Tammy has emailed me her answers to my research questions. Rhonda Prast was away, but is back now, and emailed me her answers as well. I spoke with Marcia Prouse on the phone for over an hour about all things Arrow Rock and book related. Dick van Halsema just got back to me and said he’d be willing to do an interview.
I have written the Clay captions, pulling a lot from the excess in my story (it can only be 900 words max, and it was around 1600). Shane has edited the story and sent it to the copyeditors.
I have finished designing everything Shane has dropped on the server.
We have just received our first design review from Rita and Joy, and they seem to generally like what we’re doing (huge sigh of relief). I took the design notes Abby received from Rita and Joy and have attempted to apply them to the spreads I already have designed. There is still some question as to how we will give credit to the photographers and text editors. They said our current idea was too confusing (it used to be under the header) because sometimes it says simply ‘by’ Jane Doe (when she wrote and shot it), sometimes it says ‘text by’ Jane Doe and photographs by ‘Jack Smith’ and sometimes it just says ‘text by’ Jane Doe (when the photographs are taken by no one in particular. Photo credits were under individual photos.) The solution for consistency that Rita and Joy came up with was to put the text credit at the end of the text and the photo credit under the dominant photo. The problem I see with that is that the text credit is much more visible than the photo credit, and it may be easy to mistake the text writer for the photographer. One possible solution I’ve offered to this is to specifically say ‘text by’ instead of just ‘by’ at the end of the body of text. But I still don’t like giving more presence to the text writer than to the photographer – doesn’t seem fair, especially since this is a photo book. Of course, if we can’t come up with a better solution, I’ll be alright with it. After all, the photographers mostly have or ‘should’ have written their own stories.
I began to play with the 10% curve Perry told Abby I should put on my pictures to meet their press standards, since their blacks tend to block up more than an RGB printer. I’ve sent them a set of 9 images to print as proofs with and without Perry’s curve so we can see what it does. I will review them when I’m back in Missouri to defend.
I’ve also been writing up my master’s project. It currently stands at 45 pages. I reflect a lot on what we did right and what we did wrong. I’m hoping to make it as much a learning tool as it is about the process itself. I currently have 36 appendices. I don’t know if that’s a lot or not. I wanted to be as thorough as possible with the appendices for the same reason - I’m trying to make it as much of a guide for the next potential book editor as simply my master’s project. So I’ve included things like the arrow rock history summary that I think Jason Johns wrote up for Rita, that we handed out to the class as a reference. Just thought it was an important point early on in the project that we gave out history notes to the class, even if it wasn’t Abby or I who did that work. Similarly, I’ve included a lot of email communication that we had, that I think shows the process we went through, even if it wasn’t always 100% related to me.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
3/18/08-4/2/08
I’ve contacted Tammy Lechner again, since Rhonda Prast never responded to me. She’s willing to do the interview via email since she doesn’t have skype. I’ve emailed her questions. I've tried contacting Jeff Jasper via email but it got bounced back. I've found Dick Van Halsema through Linkedin, a career network (the job equivalent to facebook or myspace). I've emailed him through that and awaiting a response. I’ll take what I can get at this point. I’ve got Jim Curley and Patricia McDaniel in person, John Hansen via phone, and Tammy Lechner via email. I haven't been able to get in touch with Marcia Prouse yet (time difference makes it hard) but I’m hoping to catch her soon and just chat with her – not go over her pictures individually, since she has so many, but rather get a general sense from her what she thinks. Originally, my committee told me I didn’t need to contact her, but Abby doesn’t have her on the list of people to contact either, and it doesn’t seem right (more to Marcia than anyone) to not have one of us at least call her.
There's been a slight, unexpected copyediting bottleneck. I designed several versions of the one story for me that is ready – Gladys Thomas. Also did the portrait ones that are done. We are over a month behind schedule. Time for copyediting is definitely something to factor in for the next bookmakers.
We had another title discussion (sorta). Now two options are being considered. The second is - Arrow Rock: Where the Past is the Future
I don’t love it, but I like it better than the former, so I’m hoping it wins out. I gave my favorite title one last go and sent an email supporting one that Shaney offered: Arrow Rock: Where History came to Visit and Stay. Or perhaps a version of that: Arrow Rock: Where History comes Home. You still get the history aspect, but it’s a bit warmer. I made a passionate (and diplomatic!) but didn’t get much response from rita. That’s ok, I’ll be happy if we go with the Past/Future one. It sounds like the Beyond History: Arrow Rock’s thriving Village will be the back cover. I do like the play of the ‘History’ being the focus on the front and the ‘Beyond History’ being on the back. Good interaction. (note: the beyond history idea was eventually discarded because we couldn’t find a picture that worked well).
Being in London away from the group is hard. I have to struggle through my problems via email. I don’t recommend it if at all possible in a group setting – hard to feel as part of the project from 4500 miles away. Alas, life can only wait so long I suppose. But I do miss everyone at Missouri!
Abby came to visit for a week. We had one day of fun and then several days of serious Arrow Rock design work. We ironed out some technical details (such as: is the caption to picture distance from ascender to descender or from main letter body to picture; how far is the byline from the title, all that kind of fun stuff) . I showed Abby how to make an object style for the photo-border (very helpful, in case we ever decide to change it). We’ve de-spaced the captions a little, since they seemed a bit airy (leading, ledding? I can’t remember the official terminology – the spacing between lines, not letters). Mostly, we tried to establish some consistent design strategies. This is difficult, because every story seems to be different. We ended up designing about fourteen spreads each, (around 7 stories) and hope that at least some of these pass by Rita and Joy when they review them. I have found that design in this capacity is not so much creative as it is problem solving - trying to fit puzzle pieces together (even if they don’t always fit). Cropping pictures, which Angus McDougall says is a no-no, has become inevitable, just as chopping captions and once in a while text has as well. The biggest struggle for us has became the dreaded gutter. When a picture has to break a certain way across the gutter so as not to have important details lost in the crack, it really limits the design. This is much more an issue in a book than a newspaper or even a magazine, where the gutter absorbs very little (if any) of the picture. The sequencing is also important, and when it’s the middle picture we’ve chosen to be big, that’s a real doozy to design, because one can’t stack the smaller two. Abby was working on her Kathy story and said something to the effect of – this one is a problem child, because of this factor and that factor - once I get past this story it will be easier. But as we both agreed later, every spread has its own idiosyncrasies, and every one is a problem child! I will say that when we didn’t have text to work with, at least placing the pictures on the page in general sequence and size order helped later when we added text (though by no means meant we didn’t have to eventually redesign). Still, having the pictures already there, ready and waiting, was very helpful, so if future book makers ever have to wait for text, I recommend doing this.
There's been a slight, unexpected copyediting bottleneck. I designed several versions of the one story for me that is ready – Gladys Thomas. Also did the portrait ones that are done. We are over a month behind schedule. Time for copyediting is definitely something to factor in for the next bookmakers.
