Catch Up Saturday……..

I needed to share a number of things that fall into different categories so let me take this morning to bring you up to speed on a number of things!  I get lots of emails asking questions that I think others may also want addressed as well, so today let me talk about some of those things.

1. Yesterday’s blog entry on Bob Krist.  I’ve received numerous emails from people that admire Bob as much as I do and wanting to share my enthusiasm for the man!  I am so sorry that they could not have seen by everyone as posts to the blog!!!  Please believe me I’m working on it, I just need a little help to push the right buttons to make it happen.  I want the blogs (all four) to have a comments section that appears as soon as you post a comment, or i make a reply.  Trust me I will be home Monday after three straight weeks on the road and after I do my Nikon reports that is issue Number One to be addressed.  thanks for your patience, I promise a solution is coming……

2.  The comment section.  Delt with that above!!!!

3.  I’ve had a lot of emails from people that liked and were used to the old blog,  asking why I changed everything to this site, and it deserves an answer.  Apple is no longer supporting iWeb which is the software program used to maintain the older Mobile.Me site.  I’m not sure what will happen to Mobile.Me as well since the cloud is coming, maybe is already here, wouldn’t know without a weather report!!  That was a joke, I’m not the most technically savvy guy in the world when it comes to the computer world.  Also I’m going to to be doing more commerical activities in the future like workshops and ebooks, etc, etc.  A .com site was the most reasonable way to do that.  Word Press will also allow a lot of great options for future things like video, and slide shows.  Once I learn better how to use this program I will add more and more interesting content!

4. The new Macro Part 2 class on Kelby Training.  I have received a lot of emails saying kind things about the latest and previous classes.  Please let me thank all of you at once, (though I do answer every email I get with a personal reply).  You will never know how much I appreciate your kind words and encouragement.  When Scott asked me several years ago to join his Kelby Training Team, I turned him down mostly because I was afraid I would be awful at standing in front of the camera teaching.  I became a photographer so I could stand on the other side of the camera!!!  I am not at all nervous about teaching 300 people in an auditorium from a stage, but standing in front of a video camera is not my favorite thing to do!  I have to share with you that after I did my first class, the one on equipment for field use, I was sure it would never air.  I was shocked when it was very successful!!  Thanks to you guys, that have no taste, (just kidding), it was a success.  After that I started teaching to Adam, he is the lead videographer for Kelby Training.  He has now had to endure 5 classes of me teaching directly to him!!!!  I am looking forward to, hopefully, sharing many more subjects with you in the future, I have some great ideas and we will see if they agree.  I’ve already been asked for more close-up stuff in the field, and I would love to do that, so we will see if they want to do that class.   The next class which is already taped and in editing is, I think, the most important one I’ve ever done, “Learning to See Photographically!”  I would expect it will be out by the end of the year or early next year.  Thanks so much for watching my classes and please tell your friends to come on board with us!  Joining up with Kelby Training has been one of the best things I’ve ever done, I’m really enjoying it!

5.  Requests for camera test reports.  This is a sticky one.  I work for Nikon and I’m sure they wouldn’t want me evaluating our products, pointing out all the good and not so good things that might be said.  I’m even more sure they wouldn’t like me evaluating the products of competing companies.   So since I would like to stay employed until I retire, I will put that off for now.  I do think that an honest evaluation of products based on there effectiveness in field use is something I would love to do in the future.   I think that is something we can look for down the road.  This does give me an opportunity to rant just a little.  I really don’t like, quote: “test reports” that focus on the tiny details, pixels, frame rates, pixel density, etc etc.  I’m a photographer, and I use cameras to make photographs.  If a camera makes incredible image capture possible, I could care less about all the specs.  When specs matter in capturing the image, I care, but in many cases, they don’t matter as much as some people may think.  My good friend, Rod Planck, one of the very best nature photographers out there today, always taught in classes we did together, “Great technique beats equipment, every time…..”  He is right, learn how to use your camera, lenses, flash,  and tripod and you will greatly improve your work.  Once you are using all the potential of what you own, get even better equipment!

6.  Quote form email; “I miss all the info on the old website about you, your family and things like the lists, the quotes and other stuff.”  I hope to,  in the future,  restore some of those things, but honestly I started the new website with a concentrated effort to place the emphasis on you the reader, and on my Heavenly Father.  I will, as time permits, consider adding relevant content, just bare with me.  My life is still well over 200 days a year on the road, and working hard for Nikon, so blog time still has to be shoe horned in when I can.  Thanks for your interest though!

7.  When will information be available about 2012 His Light Workshops?  I will be back in the home office November 7th.  I will start working on setting firm dates and make announcements in mid November about next years offerings.  Some really great stuff is planned!

8.  Do you ever sell used equipment and how would I find out about it, I missed the stuff you sold for the wife of your friend!  Actually I have been thinking about having a category on the website for that, I do, from time to time sell items and I will work on getting that up on th site.

9.  Are you available to speak for clubs or in churches?  Yes, and no, my schedule for Nikon is very tight and I have limited vacation time, but sometimes if the group size is large enough Nikon will send me, and if the travel distance is not to great, I do sometimes do these talks on my own time.  I have done one day seminars for camera clubs in the past, but, because of scheduling problems these have to be arranged well in advance.  Feel free to email me with any requests,  billfortney@erthlink.net   Once again someday, in the future, after retirement, I hope to do more of all the above!

10. How did you get into photography professionally?  I was a high school teacher and football coach.  My first year of coaching my freshman team not only didn’t win a game, they never even scored in an entire season!!!  I knew I needed to do something else!  While that is true, it really wasn’t what got me into photography.  I was right out of college and I had always wanted town a nice camera so I bought one, (a Nikkormat FTN with a 50mm f2 lens and a 105mm f2.5 lens [still have the 105!!!!] ) and started trying to learn how to use it.  In those days there was no guarantee that when you got your box of slides back that there would be anything on them!  I started studying, reading, and asking other photographers for help and after a while I knew it was what I wanted to do for my whole life!  I left teaching to become a newspaper photographer, from that to being a PR person doing lots of photography in that job, I worked in underground coal mines, did aerial photography, shot weddings and portraits, then medical photography, and eventually became a magazine photojournalist and writer. After meeting John Shaw and Larry West (two of the giants of nature photography of my era), I started shooting nature work, and eventually started a business called, The Great American Photography Weekends, it lasted for 17 years and at one time was the highest rated Nature Photography  Workshop Company in America!  It was dedicated to God on the day it was formed, and I believe to this day that is why it has so much success!   We served almost ten thousand customers over those 17 years.  I left that company and went to work for Nikon a little over nine years ago.  Many years ago I met a man named John Netherton.  John had just published his first book on Radnor Lake in the Nashville area.  I wanted so badly to be like John and publish books and be a “well known photographer…”  God has richly blessed me with more success than I had any right to expect.  I’ve now had five books published and all have been very successful, three runaway best sellers!  I never became a famous photographer though, because there is no such thing!  I have had a blast, met thousands of great people, made lots of wonderful friends, shot in incredible places all over the world, and have had a life that I never dreamed I could have.  I count it all, as a great blessing from my Heavenly Father……….   “It’s so much better to receive what He wants to give you, than to get what you deserve………………”

the pilgrim