Every one of the professional wedding photographers that I have researched have all talked about the importance of doing a blog.  These folks have also mentioned that for months, they were convinced that only their parents or spouses were the only ones reading their blogs.  Now they are well-known, charging a gazillion dollars to shoot weddings and every blog has plus 20 responses telling them how cute and clever and wonderful said photographer is.  And trust me, I am not mocking their success, I aspire to that level!

But for right now, writing a blog is kind of like writing a diary, or journaling.  I am basically writing for my own amusement and satisfaction, but with the understanding that at anytime someone might glance a quick peak at my musings.  And so far it has been great fun.  The few people who have read my blog, I think I am still counting how many on one hand, have all responded positively, which is very encouraging, and trust me, I don’t need much encouraging to blather on about myself.

I have also been working on my post editing of pictures.  Pretty much every picture seen on this blog is minimally edited, limited mainly to cropping and some minor color adjustment using the software that came with my Canon.  After having attended a mini-workshop on Lightroom I decided it was time to  make the purchase.  I had done a 30 day trial when it first came out, but it was not very intuitive about how to use it, so I never did.  The workshop answered enough of my questions for me to decide to give it a go.  The first picture I wanted to re-edit was a picture of Van and Duc cutting their wedding cake.  I had posted this picture on my Facebook Poole Photography page and my website.  But it was poorly cropped and the white wall reflected the flash from my camera.  I went into Lightroom, re-cropped and got rid of the glaring white spot and came up with a decent picture.  My next step was to replace the clunky one with the newer version on all my sites.  Got Facebook and the website done, time for the blog.

On Wednesday, July 18, I opened my blog, went to my login, typed in my email, and…I couldn’t login.  I thought maybe I forgot my password, so I entered my email to recover my password, and WordPress told me that they had no blog site  registered to that email.  What?  I had just gotten emails from WordPress as late as Tuesday.  After trying to unsuccessfully login about 20 more times, and figuring out that nothing is changing, I  attempt to get into WordPress support.  The problem is, I can’t get into WordPress support unless I login.

I finally hit on an idea to try one of my other email addresses.  Success, sort of.  My other address got me into my first blog I had tried with WordPress, but had cancelled out.  And I still could not get into my current, much beloved blog.  But I could get into support.  Now I am used to companies that some type of direct access like an email address, or a toll-free number.  No such luck with WordPress.  I have to submit a question to the Forum, and wait for other WordPress users to give me an answer.  Well, that is the WordPress business practice, and that is their right, and I’ll play along.  However, it doesn’t work fast enough for my taste.  So after 7 hours or so of no answers, I asked my question again.  And again.  And then I finally get answers, the last answer being that I had already asked this question twice before and the thread was closed to anymore comments.  The only post I was getting answers on was now closed.  By now it is Friday.  I am not enjoying blogging anymore, and I am not impressed with the fact that answers to my problems are being handled by anonymous people who may or may not be interested in helping me or even have an answer for me.  Undaunted, I ask my question again.

The next answer I got from someone was that I had asked this question 4 times and that I was confusing people by posting so much and that they were flagging my question for the “staff”, and to be patient because it was Friday.  I thanked this person, even though I felt there was an underlying tone of snarkiness in the reply, for their help and for referring me to staff, which is all I wanted to happen in the first place.  I made up my mind to let it rest for the weekend.

SUNDAY, JULY 22, 2012.  I SOLVE THE PROBLEM MYSELF!

In your face, staff!

Back to Monday, July 16th I went to an Arizona Photography Group meetup about owning a photography business.  One of the suggestions was to make the business email reflect the business domain name.  This sounded like a great idea.  On Wednesday, July, 18, I went to GoDaddy and set up an email account using my domain name, timpoole@poolephotographystudio.com.  On Sunday night I thought I would check in with WordPress to see if anyone had answered  my question.  Then an idea hit me, I mean a serious, draw the lightbulb above my head idea.  When WordPress asked for my email to login, I used the timpoole email.  Shazaam!! I’m an in.  Cue the music and let fly the doves, I am in!

I am not a technology guy, by choice or by laziness, I am not sure.  All I can say for certain is that the changes I made to my email at GoDaddy were also made at WordPress.  And before the 6th reader of my blog comments and tries to explain why that happened, I will tell you now that I don’t care.  I just want to drive the car, I don’t need to know how it works.  But I was impressed, and hurt my arm patting myself on the back, that I eventually logically deduced a solution to my problem.  Yay me!

So with a smile on my face, a diet Coke on my right and the two cats on my left, I happily went to work on my blog uploading the newly edited wedding cake cutting picture.

My WordPress blog site would NOT upload my photographs!

As can be seen, the uploading of pictures is working today.  I have no clue why it is working today and not yesterday.  I did post my problem to the forum and as of this morning, I had not one answer or post regarding the problem of not being able to upload.  Computers are a great thing when they work, but sometimes, just like my back, computers get cranky.  There is an old joke where you put you hand on someone’s head and start squeezing the head and ask “what it this?”  The punchline is “a brain eating alien starving to death.”  This picture reminds me of that joke.  If the brain eating alien needed technology knowledge to stay alive, that sucker is dead.