Hello Everyone!
It has been awhile since my last post. Alot has been going on in my personal life that has been keeping me busy. Back in January, after I had my surgery for removal of my gallblader, my father had a surgery a week later. His surgery was for removal of plaque in his carotid artery on the left side of his neck. During that surgery my father wound up having a 2nd stroke. That 2nd stroke seriously effected by father and his abilities. Afterwards, I wound up helping to take care of my father, helping him to recover and get back on his feet. In the intervening months my father has made some good progress in his recovery. But still he continues to have some health problems.
In addition to dealing with my father's health issues, it turns out that my own health became an issue when I found myself having a heart attack last week. I wound up spending 4 days at the Rogue Valley Medical Center heart center. A stint was installed in one of the arteries of my heart. I now have new meds for my heart added to my set of meds that I have been taking for my back pain issues.
So those issues have been consuming a great deal of my personal time. However, I have found a small amount of time through the following months to work on some photography related work. Those notes will be written about in succeeding posts over the next few days. Be on the lookout for those.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Health Update
I am still recovering from my surgery on Saturday that removed my gallbladder. But I am definitely not recovering fast enough to allow me to take my trip to Las Vegas this Friday. That trip was to attend the Adult Entertainment Expo so that I could promote my photography services to various companies and models. I had bought my trade show pass and airline ticket on Dec 21st. So everything was totally secure to attend until I had my pancreatic attack Christmas evening. This is a most frustrating period in my life right. I can't get a refund on the trade show pass since I purchased it after the deadline for getting a refund. I cancelled my airline reservation and was only able to get a $69 credit out of a $184 ticket purchase. I personally found that to be some serious bullshit. I can understand not getting refunded on the misc taxes that go into a ticket price. But I cancelled well within the 24 hour window that disallows a refund.
The airline I went through was Allegiant Air. And I have flown with them in the past. But they charged a $50 cancellation fee for each leg of my trip which cost me $100 for the cancellation. I personally find that size of cancellation fee totally outrageous. The ticket was bought online, the cancellation was done online, so where is that excessive expense coming into their operation that demands that they charge a $50 cancellation fee? I will allow some kind of cancellation fee to some degree. But I find this situation is excessive.
The airline I went through was Allegiant Air. And I have flown with them in the past. But they charged a $50 cancellation fee for each leg of my trip which cost me $100 for the cancellation. I personally find that size of cancellation fee totally outrageous. The ticket was bought online, the cancellation was done online, so where is that excessive expense coming into their operation that demands that they charge a $50 cancellation fee? I will allow some kind of cancellation fee to some degree. But I find this situation is excessive.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Welcome to the 2011
Hello Everyone.
Well it certainly has been much longer than I figured since my last posting. Alot has been going on in my life and not all positive. People that know me personally know that I have been dealing with depression and medical issues resulting from a car accident. Since my last posting back in August I went into another small bout of depression. I take Cymbalta to deal with it. And it helps to some degree. But things in life can still overwhelm u a bit and not make you feel all that energetic or to being all to active. After my last post I just got into another non-active period in my life where my energy was just not directed to wanting to post my activities or news reports when I came across them. And I came across them and saved material, I just could not find the energy to post.
My lawyer finally reached a settlement for me on my accident claim late September. But under Oregon law settlements are normally limited to insurance limits, and after my lawyer got his cut, and I paid outstanding medical bills what was left over was not enough to really write home about. And it certainly was not enough to help correct my medical back problem issues from the accident. I actually had a planned surgery to correct that problem at the end of July. But had to cancel the surgery when my insurance would not cover the hospital stay. And I could not afford the cost of the stay which was going to be an estimated $32K to $45K. You just gotta love our country's medical system.
I did manage to make a small investment in upgrading my camera equipment with the settlement that I got. And in time I intend to write about what I purchased and how well it is all working for me.
In Early November, my father had a stroke and he wound up in the hospital for a period of time. He has been slowly recovering from that, but now he needs the assistance of a cane to help him get around walking. You have not seen a more pathetic site than watching my father (left handed) and me (right handed) walking around together with our respective canes. Watching my father recover is not an easy thing. The stroke has sapped alot of energy out of him and his ability to get around and do things. But at least I can still see some progress being made. And he is scheduled for a surgery soon to clear blockage in main vain on the left side of his neck. He will have to have another such surgery on the right side of his neck in about 3 months.
