What’s really odd is I tell people I am an introvert.

Some people look at me and go “what”!?! And Really I am.

It’s hard for me to go out in public, it’s hard for me to speak to people. It’s worse for me to be around large groups of people. I have a lot of time more fun writing code in silence for something no one else will see.
It’s so wonderful to be alone. It’s so quiet you can get things done and yet….

I found out there is a lot of things you can do – that can only be done around people so I save up energy and will to be around people. And I go around people and do a few things and then I have to hide and regain that energy.

But you know what a lot of time it’s worth it to be around people. And I’m glad I’m around the furry community even if it does cost me a lot of energy some time :).

Hello,

I have been staying lower than normal on FA and other things. Including photography.

I took a focus effort away from my personal time around to get two things I care about happening this year.

One to continue to build up a non profit in Minnesota for the furry community so that we have a place we to go to not only be ourselves but really help people out. That's the most important part working with other non profits to promote general good will for the furry community and help put a smile on their faces!

While I don't think the non profit Minnesota Furs is all there yet it's on the right direction. It just is a lot of background work and paper work. But hey I have to use my business minor for something!

Two is to have a convention in Minnesota. That is happening next week. Furry Migration is looking great. I can't wait to see how it turns out but our pre-registration is beyond my expectations and well it's a good range of guest of honors. Plus being near the Mall of America is a bonus so I know if I need to escape where to go.

I hope once the con is over I can go back and start relaxing and doing things I like to do. Like programming, playing games, and well taking pictures. But that is later. Next week I will get to see 20+ years of hopes and dreams realize and have a con near my home.

Kurst

Things happen :)

I am working on a lot of things but photography isn't one of them.

I have a feeling next year I will get the bug. I think partly it's because I want a new lens and well a new focus.

So still living just keeping quiet :)

So last week my computer I use for photo editing, programming, and a lots of arts things well one of the main hard drives imploded on itself.

Not the cool Michael Bay style but more just with a whimper.

While this is painful I always have a backup for drives if it's data I cared about. But I didn't realize it would take 5 days to restore the 3tb :)

So it's JUST finishing up. I am going to test the data and if it's good I will be a little relieve.

A little :)

It seems like every year I do this. Is it been oh dear god years.... I don't remember when I first set up Zoo Boo.

For those people who don't know what I am talking about I volunteer original for myself then for MNFurs for Como Zoo Boo.

Why I started this personal tradition was I wanted to well suit during halloween and well a dream of mine is to just suit in the Zoo to help out. When I found out that MN Zoo was very stricted about suiting policies and costumes I was a little disappointed. Then I found out that Como Zoo did this volunteer fundraising event and well I tried it... It was fun. I can't say how many times I came home smiling because I put a smile on a friend, a neighbor, and a stranger's face.

To me that's what I care the most in suiting.

It's not about how many pictures I was in, if I was in a video, but did I make someone laugh or smile. Thats really what I care the most about.

For our local group I originally help get it going but I realize that I didn't have the time to keep it going. So it's been handed off but I still do it.

If you are curious about it there is a thread on MNFurs site http://www.mnfurs.org/forums/events.....-at-como-park/ about it.

I just feeling a whirlwind of OMG panic in my life. So I haven't been doing anything with photos. Heck I just put in my computer over 3 months of pictures. It's going to take me weeks to catch up.

Anyways just wondering if anyone is going to Photoshop World really thinking of going since they include Creative Cloud as part of the admission.....

Ok back to work for me.

Wow I thought I would get some more time to just do nothing and work on photos over the last month or two.....

I was wrong.

I'm not going to bore you with the details but just keeping busy.

If I haven't replied and I've been quiet I do apologize. I just feel like I am running and running and running and going everywhere. Which is kind of nice but at the same time not as productive as I want :)

Again not trying to avoid people or make people upset here I just trying to be more "In real life" than online.

---

Oh the wonders of the 4.45 bios. My system 160 gig was too small and doing weird things so I upgraded to 1 tb life is good until the 4.45 bios for the PS3. Updated and it sat there showing beautiful waving lines... FOREVER.

