Being Honest About Myself, My Business, and What I Can Do To With Help Yours

I would like to get personal here and in support of my fellow photography professionals.

I started out in commercial and so my focus in the past few years has gotten way off track. This is not a job, a job to me is 9-5 and you follow the same commute every single day, doing something that you have to do. What I have is a career, something that I love. Everyday is different, I get to be creative every single day, and meet new people. Now you may LOVE your 9-5 job, and that’s cool if you do! But most people that I talk to don’t.
What I do is specialized, before I used to do families, maternity, newborn, children, and weddings. I found out that this wasn’t working for me, mainly because I would see friends and former clients use other photographers(I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook). Some used people who are hobbyists, nothing wrong with that, but it affected referrals to my business. While I love photographing families and kids (my own child included), I felt like my talents and expertise were more valued in the commercial photography area.

Hobbyists and those that do this part-time don’t get that when they offer their services to others free of charge to a former client of mine or for way less, it’s hurting the photo business as a whole. Hell, I see some professionals doing this and I’m like , why?!!! Stop doing this! You’re shooting yourselves in the foot.

This industry isn’t the easiest, and I get that, and I’ve been around for a really long time. I network in person…a lot. Sometimes it’s hard to get up and say a quick line about myself, I tend to fumble over my words and convey what I am trying to tell people. I’m best at one to one conversations, showing you what I can do and knowing that I can deliver what you want and then some, that’s where my confidence truly shines.  My goals and aspirations have always been high, and because of this, I do out of my way for my clients to give them MY best.

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Here is my interview with my one of my best friends, Lisa, How To Look Better In Pictures. I photographed her in the image above. 

When approached and asked, what do you do?, I say that I’m a commercial portrait photographer.  What this means is that my work is seen in magazines for companies, annual reports, their marketing materials, and sometimes, tv. I go on location to photograph people, or often in their environments, and in the my studio. I personally love  environmental portraits, because this shows my clients doing not only what they are doing, but it tells their story and their environment is an extension of themselves.

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Here are just a few questions that I ask my clients:

What is your next horizon for your company?  Where are you headed? Who needs to see you doing that? Magazines, tv shows, online media? Who is on your team to help present you visually? How are you insuring that your images and presence are the caliber that agencies and publications expect?  Do you have your marketing images packaged?

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Agencies expect a certain caliber of work and professionalism. Because this is what I do. I’m a photojournalist who gets their images for PR.

Let me ask you again, are you headed in the right direction? 

-Deirdre Ryan, Image Maker

Cowboy Trails, Hard Rocking Sounds to Surfing the Fender Strat

This was a Killer Triple Bill Concert at the Performing Arts Center in Bordentown, NJ hosted by Randy Now on August 13th, 2016. Originally this was supposed to be an HUGE outdoor event in Bordentown Township as a fundraiser. I don’t know what happened but suddenly it had to be indoors and with less than 5 days notice.

For everyone reading, I want you all to know something: Randy puts his heart and soul into everything he does, especially these concerts and events that he does. He loves music, pop culture, and everything that comes along with it. Because of Randy, my daughter and her friends are able to see live bands perform, some of them she loved already like Peter Tork of the The Monkees and expanding her horizons of punk and rock bands.

Bringing famous talent like Peter Tork, Robyn Hitchcock, Men Without Hats, Marshal Crenshaw, he also had a special SOLD OUT  dinner and a concert with Iain Matthews with James Fogarty, The Toasters, and more. I mean Randy has a book that has him all over the inside of it titled: No Slam Dancing, No Stage Diving, No Spikes: An Oral History of the Legendary City Gardens, and a movie about him and City Gardens Riot on the Dance Floor: The story of Randy Now and City Gardens Buy the book and dvd at his shop. His place in our town is awesome, and he is a wealth of trivia and stories.

Like I said, I have no idea what happened with the fundraiser or why this concert was suddenly changed, but Randy is a dear friend, and I love the guy a lot and many do as well.