Things began to feel a bit better as things progressed along for the Christmas holiday. But it wound up that Christmas evening I started to experience extreme abdomen pain after fixing a small dinner. I thought I may be experiencing some food poisoning. But never wound up vomiting anything. The pain continued on to the next day. Finally I made a visit to the emergency room at my nearby hospital and after 7+ hours of testing & waiting it was determined that I had a pancreatic attack and that I had gallstones in my bladder. I was then admitted into the hospital and spent this past week hooked up to IV's and not eating. It wasn't until the Pancreatic attack went down that they then scheduled a surgery for the removal of my gallbladder. That occurred this last Friday morning. I had my first meal of solid food Saturday morning after a week of not eating. And then was let home Saturday afternoon.
At this point I am grateful to be home. My abdomen is still sore from the surgery. But the pain levels are finally going down slowly. Before this all occurred I was set to attend the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas taking place next week. I had already purchased my tickets and trade show passes. My family and friends around me don't think that I should be going. But I feel if I progress enough before than that I should still make the trip. I may not be able to do everything that I had wanted to do during this next Vegas trip. But I feel that it would still be beneficial for me to make some appearance and promote my photography to different companies and models that will be attending.
All I can do now is take each day and assess how I am progressing in my recovery. I will try to find the energy each day to continue to report on my recovery.
Anyways, that has been my life since my last post. You are now officially up to date.
Well it certainly has been much longer than I figured since my last posting. Alot has been going on in my life and not all positive. People that know me personally know that I have been dealing with depression and medical issues resulting from a car accident. Since my last posting back in August I went into another small bout of depression. I take Cymbalta to deal with it. And it helps to some degree. But things in life can still overwhelm u a bit and not make you feel all that energetic or to being all to active. After my last post I just got into another non-active period in my life where my energy was just not directed to wanting to post my activities or news reports when I came across them. And I came across them and saved material, I just could not find the energy to post.
My lawyer finally reached a settlement for me on my accident claim late September. But under Oregon law settlements are normally limited to insurance limits, and after my lawyer got his cut, and I paid outstanding medical bills what was left over was not enough to really write home about. And it certainly was not enough to help correct my medical back problem issues from the accident. I actually had a planned surgery to correct that problem at the end of July. But had to cancel the surgery when my insurance would not cover the hospital stay. And I could not afford the cost of the stay which was going to be an estimated $32K to $45K. You just gotta love our country's medical system.
I did manage to make a small investment in upgrading my camera equipment with the settlement that I got. And in time I intend to write about what I purchased and how well it is all working for me.
In Early November, my father had a stroke and he wound up in the hospital for a period of time. He has been slowly recovering from that, but now he needs the assistance of a cane to help him get around walking. You have not seen a more pathetic site than watching my father (left handed) and me (right handed) walking around together with our respective canes. Watching my father recover is not an easy thing. The stroke has sapped alot of energy out of him and his ability to get around and do things. But at least I can still see some progress being made. And he is scheduled for a surgery soon to clear blockage in main vain on the left side of his neck. He will have to have another such surgery on the right side of his neck in about 3 months.
Things began to feel a bit better as things progressed along for the Christmas holiday. But it wound up that Christmas evening I started to experience extreme abdomen pain after fixing a small dinner. I thought I may be experiencing some food poisoning. But never wound up vomiting anything. The pain continued on to the next day. Finally I made a visit to the emergency room at my nearby hospital and after 7+ hours of testing & waiting it was determined that I had a pancreatic attack and that I had gallstones in my bladder. I was then admitted into the hospital and spent this past week hooked up to IV's and not eating. It wasn't until the Pancreatic attack went down that they then scheduled a surgery for the removal of my gallbladder. That occurred this last Friday morning. I had my first meal of solid food Saturday morning after a week of not eating. And then was let home Saturday afternoon.
At this point I am grateful to be home. My abdomen is still sore from the surgery. But the pain levels are finally going down slowly. Before this all occurred I was set to attend the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas taking place next week. I had already purchased my tickets and trade show passes. My family and friends around me don't think that I should be going. But I feel if I progress enough before than that I should still make the trip. I may not be able to do everything that I had wanted to do during this next Vegas trip. But I feel that it would still be beneficial for me to make some appearance and promote my photography to different companies and models that will be attending.
All I can do now is take each day and assess how I am progressing in my recovery. I will try to find the energy each day to continue to report on my recovery.
Anyways, that has been my life since my last post. You are now officially up to date.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Caitlin Moe Album Cover Photo Contest
Hi Everyone!
I am in a online photo contest trying to win an opportunity to photograph musical artist Caitlin Moe for her next album cover.
I am in need of votes to get into the top 25 finalists.
Please visit my contest profile at:
http://www.talenthouse.com/creativeinvites/preview/glamourdave/119
and cast your vote. This would be a great career opportunity and I would appreciate your support.
I am in a online photo contest trying to win an opportunity to photograph musical artist Caitlin Moe for her next album cover.