We had another title discussion (sorta). Now two options are being considered. The second is - Arrow Rock: Where the Past is the Future
I don’t love it, but I like it better than the former, so I’m hoping it wins out. I gave my favorite title one last go and sent an email supporting one that Shaney offered: Arrow Rock: Where History came to Visit and Stay. Or perhaps a version of that: Arrow Rock: Where History comes Home. You still get the history aspect, but it’s a bit warmer. I made a passionate (and diplomatic!) but didn’t get much response from rita. That’s ok, I’ll be happy if we go with the Past/Future one. It sounds like the Beyond History: Arrow Rock’s thriving Village will be the back cover. I do like the play of the ‘History’ being the focus on the front and the ‘Beyond History’ being on the back. Good interaction. (note: the beyond history idea was eventually discarded because we couldn’t find a picture that worked well).
Being in London away from the group is hard. I have to struggle through my problems via email. I don’t recommend it if at all possible in a group setting – hard to feel as part of the project from 4500 miles away. Alas, life can only wait so long I suppose. But I do miss everyone at Missouri!
Abby came to visit for a week. We had one day of fun and then several days of serious Arrow Rock design work. We ironed out some technical details (such as: is the caption to picture distance from ascender to descender or from main letter body to picture; how far is the byline from the title, all that kind of fun stuff) . I showed Abby how to make an object style for the photo-border (very helpful, in case we ever decide to change it). We’ve de-spaced the captions a little, since they seemed a bit airy (leading, ledding? I can’t remember the official terminology – the spacing between lines, not letters). Mostly, we tried to establish some consistent design strategies. This is difficult, because every story seems to be different. We ended up designing about fourteen spreads each, (around 7 stories) and hope that at least some of these pass by Rita and Joy when they review them. I have found that design in this capacity is not so much creative as it is problem solving - trying to fit puzzle pieces together (even if they don’t always fit). Cropping pictures, which Angus McDougall says is a no-no, has become inevitable, just as chopping captions and once in a while text has as well. The biggest struggle for us has became the dreaded gutter. When a picture has to break a certain way across the gutter so as not to have important details lost in the crack, it really limits the design. This is much more an issue in a book than a newspaper or even a magazine, where the gutter absorbs very little (if any) of the picture. The sequencing is also important, and when it’s the middle picture we’ve chosen to be big, that’s a real doozy to design, because one can’t stack the smaller two. Abby was working on her Kathy story and said something to the effect of – this one is a problem child, because of this factor and that factor - once I get past this story it will be easier. But as we both agreed later, every spread has its own idiosyncrasies, and every one is a problem child! I will say that when we didn’t have text to work with, at least placing the pictures on the page in general sequence and size order helped later when we added text (though by no means meant we didn’t have to eventually redesign). Still, having the pictures already there, ready and waiting, was very helpful, so if future book makers ever have to wait for text, I recommend doing this.
3/3/08-3/17/08
I’ve finished uploading abby’s toned images to the server. We’ve done several re-edits at the request of shane and rita. I’ve added those pics to the server as well. I have started designing the portrait sections that we have and the one story that we’ve gotten back from the copy-editor. We are all tired and ready for this to be done. We are constantly sending a flurry of emails back and forth, which I’ll probably attach. Anything I can find arrow rock related is going to be crammed into whatever monstrosity of a binder I turn in.
We had a skype test phone call, followed by an actual two hour conversation, me on the London end, abby, rita and shane on the other end. We discussed title, back of book, various re-edits, and other points of clarification. We have chosen a title, that at least Rita and David like. Arrow Rock: Living the pioneer life. Rita likes the double entendre of the title. I don’t think people will think hard enough to see it though – I think they’ll be stuck on the idea of covered wagons and coonskin caps. Maybe I’m wrong though, and that’s exactly what tourists are looking for. I just thought the whole point of the book was to go deeper than the surface, but that title certainly does not reflect that. I know the title is supposed to sell the book though, so it’s not necessarily reflective of content. I don’t really like it, but I didn’t have support for the one I preferred, and so there it is. I understand why rita likes it, but I still think it sounds too much like a textbook. Such is life when your master’s project involves finances and other people. After all, I’m not providing the financial backing. It’s hard for me to let go, I realize what a control freak I am. Abby is a saint to put up with me for so long. I try hard to play nicely, but sometimes my passion for a project overrides diplomacy, or, as Rita pointed out, professionalism. For me, with all the time we’ve invested in this, especially between Shane, Abby and I, I feel it’s kinda past the professionalism point, though I understand the reasons for maintaining that. But, you get so deep into something, pour in so much, and that line just blurs until it’s erased. I try to tell myself I don’t care, but I DO care. And then I tell myself for the greater good of the team to take being outvoted gracefully, but I sometimes lack that perspective or ability to bend. I am aware of my sometimes difficult nature. Rita put Abby and I together because she knows how patient Abby is, and can tolerate my more stormy approach to things. I am including this in the journal because I think it’s an important thing to think about for future bookmakers: if you’re going to work with a bunch of people on a long, involved project like this where people become deeply invested at every level, then it is imperative that it be people who can work and communicate well with each other. This is no small thing – there have been times where I’ve been so tired of the project and seeming circles we occasionally go in (completely re-editing stories at this late hour) that I feel like the project will never end, that it’s hopeless, that I’m banging my head against a wall. But those are only the darker moments – there is a light at the end of the tunnel, there will be a great project to show for it, and it is thanks to my team that we all keep going during the rougher times– that when one of us gets overwhelmed or depressed, the others cheer that individual up, and we all keep going.
We had a skype test phone call, followed by an actual two hour conversation, me on the London end, abby, rita and shane on the other end. We discussed title, back of book, various re-edits, and other points of clarification. We have chosen a title, that at least Rita and David like. Arrow Rock: Living the pioneer life. Rita likes the double entendre of the title. I don’t think people will think hard enough to see it though – I think they’ll be stuck on the idea of covered wagons and coonskin caps. Maybe I’m wrong though, and that’s exactly what tourists are looking for. I just thought the whole point of the book was to go deeper than the surface, but that title certainly does not reflect that. I know the title is supposed to sell the book though, so it’s not necessarily reflective of content. I don’t really like it, but I didn’t have support for the one I preferred, and so there it is. I understand why rita likes it, but I still think it sounds too much like a textbook. Such is life when your master’s project involves finances and other people. After all, I’m not providing the financial backing. It’s hard for me to let go, I realize what a control freak I am. Abby is a saint to put up with me for so long. I try hard to play nicely, but sometimes my passion for a project overrides diplomacy, or, as Rita pointed out, professionalism. For me, with all the time we’ve invested in this, especially between Shane, Abby and I, I feel it’s kinda past the professionalism point, though I understand the reasons for maintaining that. But, you get so deep into something, pour in so much, and that line just blurs until it’s erased. I try to tell myself I don’t care, but I DO care. And then I tell myself for the greater good of the team to take being outvoted gracefully, but I sometimes lack that perspective or ability to bend. I am aware of my sometimes difficult nature. Rita put Abby and I together because she knows how patient Abby is, and can tolerate my more stormy approach to things. I am including this in the journal because I think it’s an important thing to think about for future bookmakers: if you’re going to work with a bunch of people on a long, involved project like this where people become deeply invested at every level, then it is imperative that it be people who can work and communicate well with each other. This is no small thing – there have been times where I’ve been so tired of the project and seeming circles we occasionally go in (completely re-editing stories at this late hour) that I feel like the project will never end, that it’s hopeless, that I’m banging my head against a wall. But those are only the darker moments – there is a light at the end of the tunnel, there will be a great project to show for it, and it is thanks to my team that we all keep going during the rougher times– that when one of us gets overwhelmed or depressed, the others cheer that individual up, and we all keep going.
