Last week, a new lens came in the mail: a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 AF model, which fits on my brand new FM10 film camera, as well as on my D70. Like Thumper, I'm twitterpated.

I'm utterly infatuated with the fact that its focal length is fixed. After years of using a 35-70mm zoom, and becoming comfortable with that flexibility, slapping on a 50mm lens flexes creative muscles that have long been dormant. It forces me to not be lazy. In order to compose a different shot, I must move my body to another position, rather than swiveling a ring.

It also demands more from my attention to focus. If I open the aperture largely (f/1.4), my extremely limited focal plane opens me up to blurriness like nobody's business. It can be a welcome effect in many situations--eliminating distracting backgrounds, for instance. But one slip of the focus ring, and the wonderful passing smile of a dancer can turn into a mushy, freakish mass of sludge.

Regardless, this 50mm blessing from heaven has got me revved and excited to take pictures again.

All this, of course, is not to say I do not think that zoom lenses are not beneficial or necessary. Heavens to Betsy, I wouldn't shoot a wedding without one! Zoom lenses enable you to react more quickly to a situation--quickly adding context (zooming out) or editing the scene (zooming in)--which is critical in journalism and other documentary settings.

But I'm in love with my 50mm f/1.4. So much so that I might even deign to name it. I think I'll call it Lola.

I made Three Important Mistakes fairly recently that underscored the importance of Paying Attention to Details for me. I will share them here with you, and explain a) why everything worked out okay, and b) what I learned from the experience.

Ink Stink
I love the Staples website. What I love even more about it is that you get free delivery from your local Staples if you order more than $50. This was perfect for me a few weeks ago when I needed to buy printer ink for an Epson 2200. Clickety-click, clickety-click, and it's done, delivered to my door a few days later. But what I failed to realize until after I had carefully unwrapped all the cartridges and started trying to place them in the printer, is that I had ordered ink for an Epson 2400. BIG DIFFERENCE. The cartridges didn't fit, and I sat there scratching my head like an ape until I realized I had made a $125 mistake.

But everything worked out okay when I called Staples, told them about the situation, and surprisingly found a willing customer service representative who not only refunded my money and sent a driver to pick up the ink, she volunteered to order me the correct cartridges and have them delivered for free the next day!

Lesson: really take the time to review your invoice before you hit "CONFIRM"! That, and it doesn't hurt to ask.

Battery Drain
The morning of a recent wedding gig I had, I decided to change the batteries in my flash to make sure I had enough juice to last me a good while. In went the rechargables, and I hit the "ON" button: nothing. Okay, I thought, I must've used those up. In went set #2 of rechargables, and I hit the "ON" button: nothing. Whoa! In went set #3 of rechargables, and still no juice! I had to leave in less than an hour--there was no way I could recharge in time.

Luckily, I usually keep on hand a HUGE stash of emergency alkalines. I brought them along, and the wedding went smoothly, but I definitely learned to make sure to charge my batteries the night before a gig!

Auction Debaucle
A long while back, I had my eyes on a second Minolta Maxxum 7000 camera body. Someone had given me a first, and I was looking for more lenses and accessories so I could have a backup camera for my film weddings. Ebay was my friend--I found a number of good listings with folks looking to sell large lots of lenses & nifty accessories for the flash (which was what I wanted). So, I bid, and bid generously. For $200, I had won exactly what I wanted.>

Or so I thought. A week or so later, a box arrived at my door, from Israel (whoops, should've checked the listing!), with tons of Minolta lenses and stuff I didn't recognize from the listing. I was ticked. I took a picture, and started a dialogue with the Ebay seller, trying to either a) get my money back, or b) figure out what he or she had done with the gadgets I thought I had purchased. I ran into both a language barrier and a knowledge barrier--the seller struggled to find out what was wrong, and didn't know cameras enough to understand what was missing.

I ended up giving up. All in all, my situation wasn't that bad. I had a whole bunch of lenses that I hadn't really asked for, but that were really nice. And even though I didn't get the accessory that I wanted, I had what I needed. Plus, a year after I made the purchase, I ended up re-selling the equipment kit (and more) for a hefty profit!

Again, though, in future auctions I confirmed necessary details with the seller before bidding on Ebay!

The Final Word

In all these situations, I looked back and realized that one of the major things that made me skip the vital details was this: I was in a rush.

Poor decisions are made when you're in a rush, folks. Stop rushing, step back, and check those details.

...

EDIT: At 3:21 PM on March 12th, Benjamin had the courtesy to tell me that all my formatting was getting lost when Google Reader picked up my RSS feed. I checked my entries, and noticed that I had been neglecting to use <p> tags, instead relying on MovableType's autoformatting. This was a Bad Idea and Very Lazy on my part. I hereby insert my foot in my mouth, eat my own words, and take that bitter pill that is my own advice.

I don't know about you, but in a given day, there are vast quantities of menial tasks to manage in a given day. Time and task management has always been a shtick of mine, and the fact that I can list principles of effectiveness is just proof of how much of a huge nerd I am. But they're helpful! So here they are, directly from the Nerd's mouth. Whether you work in an office or not, I hope you find these techniques that I use helpful in some way.

develop a system for sorting e-mail

E-mail can be one of the most overwhelming things to deal with on a daily basis--messages pile up, because it's difficult to figure out what to do with e-mail. On the surface, it seems like what you need to do is simply reply to everything. Not so. All e-mail solicits you in three ways: information (no action), questions (reply), or a request (perform a task).