So do this favor for me: patronize his shop, go to his events and concerts, spread the word about all that he is doing. Spread the love and kindness, because he deserves this and so much more. He loves what he does and that to me just awesome <3 -Thanks everyone!

Jet Weston and His Atomic Ranch Hands played songs of cowboy days by the fire as well as Johnny Cash and the blues from the 1930’s. The Doughboys are an incredible NJ rock and roll band that just kills it every time  with their amazing drum and guitar solos, vocals, and now they have a new album coming up. The Sharkskins are a surf rock band that came out strong with Dick Dale’s 1962 Misirlou, complete with trumpet. I was super amped that they played Goo Goo Muck by The Cramps 😀
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Then Jet asked if there were any women who could sing to come up on stage. My friends pointed to me, I asked what key, and so I went on the stage and this did happen. I sang back up to Don’t Let Go. My husband grabbed my Canon Mark 5D III with the 70-200mm 2.8L lens and took these next few photos.
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I screwed up a couple of times, but it was a lot of fun, I do sing in my church choir in the Alto section. I was hoping that someone had video of this.JetWestonandHisAtomicRanchHandsDeirdre Ryan Photography152.jpg

Video by Kris Lewis

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Just Like A Yoyo, only better.

Then the main act->>>>>>>The Sharkskins! These guys came blasting out with Dick Dale’s “Misirlou”.RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography1.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography101.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography13.jpgRandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography19.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography23.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography33.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography27.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography35.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography45.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography47.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography37.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography39.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography49.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography53.jpgRandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography55.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography61.jpgRandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography74.jpgRandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography77.jpgRandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography80.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography89.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography94.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography99.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography103.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography109.jpgRandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography91.jpgRandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography105.jpgRandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography117.jpgRandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography111.jpg RandyNowManTheSharkskins2016Deirdre Ryan Photography113.jpg

Check out this video of the their final performance that my friend Stephanie shot while I was on the floor in front of the stage photographing the band. BTW she’s a fabulous artist!

I go to these concerts to have fun and photograph them for my own enjoyment. It’s something I love to do, it’s right in my area, and I was able to bring my daughter and her friends to this show. My husband and other friends were there that night too. Yes, I would love the opportunity to photograph band and musicians for big magazines and record labels. If that opportunity comes my way, that would be awesome. Thank you to everyone that night for be great! I can’t wait to see you perform again!

Take a look at their websites and purchase their albums, thanks!

Also a HUGE thank you to Randy Now and everyone who came that night! Come to Bordentown and stop by Randy’s shop and say hello, get some LPs, cds or other great stuff!

All images are Copyright Deirdre Ryan Photography.  They are protected by U.S. Copyright Laws, and are not to be downloaded or reproduced in any way without the written permission of Deirdre Ryan Photography.

 

Kayaking the Crosswicks Creek For The First Time

This summer I’ve been spending a lot of time with my family. One of the outings we’ve always wanted to do together was to learn how to kayak. But before going out, buying one and the other stuff you need, we thought it would be a good idea to first take a lesson. Also in our area, the you need to have a very good understanding of the tides. We live on the Delaware River and it’s a tidal river that goes out to the Atlantic ocean.

So I contacted Mr. Mitchell, he’s one of the second grade teachers here at Clara Barton Elementary School in Bordentown, NJ and he has his own business, Greenwave Paddling. He is a professional kayaker who gives lessons and tours along the creeks in our areas.

I originally wanted to bring my Canon Mark 5DIII with the 24-70 f2.8L lens and the 70-200 f2.8L non-IS lens. But I thought that perhaps just for starters, since I was learning and it was our first time, I brought my Canon S100 point and shoot and of course my iPhoneSE.

We first met him at the Bordentown Beach so that he could properly  fit us with life vests, instruct us on paddling techniques,safety, show us all about the kayaks that we were using, getting into them, making sure that when were seated the kayaks that we were in them properly, and that then we were off!

Having lived along the shores of the Delaware River, Blacks Creek and Crosswicks Creek all of my life. I have never been out on the water of either of them. Not that I never wanted to, no… the opportunity just never came up. So for me I was in heaven and loved it!