2/18/07-3/2/07
Cheers, Mate! While I’m gutted I can’t spend this next month in Missouri, I am trying hard to pick up all the English lingo. There is some ‘discussion’ over the title. I just hope it’s not 21st century frontier town. It is uninspiring, and does no justice to the town. In other news, I’m working out how to give Abby the images that are toned. I think I’m going to go with my original idea to have an 8th folder called 8_images_toned broken down into: portraits, abby_stories, and leah_stories (abby and leah denoting which stories we’re assigned to).
Abby set up the sections in indesign for the book, and I’ve set up the folder system that we’ll use to store the images.
Now I just must continue to tone and design.
Abby set up the sections in indesign for the book, and I’ve set up the folder system that we’ll use to store the images.
Now I just must continue to tone and design.
2/11/08-2/17/08
My eyes are 20/20! Or close enough. Better to see the computer screen with, my dear. I have spotted all of Alex’s forty something portraits. Hair by dust by spot by scratch by hair. I’ve also toned all of them. I have tested the server from PA and it seems to work. I’ve tried contacting Perry from Watkins and sending him images, but he’s ignored me thus far. We’re working on the PR stuff right now – how much control AR will have. My input on this is mostly via email. Abby and Rita are dealing with the brunt of it. They’re also working out Shane’s copyediting deal. This will put us behind on our design schedule. We’ve already got about 6 a week to design, so this should be interesting trying to do 8 or 10 in a week to catch up…but I can’t really complain because it’s given me time to pack for my move to Lon-don!
1/27/08-2/10/08
Returned to Missouri to work directly with Abby on final reedits of certain spreads, and the necessary renumbering associated therewith; figuring out a picture cover; meeting with David, Rita and Abby over finances; developing and toning a slideshow to show to Arrow Rock; deciding the title of the book and the book sections; creating a schedule of design (that’s insane) so that we can have this thing published by the summer; working out the final grouping of portraits to help accommodate Shane’s text as well as the visual variety; developing and creating a master template of paragraph and character styles. I’m tired of picas, my mind is blown. Sometimes I wonder why we don’t have a designer on this project too, if we’re going to have copyeditors and whatnot. Would be a better product for it…another very important thought for future bookmakers. I wanted to do everything when it started off, but I didn’t realize how big this book would be or how the time put in would spiral out of control – 224 pages is a beast! At least at the end of it, there will be a decent product, even if it’s not the best it could be (since we’re using standard heads instead of art heads, and neither Abby and I is the best or swiftest designer).
We’ve also hashed out the final details of the master template, and I created the portrait one, down to the picas and points. Abby will be creating the story one.
I’ve interviewed John Hansen and Patricia McDaniel for the other half of my master’s project. Previously, though I may not have mentioned it in this journal, I interviewed Jim Curley. I have sent out requests to Rhonda Prast and Tammy Lechner as well. I’m trying to get a hold of Marcia Prouse’s contact info.
We’ve also hashed out the final details of the master template, and I created the portrait one, down to the picas and points. Abby will be creating the story one.
I’ve interviewed John Hansen and Patricia McDaniel for the other half of my master’s project. Previously, though I may not have mentioned it in this journal, I interviewed Jim Curley. I have sent out requests to Rhonda Prast and Tammy Lechner as well. I’m trying to get a hold of Marcia Prouse’s contact info.
12.09.07-12.23.07
Abby, Shane and I traveled for two long days to visit printers and discuss our publishing options. We’ve developed a few more spreads to add to the book, like: boardwalk, quiet town, and tourism, pictures that we think enhance an understanding of the town while incorporating nice pics that otherwise wouldn’t have space. Have finalized some other edits. We grouped portraits that we think they will visually go well together.
Interviewed Chet and Page for my Clay story.
Interviewed Chet and Page for my Clay story.
11.25.07-12.08.07
We have figured out what goes on all 224 pages – at least tentatively. I decided it would be good to have a document that broke the book down page by page, so we have created a document for this, brilliantly titled: ar book pages which lays it all out. We have decided to intersperse the portraits in groups of three spreads after each section. There will be a grouping of three pics per spread – one big, two small.
We have looked at how to design the opening spreads to each section with Joy.
Started ramping up the design – fonts, margins, gutters, talking to printers about color profiles, headers, bylines, portrait pages vs story pages, page numbering and pretty much everything that goes on the page.
We have looked at how to design the opening spreads to each section with Joy.
Started ramping up the design – fonts, margins, gutters, talking to printers about color profiles, headers, bylines, portrait pages vs story pages, page numbering and pretty much everything that goes on the page.
11.04.07-11.24.07
We’ve created a document titled: Book Story Order in Jello. We have worked within that to figure out how we will develop our sections, and in which order. We are trying to give the book a good flow. We’re also figuring out where to put the portrait pages. We’re playing with margins and gutters.
10.14.07-11.03.07
Editing printed pictures to give ourselves finalized edits. Did a lot of that. Starting baby steps with the design. Have met with Joy who is giving us a push in the right direction – how we should be thinking about the portrait pages (as a separate but still unified part of the book), how we should be thinking about the fonts (with descriptions like friendly, laidback, inviting, etc.) and some ideas where to find fonts.
9/30/07-10/13/07
So, we’ve moved our stuff into the new space. We’ve put all the portraits on the wall and have been working on more second and third round edits, with work prints. Had a minor panic mode, but then Abby and I worked out a schedule for when these edits needed to be done, when we needed to start the final edits, and when we needed to start the design phase. Also, we’ve come to the realization that we are not going to be finished this semester. Alas. It’s just unrealistic. This means I’ll be working remotely from wherever I might be. I did it with Holly on the Sweeney book, so I know it’s possible.
