This was my first engagement session coming back from the Connection Workshop in Johnson City, TN. It’s always a lot of fun to come back from a workshop and do a shoot with some great clients who trust me. I got to experiment a little bit more, and I like not only the results, but also the feeling about the process it took to get the results. Anyway, too much typing, not enough pictures:

A couple of quick pictures from our group shoot-out in the hotel parking lot in Tennessee.

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I try not to post too much non-picture stuff on my blog, but this is something that Jeannie and I have been talking a lot about and is becoming a big value for us: sustainable living. For Jeannie, this started as a search for healthier ways to eat. For me, it has started with a simple search for custom printing supplier who use post-consumer paper and soy/vegetable based inks. I haven’t found one yet that’s remotely cost effective, so please let me know if you know of any.

This idea of thinking has also influenced how I think of shipping things across the continent. While very convenient for me (especially with “free” shipping), it has huge impact on the environment in forms of energy consumed and carbon emissions. I realized that “free” for me is not “free” for the environment, and the money I saved shipping it probably would not cover what is necessary to clean up the trail left behind on the way to my door. So just some quick things I’ve learned along this exploration for sustainable living that I am going to try to implement:

1. Line-drying laundry, especially things like exercise clothes and undergarments which get washed often, but don’t need to be particularly soft or wrinkle free.
2. Buying bio-friendly cleaners and detergents. (links: seventhgeneration.com, methodhome.com)
3. Develop some criteria of when to have something shipped to my home, and when to go to the local store, even if I have to pay a little more to put less strain on our ecosystem.
4. Try to be more proactive in asking for bio-friendly products from vendors I frequent.

Another organization I really like is terrapass.com, which is basically a self-imposed tax on my car’s carbon emissions to subsidize the use of alternative energy.

Off the soapbox, for now…