Everyone has by now heard of people "reinventing" themselves. It's become a popular catch-phrase or buzz word. It's high time someone wrote the "Reinvent Yourself for Dummies" manual. I won't even charge royalties if the "Dummies" people decide to publish that title.

It occurs to me as I write this that I ought to double-check in case they might actually have it out already.

(Jeopardy theme plays ..)

Cool. Doesn't look like it's out there yet. There's plenty of other books though, so I'm definitely not out to lunch thinking this thing has hit the big time.

Anyway, I'm in the middle of this process at the moment. How it got started is not relevant here (though it probably warrants a chapter in my eventual book), but the important part is that it (and this post) are started.

This part of the renovation concerns the artistic stuff that I've put to the side for the better part of the last twenty years. Oh I've dabbled here and there off and on, but I really haven't settled into a piece and finished it. Not even the explosion of interest my kids had (still have) in art got me rolling again.

The answer to the implied question above is that I was ready. That's it really. The bottom line for me is that you can't push art. It has to push you. You have to be ready and willing to listen to that impulse (and for me it really IS just a nudge) to open yourself to a vision that eventually drives you to manifest it in some way. And, as we all know, when the student is ready, the opportunity and teacher appears.

So, the impulse that I followed was to get myself set up with a proper scanner than can handle film so I can process all the negatives I've been setting aside for the day when I had time to look at them again. The scanner is a Canon 8800F (recommended by photogs on CNET and Flickr) and it rocks. It's fast, co-operative, and handles negatives beautifully. Is it the best best best? I dunno. It works for me for now and I'm rolling. 'Nuf said.

What do I mean by rolling? I uncrated it last Friday night and didn't come back up for air until about 2 am Monday night. I've got three big Rubbermaid bins of negatives, prints, and slides from the past twenty years. I scanned 40 rolls worth (around 1000 images) and I've barely made a dent.

I'm taking a break from scanning for now: (a) because I have to get my head back into my day job, and more importantly (b) because I have to now sort through those 1000 images, pick out stuff I want to share, and process 'em.

Truth be told, this is now the fun part of all this for me. My grade five teacher got me started back in the days of film and darkrooms. I learned how to pack my own rolls, shoot, mix chemicals, process the film, make up contact sheets, and then process prints. The cool part is that the modern tools in digital processing use a lot of the same concepts as the old analog stuff. Instead of doing dodge and burn using a programmable timer in a dark room, I get to use the dodge and burn tools in PS and see my results without having to develop the test strips.

Not everything is the same of course, and that's just fine with me. The software tools tend to differ a little between Windows, Mac, and Linux and I have access to two out of the three. I also have a small Whack Em tablet which extends the range of photo hacking options far beyond what I even imagined back in the day.

Anyhow, I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of this renovation. I have no doubt it wil be messy, require quite a lot of backtracking, and for sure will take longer and cost more than imagined, but I think it will be fun. I hope it's fun for you too.