09/16/07 – 9/29/07
I spent Friday night, most of Saturday, and Sunday morning and Afternoon in Arrow Rock, trying to get that last shot at Bunny’s, of people coming or going with a suitcase. It’s a waiting game…luckily the weather was decent. I think I finally have something useful.
Since Sunday, Abby and I have been meeting every day this week doing the same thing – second and third round edits, with work prints. We have made it through the rest of the Events folder (except for Easter, since we still don’t have Rita’s images). Those were:
Children’s Craft Festival
Craft festival
Election
Firemen Pig Roast
Flower Show
Potluck Dinner
Printing Press Anniversary
Repaving Main Street
School Visit (and tour)
Sip n’ Stroll
Vet Clinic
We have also started on the Organizations folder. This has 11 subfolders, and we have done four. These are a little meatier than the events. So far, we’ve done:
Craft Club
DAR
FAR
Fire Dept.
We’re beginning to think in terms of transitions from story to story. For example, we think the Craft Club should lead into a section on the Festivals (and we will combine both the Children and regular Craft Festivals, since the pics are so similar). The DAR will lead into 4th of July. Some things will not have their own spread (Printing press, flower show, repaving, etc. ) I see the skeleton forming!
We also printed out all the portraits Alex took as reference, and tacked those up in our new Arrow Rock suite, aka Rick’s former office. Rita said she’s going to get us a monitor by the time MPW is done, which would be awesome. We will officially move over there right after MPW, and will be there until Rick kicks us out.
Tomorrow, the whole gang will be meeting.
Since Sunday, Abby and I have been meeting every day this week doing the same thing – second and third round edits, with work prints. We have made it through the rest of the Events folder (except for Easter, since we still don’t have Rita’s images). Those were:
Children’s Craft Festival
Craft festival
Election
Firemen Pig Roast
Flower Show
Potluck Dinner
Printing Press Anniversary
Repaving Main Street
School Visit (and tour)
Sip n’ Stroll
Vet Clinic
We have also started on the Organizations folder. This has 11 subfolders, and we have done four. These are a little meatier than the events. So far, we’ve done:
Craft Club
DAR
FAR
Fire Dept.
We’re beginning to think in terms of transitions from story to story. For example, we think the Craft Club should lead into a section on the Festivals (and we will combine both the Children and regular Craft Festivals, since the pics are so similar). The DAR will lead into 4th of July. Some things will not have their own spread (Printing press, flower show, repaving, etc. ) I see the skeleton forming!
We also printed out all the portraits Alex took as reference, and tacked those up in our new Arrow Rock suite, aka Rick’s former office. Rita said she’s going to get us a monitor by the time MPW is done, which would be awesome. We will officially move over there right after MPW, and will be there until Rick kicks us out.
Tomorrow, the whole gang will be meeting.
09/02/07 - 09/15/07
Abby and I have sorted Alex’s portraits. We’ve figured out which portraits don’t have stories on them (about 29) and labeled them. We met with Shane to give him those portraits so he could start by reporting on these individuals or couples. He’s going to go for interesting anecdotes about Arrow Rock and their ties to it, rather than the standard: I am ____, I’ve lived here for _____ and I do _____. He plans on having this mostly done by MPW (note from much later: we underestimated ever so slightly the time it would take Shane to track down people and write good portrait stories). We brainstormed a lot about how to structure the book, and we’ve agreed that Alex’s portraits are going to be scattered throughout, as the unifying theme of neighbors. Right now we’re trying to decide whether or not portraits of people we’ve covered should be with that story or separate. We designed templates using a vertical square (9.5inchesx11inches), and have decided that the most we could fit onto one page would be two portraits, and for some (especially the more interesting ones) we may want to give a full page.
Rick brought in a bunch of books for us to look at, so Abby, Shane and I all flipped through them, discussing the pros and cons of different design. It’s made us realize that the max pics we’re getting on a page is 3, and that’s pushing it. With visual variety and what not, we’ll want a lot of 1’s and twos. That means anywhere from one to three spreads a story (depending on how in depth the story is).
We have counted up how many approximate stories we have: ~45 give and take Lloyd and Leo and Carolee Turner (sp?). Averaging 6 pics a story or so, we’re hovering around 350 (though I think it will end up being more). This puts us at 120 pages or so, but with portraits and what not, I think it will be closer to 180, maybe even 200. At least this gives Abby a number to work from when getting a quote – ask the price difference between a 150 page book to a 200 page book (low and high end).
Abby and I also started our second round of editing, which consists of two starring the ones we’ve moved into our working files that we think are really good (taking into account visual variety and all the good editing stuff we’re supposed to think of). Then we group the two star ones together to the ones most similar to the others, compare them, and choose the best of the best at this stage by three starring those. The three starrers we are copying to another folder (called prints) and are making work prints of these, using a single image on a contact sheet in Photoshop with a name. This is the best part so far, because now we have something in hand, and most of the photos at this stage are decent, so it’s getting both Abby and I really excited. It’s starting to shape things up for us. I think once we get through this second edit, we’ll have a lot better idea of how everything comes together.
We have started with events. We edited in alphabetical order (the easiest for us to remember) the following:
∑ 4th of July Parade (excluding what we might not have of Rita’s, as we despair of actually getting our hands on these)
∑ making and hanging of the greens (which we combined into one folder called 2-greens)
∑ burning of the greens
∑ celebrity visits (hey, we needed to call the whole Celeste Holmes, Johnny Whittaker and Tom Sawyer thing something)
It’s getting to be a lot of fun – I’m actually really excited about the next time Abby and I meet!
Rick brought in a bunch of books for us to look at, so Abby, Shane and I all flipped through them, discussing the pros and cons of different design. It’s made us realize that the max pics we’re getting on a page is 3, and that’s pushing it. With visual variety and what not, we’ll want a lot of 1’s and twos. That means anywhere from one to three spreads a story (depending on how in depth the story is).
We have counted up how many approximate stories we have: ~45 give and take Lloyd and Leo and Carolee Turner (sp?). Averaging 6 pics a story or so, we’re hovering around 350 (though I think it will end up being more). This puts us at 120 pages or so, but with portraits and what not, I think it will be closer to 180, maybe even 200. At least this gives Abby a number to work from when getting a quote – ask the price difference between a 150 page book to a 200 page book (low and high end).
Abby and I also started our second round of editing, which consists of two starring the ones we’ve moved into our working files that we think are really good (taking into account visual variety and all the good editing stuff we’re supposed to think of). Then we group the two star ones together to the ones most similar to the others, compare them, and choose the best of the best at this stage by three starring those. The three starrers we are copying to another folder (called prints) and are making work prints of these, using a single image on a contact sheet in Photoshop with a name. This is the best part so far, because now we have something in hand, and most of the photos at this stage are decent, so it’s getting both Abby and I really excited. It’s starting to shape things up for us. I think once we get through this second edit, we’ll have a lot better idea of how everything comes together.
