User blog:Gideoncrawle/You won't be seeing me as much

I have reached a minor milestone (edit #1500), but that is not the real reason for this post.

I regret to inform you all that I am about to become much less active on the wiki than what you are used to. The reason is that my main hobby (as noted on my User page) is sports photography at my former high school, where I have achieved a semiofficial status over the years, and school is now back in session. In fewer words, volleyball season is upon us. This will be my 20th season shooting for the program.

Because I must work for a living and my Internet access outside the home is limited, my presence on the wiki is generally confined to evenings and weekends (Mountain Time). This, however, is precisely when I will be attending games. (One such game will be next Tuesday, which is why I will be posting the conclusion of Courtney and the Violin of Despair a day early.) Furthermore, shooting for the various sub-varsity teams as well as for the varsity, I take about 6,000 photos per season. Although I can use batch processing for the basic cleanup/enhancement, it’s still time-consuming to go through so many pics and decide which shots I will post online and put on the CDs I distribute at the end of the season. Excluding the state tournament, volleyball season runs through the end of October.

After a month-long breather in November, basketball starts at the beginning of December. This is the other sport that I shoot (mainly the girls, but a little of the boys), and I take about 10,000 shots per season. (I have more pics in basketball than in volleyball because I can use the continuous shooting mode more often, cranking out 5 frames or more per second.) Excluding the latter rounds of the playoffs, basketball season runs from December through Febraury, with a 3-week break for the holidays.

Bottom line: for most of the next 6 months you’re going to have to share me with these girls.

Although I haven’t got round to it yet, I am still planning to bring a small sample of my photo work to the wiki. I have pictures of girls (all from the same school, with most of the shots taken within a 2-year span) that resemble the TDI girls to some degree. I don’t have one for Sierra, mainly because her huge purple braid is too important to her look. Gwen is the other girl whose hairstyle is critical to her look; but I happen to have a girl who matches her beautifully, not just for how her hair looks but for how it behaves.

Gwen and Eva are my best matches--I have resisted the urge to flip my “Eva” picture to put the girl’s beauty mark on the correct side--and Courtney is currently my weakest. (I have several girls that will do for Courtney, but none that I’m really happy with.) Hairstyles tend not to match particularly well, because almost every girl with hair beyond a certain length wears a ponytail (usually low, sometimes high) during games; and because these are photos of game action, clothing obviously isn’t going to match and curves tend to be hidden.

Quite some time ago, I asked for and received permission from the Admins to post a gallery of these photos on my User page. One of these days, I’ll actually do it. I’m also thinking that I should put them on the appropriate TDI-G&amp;S) and/or LTDI character pages; but that might require a separate permission, which may or may not be forthcoming.