Following sony's wonderful suggestion I verified the hard drive which corrupted it worse

Needless to say I'll be downloading about 600 gigs the next month to restore it....

Fun times
Fun times

---

Right now cons I am looking at over the next 6 months are

Anthrocon 2013
and
Midwest Furfest 2013

Technically I will be at Furry Migration's Con Zero but I don't count that...

If money is ok over the next few months I might be able to go to something even a con or photoshop world. I would do it as a just attend con if I do though. Might suit might not. Might take pictures might not. Just that I will be trying to relax the whole time

---

Hope to see you on the "other side and hopefully things will be a little bit calmer soon :)

Hi there,

Yu might of notice I have been quiet for a few months. I've really been quite busy and well I have been working on a lot of things in the background.

One of the most major is help setting up Furry Migration - an upcoming Minnesota Furry convention.

Before you ask no I am NOT the con chairman, but doesn't mean I am not helping to get this con off and running. There are a lot of people behind it in the community and I am one of many.

But yeah that's been a big thing for me. A lot of work. But yet I know the community wants it here and I hope it is what they need.

Anyways I got a few more things t do then I can be more regular on FA again.

Thanks for your patience and hope you check out www.FurryMigration.org

You know when you are busy when you don't log into FA for weeks.

Seriously weeks.

I don't know if that is good or bad. Well bad since i missed a few local events :(

When things calm down I will come back to my minimum posting every few days.

I just have to wait till these home grown projects calm down.

UGH!

Kurst Da Programming Yote

If you know my life it's been pretty busy and well for the month of October i don't see it letting up.

So I'll be slow posting it's not that I love you but ..... I'm just busy :)

Kurst

*Puts on another hat*

Hello,

If you know me I have many different hobbies I do when I'm not slaving at work. Which seems to be a lot of my time last year.

But one of my hobbies is helping out my friends at Rabbit Valley Comics. I've been helping them out ooh for a few years :).

If you didn't know - Rabbit Valley Comics is a submission base comic company. What that means is the majority of their comics come from the furry community and are currently accepting submissions for novels, b&w and color comics. This can be one issue to a whole series they are always looking for more submissions.

For more details about submission process, technical issues, and any other questions please contact customerservice@rabbitvalley.com, editor@rabbitvalley.org, or feel free to directly message/email/IM me I can head you in the right direction.

Kurst *Putting on a different hat now*

Hello,

I have just went through a quick “run through” of my photos I took in a more “studio setting” at Cat Days. If you go to the link Cat Days Photoshoot Gallery you can see all 204 photos from the photoshoot.

All but one photo from the shoot has been posted there . I post all of those pictures for multiple reasons