We have started with events. We edited in alphabetical order (the easiest for us to remember) the following:
∑ 4th of July Parade (excluding what we might not have of Rita’s, as we despair of actually getting our hands on these)
∑ making and hanging of the greens (which we combined into one folder called 2-greens)
∑ burning of the greens
∑ celebrity visits (hey, we needed to call the whole Celeste Holmes, Johnny Whittaker and Tom Sawyer thing something)
It’s getting to be a lot of fun – I’m actually really excited about the next time Abby and I meet!
08/26/07-09/01/07
I’ve sorted Abby’s stuff and what we have of Rita’s. Abby and I have talked to Rick, and he’s going to bring in some books for us to look at, since we’re struggling to find the inspiration we need from your typical photo book (which tends to have one picture a page, and very little text). We’ve downloaded all the portraits from Alex. I retrieved the backup harddrive from David and carefully backed up all 389 gigs of folders (checking each folder as I went along).
08/12/07- 8/25/07
Sorting sorting sorting, keep those folders sorting…(I am imagining this in a singsongy tone, a replica of rolling rolling rolling – gotta do something to keep us entertained)
I have now finished everyone but Abby and Rita, who still owes us Easter.
That would be:
Ikuru Kuwajima
Kyle McDaniel
Sean McGann
Elisa Petersen
Ben Reed
Julien Semanchuk
Karen Stockman
Christina Tercero
Chris Wehling
Lyle Whitworth
Leah Gallo
Right now, everything has been broken down into the following categories:
Events
Organizations
People
Portraits
Other
These categories have a combined total of 74 subcategories. And this is without Abby’s stuff. Holy shite. Abby and I are going to have some slimming to do. Well, a lot of those subcategories are people who won’t get full or even half stories, but there’s still a lot!
Rita, Abby and I had a meeting where we discussed progress on book organization and structure, reviewed some of the images that I had sorted into subject folders, and spoke of what needs to be completed in the near future.
I have now finished everyone but Abby and Rita, who still owes us Easter.
That would be:
Ikuru Kuwajima
Kyle McDaniel
Sean McGann
Elisa Petersen
Ben Reed
Julien Semanchuk
Karen Stockman
Christina Tercero
Chris Wehling
Lyle Whitworth
Leah Gallo
Right now, everything has been broken down into the following categories:
Events
Organizations
People
Portraits
Other
These categories have a combined total of 74 subcategories. And this is without Abby’s stuff. Holy shite. Abby and I are going to have some slimming to do. Well, a lot of those subcategories are people who won’t get full or even half stories, but there’s still a lot!
Rita, Abby and I had a meeting where we discussed progress on book organization and structure, reviewed some of the images that I had sorted into subject folders, and spoke of what needs to be completed in the near future.
07/29/07 – 08/11/07
Abby and I have gone on separate vacations, and we both agreed to edit each other’s stuff while the other one was away. Abby got through most of mine, and I have just now completed going through, editing, and cataloging all of her folders. Whew hoo! I feel it is a big accomplishment. I have seen every single Arrow Rock photo taken in the past year that is known to exist except for Rita’s Easter stuff. Glass of champagne anyone? Ok, perhaps too soon to celebrate. I have also reorganized the hard drive, and have been spending time creating a system of folders that combine’s everyone’s selects into relevant categories: either people (like the Hodges) or events (like the Burning of the Greens) or other important AR fundamentals (like the Country Store). This way everything on a particular story, person, event, etc. is all in one place. This is the first real organizational step. It will show us just how much we have to include in the book, and looking at photos this way will help Abby and I determine whether we keep people’s stories whole, or insert other pictures into them when needed (I vote for breaking up a story only if it’s grossly lacking.) We can also create sections like Boardwalk Banter or AR moments, or whatever, by pulling from everyone’s takes. This is going to take a long while to do, I think. It would have been wise to do this as we were going along, but unfortunately we didn’t think or agree upon it until afterwards. I almost feel like we’re retracing our steps, by going back into everyone’s folders that we just selected through. It would have been much easier to combine these two steps into one process. Or better yet, if we had used a program like iView, we could create catalogues of pictures using keywords without copying pictures and adding to the space consumed on the hard drive. Of course I didn’t even think of that until now. Another note for the next book maker I guess! The silver lining is that it makes us review the photos a second time…guess that can’t hurt…only our time management skills, anyway!
So far I have sorted:
Andrew Church
Kyle Coburn
Alex Cooney
Kit Doyle
Shane Epping
Ashley Futrell
Sky Gilbar
Ashley Henry
So far I have sorted:
Andrew Church
Kyle Coburn
Alex Cooney
Kit Doyle
Shane Epping
Ashley Futrell
Sky Gilbar
Ashley Henry
07/22/07 – 07/28/07
We have downloaded the remaining files we needed from Shane (from the Gladys memorial and from 4th of July) and also grabbed Rita’s July 4th files from Shane’s hard drive, which, since Abby and I are both finally up to date with moving all of our stuff to the AR harddrive, means the only files we are missing are Rita’s Easter files (and maybe her last 4th of July card). We’ve created a document for Shane that shows him where anyAfrican American pics can be found for the research part of his project. We have also finished editing Shane Epping’s takes. He’s got some good stuff.
07/15/07 - 7/21/2007
This week we have finished the first round editing on the following:
Christina Tercero
Chris Wehling
Lyle Whitworth
Ashley Henry
We have started Shane Epping. We are saving the big monsters for last (both Abby and I will be doosies).
We’ve finished the two page brainstorming list of words we associate with Arrow Rock. This was an additional way for us to figure out our theme. I think we’re settling somewhere in the realm of ‘community’ and ‘family’. It really is like an extended family: love, secrets, warmth, quibbling, friendship, black sheep, dedication and all.
Abby and I have decided we need to expand Bunny’s story, as well as photograph some architectural details, per Rita’s suggestion. We talked about it and decided I would follow up on Bunny, and Abby would follow up on the architecture.
Today I spent the day hiking around the Big Muddy photographing the Jameson Shoot Project. Learned a lot of interesting stuff about how rivers work and what the Corps of Engineers is doing, and how Tom Bell (and Tom Beamer) are convinced that the farmers fears are unfounded…spent from 8 until 3 with Tom Bell, he’s a very interesting, enlightening soul. I don’t think my photography was fantastic (most of the work was being done about a mile from the river, and they wouldn’t let me close for safety reasons, so imagine lots of dirt.) but I tried. I’m not sure how well it ties into Arrow Rock – mostly just a reminder that the river is there, and is the reason that Arrow Rock was originally formed as well.
Today I also finished going through all of the folders from my class that Rita gave me and downloading whatever word documents and indesign files I could scrounge. I laugh (ruefully) when people copy the indesign files onto a cd without the corresponding pictures, fonts, etc. It might be wise to incorporate a lesson on preflight packaging and the basics of how indesign works (by creating representative jpegs and links) in one of the advanced technique or picture story classes. We still need to get the rest of Abby’s class and see what bounty those cds hold.
