With 2017 ready to pass into the annals of history and 2018 no longer the future, but now the present, let's take a trip on the WABAC Machine and remember what happened during my 2017...
JANUARY
January was apparently uneventful... except that the Clown was formally installed as POTUS. I apologize if you do like Trump. I don't and I'm also not a big fan of the current House of Representatives and the Senate either. From my perspective, they are ruining America for the middle and lower classes.
FEBRUARY
The first weekend of February I traveled to Southern California. I spent most of Saturday at Joshua Tree National Park and a couple of hours at the Salton Sea. Got some really nice photos. It was first time I had used my "new" Nikon d330 camera that Mrs. DeadGuitarist bought me in 2016.
On Sunday, I met up with @nebula, @lyxzen, @kiley, @zelena, @bluering, and @philly2hb at the Salton Sea. Many others had expressed interest in attending, but didn't show up. We explored Bombay Beach and Salvation Mountain. It was a really fun day. Bombay Beach was really cool; lots of interesting street art and abandoned stuff. Salvation Mountain was interesting... it's a tribute to God and Jesus. Despite having grown up as an Episcopalian who went to church with some regularity, and someone who's had exposure to other Christian "faiths," including Lutheran, Church of Christ and Southern Baptist, this was not my cup of tea. That said, I weathered my inner turmoil. Everyone was super nice. Many thanks to @nebula for organizing this and inviting me. I got a lot of good photos.
Somewhere along the way I stopped writing PINK MAGIC, mostly because it was just taking too much time each week for me to write. I know lots of people looked forward to reading it each week, but I spent hours researching ladies, selecting photos, and writing the blog. Time I just didn't have every week.
I was also questioning my reasons for being on Suicide Girls and contemplated letting my subscription lapse. I wrote a blog about why, but the quick answer is that even though I was invited to an event, I didn't feel like I was completely welcomed; I felt kind of ignored. But I decided to renew my subscription after I got some personal notes from a few people that were very encouraging.
MARCH
I kind of disappeared from social media, including Suicide Girls for several weeks. All of the political shit going back and forth was just pissing me off to no end. Not here, but especially Facebook. The stuff that particularly pissed me off, and still does, are all of the Obama haters telling use to get over Trump and accept him. Fucking hypocrites... they never did get over Obama and accept him.
The only real thing of note that I did in March was bowling in a tournament. I bowled right around my average. Didn't win any cash, but I did win a 5 pound bag of rice in a raffle! π€£
APRIL
Spent April 1 at Death Valley National Park, Got some nice photos. Also visited Spring Mountain Ranch State Park for a ranger led wildflowers nature hike, a couple of trips to the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve and the Clark County Wetlands Park for photo safaris. Mrs. DeadGuitarist got a job at Faraday Futures, which lasted two weeks before they let her go. Turned out to be a good thing since Faraday pretty much pulled out of its agreement with Nevada to build a facility northeast of Las Vegas.
MAY
Mrs. DeadGuitarist and I quietly celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary on 14 May.
I started building my photography portfolio website and a Patreon page to try and earn some extra cash from my photography, with hope to turn it into a full time business at some point. Neither launched in May, but this is when I started working on them.
JUNE
Mrs. DeadGuitarist started a new job on 01 Jun, at the same place I work. Unfortunately, it only lasted 3 months. They wanted her to take over a projected that was poorly managed from the start and turn it around, but the previous PM wouldn't completely let go of the project. In the end, I think they hired her to be the scapegoat when the project failed at the end, and had no intentions of keeping her on past the end of the project. Took her a couple of months to find a new one.
Attended my first Aspiring Photographers Meetup Group Event other than a monthly meeting. It was to Goldfield, Nevada for astrophotography and light painting. It was fun and I got some decent photos.
JULY
I didn't do much of anything of interest in July. It's just too hot around Las Vegas to go out and shoot during the day. In retrospect, I should have gone up to Mount Charleston and done some hiking and take photos. It's usually 20*-30* cooler there than it is in Las Vegas. I should have gotten out at night and shot photos of Las Vegas and the stars and the Milky Way.
AUGUST
Finally went live with my Patreon page. Probably worked a lot on my portfolio website too. But that's about it.
Oh, got a 10% raise at work. Still paid below market and what I think I'm worth. But I like the company, the work, the people, the lack of office politics and drama, and the benefits are good. That's why I stay there.
SEPTEMBER
My mom sent me an Argus C3 camera she had put away in a box. Turns out it's the same one my step-grandfather gave me when I was in high school. Very cool.
Attended another Aspiring Photographers Meetup Group event. More astrophotography and some light painting. Tried stacking photos using Deep Sky Stacker this time. Got a few very cool photos from this event.
Launched my portfolio website, PhotosByWLG. I've since torn it apart and put it back together as two websites. More on that later.
Finally got the MRI on my right shoulder, which has been sore, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, since November 2016. Had the followup appointment a couple days later: partially torn rotator cuff, partially torn biceps tendon, partially torn/frayed labrum. Started physical therapy.
OCTOBER
Completely numbed by the mass shooting on 01 Oct. I think I walked around in a haze for a week.
Finished physical therapy. Didn't really help much. My shoulder actually started hurting more after I stopped PT than it did before I started it.
I finally had that first photoshoot with a model. It was mostly successful. I learned a lot and have used that experience to improve my photography and post-processing skills.
NOVEMBER
Had two photoshoots with models and took a lot of photos of the Las Vegas Strip at night too.
Quietly celebrated my 55th birthday. Getting old sucks.
Brought back PINK MAGIC in a different format. It's now to spotlight those Hopefuls who have at least 5 photosets in MR with the hope that SG staff will once again take notice of these ladies and reconsider them for PINKDOM. It's not a regular blog. To date I've only written one, spotlighting @leemalee, who turned PINK this week. Planning a new one very soon.
Went back to Death Valley to shoot the Leonids meteor shower, but it was mostly a bust. Did get some cool 360 panorama videos and cool astro photos, which I turned into a short time-lapse video.
DECEMBER
Had another photoshoot with models. For this one I rented a studio suite at Palms Place via Airbnb. It was nice. It was with two models. We shot some solo photos and some photos with both of them together. I'm still processing the photos, but we got some nice stuff. We shot for about 5 hours... they went through 5 different outfits each. I'll be working with each of them in 2018... definitely solo, maybe together again.
Finally went out to Floyd Lamb Park for an afternoon. Kind of like a small Central Park. Nice place to go and walk around, have a picnic, relax and unwind.
Was invited to join PaidCastings.com as a freelance talent. I know anyone can join for free, but I feel kind of special that they noticed me on Instagram and contacted me.
The Jolly Fat Man was very good to me this year. Mrs. DeadGuitarist spoiled me this year. The best gift was a new iMac to replace my aging and slow 2010 MacBook Pro.
WRAP UP
Well, that was my 2017. It wasn't bad, it wasn't great. But I got out and photographed stuff much more this year than I did in 2016. I also started working with models finally, and am hoping to continue that with many more model photoshoots in 2018.
How was your 2017? I would love to read about it. Write a blog and link it in the comments below.
ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
Staty Tunned...
Dead Guitarist
Besides Suicide Girls, you can find me on various other social, photography, and music sites, as well as career oriented sites: