Blown Away

I'm feeling vexed today (when I have the energy to do so) because I have things that I want to do, but the weather has changed and it's wiped me out. I was particularly looking forward to starting to list the new notecards in my Etsy stores, but the wind is blowing, and even though I'm not having migraines at the moment, I feel weak, utterly exhausted, and am thinking very slowly and not very clearly. I have absolutely no control over the weather, so there's nothing I can do to get my energy up. (Believe me, I've tried!) Instead of it being a getting-things-done day, it looks like I'm going to have to have a going-back-to-bed-already day. I must remember, on days like this, that I have no deadlines to meet, no timelines, and my disability always has the final say, and furthermore, that's okay.

This Week's New Listings!

I put up four new listings yesterday, three of them taken with the new camera! Sometimes the inspiration for a particular listing strikes and you go with it. I've also put up a more fall-colored banner and selection of featured images on the front page of the macro store. If it seems like I've been neglecting the mouse store a bit, well, you're right, but I have a limited amount of energy and I want to have a fully stocked macro store sooner rather than later!

Ballet Pointe Shoes - 12x18 Photograph

Garlic - 5x7 Photograph

Red and Black Indian Corn - 5x7 Photograph

Caramels - 8x10 Photograph

My order of cards arrived today, so hopefully in the next few days I will be feeling well enough to start putting those up. I also need to get my Christmas cards listed, not because anyone is going to buy them right now, but apparently it tis the season to be noticed by blogs and whatnot that will soon enough be featuring interesting Christmas items. Tonight, however, I am still woozy from a medication complication (the pharmacy gave me a generic that I don't tolerate well) and having done my shop publicity for the day, I will once again resume a prone position.

The New Camera

My new camera with the macro lens.

I've long had two big plans for my disability back benefits money: to pay off my student loan, eliminating all of my debt, and to buy a "fancy-pants" camera. So when I was granted disability last month and the $9000 hit my checking account, it was time to put those plans into action. The loan was easily paid off in full (I didn't have much left to pay) and so there was nothing left to do but start researching cameras. The starting point, actually, was researching lenses. I figured this was the one time I'd have a large chunk of money at my disposal and so the smartest way to spend it (in terms of cameras, at least) would be to invest in the very best macro lens on the market and pair it with whatever camera was necessary to do it justice. I did enough reading on the internet to familiarize myself with the terminology and the various options and the general price ranges. There was one lens in particular that stood out: the Canon EF 100mm 1.28L IS USM. I was already leaning towards getting a Canon because I've been so impressed with my Canon PowerShot point-and-shoot, so it was nice to see that they made some excellent macro lenses. So, with that little bit of research to back me up, on Sunday I went to Kenmore Camera, where my family has always purchased our cameras, and told the clerk that I had a sudden windfall, was ready for my first DSLR (that's the fancy camera body), and that despite being a DSLR novice, I wanted the best macro lens that money could buy. Vinny, the guy who served me, was extremely helpful, very patient, and I felt quite gratified when I mentioned a) I liked Canon and b) that I wanted the best macro lens that he immediately reached for the box behind him containing an EF 100mm 1.28L IS USM. I also really liked that he went out and picked a geranium from somewhere behind the store, sprinkled a little water on it for a dew effect, and then put that on the counter as my test subject while I checked out the lens, the camera body features, various ring lights, and tripods. In the end, I walked out with a Canon Rebel T3i with a 18-55 IS II lens, the 100mm macro lens, a ring light (it's a circular light that fits around the lens, eliminating the need for the harsher light of a flash), a super-heavy-duty one of those bendy tripods, a special mounting ring for the tripod, and a large memory card. I spend nearly $2,500 (which was what I was expecting to spend, so there was no sticker shock!), but I consider it an investment in my future as an artist.

Me and my new toy!

I love my new camera. I love the heft of it. Unlike my point-and-shoot, which weighed just six ounces, this camera, when the macro lens is attached, weighs nearly three pounds! I love having to support the camera by cupping my hand under the lens: it feels so professional! I love the sound it makes. I've only had it a few days, so there's going to be lots more to learn about it, but the camera itself and the lens are easy enough to use in automatic settings that I've been able to start right in on taking pictures. There are all number of things that could be played with and there are some involving focus--such as how to select certain areas to focus on--that I will attempt to learn sooner than later, but it's certainly user-friendly enough that I've been able to have a good time already!