I sat in the front with Mr. Mitchell behind me, we both were paddling, while my husband and our daughter were in the other. Once we got past the light rail road bridge, this is what I saw, the beginning of Crosswicks Creek. It was a gorgeous day and just perfect for what we were doing. We brought along water, snacks, and we did stop to rest a few times. Mr. Mitchell talked to us about the history of the creek, our town and the Revolutionary War, nature, what to look for and we just enjoyed the day, because as you can see by the images…it was beautiful. KayakingGreenwavePaddlingDeirdre Ryan Photography3KayakingGreenwavePaddlingDeirdre Ryan Photography11KayakingGreenwavePaddlingDeirdre Ryan Photography9KayakingGreenwavePaddlingDeirdre Ryan Photography35

We got to a certain point, switched front rowers, and headed back as the sun was starting to set.

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We spotted saw this Blue Heron,  I was kind of far away, so this is cropped from a zoomed in image. Of course I was thinking that I should’ve brought the other camera and longer lens…KayakingGreenwavePaddlingDeirdre Ryan Photography56

The Riverline crossing the bridge with Mr. Mitchell and our daughter in the foreground.

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This was an amazing adventure, we never once felt unsafe or insecure. It was relaxing, we were able to truly enjoy our surroundings. Our daughter paddled and did her share very well. This is something as a family we truly recommend and we will be doing this again with Greenwave Paddling. Go to the site and check it out. Thank you Mr. Mitchell for a great time, see you soon!

Christie Works The Fairness Formula Around Protestors in Town Hall Meeting

First off, I am no longer with a news outlet, so when I was called to attend this town hall meeting, I originally thought it was to cover this for a media outlet.  😉

Hope Hose Humane Fire Company is literally down the street from me, so I got my cameras, and photographed the protesters on Burlington and Willow St. And then I went inside, thinking that I would have to go and sit down, but I was pleasantly surprised to be allowed to photograph with the press and media. I did explain who I was and who I used to be with(The Packet Publication and that I am now a freelance commercial photographer), I gave my business card to the gentlemen and then settled down in a spot. I am really thankful and grateful to have been allowed to do this today.

I saw a lot of people that I knew, including Mayor of Bordentown City, Joe Malone, Ziggy Targonski, Mayor of Bordentown Township, Jill Popko, and many others in the community.

New Jersey State Governor, Chris Christie stopped by Bordentown, NJ to explain his Fairness Formula to NJEA teachers, staff, residents of Bordentown, and those from other towns. He’s calling for a fixed $6,599 in state aid per student. Supposedly this would greatly reduce property taxes in our town, which are enormous, and in other towns. Bordentown Regional School District spends about $19,851 per student and we have a graduation rate of 88.5 percent, while Asbury Park spends about $33,609 per student and their graduation rate isn’t as high, just 66 percent.

I quote David Levinsky, staff writer for the Burlington County Times:
“He said the state’s 31 poorest districts haven’t made substantial improvements in three decades, despite receiving millions in additional aid.”If money were the solution alone to this problem, those 31 districts would be the crown jewel of public education in America,” he said. “I’m tired of hearing the fiction that money will solve the problem.

“Christie was challenged during the town hall-style event on West Burlington Street by several audience members, among them Sue Altman, of Camden, who got into a lively back-and-forth debate with the governor after asking how the city’s school district would be able to provide a suitable education to students once millions of aid are phased out. “You can’t get blood from a stone. There’s no money in Camden. Where are you going to get it from?” Altman asked.

Christie pointed to the success of charter schools in Camden, saying they have had tremendous success with much less state funding. When Altman began to interrupt, Christie tossed his microphone to her. “I would love for the miracle of charter schools to come in and swoop in and save the day. I’d love it, and I’d be the first person to send my child there. But they do not serve the same demographic of children as the regular public schools. They don’t spend the same amount of money,” Altman said, pointing to the private dollars raised by some charter schools in Camden. ”We’re not talking apples to apples here,” she said, before throwing the microphone back to the governor.