1) I know pics I would consider a lot of those pictures to be bad/horrible. But one man’s poor picture is another man’s favorite. And in this case you are choosing to go here to see the best and the worse.
2) It’s a learning experience. I hope that not only I but other people can learn from my mistakes
3) Why not we have the space. People can pick and choose. And if people want to have a better picture I am willing to upload a better version.
Some details of the picture – These pictures were taking over a 2+ hour period of time. The equipment I used was mine,  Mouring, and  Yarrick. Some of this equipment I have never tried before. I took about 10 practice shots with the photos before I took picture of the first suiter. Majority have been lightly color corrected and some additional contrast/exposure settings. There hasn’t been much change from the originals.
From looking at these pictures here are things I have learned so far.
1) It’s my first time be gentle – Seriously I only had a few moments of practice shots before I started. The lights were strange and new. I knew the theories but since the space needed I didn’t have a set up of the equipment until I was there. So I had no time to learn and experiment before hand. So in I needed the subjects closer to the backdrop. I didn’t want them to get absorbed by the backdrop so I put the tape for them to stand to be the standard distance. As you can see early on with Tek, Unico and the Foxes I had them too far away and didn’t correct fast enough. I move the tape and in some pictures told them to move closer to the backdrop. In a lot of pics you can see the top of the backdrop because it seems a little like it’s stretch. That’s because well it is. That is the part it is hanging off the tubes.
2) In a perfect world have 2 back drop set up in 2 colors. I knew that white and black would absorb fursuiters (like Thor) so I went with a traditional gray background. Little did I know that we had some who’s head was absorbed color wise by the backdrop. I guess green next time oh wait….
3) I kept moving – I didn’t keep in center. I kept moving I am too used to moving to get my subject in the pose. I needed to direct them more to get what I wanted. I also needed to get rid of another table. I couldn’t get in a position I wanted because I was too worried about a table on the side
4) But I didn’t stand on something – I needed to get a higher angle for people like Unico and Thor. But I didn’t have the right item to stand on. The chairs would of made me wobbly. So a solid box or a stepping stool is good.
5) Lights not consistent – For some reason I couldn’t get consistent lighting. If you saw me I was curious half the time why the lights weren’t consistent. Partly it was because I wasn’t patient enough to allow one of the three lights to recharge. Other is changing position of people. Either way made it hard.
6) Change the light position – Don’t be afraid to change the lights! Nothing wrong with moving them
7) More lights – you can never get enough lights.
8) I needed to gray card people. I didn’t use a grey card on people so I could do a color check.
9) Props – Okay I love props and will be bringing more if I ever do this again.
10) Didn’t have a big line – well that was because we didn’t have as many fursuiters as other events. So while I could take more pics it also meant less variety of suits in the pictures. I could handle triple the amount of fursuiters without much wait. Just might of took less shots.
11) ½ - 1/3 the fursuiters of other events means less of them to be upset at bad shots :) So I could experiment a little more than I normally would and have more confidence about them.
12) Hold STILL I didn’t hold still as well I could. I mean Optical Stabilization did help but only so much :) Using a tripod would of help but… Where is the fun of THAT.
13) PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. This is really the first MNFurs event where indoor photography wasn’t taken by  Mouring or  Mouring and  Yarrick so I had none of the lesson learn from the previous events. I should of rented/found space like this and did a day of photos.
14) New lens - Oh yeah this gets back to "practice practice practice" I can tell I don't know how to effectively use the new lens I have. If you remember a few months ago I broke a favorite lens of mine. Now fast forward to Cat Days. I still don't have the feel of the glass - I don't use it enough to get it. So I make a few miscalls. Not big but still noticeable in the red range.

In retrospect I give myself a C for it. Good effort lots of beginner mistakes and well. Again if you like a picture in the set tell me I can see if I can clean it up a little better.

Again thanks to  Mouring,  Yarrick,  trejaan for equipment, advice and support. And special thanks to all the fursuitters that were willing to get a shot taken by a silly coyote. You really helped me learn how to take pictures here.

Kurst over and out

Hello,

As you might of notice I am posting up  MNFurs Cat Days pictures from the photoshoot.


I took more than 200+ pictures in a more photography background and I am posting my favorite shots from the session over the next 2-3 days.


I will be posting all the pictures from the session in MNFurs Gallery in the next few days.

I should write up my "post mortem" of the photo shoot after I done the processing. Mind you I can tell you for sure it will mention lighting, grey card, and bigger backdrop (and stepping further back).

Hope you enjoy the pics.

It's sunday as I write this and I am thinking abut next weekend MNFurs event - Cat Days.

As I mentioned before I am going to be the real official photographer of the event. I am scared of it because well I don't want to mess up. This is like doing my "big fat furry wedding" in some ways. All the eyes are on me to capture the main moments like fursuit games, fursuit photography, and of course the group shot. And I only have one shot to make it go good.

So a part of me is panicking on that thought. The other part is like well you just need to relax and you have done great before. You get another chance to perform.

I'm sure I will do fine. I might have some stories but I'll do fine :)

Well my "infiltrates" are healing up and I have some vision back. So I am going to be more online again. I can actually see the screen clearly at night so that is good. My "far" vision isn't all there yet but it's much much better than without contacts. I think I will be happy once the pain and eye drop taking is done. Yes I'm still on steroids my over active healing system he just wants to keep in check.