Hello, Abe!

At the maximum macro 1:1 level, this is what a penny looks like. As you can see, it more than fills the image! That's pretty small! There is one crazy macro lens out there that can focus down to the point where a grain of rice fills the image, but I don't need to zoom in that close! And with 18 megapixels, the clarity of the images is amazing. For example, you can not only see each beautifully colored kernel of Indian corn in this picture, but all the dust between the kernels as well! While there may be situations when the camera might give you almost too much information, it is very cool to be able to capture so much detail. My interest in macro photography is rooted in being able to show how amazing ordinary things are when viewed closer than the eye can normally see, so while occasionally you might run into some dust, the results are still amazing.

This lens's very shallow depth of field (the distance between the nearest and furthest points in focus in an image) creates a few challenges, though I'm sure with practice I will become even more adept at making the most of it. I've gotten used to taking photographs of objects at an angle, but that can result in images like the purple daisy below, where not even the whole center of the flower is in focus. It looks pretty smashing, but there are occasions when you'll want to have a slightly larger area as the subject of your picture! I'll have to adapt my practices slightly to make sure I always get the look I'm going for.

The shallow depth of field and the resulting blur can be used for artistic purposes, however. I was just reading about the so-called practice of "bokeh" (from the Japanese word for blur), the intentional use of blurriness in photography and now I'm finding myself in possession of a camera capable of producing beautiful blurs.

In this picture, for example, the tiny foreground flower is in focus, while the background flowers dissolve into what looks like a watercolor painting.

I like the way it separates out just a few blades from this sea of dry grass.

In the case of these fuchsias, it is just the nearest tip of one of the pink petals that's in focus, causing the rest of the scene to appear as though through a dreamy haze.

You can't see it so well at this size, but there is some incredible detail visible on the sides of these tiny flowers, which I think contrasts nicely with the simplicity of form and brilliance of color in the less-focused areas of the image.

Another things that really impresses me about this camera is its ability to function in lower levels of light. I bought the macro lens with additional image stabilization built into it (that's the IS in the lens name) because I often have a slight tremor in my hands, something that can be disastrously magnified when trying to take macro photographs and low light makes it even worse. There used to be all kinds of places in my house or times of day or even times of year that were off limits for photography because there wasn't enough light for my point-and-shoot to handle in the macro setting. Not so with this camera! Here's a comparison between the two:

This is the lock on our sheltered front door as captured by my old camera.

And this is what the new camera was able to "see."  The difference is amazing! I can even take photos inside at night with standard house lamps without needing a flash! The ring light will provide soft, even lighting for situations when I do need more light than the camera can capture, but it's so fun to be able to pick up the camera at any time of day or any weather and snap pictures at will. Being able to make use of lower, softer, cooler light is also great from an artistic standpoint, since it evokes a lovely, wistful mood, as you can see in this photo of a pile of well-worn toe shoes.

The clerk at the camera store mentioned that this lens also worked well for portraits, which I've found to be very true, at least when it comes to my dog. 

This is simply the single best picture of my dog ever. That's EXACTLY what she looks like!

I also captured this cute picture of Abbey sleeping hard with her paw over her nose. She was afraid of the new camera initially, but she's quickly gotten used to me sticking it in her face!

So while there's more to learn, there's already been lots to enjoy with my new camera! Here are a few other recent favorites.

So look out, world, there are going to be even more pictures to come!

This Week's New Listings

I've been busy listing new items for the macro shop over the last few days. Here are the latest!