Christina Tercero
Chris Wehling
Lyle Whitworth
Ashley Henry
We have started Shane Epping. We are saving the big monsters for last (both Abby and I will be doosies).
We’ve finished the two page brainstorming list of words we associate with Arrow Rock. This was an additional way for us to figure out our theme. I think we’re settling somewhere in the realm of ‘community’ and ‘family’. It really is like an extended family: love, secrets, warmth, quibbling, friendship, black sheep, dedication and all.
Abby and I have decided we need to expand Bunny’s story, as well as photograph some architectural details, per Rita’s suggestion. We talked about it and decided I would follow up on Bunny, and Abby would follow up on the architecture.
Today I spent the day hiking around the Big Muddy photographing the Jameson Shoot Project. Learned a lot of interesting stuff about how rivers work and what the Corps of Engineers is doing, and how Tom Bell (and Tom Beamer) are convinced that the farmers fears are unfounded…spent from 8 until 3 with Tom Bell, he’s a very interesting, enlightening soul. I don’t think my photography was fantastic (most of the work was being done about a mile from the river, and they wouldn’t let me close for safety reasons, so imagine lots of dirt.) but I tried. I’m not sure how well it ties into Arrow Rock – mostly just a reminder that the river is there, and is the reason that Arrow Rock was originally formed as well.
Today I also finished going through all of the folders from my class that Rita gave me and downloading whatever word documents and indesign files I could scrounge. I laugh (ruefully) when people copy the indesign files onto a cd without the corresponding pictures, fonts, etc. It might be wise to incorporate a lesson on preflight packaging and the basics of how indesign works (by creating representative jpegs and links) in one of the advanced technique or picture story classes. We still need to get the rest of Abby’s class and see what bounty those cds hold.
070807-071407
Every day this week we’ve built caches and edited. We are now through these additional people:
Ikuru Kuwajima (this was a big one, felt good to get through!)
Kyle McDaniel
Sean McGann
Ben Reed
Julien Semanchuk
Karen Stockman
Ben had a lot of files, but he’s such a good shooter, I felt like I learned something by moving through his takes with him. He and Ikuru were fun to edit – such good vision, such a wide variety in each take. Makes me want to try harder. On the other end are the students who have blurry photos in bright daylight. I know my takes are far from perfect – in fact I struggle with flash very much. But looking through these takes has for me really exposed (no pun intended) a lack of technical proficiency. Sometimes there's such vision in these shots too! It's frustrating to see exactly what the photographer was going for, but never quite nail a sharp shot. We need advanced lighting 2! Ok, enough about that.
We also started looking through some of Zoe’s photography books for design inspiration. And we sat down and hashed out a list of words we associate with Arrow Rock. We’re trying to develop our theme. The ‘spine or backbone’ as it were, to bring me back to my biology days…It seems on the tip of our tongues. We’ve come up with some decent ones, but nothing that seems to hit on every major point yet. Either too focused on the history or too much on the personal, but what will blend that all together, in succinct and telling fashion?
Ikuru Kuwajima (this was a big one, felt good to get through!)
Kyle McDaniel
Sean McGann
Ben Reed
Julien Semanchuk
Karen Stockman
Ben had a lot of files, but he’s such a good shooter, I felt like I learned something by moving through his takes with him. He and Ikuru were fun to edit – such good vision, such a wide variety in each take. Makes me want to try harder. On the other end are the students who have blurry photos in bright daylight. I know my takes are far from perfect – in fact I struggle with flash very much. But looking through these takes has for me really exposed (no pun intended) a lack of technical proficiency. Sometimes there's such vision in these shots too! It's frustrating to see exactly what the photographer was going for, but never quite nail a sharp shot. We need advanced lighting 2! Ok, enough about that.
We also started looking through some of Zoe’s photography books for design inspiration. And we sat down and hashed out a list of words we associate with Arrow Rock. We’re trying to develop our theme. The ‘spine or backbone’ as it were, to bring me back to my biology days…It seems on the tip of our tongues. We’ve come up with some decent ones, but nothing that seems to hit on every major point yet. Either too focused on the history or too much on the personal, but what will blend that all together, in succinct and telling fashion?
070107 -070707
We camped from the 2nd to the 5th. Coverage of Boy Scouts camping in the state park, 35th anniversary of the filming of the Tom Sawyer movie, and July 4th preparation and events. I took a portrait of the Tuckers, Abby took portraits of Page Williams, the Johnsons, and the Hodges.
To read last week’s full entry on camping and gigolos, see my new arrow rock diary, courtesy of Mary B’s, bought with a closing discount – thrifty.
To read last week’s full entry on camping and gigolos, see my new arrow rock diary, courtesy of Mary B’s, bought with a closing discount – thrifty.
06/24/07 – 06/30/07
Abby and I have been studiously editing takes for the first round of selects. It feels good to finally be getting to the meat of it. So far this week we have built caches and edited each folder for the following people:
Andrew Church
Kyle Coburn
Alex Cooney
Kit Doyle
Ashley Futrell
Sky Gilbar
Elisa Peterson
Also, we’ve started the fledgling stages of planning our camping trip. Tomorrow we shall meet to discuss the details further.
Also, we have seen the first round of Alex’s portraits. They rock. Abby and I now want to do a portrait book, forget the stories! We are trying to encourage the remaining townspeople to get portraits. I made up flyers that Tempe can stick in everyone’s mailbox with the dates Alex is available to shoot portraits. At least we’ll know everyone had the opportunity to get their portrait taken.
Also, I’ve emailed Ashley Henry to see if she has any more African American History stuff, since there’s only one day on the server. Rita didn’t seem hopeful that there was any more coming, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to double check.
Rita gave me copies of my semester’s class of cds. I have to copy any PDFs, InDesign files or Word documents on to the hard drive that we don’t have. I still think there’s going to be many missing word documents. Another reminder for anyone doing a future book project – make sure to ask for the digital copy of the story!
Andrew Church
Kyle Coburn
Alex Cooney
Kit Doyle
Ashley Futrell
Sky Gilbar
Elisa Peterson
Also, we’ve started the fledgling stages of planning our camping trip. Tomorrow we shall meet to discuss the details further.
Also, we have seen the first round of Alex’s portraits. They rock. Abby and I now want to do a portrait book, forget the stories! We are trying to encourage the remaining townspeople to get portraits. I made up flyers that Tempe can stick in everyone’s mailbox with the dates Alex is available to shoot portraits. At least we’ll know everyone had the opportunity to get their portrait taken.
Also, I’ve emailed Ashley Henry to see if she has any more African American History stuff, since there’s only one day on the server. Rita didn’t seem hopeful that there was any more coming, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to double check.