Christie responded that charter schools have used different rules, approaches and methods of teaching to achieve better results, but that traditional public schools have refused to adopt similar changes, such as a longer school day or school year because of their teachers unions and collective bargaining agreements.

“There’s lots of bargains that could be made if compromise was available. But longer school days and longer school years have consistently been off the table. Because when the Legislature has proposed these types of things, we have seen the crowd come to Trenton to lobby against it,” he said.”

There were a lot of protesters from the NJEA(New Jersey Educational Association) which is the statewide union for teachers. They claim that this Fairness Formula is not fair and that it creates a disservice to the urban school districts while the suburban districts maintains funding for charter schools at the expense of the many traditional public schools in our great state.

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Bordentown Township’s Mayor Jill Popko.
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First Mayor Joe Malone of Bordentown City came out to introduce the Governor, and then Governor Chris Christie came in and went right into his speech.
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This gentleman was from Mount Laurel. NJ and was talking about housing. Not necessarily a question, but Christie seemed to think he was running for something…ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography82.jpg ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography88.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography84.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography85.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography86.jpg ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography89.jpg ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography91.jpg ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography98.jpg

This woman had a question regarding retirement and teachers being laid off , I believe, and her mother who was a teacher and had to take a job and continue working even though she was in her 70’s. ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography97.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography95.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography92.jpg ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography99.jpg ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography101.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography107.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography106.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography105.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography109.jpg

This is Sue Altman of Camden, NJ.ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography134.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography130.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography121-1.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography116-1.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography112-1.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography133.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography122.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography135.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography128.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography104.jpg ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography103.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography174.jpg ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre Ryan Photography157

Asking about NJ’s gas tax and having a laugh about not having to pump gas in our state and that a poll said that 70% of women didn’t want to pump gas. Having lived in other states when the weather was really hot, freezing or with torrential downpours,, yeah..I don’t want to pump gas in extreme weather. BUT I don’t like waiting around either and actually like having control over how I put fuel into my car. ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography184.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography143.jpg

Talking to woman about incriminating people with drug addiction…ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography144.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography150.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography138.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography152.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography154.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography160.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography171.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography181.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography182.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography180.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography178.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography177.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography167.jpgChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography146.jpg ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography147.jpg ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography153.jpg ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography162.jpg ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography166.jpg

Many hands were raised with questions to be answered, but there was limited time. ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography168.jpg ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography185.jpg ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography187.jpg

Here are two people getting their picture taken with the Governor. Some were happy with what he had to say about the Fairness Formula. Although it was hard to gauge with quite a few. ChrisChristieFairnessFormulaBordentownNJHopeHoseHumaneCo1Deirdre-Ryan-Photography188.jpg

And some didn’t get the answers they were looking for.

Emotions were high for this town hall meeting, as I’m sure they are for his other ones. There is a LOT at stake for this one.

Good Times for The Monkee’s LP Debut

The Monkee’s album, Good Times, was made available on vinyl LP last week and Randy Now’s Man Cave in Bordentown, NJ had them in limited supply. Thankfully, we were able to get a copy before he was sold out. Our daughter loves The Monkees(thanks to her mom and dad) and really wanted to get this on vinyl. Like good parents, we’ve taught her how to use a record player and tape deck. With the LP she got a mini poster, a sticker, and a coloring book!
Here is what the tracks are with the songwriters and singers listed(thanks to Wikipedia):

