Pleasantly Surprised

I started a 500px account, in late May this year, to just see what the buzz was about and to have a place to showcase what I think is some of my best work. Overall it is nice site, but I’ll stick to my Munchkin Photos account through SmugMug for most of my work.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised today when I uploaded my picture of the Hungarian Parliament Dome, which I called Golden Dome (right).

The photo shot up in ratings to a popularity rating of 90.1 in less than hour. This is double the highest rating I have on some of my other photos. I think it is rather impressive for a low light photo shot without the use of tripod looking straight up. Now the question is will anyone actually buy a print of the photo.

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Cobwebs Everywhere

On October 7 th , I did a studio spooky session with Coralinx Cosplay . The central theme of this shoot was a pretty goth girl who had a fondness for spiders and decorating with cobwebs, making it a perfect Halloween session. Note: Cobwebs are defined as abandoned or old spiderwebs that have collected dust. Many cobwebs are the result of comb-footed spider (i.e., black widows) that make irregularly shaped webs. Spiderwebs are active structures built to catch prey. (Source: Western Exterminator Company) For these sessions, I used: Photography Equipment Other Equipment Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Westcott FJ400 2 Phottix Strobes 2 strip boxes 2 rectangular soft boxes 2 c-stands 3 light stands Backdrop stand Black seamless 2 Westcott silicon gels Tether cable Laptop Laptop holder Sandbags A-clamps Spyder Color checker Fake cobwebs Table ...

2025 Year in Review and Looking Forward to 2026

This year was a bit interesting especially since during the day, I’m a government employee, which resulted in a lot of stress and a 42-day furlough. I didn’t attend as many cosplay events with the D.C Cosplay group, now Costume and Camera, as I normally would have, due to schedule conflicts. However, I traveled up to Poughkeepsie, New York for two photo events, one of which I was a featured photographer. I attended two conventions, one of which didn’t turn out as expected and the other just confirmed my decision to take a break from it. Though happily I did a lot of studio work this year, which I enjoyed. But on the other hand, I lost my dear “studio supervisor”, my dog Teddy. He liked to great clients and then “supervise” while lying/sleeping in his bed. I also started to work on the business side of my photography work, by investing in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) site to manage bookings, schedules, and payments. No more trying to juggle...

Attempted Camping

This past weekend, my husband and I tried to spend the weekend at Post Card Cabins in Shenandoah for our anniversary. I say tried, because I got sick halfway through our trip, and we had to go home early. But the first part was nice. Post Card Cabins are owned by Marriott and located about 2 hours from D.C. in the Shenandoah region of Virginia, off I-81. There is also another set of cabins located off I-15, but we stayed at the ones off I-81. The property features several of these, in what I call a cabin development, which are spaced a decent distance apart, creating the illusion of privacy. The cabins are essentially tiny homes featuring a large picture window at one end, a small bathroom, a mini-fridge, a compact kitchenette with plates, silverware, a pot, and a pan, and a queen bed. They also come with two Adirondack chairs, a picnic table, a fire pit with wood, and a s'mores kit minus the sticks. ...

The Munchkin's Notebook

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