I am in need of votes to get into the top 25 finalists.
Please visit my contest profile at:
http://www.talenthouse.com/creativeinvites/preview/glamourdave/119
and cast your vote. This would be a great career opportunity and I would appreciate your support.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Happy Birthday America!!!
Today is the 4th of July, and that means a great birthday for this very fine country that we live in. In honor of today, I thought I would post some examples of how I have captured the beauty of the American spirit during my photo shoots. I hope that you enjoy these images. Have a great day today everyone!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
My Interview with ArtChix Magazine
I have just completed an interview with ArtChix, which is an online magazine.
Visit the magazine & read my interview at:
http://artchixmagazine.com/post/751474546/artchix-special-cover-feature-an-exclusive-interview
Visit the magazine & read my interview at:
http://artchixmagazine.com/post/751474546/artchix-special-cover-feature-an-exclusive-interview
Thursday, June 17, 2010
My Negative Experience with ArtSelector.com
My last blog entry talked about beginning a new round of self-promotion. So after that entry I began making the rounds to some various art oriented directory sites where I could create some promotional profiles. One of those sites that I had found previously and then went to create a profile on was www.ArtSelector.com.
My initial impression of the site before I went to create a profile was a positive one. They promoted themselves as a site oriented towards the contemporary artist. And they represented all major areas of artistic discipline including photography.
So I went through the process of creating a profile on the site. After I created my initial profile, I proceeded to begin uploading images of my photography to my profile to finish the setup process. At a certain point in the upload process an error occurred, and the upload process was interrupted. That then forced me to have to re-login to the site. When I did I found that my new profile was completely lost along with my initial signin codes. I couldnt get back in at all. At this point in time it was late in the evening, and I decided to deal with this problem the next day.
The next day begins, and I again attempt to signin to my profile. And I find that I cannot. My created signin codes fail to get me back in. So I am forced to re-create a profile a 2nd time. And during this 2nd attempt I am able to completely finish the process of creating my profile including the uploading of images for my profile gallery. So I'm feeling good at this point except for a minor irritation. That irritation being an error msg that was created after the first failure at uploading my profile gallery images. That error msg was reading "Embedded Gallery2 is not available or requested URL does not exist." No matter where I go on the site this error msg is constantly following me around on the screen. It refuses to go away.
At this point this error msg is irritating me enough to contact the site operators and report the problem. Other than this error msg not going away I'm feeling ok about the site and expect to gain some quality promotional benefits from working through the site. Afterall, the site seemed to fairly active and had a large number of registered artists on the site.
A few hours go by, and I find in my email box a reply from ArtSelector.com in regards to my sent msg. They replied back apologizing for the problems I had with the site. But then they laid a major bombshell on me immediately after their apology.
They specifically stated the following, "Unfortunately we are unable to show your work on ArtSelector as i contravenes our terms and conditions of use on which our funding agreement is based. We are a contemporary art website that aims to support, promote and bring together criticaly engaged, contemporary art practioners and viewers. Sorry about this."
At this point after reading this I found myself becoming more than irritated. No where during my signup process was there any form of a warning that would alert me to the idea that maybe my work would be flat out rejected or be undesired so that I would not waste my time on this site. It's not like I am a producer of adult hardcore porn. I generally work with fitness models. I produce fitness, fashion & glamour images. And I will on occasion produce soft erotica. Soft erotica that's softer than a Playboy magazine centerfold spread. I tend to personally consider my work as sexy as the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition. So in my book, I dont consider what I produce or what I posted up as examples of my work for my profile to be a problem.
But apparently there was a problem for the people at ArtSelector.com. Because it took my signing up onto their site twice, and apparently automatically having my profile blacklisted & removed to learn that my work was a photographic work was a problem for them.
And this whole experiecne begs several questions that I'm quite sure I will never get an answer from, from anyone at ArtSelector.com. Such as why does it take 2 signup efforts to learn about there being a problem to begin with? If the site operators are concerned about contemporary art than I have to wonder why there is a problem with someone that produces fashion & glamour style imagery? My personal experience tells me that fashion & glamour photography is fairly contemporary in its development & production?, and the site stated that they allowed photography among its disciplines. So how was my posted work not contemporary?
During the period that I was successfully online with the site and my profile, I did see other others in using other media that were showing work that was figurative and that was semi-nude & nude. So why was it perfectly ok those artists to continue to be on the site, and not me?
When I got ArtSelector.com's reply to my problem, I immediately responded back some questions to get a better understanding of what their problem truly was with my work. But as of yet I have not gotten any response to my questions. And I do not expect any response at all.