1.”Good Times”
Harry Nilsson
Micky Dolenz with Harry Nilsson
2:46
2.”You Bring the Summer”
Andy Partridge
Micky Dolenz
3:00
3.”She Makes Me Laugh”
Rivers Cuomo
Micky Dolenz
3:00
4.”Our Own World”
Adam Schlesinger
Micky Dolenz
2:45
5.”Gotta Give It Time”
Jeff Barry/Joey Levine
Micky Dolenz
2:17
6.”Me & Magdalena”
Ben Gibbard
Michael Nesmith with Micky Dolenz
3:33
7.”Whatever’s Right”
Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart
Micky Dolenz
2:00
8.”Love to Love”
Neil Diamond
Davy Jones
2:29
9.”Little Girl”
Peter Tork
Peter Tork
2:42
10.”Birth of an Accidental Hipster”
Noel Gallagher/Paul Weller
Michael Nesmith with Micky Dolenz
3:31
11.”Wasn’t Born to Follow”
Gerry Goffin, Carole King
Peter Tork
2:53
12. “I Know What I Know”
Michael Nesmith
Michael Nesmith
3:30
13.”I Was There (And I’m Told I Had a Good Time)”
Micky Dolenz/Adam Schlesinger
Micky Dolenz
2:15
Yes, that is Davey Jones on the album, it was originally recorded in 1967.
Once again from Wikipedia:
“The title track was written by Harry Nilsson and a surviving demo from the late 1960s was used incorporating Nilsson’s vocals posthumously in a “duet” with Micky Dolenz. Davy Jones performs the Neil Diamond-penned track “Love to Love” which was recorded in 1967 for the Monkees’ third album in a Don Kirshner-supervised session while the group was trying to gain musical independence from Kirshner. Once he was removed, the song was discarded in favor of recording an album of songs both sung and played by the group. The resultant album was Headquarters. For its inclusion on Good Times!, Dolenz and Tork contributed new backing vocals.”

I can only imagine what it must have been like hearing that track in the studio with Davey not being there….

It’s a very good album and one that I encourage you to listen and purchase on LP or cd or download off of iTunes.

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Here’s a cellphone photo of our daughter holding up her loot, The Monkee’s LP, Good Times, a coloring book, poster and a sticker. The rest I used my Canon Mark 5D III and Canon 24-70 f2.8mm L lens and some I used the Canon 600-RXT flash.

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Randy was playing The Monkees tv show, so after I go our daughter the LP with the extra goodies that it came with, I took some photos. There was a photographer from The Burlington County Times, we chatted a bit. He took a photo of us in some way, but since I’m not a subscriber to that paper, I can’t see the article. I’ll go to the library and check it out there.
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Update:

I use Twitter and when I posted and tagged Mickey Dolenz, he not only Liked this post, but retweeted it to his over 29K followers!  How super awesome is that? I’m still grinning from ear to ear 😀 Thank you again!!!ThankYouMickeyDolenzForRetweetedMyPost

Ocean City, Part 3

Thursday the family wanted to do some indoor activities, and Ocean City, NJ has quite a few of these.

I had a ticket for a free round of indoor Haunted Mini Golf, but first we did a laser type of challenge and a really cool mirror maze. I only posted 2 pictures because I don’t want to spoil too many things about it it. It was a lot of fun, and air conditioned! We had to wear plastic gloves to keep things clean, because everyone touches those mirrors.
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We encountered a dead horseshoe crab…
OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography282.jpg It did start to rain, my husband and daughter went to go see a movie, I stayed in the motel room to read my book and watch the Democratic National Convention. To be honest, part of me wished that I could’ve been there with a press pass photographing the event….

Friday we checked out and headed to Margate to see Lucy The Elephant, a 6-foot high structure in the shape of an elephant that you can con into and climb to the top. Lucy is a great destination for everyone to see at least once and we lucked out with the weather. She is listed with the National Park Registry of Historical Landmarks and is one of New Jersey’s many treasures. Our daughter had never seen Lucy and she really enjoyed her.

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Before heading back we came across a fantastic place to eat, DownBeach Deli and Restaurant.  I had the best potato knish in years there, it was heaven!

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The week seemed to have caught up with our little one as you can see, and she slept the entire way pretty much on the way home.