16x20 Sepia Tint Dahlia

8x10 Alizarin Crimson Paint Jar Lid

11x14 Antique Tint Hydrangea

11x14 Green Marbles

8x10 Black Licorice

If you haven't already, be sure to check out the whole store!  www.etsy.com/shop/ccreativity

Taking Care of Business

The front of my new business card

I've spent the last two days devoting my hours of energy to various business matters. Since I've opened the new store, I figured I'd better have a business card for it. I also ordered some shipping supplies for larger items, since there are quite a few listings for 11x14 and 16x20 photos in the new shop. I also purchased plastic sleeves for protecting note cards, though several hours later, when I was in the shower, I suddenly remembered that I already have sleeves in that size. Oops. Fortunately, it only set me back $6 or so, and with luck, I will eventually get through them! One of the other things I did yesterday was to order another round of notecards, some for my mouse store and some for the macro store, and hopefully they'll prove popular and I can get through those 5x7 plastic sleeves!

Cards are something I haven't worked out completely yet. People, when they see the mouse photos, tend to remark that they'd make great cards, but I haven't had much business in that area. I have lots that I haven't listed still, partially because I haven't decided whether to offer them individually or in sets. They're tricky, too, because to get the cards at a cheap enough price to be able to sell them for a less-than-astronomical sum, you have to buy them in quantity. I've found a printer that makes beautiful, high-quality cards for a reasonable price, in sets of twenty-five, with as many different images on those twenty-five cards as you want. The last set I had printed featured lots of flower cards for summer, but I spent the summer coping with the head injury, so I fear I missed my best seasonal opportunity. It's also much more fun to make listings for the new store than to cobble together ones for cards with flowers and Mouse on them, which may be a larger part of the problem! At any rate, you can view the ones I currently have available here.

I hope someone agrees with me that this makes a sweet card!

So between putting together the new business cards and getting twenty-five images properly sized for uploading (both endeavors that involve a lot of clicking around in Photoshop and Illustrator), I've really fried my eyes. I had to take a very very very long shower (one hour and forty-five minutes, not a record, but close) this afternoon to quiet the brain down and my heart's been pounding even more than usual, which means I'm under stress. It's just that this sort of thing is so much more interesting than doing nothing! All in all, though, I've done pretty well this past week in keeping my activity level within my limitations, which is why I was able to take care of any business at all!

Next on my (eventual) business matters agenda: figure out some of the vexing wrinkles in my Google Analytics data, such as why it continues to count my own visits to my shop despite the fact that I installed a filter, according to instructions, for it to exclude all visits from my computer's IP address, and why in the area where it tells you what keywords brought visitors to your site, all but three of the nineteen search terms are utterly inapplicable to my site, and seem, rather, to be the results for a seller of vintage goods. Figuring this out is much less interesting than, say, giving myself a raging migraine by designing things in Illustrator; if I'm going to be starting at a computer screen, I like to at least be enjoying myself! But it will ultimately be good for business if I figure out how to make Analytics report proper data and then guide various decisions regarding shop content accordingly.

Oh, and if you're the returning visitor who typed "sascalia" (another Etsy seller, according to my research) into Google and somehow got my shop and spent nearly ten minutes looking at ten different pages, could you explain to me how that worked? Thanks!

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

The sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, and Abbey is watching for squirrels. Life is alright today.

8 Weeks: Where I'm At

A sunflower photographed during a sunset visit
to my family's patch at a community garden

Yesterday marked the 8-week anniversary since I whacked my head on the stair rail and I'm ecstatic to report that there finally has been some material progress. I estimate that I'm at roughly 65-75% of where I was before the concussion. Most of this progress came after the 6th week mark, and just in time, since I was starting to struggle with some serious depression. I've been able to decrease my hours in bed and increase my hours of activity, and while I'm still extremely vulnerable to getting overwhelmed, I was even able to leave the house for a non-medical reason the other day without suffering negative consequences! Not only that, but I got some great photos for my effort. So this is all very good news. I also have sufficient stamina to watch movies now, provided they are of the quiet kind, and although it was a bit of a stretch, I was able to look after the Ancient Kitty--an eighteen and a half year-old cat that I've been cat-sitting for years--for a weekend. It was definitely hard at

Me & the Ancient Kitty:
we're friends.

first to walk that block from my house to his, especially during the day when it was hot out. I'd become much better at handling the heat in recent weeks, but being in full sun was another thing entirely. Still, it was nice to be out of the house with my camera again, especially as I got a little stronger, and the Ancient Kitty is not difficult to look after: my primary job is to sit on the floor and pet him! He, of course, appreciates this service immensely and his gratitude makes up for the fact that being skin and bones, he's not all that pleasant handle anymore.