---

On the mugging front they are taking my muggar to court. SO the police found them I filled out a lot of reports and have taken 4 phone interviews.

At this point I don't know if I am going to court to testify but at least they caught him and on tape this should close that part of my life feeling wise I hope.

I'm so jumpy alone now. More than normal. It's a weird feeling. I track people better though.....

---

I'm going to be trying to take it easy so will be considering this as some time off from a couple projects.

Of course I will just work on other projects instead.


But for those that like my photos I will be posting more here and I will get back to working on FCN and AC pictures too :)

Well once i get a rhythm back.


Anyways sorry for being away I just really didn't want to hurt my eyes at night. I hope I can provide some entertainment through some pictures here very soon.

Kurst

Hello,

Lets talk about my eyes.

Well for those that know I had PRK - Photorefractive keratectomy done on my eyes in May And June.

Great you say!

Not so great I say.

Why? When I came into it i knew there would be a little bit longer healing, more pain, but I like the long term results better. Left eye had some mild infiltrates which require to be on steroids higher dosage and a little bit longer than I planned. This also pushed back surgery a bit. So I was at AC with one out of focus healing eye and the other right eye well uncorrected and unable to wear glasses.

This proved to be "interesting" suiting and photographing. To the point I just "let the chips fall" and tried my darndest to enjoy it.

Well then round 2 happened with my right primary eye. The infiltrates were MUCH worse and after 3 weeks I'm on a regiment of antibiotics and steroids as if I am my first few days of surgery.

Long term I should not take any serious damage. Short term I don't trust myself on photos and developing them. I'm going to continue to take a break for a week or two. And hopefully then I will be off my antibiotics/steriod regiment.




Cat Days Photography

Cat Days for those that don't know is a 2 day hotel event being hosted being held in a hotel near the Mall of America and right off the LIght Rail line. It looks like it will be a wonderful event.

I was asked to be the official photographer. In the past events like at  MNFurs Spring Picnic. I was the unofficial official photographer. Which meant while there was some expectation of me taking some pictures it wasn't a real job or function of the event. Pictures would happen and hopefully more than 20 would be taken.

This is a lot different this is more like the Snowpocolpse photography session or a con like MFF, AC, FCN, etc. First there is the standard group shot. But second a few hour panel where there will be backdrop, professional lighting, and that efficiency of a Sears Photographer is expected. You know furry (or two or three) come into the room and snap so they can have a memory forever of the event. The pictures are quickly uploaded on a site with minimum culling and correction.

I am willing to do it but I have 2 worries.

1) My vision will not be clear in my right eye when Cat Days come around. While normally this is not a concern with this surgery since I am having sever complication I may not have the clarity to run the camera 100%
2) I want to bow my hat to someone if they are up to the task. We have a lot of photographers in this community. If someone who wants to do it the  Mouring feels comfortable with him then I would be willing to let him do da job.


Mind you if I am doing it this year and people want to volunteer to help learn how to put something like this on I am willing to take on volunteers to learn.



Putting the word out and making sure people have the chance to help :)


Kurst

Another Coyote Rambling

AC is over and out it was an interesting one to say the least.

I'll do the summary stuff.

As I mentioned I didn't do the AC art show because of just lots of things that happened I wanted to eliminate that stress. Good idea. And it was one less stress and money drain :) So that worked well.

Dealers room did provide a good "thing to do" I love helping out Rabbit Valley and as I have done for years did a simple table.

The only really bad part was the loading dock I'll leave that a story for later.

The biggest bad point was the eye surgery happening Today. Since it was happening I had to go without a contact in my right eye from wensday on. So the whole con the primary eye had basic nearsighted vision. Also my left eye is still recovering from surgery so it had double vision/some blurring.

So when I was photographing my style is my right eye. I could read the display and everything else is blah. moving the camera to the left side threw me to a loop. I still had fun taking pictures i Just haven't look at them yet.... I'll do it once I get a little further in recovery.

The other thing with fursuitting it really interfered with me. My left eye had problems getting a good focus outside the eye while my right eye perfectly focused on the mesh. I mean beautiful detail of the inside of the suit outside not so much.

