I just finished creating two new panoramic images from my fall trip to Colorado.
September 30, 2011: Mountain colors along Last Dollar Road
September 28, 2011: The Dyke, Kebler Pass
Dr. Lonny Harrison at Advanced Vision Care purchased these images for the lobby of his office in Bethel Park, PA. Both images will be printed on white hi-gloss aluminum at size of 20 x 58 inches.
Do you think the desktop publishing programs automatically create the look of professional typesetting? Well as good as InDesign and Quark are at handling type they don’t make the adjustments that a experienced designer will do to create a quality finished document.
Some of my personal pet peeves are the improper use of quote marks. All too often I see the inch or foot mark (straight marks) used instead of the proper curly-q mark. It goes both ways — how often do you see a numeric measurement with smart quotes instead of the straight inch marks? Drives me crazy!
In the beginning of my career I worked with a professional typesetter, where I learn it is the small details of typesetting that sets the pros apart. Things like spacing between paragraphs, quote marks and inch marks, spacing at the end of sentences, fractions and numeric symbols, etc.
For more on these details, here’s a great article from Smashing Magazine.
I just read this great article from Freelance Folder ….
While the author is a freelance writer, I think the benefits still apply to a graphic designer.
This is true in my case, if you do business with Double Play Designs, you are doing business with Jeanine Leech. There is no middleman and you will deal directly with me.
This may depend on the size of the agency and if the same designer is always working for the same client. The larger the agency the more likely it is not the same designer. As a freelancer, I will always be working on your project with attention to detail and consistency across different projects.
I can take on projects on short notice and complete them quickly. As a freelancer, I have the ability to juggle my schedule to suite the clients timeline.
We all know advertising agency’s charge big bucks. I on the other hand do not have all that overhead, but I do have agency experience. So with Double Play Designs you get an experienced designer at a reasonable rate.
Working one-on-one creates a strong customer and designer bond. As a single source design shop, you can trust in me to fulfill all your design needs.
On Sunday I went to Ohiopyle with fellow photographer and friend Perri Schelat. While I’ve been there several times, it was usually for biking. This time we went hiking in search of waterfalls. I consultant the Ohiopyle map several times as we hiked along the Sugar Run Trail, after about two and half miles we could hear the waterfall and see it through the trees. We thought about trying to climb down the hillside to the waterfall off in the distance, but decided to stay on the trail until it intersected with Jonathan Run Trail. From there it was short walk and down the rocks to be close to the waterfall. The sun was starting to peak out through the trees, but I managed to get a few shots before it became to bright and contrasty.
October 16, 2011: Jonathan Run Waterfall at Ohioplye
After looking at the map (again), we proceeded down Jonathan Run Trail in search of waterfall #2. We came to the biking trail and walked a short distance to Mitchell Trail. We proceeded up the trail along side the waterfall, until we found a nice spot to get close and as Perri says “down in there”.
October 16, 2011: Mitchell Trail Waterfall at Ohioplye
I could tell from the map it would be a climb back to the parking lot along the Mitchell Trail. 400+ steps – 300 feet up in quarter mile, and a sore hamstring later we climbed until the trail leveled off – somewhat. Another few miles and we arrived back at the car and ready for lunch.
We had lunch in Ohiopyle and head to Cucumber Falls. The parking lot was full so I knew there would be plenty of people there. We were pleasantly surprised to see a lot of water going over the fall. We climbed “down in there”, avoided the sightseers, and captured a nice image of the fall.
October 16, 2011: Cucumber Falls at Ohioplye
It was a good day at Ohiopyle and I’m glad to discover new waterfalls. Next time, I will pack the camera bag lighter and be prepared for the hike!
Nancy Rotenberg with Jeanine Leech at Babcock Mill
Back in the early days for her career, I was lucky enough to travel with her and photograph beside her – soaking in her knowledge and mostly her spirit. We spent hours behind our cameras capturing reflections – dancing inside as the light danced on our images. A happy dance.
There was my first trip the Adirondacks, where Nancy, Michael, mom and I spent a few days photographing together. It was truly special. Thanks to Nancy, I discovered “magic light” in those mountains. I love that place and I think it is because of Nancy and the memories I have of being with her. She taught me to go beyond the handshake and capture the essence.
Boot camp – that was my first workshop in Zion. I was young and unaware of what a workshop would be like. Up at 5 am are you kidding me? Well me with wet hair and all – headed out pre dawn to capture magic. I recall several tripod legs interlocked around one puddle as we all discovered magic in one small place. It was photographic bounding. Surprisingly we all had different images. Nancy influence to find our own creative voices, indeed.
I look around my home and see her influence everywhere. Yes, I have a few of her images, but I see her spirit in my own work and life. She changed me, brought me out of my shell and let me be the creative artist I always wanted to be. She taught me so much about life – all with a loving hug and comfort that only Nancy could provide. She gave me wings to fly.
I owe my photography career today to her. While, she didn’t teach me sport photography, she give me the life lessons and photographic skills I needed to pursue my dream. She was a very unique and special person. I miss and love her.
Thank you, Nancy.
Jeanine
Jesus Christ Superstar
The last two days I photographed “Jesus Christ Superstar” for the Pittsburgh CLO. It was a fun and different experience from photographing hockey pucks, baseballs, and footballs. Neither is easy but there are some similarities. With sports you are trying to capture peak action along with reaction photos. The theater is the similar, in that you look for “peak” moments in the story and expressive facial gestures. Both events tell a story and it is my job to tell that story with still images.
The theater has it’s challenges though – the light is constantly changing and the spot light is often harsh on the featured actor. I constantly adjusted my exposure, sometime only a 1/3 of stop, but others required several stop variations within a few seconds as the light changed. I’m very thankful to have a Nikon D3 and its wonderful ability to provide high-quality, low noise images at high ISO.
All in all, it was an enjoyable experience and I’m glad to have the opportunity to fill in for Matt Polk at the CLO.
See some of my images here.
I recently purchased a new MacBook Pro laptop, with plans to give my old MBP to my niece for college. I’ve been using it for about 4 years so as you can imagine it is setup to my liking with lots of files and custom settings being used. In the past, I would set up everything manually on a new computer – installing software from scratch, entering e-mail settings manually, setting up printers, changing custom settings. The list goes on…. as the hours past by.
So with this new laptop, I thought I would try the Apple Migration Assist. It was so easy! Just like that all my files, settings, e-mail – everything that was on my old laptop is now on my laptop! Wow. I just saved hours of time. Now, if you don’t want to copy everything, the migration assist gives you the option to select exactly what you want to transfer. You can only transfer network settings, or apps, or volumes, as you choose. As always with Apple, well thought out and easy to use.
I highly recommend using Apple’s Migration Assistant the next time you purchase a new computer, it will save you hours in set up time.
Check out the step-by-step instructions straight from apple here.
Did you know WordPress is not just for text blogs? It is a great content management tool for displaying your visual work.
Check out this great article from Smashing Magazine…. Better Image Management With WordPress
Check out my new WordPress designed website featuring my Pittsburgh sports photos at jeanineleech.com
I’m working on customizing WordPress for the my sports photography website. The richness of WordPress content management system is perfect for creating photo blogs. WordsPop provided the “base” theme for my heavily modified design. From there, I created a custom child theme. Replacing the background graphics, changing colors and fonts to provide a new look.
I’m working on adding the new content and hope to have the new look site ready for launch in a few days.
Smashing Magazine
