the week I decided to stay home. So Monday was also a photo day.

Sunday I did work outside on the coldest day of the year so far. However it was not with Longscape, but with Rebecca. A family needed pictures for a Christmas card and adoption process, so we had to go ahead with it. I bundled up like Randy in A Christmas Story. I had 6 layers on my torso, 2 pairs of pants, boots, gloves, and toboggin. I was nice and toasty. However the poor little girls in the family did not have the luxury of so many layers since they had to look good for the pictures. They were quite the troopers and managed to smile through their chattering teeth.

Its suppose to warm up tomorrow, so hopefully I can get back outside.

Thanksgiving

Even though we're no longer in school, Rebecca and I still get to take a similar style break for the holiday season. Since Samford shuts down and my business is in its seasonal slow, we got to take several days off.

My aunt and uncle from Minnesota were in town with my grandparents. They all came to Birmingham on Wednesday. So we had our family meal with them that evening. Rebecca and I then headed to Starkville to see her Dad's side of the family.

This was my 9th trip back to Starkville since we left at the end of July. This was my first time ever though to be in Starkville over Thanksgiving. The city was the calmest I've ever seen it with all the students and a lot of residents out of town for the Holiday. I went on my 'long' run before the actual half marathon next weekend. I did 12.5 miles in just under two hours. So I should be able to meet my goal of two hours for the actual race. We stayed at Mammie's house. Rebecca's parents were also there that first night. Thanksgiving day the rest of the family came to town. We had a great meal and I think I was the only one who went back for seconds. Maybe because I ran so much that morning. Soon after we ate it got very quiet as everyone found a corner to lie down and nap. That's one of my favorite parts of the holiday. A full stomach with nothing to do but relax. After everyone began to stir we decided to go to campus and take some family photos. The weather was still unusually warm that day so I'm in shorts. That evening everyone except Mammie, Rebecca, and me headed home. It was good to get some time with Mammie without all the action of the big crowd.

Friday was Mammie's birthday so we took her to Old Venice for lunch. When we got back they took a nap. Rebecca got in one of her 3 hours specials. I called up my friend Matthew so I would have someone to watch the Iron Bowl with. What and up and down heart break. Mammie had some extra tickets to MSU's basketball game so Rebecca and I went for the first half. Good to get to see the a little of the basketball team. Although I'd be surprised if we do very well in SEC play.

Our evening activity and reason for the extended stay was the MSU Egg Ball. The family we did the Bat Mitzvah for back in June asked up if we would shoot the event. Being a charity fund raiser they couldn't pay us, but it gives up the opportunity to sell the photos online and make a lot of good contacts. The event was to raise money for Kids Count. They had a live and silent auction, a band, and dancing. It took place on the club level of Davis Wade Stadium. It lasted four hours and we took a lot of pictures. It was a nice change from a wedding since we weren't in charge of anything and could just document the events of the evening. Hopefully we will get some orders. Even if we don't make a lot of money off the event, we were going to be in Starkville anyways for Thanksgiving and we got to spend some extra time with Mammie.

We headed out on Saturday around 1. We helped put up some of Mammie's Christmas decorations before we left. She had laid awake a good portion of the night with a fibulation in her heart. So she was thrilled when she saw her decorations up. It was a great trip and lots of fun with family. Rebecca was able to catch up on her rest and get away from editing for a while.  We are so fortunate to have such wonderful families that not only get along, but enjoy being with each other.