It made it dangerous and hard for me to function in suit. So while I did SOME suiting I try to keep it light and try to make sure I had a handler at all time in the background since I had the habit of running into people.

Then of course is the foot injury at the end of Friday's dance. For the next few days my AC room mates kept on telling me it's broken. I'm pretty sure it's just a sprain because they are idiots.

But without out going into detail I enjoyed/loved AC overall it really was a great time and a relaxing way


So went in my second eye this morning. After being tired because I got in after midnight and by the time I unloaded the car it was 2 am and the valium they gave me I was much more calmer than for my left eye. There wasn't also a large patient backup so it was only about an hour and a half from entering to leaving compared to 3 half hours it took for the left eye.

Right now experiencing some pain in the eye but that will pass. Should be back in the saddle in a few weeks.....

Just in time for bowling ^_^

Hi there,

For those old time (and first time) watches might be wondering what is the madness and why am I posting all these picnic pictures.


Put the way back machine before the picnic. I found out that a few people were not going to make it and the event runners asked if I wanted to take pictures there. I officially said I was not willing to be the super official photographer but the official unofficial photographer was fine ;).

So my goal there was to take a good series of photos of people around the picnic. Very simple goal. But it gets complicated ™. I have been taken aside in the past and been asked not to take X, Y, or Z person in a shot. This becomes a problem as you can guess. A picnic event area doesn't have hall ways or rooms people go in. The background a lot of times IS the event area or directly into the sun.

Another personal goal was to get as much as possible every costume fursuiter in their own solo picture. If you were performing you saw me looking for a break in what you are doing and I tried to pull you in the clear just quick enough to get a few shots. Mind you some came out a lot better than others.

And I wanted to make sure they look like something I would normally posted. So I use a lot of the same techniques in images that i used for FCN photos(that I had to take a break to get these out fast). They might not be totally 100% accurate to reality but I personally think most turned out fine.

So I have been posting away fast/slow as I can without REALLY flooding FA. This is the most I have posted publicly on an event and well it's draining me. Once I posted my "first round" I will hopefully be able to post them on MNFurs photo gallery if everything goes right. After that over time I will go back and start working on pictures I found I personally posted little too much of character or like part of the picture but people were really in the background or involved. So yeah there will be more not much more but that will be over the years....



Also I am watching the favorite/comments on the pictures on FA like a yote. Your comments and favorites guide me to either take more of a character, change techniques, and continue to motivate me. In truth if a picture I expect to get less favorites/comments on I am going to lean away showing more/taking more of that character in the future. Mind you it doesn't matter if you are doing something interesting I'm going to take a picture. An interesting shot will out weight a static "wave" pose any day.

Since I don't make money off of it I live off the comments/favorites. Feedback keeps me going. Adding a picture as a favorite keeps those comments/favorite on one picture. When you repost it unless you tell me and remind me those comments/favorites are never counted and I may take less pictures or stop taking pictures of you/event in the future because well it seems people don't like it or want it. Again this is really the only way I can read what people want from the community. It's not that I am trying to do a popularity contest. It's just I am gaging interest and if there isn't enough I shouldn't be taking/doing those shots.


I got to admit this run was hard on me. I had a lot of things happen recently much more than I listed but some of the days working on pictures kept me going and I am happy overall with the results. I notice for local events this is probably one of the bigger processed photo dumps I have seemed. I'm glad I was asked to do that and I hope you think I did a good job on it.



And of course - One Last Thing


The Spring Picnic pictures are done not only for the  MNFurs community and the furry community in general. I want to show our local furry community in a good light and hopefully provide smiles to people on FA.

I hope you enjoy it and I thank you for watching my pictures in general. I can't say that enough.




With big thank you to my all watchers,
Kurst

Wow this is weird.

Because of past events and not wanting to put a bad display up. I'm going to skip this year's Anthrocon art show.

I really don't think my skills have improve that much over last year so I really want to improve and have some great stuff when I do the next art show. Plus with all the stuff that been going down the last few months I think this is for the best.

i hope that makes sense and hope you are enjoying my pictures from the picnic.

