Brandon “Fuzzy” Schwartz

The Cart

A couple weeks ago I received my kiln which was shipped on a wooden pallet. Of course, since Iâ€™m so resourceful (and cheap) I decided not to throw away or burn such a great collection of wood, I decided to turn it into something useful. And the way I have my kiln room (garage) set up, I decided a shelf would be quite nice under the end of the workbench and next to the kiln. The more I thought about it, the more inconvenient it seemed until I remembered that there was a great invention a little while agoâ€¦. The wheel! So I turned the pallet, along with a couple pieces of extra wood and some wheels into the Kiln Cart. It is actually really sturdy and efficient. I havenâ€™t actually fired the kiln since I have made the cart but it gets all the kiln stuff out of the way easily.

This has the potential to be a great weekend, not just because Monday is Presidentâ€™s day and I donâ€™t have to go to schoolâ€¦. My dad is also planning to come down and put up some clay studio walls.

The Test Fire

The kiln is up and running! I fired it up last Sunday to see what it could do and I wasn’t dissappointed. I did a Fast Glaze fire to cone 06. It took exactly 4 hours from start to shut off. Then I let it cool overnight. According to the test cones it overfired slightly. Everything else was fine. The gargae didn’t burn down, the electrical hookup seemed to function as it should and the vent did it’s job. Except the vent system isn’t fully installed so I just shot the fumes out the garage door and some of them came back inside. When I actually fire it for real I’ll either have the vent completely in place or I’ll put on the 8′ tube to get the fumes away from the house. So now I’m ready to go. I’m working on getting a full bisque load ready to fire.

This is how I stay warm since my wife won’t turn the heat on…

Some more good news! My wife let me spend our retirement fund on some necessary supplies. Last week I recieved my shipment. Plenty of glazes and some nifty tools and gadgets to improve my ceramic production and get me through my first glaze firing. Apparently I timed it just right so the order was delivered in between cold spells which kept the glaze from freezing. I hope to get some family members down here this month to help with an extreme studio makeover. My brother (the electrician) and my dad (who was a construction worker in another life) said they would come down some time and help me enclose my clay studio and add some more lighting and outlets. My plan is finally coming together!

Now I’m ready to hit mass production phase…

The Kiln

It’s here! Yesterday at about 1:00 I recieved the shipment. The FedEx guy pulled up in his freight hauler and all 53′ of the trailer. I had to help him get it to the liftgate and then I helped push it all the way up the driveway and into the garage. I sliced off all the plastic wrap and made sure all the pieces were there and that nothing looked like it had fallen off a truck…

It is one impressive piece of equipment! Now that it’s actually in my garage it is bigger than I pictured. I still have to read about half the manual and then I’ll probably re-read it to make sure I know what I’m doing. It looks like the holes were already drilled for the vent so I won’t have to do that. I guess all I really need to do is put it on the stand, plug it in, and fire away…. but I’ll probably do some more research so I don’t burn down the house or something….
Here are a few pictures:

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Another step in my plan to take over the world!

The Family Portrait

Early this fall I was asked to do a family portrait by one of my co-workers. She wanted some outdoor shots with the changing leaves so we went to Bonneyville Mill Park one Saturday afternoon. A lot of the leaves were already past their prime but we did alright. The two boys were fun to work with. I shot everything in RAW for this project so I could play around with DPP3 a little more. I was pretty happy with the results and the family seemed to really like the pictures so I would say it was another successful adventure.

Here you can see a few photos from the portrait session:

The Wedding

At the end of this past summer break I took on my largest photography project to date. It was the rehearsal, ceremony, and reception for our friend’s daughter. I, along with my beautiful assistant (wife), travelled down to a town near Indianapolis for a day and a half. It was nice that we knew the family so we didn’t feel like we were shooting our first wedding all by ourselves. It also worked out that we had shot the engagement pictures of the young couple so we had a chance to get to know them a little bit. They are both pretty easy to get along with and as far as I know, nobody said that they hated us as photographers…

I used my Canon 350D along with the 28-135mm IS lens most of the time. My wife borrowed a friends Nikon equipment. I got to use the proceeds to buy a 430EX speedlite (flash), a bracket, a cord, and diffusor which really came in handy.

Since I’m still not a master photographer I spent a good amount of time editing pictures in Photoshop. But I think that might be my favorite part of the whole process and I think I got some pretty good results so it was all worth it. Having so many pictures really helped me streamline my workflow. I worked out some custom actions which really saved me some time.

Overall, it was a good experience. There weren’t any real problems and I learned so much that I could probably write a book (or at least a pamphlet). We found out that it was even more work than we thought but I think it would get a little easier each wedding we shoot. I’m not quitting my day job to be a wedding photographer but if someone asks and the conditions are right I would do another one.

Below you will see a small sampling of the final product: