That’s it, your time is up for 2006. Finish the sentence you’re on and then leave quietly. Don’t take your exam paper from the room.

For me, it ended with a bit of scare this morning as my dog got sick really sick (spewey), stopped moving and eating and looked on the edge of death. We suspect it was poisoning from something he would have eaten at the beach yesterday. He seems to be on the recovery this afternoon, and just now I heard him bark again for the first time, which is a good sign.

With only some pov 9pm fireworks in town tonight, I suspect I’ll still be at Greg’s when the last minute has finished ticking.

I ventured the post-Boxing Day sales today. I did the necessary returns, but I also stopped by OfficeWorks to pick up a laser printer for only $99 (down from $220).

After one of my university lecturers once handed back an essay with something like “You’re essay is better than your printer” written on it, I knew I’d have to get a laser printer eventually. I liked the benefits they hold: super fast printing, clean prints that can realistically be put on both sides of the paper, particularly useful when printing sheet music. The cost of the toner and drums can be a bit scary, but a quick check to eBay reveals the toner cartridges can be had for around $50 delivered.

I unpacked the box, glanced at the manual, performed the neccessary ritualistic incantations and now this thing is throwing pages at me faster than I can… well, hit Print.

It’s our annual tradition: Boxing Day at Janne-Maree and Phill’s for a board game bonanza. We have the staples like Balderdash and Taboo, the recent entries like Scene It and Outburst and the brand new games each year. I also discovered this is at least my fifth boxing day games day.

This year, between devouring the christmas leftovers, we played Articulate!, which ran like Taboo with the opposite rules: you can say any words to describe the word you must convey to your team-mates, but you can’t say “rhymes with…” or “starts with…”. It wasn’t helped by the egg-timer seemingly having a total of 9 grains of sand in it. The second game was called Ticket To Ride, and was quite an elaborate game of map domination as you establish train lines across America, having to fulfil “tickets” which are pathways between stations for points. We all loved it and revelled in the strategy and technicality of it. Thanks to Adam Foster for bringing that one to the table. He said it is also available online here.

Another great day to tuck the holiday season to bed until New Years’ Eve in a matter of days.

When I got my first digital camera in 2003, a hand-me-down Kodak 1 megapixel point-and-shoot with no zoom and an over-zealous flash, I relied on an outdated piece of software from 1997 called “Epson Film Factory” to manage my photo collection. It was the shell of what was to come in media management with the likes of iPhoto and Picasa; it had roll-oriented grouping, a clear thumbnail layout and various print options. I loved it, and never found anything that surpassed it until I bought my first Mac and went iPhoto.

iPhoto and I just loved working together, gulping down hundreds of 2 megapixel photos from my new Canon. I didn’t mind forfeiting my directory structure because it was so easy to find what I wanted. Everything was so easy and wonderful, until one day I decided to load a gig or two of professional photos taken of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown into my library. Suddenly iPhoto struggled and choked whenever I passed that collection.

Fast forward to now — a new camera and a new piece of software. Dealing with 6 megapixel photos, including some in the very large RAW format, I needed something new to deal with the pressures. Being an Apple user, I trialed the much heralded Aperture but it fit like a three-fingered glove. Why do I have to press here? Why is that there? The whole album/project/vault thing baffled me entirely. I’m a natural-born categoriser, and it just didn’t make any sense.

I decided to download the Adobe Lightroom beta I heard about. For a beta, I didn’t have high hopes. It loaded and presented a beautiful interface. I instantly imported a few photos after adjusting the file storage settings (I store all my photos on an external drive which is then backed up to a network drive). Everything seemed perfect to me. I loved the graphical histogram and classy EXIF data displayed beneath. I loved the simple, almost iPhoto like “Quick Develop” tools and easy editing of metadata. It did everything I wanted it to instantly, but I found it also fit my workflow beautifully.

As my photos are being copied off the SD reader, I rotate them as needed. Once they’ve all loaded I go through them just taking in what I’ve shot, making no adjustments or markings. This helps me make the decision of what will make it to Flickr, saving me from uploading twelve photos of food and three of people. On my third browse, I start to make adjustments to fix exposure and crops and hit ‘B’ on those that are on their way to Flickr. This adds the photo to the “quick collection”, something I couldn’t find an equivalent of in Aperture. This suits me perfectly as I then have a collection of just the photos I wanted to share and can easily switch between all and culled shots. I then have the chance to make further edits in balance with the other shots I’ll be uploading, kind of the rough equivalent of the final CD mastering phase of audio recording. I select all the photos in the quick collection, hit Export and I’m given a folder on the desktop of the photos ready for Flickr Uploader. Just perfect.

How could this be? How can I prefer a beta application over a 1.5 release? Adobe over Apple for ease of use?? Your milage may vary, but for my money — or lack thereof at the moment as the beta is available for free — Lightroom is the way to go. As an added bonus, it natively supports my Pentax K100D’s RAW format which Aperture does not, and can convert to Adobe’s own Digital Negative format on the fly as it imports which is a pretty nifty feature. Mind you, it’s not perfect, but it’s well on its way and you have the ability to tell Adobe what you think and make the resulting product better for everyone.

Now I’ve shared mine, what’s your preferred workflow, including software, for your digital photos?

I’ve had the opportunity to photograph several family and friend events now with a DSLR, and I’ve already learnt so much about having a camera in your hand and hopefully ending up with some decent shots. I thought I’d share some of the things I didn’t read in the technical manuals and endless websites that I devoured, and maybe other newbie photographers can gleam something from it. These particularly deal with my experiences in people environments.

Get it out early
The hardest thing can be getting your camera out of your bag. You know you’ll have to deal with everyone talking about it and asking questions, but it’s best to do this early on. Once you break the ice and let people know you have it, you’ll feel more comfortable about using it, and people will slowly warm to the idea of having their photo taken.

Vary it up
Don’t leave your camera on one focal length all day and night, and experiment with different apertures and shutter speeds. Even if it’s not a perfect shot, it might give you an idea for a shot next time. If you’re using a prime lens, it’s even more important to get out of your chair and find new angles and perspectives. Nothing is less satisfying than returning home with fifty photographs taken from the same angle of your table.

Learn from your failures and successes
After loading one hundred or so photos from my camera onto my computer, I find I crop the majority of all photos I keep. Clearly, this is a message to tell myself to get closer and fill the frame more than I have been. It wasn’t from the duds that I learnt this, it was from the photos that look great. The duds tell me different things (like stay still!). Pay attention to everything you shoot, and make notes to yourself on how you can make these photos better at the time of the shutter, not post-production.

Understand your subject
As the person behind the camera, I want to capture great images of people looking wonderful and having a great time. In contrast, most of the people I photograph think the camera is the enemy, hoping to catch them at their worst and do their best to spoil your photos. Try to assure them you’re going to take a good photo by giving them a pose suggestion, and allow them to review your shots. If they resist, take covert shots as you pretend to change settings or review other shots. As a rule, toddlers love to be photographed and see themselves while self-conscious teenagers hate it.

Train a friend
Let one (or more) of your trusted friends get comfortable with your camera. After snapping a few shots of them, hand the camera over for a while. An interested friend will want the chance to shoot some snaps that you hadn’t thought of, and will give you a chance to enjoy the event not through the viewfinder. As a bonus, you’ll actually end up in a few of the shots, instead of forever absent.

Ease your Workflow
You won’t want to go home and traul though your latest shoot if you have a convoluted workflow. Do a little research, then develop and stick to your scheme. With my point and shoot, I used iPhoto and now I rely on the Adobe Lightroom beta to quickly go from memory card to Flickr. I’m planning to write in more detail about my workflow soon.