Archive for she's a photographer too
May 14, 2008 at 2:23 pm · Filed under beware: rant ahead, she's a photographer too
I’ve been eying the Think Tank Photo line of Urban Disguise bags for quite some time now.
A while back, I bought a new camera bag to accommodate my new SLR, but the fit still isn’t quite right. It works, but it’s not ideal. It’s so bulky, and a little awkward. I could never find a way to justify laying out that much money for a camera bag, as the Think Tanks are not cheap, but with my lovely gift card I received from my employer I decided to take the leap (after doing a ton of reading and research on them of course) and buy one of the bags.
I got on the Think Tank website and tried to order it on Monday, using my American Express gift card. It denied my card, stating the billing address was incorrect. The message it gave me stated that my order WOULD NOT BE PROCESSED, and therefore, I assumed, my card not be charged.
I happened to know the card was actually mailed to my boss’s house, so I tried to run it with his address for billing, and it denied again, this time without a valid reason given but still stating no order was actually placed.
So I went to Amazon, and ordered the bag, AND a remote (YAY!) through a camera store selling through them. Amazon rejects the card. I update the billing address to be the address the card was sent to. It rejects again. I emailed customer service, who said the order still had my billing address on it, and customer service changed the address to my boss’s address. They said it should work, but to get back to them if it did not.
It did not. And I got back to them! And what I got for a response is basically that I was out of luck, because it denied for an unknown reason that time and there was nothing else they could do.
Bastiches.
I decided to use money out of my checking account to pay for the purchase and then use the card for expenses like gas and such to replace the money. I had already put a tank on there and a lunch one day (forgot my wallet at home that day, but had the gift card, ha!) so I hopped on American Express’s website to check my balance.
And there I see a charge from Think Tank.
Excuse me?
I called their customer service line, but they did not open until 9am Pacific Standard which would be 11am my time. I’m impatient, so I decided to email them instead and see; my email had no response come 2pm so I decided to call again.
The sweet chicky on the phone tells me that basically it places a temporary hold on the money that should release within a few days, and that they’ve experienced this before.
I said thanks, and let her off the hook, since I doubt there was anything she could do to make me happy in this situation, but my immediate thought was that, “Well, damn, if you can place a hold on my money so I can’t spend it anywhere else, why didn’t you just run the fucking charge fully and let me have my bag?”
>.<
Needless to say, I’m not a happy customer. At least that explains to me why it was probably denied at Amazon; the purchase I was trying to make there, plus the hold, is more than the balance of the card.
Okay. I’m done bitching. Thanks for reading. 
May 9, 2008 at 12:30 am · Filed under now and then I actually love my job, she's a photographer too
My department recently completed the roll-out of a rather large, important project without any major hitches that were our fault, so my awesome boss went to the company and suggested we get a reward for all our hard work.
An American Express reward. For $250.
FREEEE MONEY!
Well… not really free… I worked for it… but it was a wonderful gesture by the company and I feel rather appreciated. It’s a nice, lovely feeling.
So, what am I going to do with this money, hmm?
Am I going to send it off as an extra car payment?
Shall I sock it into savings for the road trip I may be taking at the end of July? Or put it into my moving out funds?
Or should I buy camera accessories?
‘Cause there’s plenty of those I want. Yeah.
OH. The torture of such a decision! It’s going to drive me MAD!
April 22, 2008 at 11:13 pm · Filed under she's a photographer too
I’ve been combing over my images from my week out of town tonight.
I had a moment’s pause while I was editing a photo– I became self-aware in a moment of sheer emotion– what I can only call ecstasy.
It was joy, it was excitement, it was contentedness, and peace, and it was all caused by proper creation of an image I had seen in my mind’s eye.
It’s like what I imagine being high must like. Nothing else matters any more. You’re just… happy. And giggly. And feel like you simply have to get up and stretch because your skin can barely contain you any more.