Rita gave me copies of my semester’s class of cds. I have to copy any PDFs, InDesign files or Word documents on to the hard drive that we don’t have. I still think there’s going to be many missing word documents. Another reminder for anyone doing a future book project – make sure to ask for the digital copy of the story!
June 17 - 23, 2007
June 17 - 23, 2007
Today I copied and copied and copied.
In total I have copied to the hard drive:
Kit Doyle
Ashley Henry
Ikuru Kuwajima (whew, that was a big one)
Kyle McDaniel
Sean McGann
Elisa Petersen
Abigail Pheiffer (another biggie)
I have also requested from Rita the cds that the students turned in, which has the design files for their stories. I thought these would be a helpful reference, and most people did not give us these (Note to any future bookmaker reading this: ask for digital copies of both the design and text).
So far I have copied or looked at discs from:
Sean McGann – have digital copy of indesign files and story
Ikuru – no digital copy of story or design
Ashley Futrell – no digital copy of story, design or transcripts from interviews
Kyle Coburn – have copy of story, captions, etc.
I’m beginning to realize that people didn’t turn in a digital copy of their stories or other valuable information. I would hate for Shane to have to transcribe. I still need from Rita the discs for the remaining people.
Today I copied and copied and copied.
In total I have copied to the hard drive:
Kit Doyle
Ashley Henry
Ikuru Kuwajima (whew, that was a big one)
Kyle McDaniel
Sean McGann
Elisa Petersen
Abigail Pheiffer (another biggie)
I have also requested from Rita the cds that the students turned in, which has the design files for their stories. I thought these would be a helpful reference, and most people did not give us these (Note to any future bookmaker reading this: ask for digital copies of both the design and text).
So far I have copied or looked at discs from:
Sean McGann – have digital copy of indesign files and story
Ikuru – no digital copy of story or design
Ashley Futrell – no digital copy of story, design or transcripts from interviews
Kyle Coburn – have copy of story, captions, etc.
I’m beginning to realize that people didn’t turn in a digital copy of their stories or other valuable information. I would hate for Shane to have to transcribe. I still need from Rita the discs for the remaining people.
June 10-16, 2007: The beginning
June 10 - 16, 2007
It starts. Well, the work started a long time ago, but the journal starts now, two days after my (gulp) 29th birthday. I hope I have a degree by the time I’m 30.
I worked on reorganizing everyone’s files from my semester, which often means moving and renaming. I am appreciating the people who were meticulous and followed instructions, and groaning at the people who completely ignored them, despite our persistent pleas. If I had this to do another go-round I would simplify our instructions even more. People are busy, which means the more complicated the instructions, the less likely they will be followed correctly. Thank god we got rid of the web galleries, there would have been mutiny.
Working off of the server is like pulling hairs out one by one. Painful, takes too long, and ultimately not productive. Adobe Bridge keeps crashing. To do anything of volume (like rename files that are incorrect) I need to copy them over to the desktop, and then Recopy to the server after I’ve made changes. Bridge simply refuses to work with the server. Or perhaps it’s the other way around. We desperately need that hard drive….right now it takes 14 minutes to copy 2 gigs. That’s 28 minutes of copying to make changes to 2 gigs of files. We have 300 gigs total. Not all need changes, but a lot do.
Also, building the Adobe Bridge caches for each folder is what’s going to take the longest time. Once these are built, it will be easier to move among the folders. My guess is that people either didn’t use Bridge, or used a centralized cache, so that we don’t have access to it. Frustrating, but also partially a problem with our computers, since they’re set to centralized cache, and you have to remember to change it every time you open up bridge, since it won’t save preference changes. Got to be a better way.
Files and naming, individual changes and notes:
Kyle McDaniel
Deleted web galleries and RAW files (since he had both RAW and DNGs). Bless his heart for making all those web galleries.
Can’t find more than 20 prarie park images. Emailed him about this. (follow up: he doesn’t have them)
One issue where he shot jpegs, and then forgot to copy them into his dng folder. Luckily I checked every folder I deleted to see if it matched. When I figured out what happened, I renamed these jpegs properly, since they were never given titles.
Alex Cooney
Moved all of his individual story selects folders (one for each date) into one folder. We need to get the rest of his files, and the portraits. The portraits will make great references.
Spent about an hour trying to figure out why one of his one folder kept crashing bridge. Pretty sure this was more than just the server being snarky – I think it was a corrupt .xmp file, which I’ve removed.
Emailed him about missing files.
Julien Semanchuk
We had to track her down at the end of last semester to get her files, but all now looks in order.
Shane Epping
He’s missing some Mary Burge files, maybe more. I emailed him. (follow up: we now have all his images)
Karen Stockman
Nothing is named or organized properly. I’m copying everything to the desktop to rename it all per our specs and then reorganize.
Ashley Henry
I only see one African American history shoot. I know this was right around the end of the semester, but I thought she went back. I’m wondering if she turned it directly into Rita. I’ve emailed Rita about it, and if she doesn’t have it, I’ll email Ashley. (follow up: Rita didn’t have anything additional. Ashley did not respond to our emails or phone calls).
Kit Doyle
Everything seems to be in order! I love Kit!
Kristina Tercero
The folder organization is a bit of a mess and will take sorting out. A lot of stuff not named. Lots of duplicates. For some reason all her NEF files have duplicate jpeg ones that are included in naming, meaning that sequential nef files now read 0002 0004 0006.
Sean McGann
Everything seems to be in order! I love Sean!
Leah Gallo
That’s me. All of my files are in order that are on the server, but I still owe the server everything I shot after the semester ended. I will transfer this all within the next few days. (follow up: this has all been done).
I have been organizing as follows:
Multiple shoots which have a host folder named:
Lastf_ar_slug
(date folders inside of this)
Single shoots named:
Date_lastf_ar_slug
This helps get rid of the folder within a folder within a folder syndrome, created partially by us because of the whole web gallery thing.
This past week or so Abby and I have continued to organize files, as well as fleshing out a document that contained story summaries of every project or event that has been covered. On Wednesday of last week (June 13th, 2007), Abby, Shane and I attended a viewing of Tom Sawyer, filmed in Arrow Rock in 1973. It was quite a hoot, with four Arrow Rockians in the front row, calling out everyone’s faces they recognized during crowds of extras. Donna Huston would get very excited every time she saw herself. “There I am!” she would exclaim. By the end, the four had the twenty odd attendees clapping and cheering for them.
Abby and I continued on to the Bingham exhibit in the Art and Archeology Museum. It was interesting to see his views of western expansion expressed in his paintings.
On Thursday, we had a meeting with Rita to hash out where to go next. This led to another scheduled meeting on the upcoming Monday to figure out how to direct Shane.
Abby and I also plan on concentrating on getting all of the Arrow Rock files copied to the new hard drive. We have been carefully transferring the files, double checking each folder to ensure everything has copied. It’s a slow process, but will be worth it when it’s done!