Not much to say other than I got robbed today.

Short story was

I was riding the light rail back home and basically 3 people came up one grabbed my phone even though I had two hands around it and started to hit me. I decided it wasn't worth it and let go. I did a stupid thing and started to do chase. In retrospec that was stupid. I realize one of the people were egging on they were trying to separate from the area. Once I realize that I froze and did contact the police immediately.

Again that was not exactly smart.

But I have to say at least it was just the phone. Heck the earphones are still here.

Just bummed will figure out if I can afford a phone and such.

Oh yeah something I have keeping quiet I been having some pains from contact - even new ones are not fitting confortably and I get migraines if I wear glasses for more than an hour something I had since childhood. I am currently getting PRK surgery so I am recovering from that also - which makes telling people what happen even better ;)


So in all due respects I'm going to be a little slower than I plan.

I hope people understand and I will be posting more photos soon.

Hey there

My computer is FIXED that I do photography on. Since it was under warranty I let it be manufacture repaired. Mind you the repair people were very determine the only thing wrong was the hard drive. WHile I was determine that nothing pointed to the hard drive and the video card was the problem... Guess what was fixed ;)

So anyways I got lightroom up and I'm still going through FCN pictures. I still have at least 10 more to post. So hang on I will be posting more.

Also....

I guess at this year's Spring Picnic put on by MNFurs I will be taking pictures when I'm not socializing. Or sneezing or under the effects of allergy medicine.

If you want your picture taken by me in specific way feel to grab me. I will probably be grabbing and taking pictures of people throughout out the day so don't be surprised if I motion you away from a mob if you are in suit.

I plan to take a group shot after the costume contest which is happen at 5 PM.


Anyways glad to get back more fursuit and animal pictures to come.

Well looks like I at least blown out the hard drive of my computer I do for photo editing and video stuff.

It really went down when I was working on fursuit photography for FCN. It started to act a little strange I thought my machine was getting it furry on. But then I realize it's not that it's just dying ;) Screen turning blue with black lines is bad.

So any picture postings are on hold for a bit. I am hoping to have everything back running in a few more days (cross fingers).

I hope everything is 100% backed up. If it's not it's a bad thing ™. I would lose all my FCN photos. But I'm sure it is..... So we will see in a bit :)

Anyways cross your fingers it should be back running in a few days :)

I need to get into the practice of talking about pictures on line so when I did Carrot post a few hours ago I went through my mind on what I post process a picture that needs a lot of work. While it's not fully in detail you can see where I went on it.

If you have any questions or want me to actually go into detail please feel free to ask :)

Because of money issues I don't plan to go to 2 cons this year.

I will be at AC for sure and MFF.

But any others well :( I can't go because well brokish.


I hope to go back to smaller cons like RMFC soon but hey I have to let the cards fall.....

You might heard I was down for some parts of FCN

Well the reason I was down was I broke a lens (pic) at Furry Connection North.

The story goes is this. I had it on the bed. As I was setting up a few other things for suiting the bed got hooked and pulled the blanket a foot hard dragging the camera off the bed.

*slow motion starts here*

It started to fall


I grabbed the strap of the camera as it was falling

Instead of falling straight it then went into a pendulum and smashed the lens and landed the camera on the ground with a thud.

The lens was sheered in two. Part still mounted on the camera. Other part well in pieces.

The AF button actually popped into the air and flew into a action packer.

Well not a good time that was my f/2.8 17-50mm zoom lens. After i broke it i realize I had nothing underneath 28mm. You probably see me walk backwards it's because I really didn't have the focal length I was needed for the picture. It's also used on almost every MNFurs picture by mooring and some by yarrick. Anything studio used that lens....

While I like the challenge didn't like losing the $$$ for the lens.

So my pics are actually with a super zoom and while I am happy with the pictures I took with it still wish i had my f/2.8 back

Will I replace it

Yes

Will it cost money

Of course it will

and that will suck. But I will survive :)