Once I started feeling a little better, I ran into my usual trouble of having no setting between "off" and "high." I had a bit of a hypo-manic spell that had me feeling driven to create and while these phases can be effective in terms of productivity, it wasn't truly necessary to finally open my second Etsy store in the middle of my head injury recovery! It's an idea that has been in the works for months and suddenly I was in the mental mode where I can easily write descriptions for Etsy listings, so after putting up some new Mouse listings, as I reported in an earlier post, I went ahead and wrote up eighteen listings for a new shop as well. That bit of brain-on-fire has passed, thank goodness, and I'm working very hard to take it easy, which is much harder work for me than working!

Abbey in her comforter
nest next to my bed

The dog, of course, is always helpful when it comes to relaxation. She's been sleeping in my room with me at night, something previously not allowed, but when she was in care-taking mode and I was sleeping with my door open because I was overheating in the night, there was no way she was about to sleep in her crate as usual! I have my door closed again, but haven't felt up to the effort it will take to retrain her to sleep in her crate, so it's a slumber party in my room every night. She's been sleeping on my kicked-off comforter next to my bed and is happy as can be. I have to say, it's rather nice to have such deeply satisfied company around! She also loves to sprawl on our back deck, ideally in a patch of sun, and so hanging out in the backyard with her has been a good do-nothing activity for me, too.

Taking it easy with Abbey.

One of the recent developments I'm most thankful for has been the renewed effectiveness of Midrin. It's the only acute migraine drug that has brought me relief  and I have to have it specially made by a compounding pharmacy in Louisiana because it is no longer on the market, so I was really devastated when initially didn't help after the concussion. It's back in business, though, and it's so nice to have a drug that helps with the headaches!

Sunglasses frames vs.
light-sensitivity glasses frames

So things are not perfect. I am still more noise sensitive than usual (I keep Abbey's collar off because I can't tolerate the jingling of her tags, for example) and my eyes are still pretty sensitive and tire easily. (I am glad to report, though, that I've been able to go back to my regular light-sensitivity glasses instead my dark glasses most of the time! I had developed sores on the backs of my ears from the thicker ear pieces on my sunglasses and it was getting quite excruciating to wear them, so being able to finally tolerate the light as seen through my super-lightweight glasses with the red lenses was a huge relief.) The migraine pain is still more frequent and much stronger than it was before the concussion. I have less energy and smaller reserves. But these downsides are being tempered by some upsides. My appetite is returning and I've been able to eat at least one regular sort of meal a day. Sometimes my stomach rebels if I try to eat something too fancy, but I've been able to regain a lot of the weight that I lost during the weeks of terrible nausea. My degree of illness also

Attempting to look
stylish in an X-ray
garment isn't easy!

prompted my parents to make another effort to silence the noisy dogs next door and our neighbors were kind enough to put bark collars on their dogs at our suggestion, which have been very effective! They also got me a blackout blind for my bedroom that doesn't allow any light to enter, so I'm able to sleep longer and as well as fall back to sleep more easily if I wake up in the early morning. Not only that, but I got a lead X-ray apron! It'll take a whole post on its own to explain in detail why a nine-pound apron might be helpful, but the short explanation is that weight helps to quiet my entire overactive nervous system and that's been extremely helpful during this concussion recovery period. And last but not least, two weeks ago I received notice from Social Security that my disability application had been approved! Let me tell you, that went a long way toward clearing up my case of the concussion blues! It took just ten months from start to finish for my case to be approved, which is amazing, especially for something as subjective as headaches, so it felt like I was getting a piece of good luck for once when it came to the migraines! It's an enormous relief that I won't have to wait for a hearing, a process that usually takes two or three years of waiting.

So overall, the news is good. I had a follow-up appointment with my neurologist yesterday and from a strictly neurological standpoint, I'm doing great. It'll just take more time for things to slowly make their way back to my version of normal. It's not always easy to be as quiet as I need to be, but the amount of progress I've made in the last couple of weeks is extremely heartening!