I wish I could share some of those images with you, blog. But I cannot. I stamp my name and copyright in the files and I wouldn’t want my stalkers finding my little pretend safe-haven from them.
Alright, back to my cocaine I go.
March 16, 2008 at 2:28 pm · Filed under she's a photographer too
I just agreed to do another wedding.
And maybe an engagement session to go with it.
At least I have two under my belt now, and a little more attitude than I did.
It just seems like good money. Damn good money. It’s a nice June wedding, 50 guests tops, with an outdoor reception. Can’t beat natural light set-up and tiny crowd.
I have better equipment now, though I got no complaints from the photos I took with the Olympus.
I’m terrified, as usual. It’s such an important day for people. I’m creating hard-copy representations of memories for them, and that’s the last thing I’d ever want to fuck up for someone.
I talked to the bride today, laid out prices and details, and she’s going to consult with her groom and let me know no later than tomorrow night.
February 20, 2008 at 11:18 pm · Filed under miscellaneous and personal jabber, she's a photographer too
I’m *so* excited about my new camera. I only played around with it tonight for about fifteen minutes, but that was definitely enough to whet my appetite. I’m glad I get to travel and give it a real spin this weekend.
The button scheme will take some getting used to. Nikon’s button maps are quite different from the Olympus I’ve now had for four years– not to mention there are a lot more buttons, this being my first dSLR. Also, the weighting is so different… it is now completely front heavy because of the lens I bought to accompany it and I am not accustomed to that feeling at all. But the grips on the camera body feel like they were made for my little hands, so I don’t think it’ll be long before I’m sniping people like crazy with this thing. I’ve never really shot with serious film before, so this is my first experience with that shhhclick shutter noise… I’ve heard it come from other people’s cameras but never my own… and I must say, it’s somehow very satisfying. My boyfriend looked at me like I was crazy because I was snapping photos just to hear it do that and I would giggle like a school girl every time it did.
I’m super pleased that the new baby fits into my old camera bag. I hunted for years for the PERFECT camera bag for what I needed, and I had finally found it–but it is pretty small. I like it that way. I fully expected to have to wrestle with a clunky bag for the new camera, but to my complete and utter JOY, it fits nice and snug like a baby in a papoose into my little padded case. As long as all I need is one lens, we’re good to go.
It pisses me off that competing camera manufacturers feel the need to put little groves on the bottom of their Li-on battery casings. I mean, really! You bastards! I had a moment of excitement when I unwrapped the Nikon battery, “OH LOOKIE, that is the EXACT same size as my Olympus batteries!” and I dug one up and it wouldn’t fit more than a centimeter into the camera. There are different notches cut into the casings of the batteries, that’s the only bloody difference! Grrrrr!
So to chalk up the list of things I still want for the new picture taking device: another battery, another memory card (SD), filters, wireless remote. I’m broke for the time being, so it’ll be a while before I can acquire the desired accessories. I need to finish paying off a bit of Christmas debt and build a little savings back up before I go throwing money at my non-money-making-right-now hobbies. *sigh* Being responsible sucks.
I’ve had no small amount of folk at work who have seen my screensaver flit by with photos of the kids in my life ask if I did family photography. Well, more like, “Hey, you should come take pictures of my kids sometime! Those pictures on there are great!”
“Yeah, I’d love to!” but no plans are ever made… which has been a good thing thus far, because I’d charge all but one or two of them and I have no idea where I’d even start pricing my time at. I should look into that. There’s money to be made and I’m ignoring it simply because I’m nervous about the situations.
Okay, I’ve rambled enough. I’m going to go throw some laundry in the wash and throw my face and teeth in the wash too, and try to get some sleep. Good chance for ice tomorrow.
*Shakes fist violently at the sky.* You already ruined one event for me. There was a lunar eclipse tonight I’d been looking forward to and I couldn’t see a LICK of it because of your damn clouds. You better not EVEN spray ice all over Kansas to prevent me from traveling. If that happens… I keel you.
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