After that, it’s time for the rough edit, weeding out anything that we know for sure we won’t use. Ideally, we would have done the selection process on the server, but that was an impossibility due to the spinning wheel of death we saw anytime we tried to process large amounts of files. Plus, it wouldn’t store caches on the server, which meant that any work we did with tagging, etc. could only be viewed from the computer it was done on. We tried everything we could think of to get it to build the cache in the folder, even dragging and dropping from the centralized location, changing names and extensions, EVERYTHING, but to no avail. And yes, the preference settings were on distributed. But the server wasn’t allowing it.
On Friday, June 15th, I went to Arrow Rock to photograph the FAR black tie event at Prairie Park. I left my house at about 530 and didn’t get home until 1230. I have many mosquito bites as a memento of my attempt to capture the twilight hour.
On Saturday June 16, Abby and I roadtripped it to West Plains for Rita’s exhibit. Of course Arrow Rock came up. We discussed our plans to camp out for three days in the Arrow Rock campground. I think it will be lots of fun, and help us fill some holes.
It starts. Well, the work started a long time ago, but the journal starts now, two days after my (gulp) 29th birthday. I hope I have a degree by the time I’m 30.
I worked on reorganizing everyone’s files from my semester, which often means moving and renaming. I am appreciating the people who were meticulous and followed instructions, and groaning at the people who completely ignored them, despite our persistent pleas. If I had this to do another go-round I would simplify our instructions even more. People are busy, which means the more complicated the instructions, the less likely they will be followed correctly. Thank god we got rid of the web galleries, there would have been mutiny.
Working off of the server is like pulling hairs out one by one. Painful, takes too long, and ultimately not productive. Adobe Bridge keeps crashing. To do anything of volume (like rename files that are incorrect) I need to copy them over to the desktop, and then Recopy to the server after I’ve made changes. Bridge simply refuses to work with the server. Or perhaps it’s the other way around. We desperately need that hard drive….right now it takes 14 minutes to copy 2 gigs. That’s 28 minutes of copying to make changes to 2 gigs of files. We have 300 gigs total. Not all need changes, but a lot do.
Also, building the Adobe Bridge caches for each folder is what’s going to take the longest time. Once these are built, it will be easier to move among the folders. My guess is that people either didn’t use Bridge, or used a centralized cache, so that we don’t have access to it. Frustrating, but also partially a problem with our computers, since they’re set to centralized cache, and you have to remember to change it every time you open up bridge, since it won’t save preference changes. Got to be a better way.
Files and naming, individual changes and notes:
Kyle McDaniel
Deleted web galleries and RAW files (since he had both RAW and DNGs). Bless his heart for making all those web galleries.
Can’t find more than 20 prarie park images. Emailed him about this. (follow up: he doesn’t have them)
One issue where he shot jpegs, and then forgot to copy them into his dng folder. Luckily I checked every folder I deleted to see if it matched. When I figured out what happened, I renamed these jpegs properly, since they were never given titles.
Alex Cooney
Moved all of his individual story selects folders (one for each date) into one folder. We need to get the rest of his files, and the portraits. The portraits will make great references.
Spent about an hour trying to figure out why one of his one folder kept crashing bridge. Pretty sure this was more than just the server being snarky – I think it was a corrupt .xmp file, which I’ve removed.
Emailed him about missing files.
Julien Semanchuk
We had to track her down at the end of last semester to get her files, but all now looks in order.
Shane Epping
He’s missing some Mary Burge files, maybe more. I emailed him. (follow up: we now have all his images)
Karen Stockman
Nothing is named or organized properly. I’m copying everything to the desktop to rename it all per our specs and then reorganize.
Ashley Henry
I only see one African American history shoot. I know this was right around the end of the semester, but I thought she went back. I’m wondering if she turned it directly into Rita. I’ve emailed Rita about it, and if she doesn’t have it, I’ll email Ashley. (follow up: Rita didn’t have anything additional. Ashley did not respond to our emails or phone calls).
Kit Doyle
Everything seems to be in order! I love Kit!
Kristina Tercero
The folder organization is a bit of a mess and will take sorting out. A lot of stuff not named. Lots of duplicates. For some reason all her NEF files have duplicate jpeg ones that are included in naming, meaning that sequential nef files now read 0002 0004 0006.
Sean McGann
Everything seems to be in order! I love Sean!
Leah Gallo
That’s me. All of my files are in order that are on the server, but I still owe the server everything I shot after the semester ended. I will transfer this all within the next few days. (follow up: this has all been done).
I have been organizing as follows:
Multiple shoots which have a host folder named:
Lastf_ar_slug
(date folders inside of this)
Single shoots named:
Date_lastf_ar_slug
This helps get rid of the folder within a folder within a folder syndrome, created partially by us because of the whole web gallery thing.
This past week or so Abby and I have continued to organize files, as well as fleshing out a document that contained story summaries of every project or event that has been covered. On Wednesday of last week (June 13th, 2007), Abby, Shane and I attended a viewing of Tom Sawyer, filmed in Arrow Rock in 1973. It was quite a hoot, with four Arrow Rockians in the front row, calling out everyone’s faces they recognized during crowds of extras. Donna Huston would get very excited every time she saw herself. “There I am!” she would exclaim. By the end, the four had the twenty odd attendees clapping and cheering for them.
Abby and I continued on to the Bingham exhibit in the Art and Archeology Museum. It was interesting to see his views of western expansion expressed in his paintings.
On Thursday, we had a meeting with Rita to hash out where to go next. This led to another scheduled meeting on the upcoming Monday to figure out how to direct Shane.
Abby and I also plan on concentrating on getting all of the Arrow Rock files copied to the new hard drive. We have been carefully transferring the files, double checking each folder to ensure everything has copied. It’s a slow process, but will be worth it when it’s done!
After that, it’s time for the rough edit, weeding out anything that we know for sure we won’t use. Ideally, we would have done the selection process on the server, but that was an impossibility due to the spinning wheel of death we saw anytime we tried to process large amounts of files. Plus, it wouldn’t store caches on the server, which meant that any work we did with tagging, etc. could only be viewed from the computer it was done on. We tried everything we could think of to get it to build the cache in the folder, even dragging and dropping from the centralized location, changing names and extensions, EVERYTHING, but to no avail. And yes, the preference settings were on distributed. But the server wasn’t allowing it.
On Friday, June 15th, I went to Arrow Rock to photograph the FAR black tie event at Prairie Park. I left my house at about 530 and didn’t get home until 1230. I have many mosquito bites as a memento of my attempt to capture the twilight hour.
On Saturday June 16, Abby and I roadtripped it to West Plains for Rita’s exhibit. Of course Arrow Rock came up. We discussed our plans to camp out for three days in the Arrow Rock campground. I think it will be lots of fun, and help us fill some holes.
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