I got an odd question during an interview for a wedding photography job. “Are you a member of any professional associations?”

OK, that had to come from a “wedding photographer question checklist” downloaded from some website. I don’t think any normal bride would think to ask it.

Yes, I’m a member of Professional Photographers of America and some others. So what? Like any other “professional association”, all that proves is that I wrote a check to someone.

Like I’ve said before, you really only have three factors in choosing a photographer:

1. Do you like their work?
2. Can you afford them?
3. Are they available?

Experience, certifications, memberships, awards? Pointless.

Who cares if a guy has 20 years experience or two? If he can produce images you like, why does it matter how long he’s been able to do it? Also, many long-time photographers don’t have 20 years experience, they have 1 year of experience 20 times, i.e. they’ve been doing the same thing over and over again. I’ve been shooting for almost 30 years, but I don’t consider that a real selling point.

Certifications are almost as easy to get as association memberships. Many people understand the concepts of photography and can pass a written test, but are completely unable to apply those concepts. Plus, we’re creating art, not fixing brakes.

Awards are often meaningless. We’ve all seen “award-winning” artwork that looks terrible to a normal person.

The work is everything. Look at the photographs. That’s all that matters.

A view of my living room this morning …

Ten girls came over for a sleeover and to watch the premier of High School Musical 2, these knuckleheads were up until nearly 3am. I think they were a little disappointed in HSM2, I thought it was nowhere near as good as the original.

I started reading the Harry Potter books to my oldest daughter when she was only four years old. Last night, approaching her tenth birthday, we finished the last one. I know, it’s been weeks since its release. We started it the same night, but took our time and savored this one, being the last.

SPOILER WARNING: If you’ve not finished the book, I plan on including plot details and such, so stop reading if you don’t want to know what happens.

Reading these books has been a special thing with Samantha. She’s been perfectly capable for years of reading them on her own and reads many other books, but HP been something reserved just for us. The many hours of lying on the bed, munching on chocolate chips, are a precious memory for me. I’ve also loved our speculations on what was going to happen in the later books.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (DH) is an excellent end to the series. The first book, Sorcerer’s Stone (SS), is still my favorite because it was filled with the wonder of discovering the world of wizards. But DH is right up there with SS, because of the tremendous emotional impacts that fill the end of the book and the way the book resolves and reveals the many complex plot lines we’ve been debating for years.

Some favorite moments …

“NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!” from Molly Weasley just after Bellatrix nearly kills Ginny. After losing her son Fred earlier in the Battle of Hogwarts, Molly’s eruption as the fierce protector of her children and an amazingly skilled fighter was joyous to see. I laughed out loud and then couldn’t read for a moment because I got so choked up. I think you’ll be hearing that line a lot.

House Elves Join The Battle: Another laugh-out-loud moment when the kitchen doors burst open and the Hogwarts house elves pour into the battle in the Entrance Hall. Very funny, but very emotional.

Neville’s Triumph: Another can’t-read-right-now spot. Poor, long-suffering Neville Longbottom, trapped and set aflame by Voldemort, breaks the binding spell, removes the burning Sorting Hat from his head, and pulls the Sword of Gryffindor from the hat to destroy the last Horcrux. Neville arguably has the largest story arc of any character, including Harry. I love the fact that he turns out to be one seriously bad dude.

My Theory Confirmed: I’ve suspected for some time that Harry’s scar was an accidentally-created Horcrux.

Valorous Snape: It was good to finally learn the back-story of Severus Snape and to see that his diversion into the dark side was only temporary, that he was a good and brave man in the end.

Dobby’s Death: I don’t know how anyone could make it though Dobby’s death scene with dry eyes.

Death of the Lupins: It really broke my heart when Harry sees Remus and Tonks lying dead in the Great Hall, knowing that he was now godfather to an orphan as Sirius was to him.