So, before I even reply to anything, I sort my e-mail. Any message that I flag gets put into a Smart Folder I've created in my Mail application called "REPLY / ACTION". Self-explanatory, right? Then, I reply to things as needed, and record things to do in my planner, leaving a message flagged if an action hasn't been performed yet.

Because in my last post I'm sure I sounded like the "I've got it all together and let me tell you how to run your life" that I'm not. So I've decided to write up my favorite formulas for procrastination.

checking e-mail for no reason

"Someone, anyone, please give me a reason not to do work!"

google reader/analytics, livejournal friends, and facebook

Looking at statistics on Google Analytics, juicy articles on Google Reader, or the latest updates on my friends in Facebook or Livejournal prove to be my stalwart procrstinatory distractors. It's just more interesting than whatever I'm trying to avoid.

reading in the bathroom

When nature calls, I bring reading materials to extend my absence from doing work under the pretense of "expanding my mind."

taking care of any other business besides what needs doing

Otherwise known as "productive procrastination." Most often happens when I'm at work. I'm getting things done--just not the top-priority things that I should be doing. More often than not, I have a myriad of reasons for avoiding the top-priority task, and when I run out of lesser things to do, I must confront the beast, or move on to another form of procrastination

putting things away

Related to the previous one, but focused on tidying the workspace or home. Tidying is inherently satisfying, and gives a feeling of accomplishment that cannot be achieved even when tackling the gargantuan project that I'm trying to avoid. It's much more concretely rewarding to look at my clean desk, and go "ahhhh," than to e-mail an irate client or call a vendor to try to resolve a problem.

writing

One of the reasons that I procrastinate is that I have too much on my brain. Whatever's on my mind is distracting me from the task at hand. Sometimes it's inane babble that I just feel like getting on paper, or perhaps it's a big decision I have to make, or maybe it's just that I'd rather be writing my own thoughts down than working hard at something else.. Either way, writing is a staple in my procrastinating toolkit.

And you may have already guessed that I wrote out this entire thing because I was procrastinating.

download this tutorial as a PDF! (1.19 MB)

DESCRIPTION
Linoleum block printing is a very simple and accessible relief printing technique. It is a reductive process—material is removed in order to create the image. In this case, specialized cutters are used to gouge out portions of linoleum, very similar to woodcutting.

TIME
Varies--dependent on the number of layers in your design, amount of printmaking experience, and the number of prints you would like to make.

For a simple, one-color design, plan approximately 3-4 hours to go from your rough sketch to a finished print.

TOOLS & MATERIALS
linoleum cutters
inking plate (or other non-porous and uniformly smooth surface)
brayer
palette knife (or other equivalent tool from your kitchen)
masking tape
ruler & pencil
x-acto knife (for cutting paper, if needed)
barren (or metal spoon)
wood-mounted linoleum blocks
paper (preferably a card stock)
block printing ink (water-based; various colors)

1. Sketch your design.

Every print begins with a sketch. Take time to think about your subject matter--pick something you would enjoy working on, because it's going to take time to make it work as a linoleum block print!

Once you decide what you want your design to be, or go through a few intial sketches, you'll want to make a sketch that's proportional to the size of linoleum block you're cutting.

Keep two things in mind: the number and kind of colors you want to use, and that thin linework and small elements are difficult to cut. Make it simple!

2. Divide your design into layers (if necessary).

At this stage, I take my original sketch and using layers of tracing paper to plan out the order of colors I want to print, and the methods of cutting I want to use for each area of each block.

3. Cut one block for each layer of your design.

The most important thing to remember at this stage is that you are not only removing the areas that you do not want to print, but that your design will be reversed (or mirrored) on each linoleum block, as you see above.

This can be an arduous process! Be prepared to have linoleum shavings all over your workspace. Remember to work on a surface that you either don't care about or that you can protect easily--linoleum cutters can easily gouge wood furniture, in addition to your own fingers.

4. Prepare your paper & printing template.

Have your paper trimmed to the size you like. Then, take a single sheet of your paper and draw guidelines with a ruler to indicate where your linoleum block should fall on the paper. You will use this template to help you align your paper during the printing process.

Use masking tape to secure your paper template to your work surface, and then tape your linoleum block securely in place on the paper template (see photo at right).

5. Prep your inking plate.

Squeeze generous amount of ink onto one end of inking plate.

Spread ink evenly and thinly across plate using palette knife.

Roll the brayer gently and smoothly across the thin layer of ink, coating the brayer evenly and completely.

6. Ink your linoleum block.

Roll the brayer gently and smoothly across your linoleum block, coating it thoroughly with ink.

7. Make your print.

Align paper with template & lay it down firmly but gently.

Smooth paper with a barren or metal spoon, using a gentle circular motion.

Lift paper directly upwards & lay out to dry.

Repeat this process with each piece of paper until the first layer is finished. Allow each layer time to dry before inking a new block.

8. Clean and dry your tools!

Cleaning and drying your tools promptly with soap and water (for water-based block printing inks) immediately after finishing your work makes your life easier, and prolongs the life of your tools. Be kind to them!

So here's my example print, from start to finish:

P.S. If you like what you've read, and feel it's worthwhile, don't hesitate to throw money at me!