OK, on the huge corporate project, they sent me the details of what they expected.

Here is a copied and pasted line in the description of the settings used in their example image. (shot in AV mode? Really?)

"Alameda is using a Canon, with a 4 point open, AV setting"

In plain English, would that be Aperture (AV mode) at F-4. What does 4 point open mean exactly?

Now, they are actually purchasing an LED panel for me, and don't want me to use my strobes (that I am comfortable with), and they want the turn around for 110 people in 4 days. I explained that there will be very little editing with that kind of turn around, and they were fine with it.

It reminds me of grade school photos. They want 3 poses, 2 shots of each pose (they sent examples of the poses)

The creativity is completely gone from this project. They even have everything stringed (measured from backdrop to subject, backdrop to LED light, backdrop to "natural light window", etc.) If it weren't for the price tag they want to pay, and that it's going to be a contract job where I return on a regular basis to string everything, and press a button, I'm just about to back out. They are even assigning one of their people to get all the releases signed, maintain them, and "herd" people through the line. I'm basically going to be standing there pressing a shutter for a few hours.

Anyway, is there something about "4 point" that I'm missing, or are they just trying to get fancy with plain old F-4? I haven't shot AV mode on purpose in forever. (I did when trying to learn Nikon CLS, but gave it up and went back to manual)

I'm expecting a real snooze fest, but like I said, the money is there. :-)

I just added a new post to the people photography section.

Please check it out and give me some honest feedback. I know what I would have done differently, but would like to hear some CC from people I admire. Always learning...

It can be seen at

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-396878-1.html

Still doing portrait work, but starting to gear up to get back into weddings next season. Making a lot of connections with other vendors, and networking. Also considering taking the plunge and paying for some advertising in the local paper in their special edition wedding section insert that they do once a year. Still considering that one. It will take me 2 weddings to "pay for it", so I have to consider how many weddings it will generate. Still on the fence, so if you've done that before, let me know your thoughts.

There is a Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, MO. My grandson and I spent part of a day there. We both like to look at old things. This museum has some nicely restored locomotives and traincars under some large sheds outdoors. It also has quite a number of un-restored pieces back behind some barriers. Those pieces sit on several sets of parallel tracks under another large shed. They are jam-packed in there. Maybe their intention is to restore some of them someday. But since we like old stuff we had a great time sneaking around the barrier to get back in there and take pictures of them as they are. On some of the shots I was struggling with the light and a little glare. The other problem was that the un-restored pieces were so crowded together that I couldn't get a good shot of the entire subject. So I got what I could. These are great relics of a by-gone era. At least they haven't been scrapped.