Winter is on the way

The first noticeable dusting of snow appeared on the tops of the mountains this weekend.

The autumn colors contrasted nicely with the cold, stark gray of the mountains and the clouds cruising just below the peaks.

It also contrasted nicely with the uniforms of the football player participating in Ute Conference football on this Saturday in late October, as the Jordan White Gremlins played Olympus.

#68 for Jordan is my son, a hard-charging eight-year-old with the tenacity of a tiger. While a bit undersized, #68 plays with passion and does his best every down.

 Whether it's running a pass route knowing the ball won't be thrown his way, or coming off the corner in futile pursuit of a back he will never catch, #68 never quits and has a upbeat, positive attitude.

Yes, without question there were more talented players on the field this day, for both teams. Yet #68 went out on the field every time his number was called, gave his very best effort, and was a positive factor and influence for his teammates. Though the day would not belong to the Jordan Beetdiggers on this blustery Saturday, for #68 and his Dad, it was another Saturday afternoon spent together. 

For this old man, it just doesn't get much better than this!

Photo Gearhead update

An announcement from Apple Computer today will be of interest to photographers who use iPhoto and/or Aperture. For those unfamiliar with iPhoto or Aperture, iPhoto is primarily a photo cataloguing program for snapshots, while Aperture is geared for  photo enthusiasts and professionals who require sophisticated controls for editing and cataloging. 

If you are one who geotags photos, iPhoto '11 and Aperture 3.1 can create slideshows that interleave the photos with views of a map with automatically generated labels to show where the next photos in the sequence were taken. Personally I am not into geotagging, but if you are a geotagger, features such as this can help turn the data into something interesting. 

The upgrades to iPhoto and Aperture lets people export them for Apple TV devices and, more important for photographers pitching prospective clients, iPads. 

For you Facebook and Flickr users, Aperture 3.1 can export photos better than previous versions. For example, photos can be published directly to the Facebook wall, not just to its photo albums. The software can also retrieve Facebook comments on published photos.

Performance for both programs is better in a number of areas. Here is a short list of what is now or has been fixed:

Core editing controls for curves, levels and highlights and shadows are improved,

Zooming images to a 100 percent view,

Exporting images that have been heavily edited,

Importing large libraries of photos is now easier,

Straightening and cropping edited images.

I personally use iPhoto for snapshots and as a repository for personal or family images. I don’t do much in the way of editing or manipulating in iPhoto. I use Lightroom for my professional images.

Website finally closer to completion

Finally, the HudsonArtworks website is finally approaching something resembling version 1.0.

If you are reading this on Blogger, Google Reader or some other content aggregator, click on over the the HudsonArtworks website at www.hudsonartworks.com. You'll notice some changes if you have been to the site before. If you haven't been to the site, click on over and check it out. New since the last post here you will find:

I have loaded some of the Greeting Card images to the Cards page, which should help drive sales heading into the holiday season. These fine-quality greeting cards are unique, one-of-a-kind greeting cards and are printed, cut, scored and packaged in my studio. If you are looking for an inexpensive gift for a friend or loved one, consider one or more of these cards. You are guaranteed to give a gift your intended will not have already received.

The first collection of images for the Fine Art Photography pages are in place. Click on the page link to see a half-dozen or so images rotating in the frame. These are somewhat representative of the images I am currently working through. I've already enjoyed some sales of these images, mostly to collectors who were aware of my work prior to creating the website. Over the next few months you'll see new images and collections appear and take shape.

The About page now has additional content. Please feel free to leave a message or 'sign the guestbook,' as it were.

the EtCetera page is a work in progress. You can see my recent Twitter activity here, but I'm still working through other treatments and content. For now I am using this page as a Google page ranking driver - fresh (relevant) content on your pages helps your site show up in the search engine returns. Obviously photo sites have limited options for fresh content, and with the platform I am currently using the options for 'alt' tags for photos are few. So blogging and Tweeting are ways to get the search engines to crawl my pages and increase my traffic.

Speaking of traffic, I am always willing to reciprocate links.

Drop by www.hudsonartworks.com to check out my latest work.

Youth Football

Saturday October 9 was a busy day of youth football for Hudson Artworks. Not because we shoot youth sports photos as a business, but because our two sons play football and we take photographs.

Game two featured a Hudson wearing #68 in the maroon jersey of the Jordan Beetdiggers. #68, while smaller in stature than others on the field, plays with the heart of a champion. #68 is unafraid to battle foes bigger and stronger than he is, and never gives an inch.

In the next photo #68 continues to battles #59 of the Herriman Mustangs. This sequence of photos will culminate with #68 for the Diggers taking his man out of the play.

Woe were the Herriman Mustang defenders who faced #68 on this day. In fact, the next image will show one of the Jordan coaches pointing at #68 after making the block that sprang the running back for a big play.

For those who are interested, these photos were taken with a Nikon D300 with a 70-300MM Nikon lens. It is a crisp lens and easy to focus. It is well-suited to youth football, and is affordable, which is no small consideration.

In this final photo one of the Diggers' coaches is pointing to #68 for making the block that set the running back on his way to a big gain.

Work in Progress

The Hudson Artworks website is still a work in progress. I still have the 'This Site is Under Construction' notification on the home page, which, if you are looking at this on the site as opposed to on Blogger, you have already noticed this.
Last evening I spent a few hours formatting photos to fit on the site and making them web-friendly. This weekend I will group them into categories and by Monday I should have slide shows running on the Fine Art Photography page.
I've also activated the Twitter Icon on the bottom of the home page, so you can follow my twitter posts.
Please continue to visit the site and read the blog.

Getting Closer to launch

We are in the process of preparing to 'offically' launch the website. If you are reading this from the Blogspot site, you can visit www.hudsonartworks.com and click on 'Blog.' The site is technically still under construction. The photo galleries will be in place very soon, the greeting card images will begin to go up early next week, and additional pages will be added in the coming weeks. The site design will evolve over time. Please feel free to leave comments and continue to follow our progress as the website comes to life!