The Epilogue: It was very touching to see where it all led, nineteen years after Voldemort’s death. That Harry and Ginny married and that their second son’s name was “Albus Severus Potter”. That Ron and Hermione were married, with children of their own (although I don’t understand the significance, if any, of the names Rosie and Hugo). I’m sure many will find the epilogue sappy and sentimental, but I’m a sappy and sentimental guy. Also, I like the fact that it firmly closes the door on any sequels. I sincerely hope JKR never writes another word about HP, I think it could never stand up against the original tale.

I found a solution to the vicious recoil of my new Mossberg shotgun. I found a replacement for the stock pad called Limbsaver. It’s much softer than the standard pad and designed to dissipate energy while collapsing, like the “crumple zones” in the front ends of automobiles.

I was a bit skeptical, but I’m now really impressed. It feels like it cuts the recoil impact on my shoulder by 50% or more. Another benefit is that, since it’s not driving back into my shoulder, the barrel doesn’t jump up nearly so bad.

I’ve seen them for sale as much as $60, but I got mine from TheGunSource.com for $25 plus shipping.

I just got a new toy called PhotoKit Sharpener, which helps out with fine-tuning the sharpness of prints, which is actually harder than it sounds. Especially when sending the image to an oddball output device like the halftone printing presses that produce my wedding albums.

While PKS is ok as a tool, what’s blown me away is the technical support. I had an installation problem, so I used the regular suport webform, hoping for an answer within a day. I was shocked to see an email within 10 minutes or so, giving precise instructions on fixing the problem. And the instructions actually worked!

But wait, it gets better! I then ran into another error, which I thought was an extension of the original problems. I responded to the first support email. Again I got back a response in just a few minutes, explaining what might cause the problem I was seeing. Ultimately, it turned out to be my own misunderstanding of how PKS works, but again I was very impressed by the response.

OK, maybe not the worst, but pretty bad.

I got a call from a bride a while ago. Her photographer had backed out on her, just six weeks before the wedding! What a knucklehead. (the photographer, not the bride)

Luckily for her, I don’t have a wedding that day, just some portrait work that I can easily reschedule. Hopefully we can work out a deal and I can be the knight in shining armor. Something like that, anyway.

Last week I thought I had found a definite step up in the browser world. But, like a new girlfriend, a few days of close contact can reveal warts that weren’t apparent on that first date.

Opera is a nice browser and FireFox/MSIE could take a few lessons on writing clean/fast code from it. But Opera could definitely learn some usability lessons from the others.

I found it absolutely appalling how poorly Opera supports drag-and-drop operations. I can cleanly drag URLs from other browser into each other, other applications, etc. Opera won’t. Other browsers let me grab images and drop them onto my desktop. Opera won’t.

Opera popups are also irritating. Not advertising popups, I don’t mind those not working. I mean the normal, useful popups like help panels or other things that websites routinely use. Opera brings them up, but locks them inside the original window so you can’t move them to another part of your monitor (or in my case, another monitor), rendering them almost useless. This was an incredibly poor design decision.

So, back to Firefox I go. Luckily, FF released another version recently that seems to have solved much of the sluggish performance I was seeing.

Speaking of large families, I see that the Duggers’ 17th child has arrived. If you don’t know who the Duggers are, they’re an Arkansas family that’s achieved minor celebrity on the Discovery channel for having such a large family. Check out www.duggarfamily.com for more details.

I wish Jean and I had met earlier in life, I think we’d have had a dozen ourselves. Which reminds me, one of our new favorite shows is “Kids By The Dozen” on TLC. It visits a different large family each week. And most of the ones we’ve seen home-school their kids, which we also do.

One of my portrait sessions last night was with a very nice family. They had four kids ranging from 15 down to 4.  Having five kids myself, I have a soft spot for big families.

What I really liked about them was how well-behaved the kids were.  Very cooperative, polite, just great kids.  I can’t tell you how unusual that is.

Eva and Zach, congratulations on a job well-done.