We did spend a lot of time on the beach, I’m not sharing all of my personal photos here. But here is another thought of mine on the Panasonic Lumix 100 LX camera:

I do LOVE this camera, truly I do, and with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS100 I was hoping for some improvements and sadly all I saw was a smaller sensor and a slower lens. DPReview gives it a Gold review but for those that want a zoom lens that stops to only f5.6 instead of the maximum aperture of f/1.7-2.8 that the older Lumix 100 LX gives you then it’s not for me.

The Lumix 100LX had a few miss focus’s, even when I had the spot focus on. Once I opened them up, I saw that they were back focused. Perhaps it was the camera that I was renting? Hard to say, but even with the multi-focus points I found that I had to re-compose quite often. I did enjoy the manual focus feature on it, and used it a few times.

People complained about the overall size of this camera in past reviews. Personally, I can’t stand a super tiny camera! Now I have small hands, but I like the bulk of certain cameras because I feel that I can use the stabilization of it for certain shots. I come from the days of film, heavy cameras, those things were made of metal. So I LIKED the way that this felt, and it was still lighter than my usual gear. So what that it doesn’t fit in my pocket!

This was my second time renting it, the first time I got it for the East Coast Comic Con earlier this year. I haven’t posted those yet, but I might later today or next week 😉

In case you missed them, here are my other posts:

Ocean City, Part 1

Ocean City, Part 2

Ocean City, Part 2

Tuesday was a full beach day. Of course I started my day early, got my coffee at Ocean City Coffee Company, my book, camera and sat on the beach to read before it gets crowded.OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography198

Now I really enjoyed and loved the Panasonic Lumix 100 LX camera and for this vacation it had everything I needed. A fast lens, large enough sensor, shoots in RAW, etc. However there was a quirk that I had no idea about until much later and I’ll get into this later on.

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After spending the day on the beach we ate dinner at Ocean Cafe, and this time with the entire family. While waiting for our food, we heard the Mummers on the boardwalk stop right outside the restaurant. It was really cool!

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Found this original Pacman and Ms. Pacman machines…OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography344 We let her play a few more games including the Batman pinball game, and by then we were exhausted and wanted to get back to our rooms. We had spent the day bodyboarding on the waves, looking for shells, and walking the boards after dinner.
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I let my husband take a few pictures.

The next morning I again woke up early to find that after it rained, there were these cloud in the skies that lingered and it looked like the sun was setting, when in fact it was rising. So before getting my coffee, I headed in the opposite direction towards the rising sun to capture these images:

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I kept chasing the light and so I found a spot and sat down, putting the camera down on the boards while people were jogging and riding their bikes around me. I shoot in manual mode, so these were almost straight out of the camera with some adjustments.
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Then I went onto the beach and continued:

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And that’s when I noticed a lone horseshoe crab. The tide was already out, and by the time the beach crowd arrived, I know that someone would try something with it. I man came by and he took off his shirt, placed it around it, and then put the crab in a spot so that it could safely get back into the water. But I first took some shots:
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VacationSelfieOceanCityNJiPhoneSEwwwDeirdreRyanPhotographyHere’s me taking a selfie with my iPhone SE, no filter in front of the Ocean City Music Pier.  I remember when I was a little girl you could set up for the day underneath that pier. Also you could walk underneath the boardwalk, and myself and other kids would throw up sand between the boards at people as the walked above us….but I guess Hurricane Sandy changed all of that.
I started to walk along the beach to go get my coffee and I found another one, but this one was on the move…

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I couldn’t get enough of the light that morning, it was just beautiful!

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It was super hot and muggy every single day. Even early in the morning, you could feel it. This was the week of that super bad heat have…
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Now back to the one quirk that I found really annoying about that camera:
Even though I had the image settings set to RAW, I found out that for some reason the camera was defaulting to jpeg every time I turned it off. I brought my laptop down with me to back everything up, however I thought that I had the proper adapter, when in fact it was my old black Macbook’s. So I had Amazon Prime send another one, but I didn’t get it until Wednesday. Once I got it, and opened up the images, THAT”S when I saw that pretty much ALL of my images were jpeg and not RAW!!!! The evening shots on Sunday? Jpeg. Everything from Monday? Jpeg. The mummers? Jpeg. Those sunrise images? Jpeg. So every single time I turned off the camera for any length of time, I had to keep putting it back to RAW even though my settings were set to RAW, it still defaulted to jpeg. I couldn’t find a way to fix this 🙁 If anyone here knows what to do about this, please leave a comment…or if you’ve had a similar experience I would love to know about it.

