You Grieve. You learn. You Choke. You Learn. You Laugh. You Learn. You Choose. You Learn. You Pray. You Learn. You Ask. You Learn. You Live. You learn

In the last week since Devil's last blog there's been only a few events that He believes to be blogworthy:

• I've found a gym that has boxing (for fitness) available on a Monday evening which fits in perfectly with my current schedule of activities. Admittedly it's starting to get a bit crowded but with some effective time management and strict guidelines, I can still do it all and try to live as full a life as I possibly can. I'm not sure how it's all going to work next semester when my class times change at university...but I'll deal with that when it comes.

• University life is progressing at a reasonable pace. I can't believe that it's half way through the semester already and as far as the work / study life balance is concerned, I think I've managed to get the best of both worlds. Admittedly, it's a bit more difficult when the only time that I have available to do university related work is outside of standard working hours (during which time I have all my training on anyway) but I'm enjoying the challenge of having to actually find that balance.

• On the subject of university progress, I have successfully managed to develop film. Several rolls of film in fact. I'm not particularly a fan of having to wait for the film to be developed but that's because I'm not patient (at all) but seeing the final negatives and then having to actually produce the test strips and proof sheets on photographic paper with the light projection equipment...it's a REALLY interesting process. I really enjoyed having to look at the film on the light table and reviewing the proof sheets on a piece of paper. Looking through the proof sheets, I'm actually really happy with how some of the photos have turned out and there's at least 6 photos that I'll be enlarging which I'll then need to review before submitting a final 2 for my assignment portfolio. All I need to do now is get to the university some time this week then print and develop my final photos...all before Friday.

• The photos that I've taken on the film camera, admittedly, I am really proud of. Unlike a digital camera, you don't get any feedback or image to review after you've taken the photo. This means that every photo that you take needs to be set up properly in terms of structure, lighting, lens selection, focus and depth of field. With film you don't have the luxury of being able to delete bad photos or photo shop 'reasonable' ones. With film, either you get it right...or you don't. Funnily enough, almost all the photos that I took appear to have been set up perfectly (at least...according to the proof sheets). I'll have to actually enlarge them to print size to see any mistakes I've made. And therein lies the beauty of film...and learning it at university. Every step of this process, from lens and film selection, to the usage of lighting and focus and depth of field, to the development and film processing, to the final image print, any mistakes that I've made along the way, I now know what I've done wrong and how the mistake as occurred...and it's all been extremely valuable to me when I'm using digital camera because I now understand the underlying processes and can use them to my advantage.
  

• While I was in the chemical labs developing my film, one of the photography senior lecturers and photographic technicians were present and the conversation turned to film photography versus digital photography. Unsurprisingly, they verbalised a lot of things that I had known and affirmed a lot of other things for me as well. Some of these points included the fact that the photography industry is not regulated so anyone who can afford to buy a DSLR camera, print off a few business cards and HTML themselves a website can instantly call themselves a photographer. Regardless how much experience a person might have or how much of a "photographic eye" they my believe they have...nothing compares to having some kind of formal qualification. It is for this reason that you should ALWAYS find out if the photographer you're hiring has a formal qualification. If the answer is no, then keep looking. If you want to take the risk with someone who isn't qualified so be it...but they're your photos and ultimately...the responsibility falls on you.
  

• On a similar subject, over the Easter long weekend I ended up attending a minion [family] gathering where my perfect cousin was in attendance. This is the same cousin who I offered to take photos of her child's christening but was flatly refused. Anyway...the point of the matter is, I took a couple of photos of her son as a bit of practice. I've shown her the photos and she's been absolutely blown away by them and now wants to pay me for the photos and was asking what my rates and charges are. She also told me about her recent bad experiences with a professional photography agency who spent 45 minutes taking photos and only ended up with one good photo...where as I spent 5 minutes taking photos and ended up with 6 (two of which have now been included in my portfolio).

• Through my network of contacts, I've also found out about a pole dancing studio that's offering a one off workshop class to guys this Saturday. It's been something that I've been wanting to do for a very long time and now I'll finally get the opportunity to give it a go. From what one of the instructors there have said to me, they're running it as a 'trial' class to gauge interest to see if it would be feasible to run on an ongoing basis. I'm hoping it will be...but regardless, I'm really looking forwards to this one off class.
  

• I'm still on the diet that's been set by my nutritionist and (personally) I'd like to think it's been having an effect but it's still hard to say if it is or it isn't. After a bit of communication within the online fitness community, I now realise that the original goal of having less than 10% body fat was still somewhat generic and that I needed to stipulate the goal weight that I wanted to achieve as well. Therefore, my fitness goal is to achieve a weight of 60kg with a body fat percentage of 6% (or less) before the end of the year. Hopefully I've given myself adequate time to achieve it...and hopefully I won't be embarrassed to wear a singlet if I go out in public.

• In recent nights I've had trouble sleeping and it's because I've been having dreams about my little friend who passed away recently. I don't understand why I'm having these dreams or what purpose they could possibly serve...but it hurts me as if it were only yesterday. I guess I'm not entirely over it but I'm trying to.
  

Devil's Winamp: Alanis Morissett - You Learn
Devil's Mood: Busy / Sad