So at this point considering my experience with this site, I am here to tell everyone reading this that they should scratch off ArtSelector.com as a site to consider for artistic promtional use. There are other sites that do not concern themselves with cherry picking which online members are worth keeping online and which one's are not.
I have created profiles on other art oriented sites and have not had any problems at all. Those sites I will discuss in upcoming posts.
But when it comes to ArtSelector.com, all I can say at this point is this, if ArtSelector.com changes its policies and contacts me with an invitation to rejoin, I am here to tell them to flake off. They need me alot more as a member than I need to have them as a vehicle to promote my work. Ignore ArtSelector.com in your artistic online travels.
My initial impression of the site before I went to create a profile was a positive one. They promoted themselves as a site oriented towards the contemporary artist. And they represented all major areas of artistic discipline including photography.
So I went through the process of creating a profile on the site. After I created my initial profile, I proceeded to begin uploading images of my photography to my profile to finish the setup process. At a certain point in the upload process an error occurred, and the upload process was interrupted. That then forced me to have to re-login to the site. When I did I found that my new profile was completely lost along with my initial signin codes. I couldnt get back in at all. At this point in time it was late in the evening, and I decided to deal with this problem the next day.
The next day begins, and I again attempt to signin to my profile. And I find that I cannot. My created signin codes fail to get me back in. So I am forced to re-create a profile a 2nd time. And during this 2nd attempt I am able to completely finish the process of creating my profile including the uploading of images for my profile gallery. So I'm feeling good at this point except for a minor irritation. That irritation being an error msg that was created after the first failure at uploading my profile gallery images. That error msg was reading "Embedded Gallery2 is not available or requested URL does not exist." No matter where I go on the site this error msg is constantly following me around on the screen. It refuses to go away.
At this point this error msg is irritating me enough to contact the site operators and report the problem. Other than this error msg not going away I'm feeling ok about the site and expect to gain some quality promotional benefits from working through the site. Afterall, the site seemed to fairly active and had a large number of registered artists on the site.
A few hours go by, and I find in my email box a reply from ArtSelector.com in regards to my sent msg. They replied back apologizing for the problems I had with the site. But then they laid a major bombshell on me immediately after their apology.
They specifically stated the following, "Unfortunately we are unable to show your work on ArtSelector as i contravenes our terms and conditions of use on which our funding agreement is based. We are a contemporary art website that aims to support, promote and bring together criticaly engaged, contemporary art practioners and viewers. Sorry about this."
At this point after reading this I found myself becoming more than irritated. No where during my signup process was there any form of a warning that would alert me to the idea that maybe my work would be flat out rejected or be undesired so that I would not waste my time on this site. It's not like I am a producer of adult hardcore porn. I generally work with fitness models. I produce fitness, fashion & glamour images. And I will on occasion produce soft erotica. Soft erotica that's softer than a Playboy magazine centerfold spread. I tend to personally consider my work as sexy as the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition. So in my book, I dont consider what I produce or what I posted up as examples of my work for my profile to be a problem.
But apparently there was a problem for the people at ArtSelector.com. Because it took my signing up onto their site twice, and apparently automatically having my profile blacklisted & removed to learn that my work was a photographic work was a problem for them.
And this whole experiecne begs several questions that I'm quite sure I will never get an answer from, from anyone at ArtSelector.com. Such as why does it take 2 signup efforts to learn about there being a problem to begin with? If the site operators are concerned about contemporary art than I have to wonder why there is a problem with someone that produces fashion & glamour style imagery? My personal experience tells me that fashion & glamour photography is fairly contemporary in its development & production?, and the site stated that they allowed photography among its disciplines. So how was my posted work not contemporary?
During the period that I was successfully online with the site and my profile, I did see other others in using other media that were showing work that was figurative and that was semi-nude & nude. So why was it perfectly ok those artists to continue to be on the site, and not me?
When I got ArtSelector.com's reply to my problem, I immediately responded back some questions to get a better understanding of what their problem truly was with my work. But as of yet I have not gotten any response to my questions. And I do not expect any response at all.
So at this point considering my experience with this site, I am here to tell everyone reading this that they should scratch off ArtSelector.com as a site to consider for artistic promtional use. There are other sites that do not concern themselves with cherry picking which online members are worth keeping online and which one's are not.
I have created profiles on other art oriented sites and have not had any problems at all. Those sites I will discuss in upcoming posts.
But when it comes to ArtSelector.com, all I can say at this point is this, if ArtSelector.com changes its policies and contacts me with an invitation to rejoin, I am here to tell them to flake off. They need me alot more as a member than I need to have them as a vehicle to promote my work. Ignore ArtSelector.com in your artistic online travels.
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