Later on that day, we went to Castaway Cove so that we could go on some rides. It’s pretty much next door to our motel.

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These are video stills:
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Taken from the top of the ferris wheel. OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography301.jpg
Of course we went back to Shriver’s for some fudge…They still make taffy and fudge on the premises.
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Eventually I’ll get to the video, but for now these are what happened on Tuesday and Wednesday of our week’s stay. If you missed my last post click here to get caught up, thanks!

Ocean City, NJ Part 1

We had just visited my grandfather at Vet’s Memorial Home in Vineland, NJ and driving to Ocean City, NJ to start our family vacation for the week. My friend Veronica, a professional photographer, was coming down the next day to take family portraits of us, Tuesday was my parent’s wedding anniversary, and most of all…we wanted to have fun.

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I saw the message on Facebook’s private messaging app…something like if this was a sick joke..but sadly it wasn’t. Our dear friend Patrick Cashin died suddenly in his home. http://www.clownlink.com/2016/07/rip-pat-cashin/

He was only 47 years old, married to the love of his life, with 2 boys and was a professional clown. His memorial will be this Monday.

We got unpacked at our motel, The Coral Sands, got our daughter settled, and then my husband and I broke down and cried. Pat was his childhood friend, and his sister Lillian’s best friend, so they grew up together. My friend here in Bordentown just so happens to be married to his best guy adult friend, John.

Pat would’ve wanted us to have a great time in spite of what happened. Regardless it was very hard to do, neither of us wanted to be online with Facebook unless it was to interact with our friends about our friend.

So here I will now continue, to post….
I rented the Panasonic Lumix LX 100 and my husband rented a GoPro from www.borrowlenses.com. I didn’t want to walk around with my large DSLR and lenses for this trip.
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So we went to go eat dinner at Ike’s Seafood and then had a gelato at Shriver’s. We stayed up pretty late, but that’s what you do when you’re on vacation down the shore 🙂OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography252 OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography254 OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography256 OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography258 The next morning I woke up wicked early, got my coffee from Ocean City Coffee Company(they were handing out free coffee samples that morning) on the boardwalk, read my book on the beach. Then I met my husband and daughter, and we rode our bike to Ovie’s for breakfast. OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography200.jpgVacationSelfieOceanCityNJiPhoneSEwwwDeirdreRyanPhotography.comOceanCityCoffeeNJbyDeirdreRyanPhotographyiPhoneSE At 8:30AM they raise the flag every morning on top of Maui Wowi’s.
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Later we really just hung out inside our room, getting ready for our photoshoot. It was REALLY humid, so since my mother and I have naturally curly hair, we stayed inside until it was time. We met my friend in front of Shriver’s Salt Water Taffy and Fudge, while we waited I took a few photos. OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography284.jpg OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography287.jpg OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography316.jpg OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography318.jpg

We brought our $5 kite to use as a prop and I took a few photos of our daughter flying it while my friend took pictures of her as well. OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography324.jpg OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography330.jpg OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography336.jpg OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography354.jpg

She brought an assistant and she had fun flying the kite too 🙂 My husband helped with the reflector a little, he is my assistant as well, so he knows what to do! Here Veronica is posing my dad and our daughter. OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography358.jpg

Afterwards, there was a major storm coming, so we went to dinner at Ocean Cafe on the boardwalk. Here you can see the clouds forming…it was coming and it did, although not as bad as it hit the rest of the state that day and night! OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography366.jpg OCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography368.jpgOCNJDeirdre Ryan Photography370.jpg

 I’m going to continue posting about our vacation, but please remember this:

Laugh at your mistakes and at yourself, say I love you and hug your loved ones every single day.