After two weeks of downtime, BeyondSecond.com is back up!

What happened?

Roughly two weeks ago, Beyond Second’s hosting provider migrated to new servers. The hosting provider resells RackSpace (one of the biggest and most reliable hosts in the business), so the hardware wasn’t the issue, however, our hosting provider apparently didn’t prepare for the DNS changes associated with such a move. In the end, what this meant was that the site went down, and we couldn’t even access the site files to download and move them.

So what did you do?

We were finally able to access the site files after four days–even though the site was still not displaying at the Web address. Ultimately, this oversight by our host, compiled with the fact that we were exceeding our hosting limit (and would have had to pay extra for more space), made us decide to change hosting providers. We settled on Bluehost, one of the largest shared hosting companies out there. Besides their reliability, they offer unlimited hosting space, so B2 won’t be running out of space in the near future (if ever!).

But what took so long?

There were a variety of issues, starting with establishing old account info with Bluehost (B2 actually had an account on Bluehost back in ’06), to permissions issues (1600 photos were stubbornly not backing up). Trust me, this couldn’t have occurred at a worse time, as work has been really busy and my wife’s technically due with our next child as I write this.

It was really cool hearing from those of you who immediately noticed the site was down, and I apologize for the delays. Once things settle down a bit here, I’m hoping we can add some new features to the site to further support the community. In the meanwhile, happy posting, and if you notice any issues please ping me!

It looks like this message is making the rounds, but in case any photographers around here missed it, The Yellow Wall Gallery (located in the Midtown Scholar Bookstore), is accepting submissions for their upcoming exhibit, “Summer in Winter: A Visual Escape”, February 5 – March 26, 2010. More details are available at the The Yellow Wall Gallery’s Website.

I teach digital imaging at HACC, and one of the projects I assign is a low-light/night photography series. The assignment usually yields some pretty interesting stuff.

I give a brief presentation on abstract photography beforehand, where I mention painting with light, but I never actively tried it (if you’re not familiar with what this is, it’s basically doing a long exposure and taking a light source, such as a flashlight, and playing around). This semester, one of my students expressed their interest in this technique, and it got me wondering how difficult it is to not appear in the photo. Since I couldn’t remember ever seeing light grafitti on Beyond Second, and I figured it was about time to post something, too.

As I prefer to teach with my own examples (and not stock photography), I went out the other night and did some shooting. My wife noted that it was the first time in ages I’d done so . . .

I was trying to get a skyline shot for a site design. I never used it in the design, but I started playing around with 20-30 second exposures.

You can see my head above the statue. I tried to work quickly, as I didn’t want to wake the guy snoring on the nearby bench.

I think it’s good practice to take a standard exposure of the subject matter, just in case you want to do tonal mapping to the image. I tried doing this to eliminate the ghosting in the above shot, but in this case, merging the two yielded too clean a result for my taste.

It’s pretty addictive, and one soon finds themselves wanting to experiment with different colors, patterns, etc. I’ll probably go out and do this again at some point, and I’m wondering if I’ll ever see someone doing the same at 2 a.m.

Hauck Interactive recently launched a new Website for Events, Etc., the catering company from the folks over at the Hershey Pantry. The new site features some of my photography–and had me running out to all of the really nice wedding venues in Hershey and Dauphin county. Check it out.

Well, the stars definitely weren’t aligned for the first attempt at a Beyond Second meetup in 2009, as the meeting place (Café Di Luna) abruptly closed and the alternate (Midtown Cinema) was booked out.

Fortunately, Café Di Luna has reopened and is available, so we’re going to try this again. I hope to see a good turnout for the Beyond Second Meetup.

Beyond Second is once again partnering with GraphTech printing to create a Harrisburg-themed calendar. The 2010 calendar will focus on Harrisburg architecture. I’m pushing to get descriptions on architectural history included with each photo.

Details are on the Beyond Second forum.

My company just relaunched HersheyPantry.com,  making the site the second of four targeted to launch this month (the first being Broadway Video Digital Media, which provided a nice HII mention here).

I was pretty eager to redo the Hershey Pantry’s site because they have one of the best breakfasts I’ve ever had. Fortunately, they were very receptive to my recommendation of adding pictures of food to their site, so I did a number of photo shoots to provide all of the photographs. What I learned: Don’t take pictures of food on an empty stomach.

Personally, I REALLY dislike professional pictures (I must have been a home-staging pro in a past life, because I’m really not into littering my house with family pictures!). In this rare case I’ll give the Mrs. a pass though, cause I think the boy came out looking pretty cute. More pictures here.

Now, just don’t expect a Facebook profile for Ronan–or me swapping my profile pic with one of my kid. Yuck!

During last month’s Central PA Tweetup I ran into a few friends that I hadn’t really seen since we were part of a group visiting Rome in 2002. The encounter reminded me of a Website of my Rome pictures I’d built shortly after the trip.

I posted the site to share the photos with friends (pre-Flickr, mind you), and I remember being scolded by people that were offended of a bunch of Penn State students hitting foreign bars so close to 9/11.

Apparently I’d taken the site down years ago, but I decided to restore it in its table layout, 800×600-supporting glory (you can check it out here).

The way I built the site and formatted the photos reminds me more of my age than any old picture of me ever would (Ugh, I’m getting old!).

*SHAMELESS PLUG*

(that’s what blogs are for, right?)

I’ll be presenting a few Photoshop tricks I’ve learned over the years at the upcoming Central PA Photoshop User Group (CPPUG) meeting on May 12th (6-8 pm) at Penn State Hershey (more information is here on the CPPUG site). If you’re interested in joining the discussion on improving your own photos (and are in the area), I hope to see you there!