Hello there, little elves in the WordPress machine! I’d like to take this moment to remind you that I’ve been a blogger with WordPress since June 2008. I think I’ve got it figured out by now. So that little blue pop-up asking me “How can we help?” is just annoying.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any way I can make it go away. So I beg of you: Make it stop!
My daughter gave me some of her time in the natural light studio after work yesterday. Here are a couple from our shoot.
Four days in the South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas for The Amaz!ng Meeting 2014, with a midnight arrival home on Sunday night, then back to work immediately on Monday hasn’t left me much time to catch my breath. I finally got through all the photos I took and posted them to Facebook and to SmugMug. I just unpacked today, sorted the dirty laundry and got the first load in the machine. The pantry is bare, so there’s that to do too, but I didn’t want anyone to think I’d abandoned the blog.
The Amaz!ng Meeting – from the web site:
The Amaz!ng Meeting (TAM) is organized by The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Over the last 15 TAMs, this event has become the leading conference in the world focused on scientific skepticism. Well over 1,000 people from around the world come to TAM each year to share learning, laughs, and the skeptical perspective with their friends and a host of distinguished guest speakers, panelists, workshop presenters, and entertainers.
Around 1,100 people attended this year.
Here are some of my favorite photos from Thursday, which was full of workshops. There are eight, but one person can only attend four workshops each as two run in the same time slot.
Teaching Skepticism for K-12 with Ani Aharonin, Barbara Drescher. and Daniel Loxton.
Barbara demonstrating the trick that is behind Power Balance Bands and other such “balance enhancing” items. See this video about Applied Kinesiology (link) in the
Advancing Skepticism in the Media – panelists: Sharon Hill, Jim Underwood, Richard Saunders, and Dr Karl Kruszelnicki (Dr Karl is basically the Bill Nye of Australia – or you could say Bill Nye is the Dr Karl of the United States!) The guy is awesome, and I got to chat with him a bit on Sunday morning at breakfast.
Rhetoric and Argumentation for the Skeptic with Miranda Celeste Hale, Robert Blaskiewicz, and Eve Siebert
Science-Based Medicine – How to Deal with Believers with Drs Harriet Hall, David Gorski, and Steve Novella.
I had a wonderful session with a friend of mine from work. It was such a joy to work with her and bring out the beautiful woman she is (inside and out).
We went out to Stead airport last night for the Reno Air Races annual Volunteer Appreciation Dinner. Yes, I took my camera.
More experimentation in the natural light studio, this time with a real person. Regular readers may recognize Mariya, who has been an eager model for me from the beginning. I made a big miscalculation yesterday on how to shoot in the room, but I still managed to get some nice shots out of our hour together.
I joined Hatch Reno (see web site here), and as a member I get use of the studios (regular and natural light) for a certain number of hours every month. Basically, the studio is set up using Sue Bryce’s specs. The studio has wide open north facing windows so the light in the studio stays pretty much the same as long as the sun is out. The walls are white and the light bounces around the room. Lovely.
I have a shoot at the natural light studio set up for tomorrow, but wanted to get the lay of the land today. So I took a look-see this morning and took advantage of the opportunity to get a few selfies in at the same time.
The studio comes with lots of props, wraps, and other lovely items, as well.
Carissa Snedeker Photography 