Diane Jarvis-Schuller

What can I do for YOU? If you’ve been following me for a while, you are aware that I try my best to keep this photo journal focused on my business, with a few personal tidbits tossed in from time to time. In addition to announcing news and promotions, posting client sneak peeks, and showing some of my boutique products, I’ve been trying to share some advice or information about photographs, photography in general, plus some everyday environmental tips (my other passion). I try to give information that will help you organize or display your own photos or those you get from a pro photographer. Some topics are more helpful for those with a small business as well. We all have photographs around the home whether we took them ourselves or hired a custom photographer so I would love to know if there are other topics and tips you might like me to share? I do plan to have a post very soon on how to display your photos in your home or office and have another one planned discussing how not to get burned by hiring an amateur photographer (the ones who tend to hang around Kijiji for instance or who ‘pretend’ to be professionals). But I’m sure there are other topics that would interest you. Do you have a burning question? If you do, I want to hear from you.

For those who don’t follow my Facebook business page, I’m going to take advantage and share some of the tips and helpful information I’ve been sharing over there in the past week or so. It’s a potpourri of information but helpful none-the-less.

• My environment column from last week’s newspaper is now online for the general public. If you have children/grandchildren who are creative, read about this great opportunity! “Show Robert Bateman the Talent of our Canadian Children.”
• TIP: Your home snapshots are safest when printed out; don’t leave them on discs or your computer hard drive! Get them printed and, even if they are in photo boxes, you will still have them. For home printing try www.kodakgallery.ca (or www.kodakgallery.com for those in the USA). Fair prices, many specials, prompt service, easy to do, very reasonable shipping, and good quality for home prints.
• TIP: Selecting a Photographer (don’t be fooled by the cheap prices of amateurs — you get what you pay for).
• From another of my previous environment columns, “Heritage Seeds are A Green Choice this Spring”.
• Never use the sticky type of photo albums. Your photos will eventually adhere and will be damaged (not to mention impossible to remove). Pay the small amount more for acid-free photo albums and you will have your snapshots for generations.

I told you this one was a real potpourri of items. So please, I truly would appreciate if you would take a moment to answer the question, “How may I help you?” Let me know what information I can share that will help YOU.

I have never stopped hanging my clothes out on a clothesline. I used to always hang them out even in winter when they’d freeze solid and would have to be finished indoors. But for the past 3 decades I only dry my clothes in a dryer during the bitter winter months. Today is National Hanging Out Day and I hope you will consider participating or picking up the habit. There are so many advantages: huge energy savings; fresh smelling clothes, sheets, towels; natural stain removal (by the sun); clothes and laundry last much longer when dried on a line; and a wonderfully therapeutic time outdoors while hanging and bringing in the laundry.

As Project Laundry List states, “Some communities prohibit clotheslines, ostensibly, for aesthetic reasons. National Hanging Out Day is a time to protest such draconian covenants. In some states, “Right to Dry” legislation is being introduced to override these restrictive community regulations that ban the use of clotheslines.” Here, here to that!

I’ve written about using clotheslines for the past 3 years in my weekly environment column, Everyday Earth Wise. I hope you’ll check out the link for National Hanging Out Day and consider the many benefits. The fresh scent alone is well worth hanging clothes outdoors.

In fact, one of my photography projects this year is to take photographs of clothes lines with hopes of using the photos for a gallery showing.

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Diane writes a weekly environment column and is a freelance custom photographer serving Alberta from Edmonton, north to Grande Prairie & surrounding areas. Visit her website or connect with her photography page on Facebook.

I was so reluctant to inject such a personal post the other day but the positive response I have had to my “Kelly Made Me Do It” post has really caused me to reflect. First, a great big thank you to those of you who responded to that post. Based on the responses I received, I’ve decided I will make an effort to inject an occasional personal-reflection-type of post here from time to time. Since this is where I discuss and promote business, just as we do in an office setting, there is always room for chat around the water cooler or lunch time gab in the lunch room, right? You have spoken and I will respond! Thank you everyone, really, thank you for such warm comments.

My next post really is going to get back to business but this will be just a wee bit more of a non-photography topic. Some of you know that I am genuinely interested in the environment and Mother Nature. I have been concerned about the health of our planet for decades, long before it was ever ‘cool’ to be ‘green’. For over two years I have also written a weekly environment column for a local newspaper. A week after my column is in print, they put the column up on the newspaper’s website. They only archive the columns for a short time online — about 2 months maximum. I’ve had two readers here recently ask me about my column (Everyday Earth Wise), so today I’m posting links to two of my more recent columns. But remember, if you find the information useful and wish to refer to it, please print it out because it will be gone in a couple months! Real Scents of the Season and Oh (Fake) Christmas Tree are both dealing with issues related to this season. Although I definitely admire David Suzuki, you’ll see my columns differ in that they’re much more personal and ‘close to home’ without any evangelism. I wouldn’t be surprised if you consider them a bit folksy.

Something else that I should mention is that I’ve been talked into opening a Facebook account. Yes, can you believe it? I have both a personal account page plus I just started one for my business. Unlike Twitter, which I really really disliked and found a total waste of time, I’m finding Facebook actually of some benefit, not to mention it’s even …dare I say it, enjoyable. Yes, enjoyable. So I welcome each of you to become a fan of my business page. Although it’s pretty bare bones at this baby stage, I do plan to post watermarked images from some of my photo shoots, advance news plus offers that I will have for the photography business, and anything else that fits with Diane Schuller Photography. I’d also be entirely open to any suggestions you may have as well.

Speaking of business (well, you knew I couldn’t completely ignore business, right?) … As I mentioned the next post gets back to business and I also want to give a heads up that I will again be doing a casting call for photo shoot models very soon. So watch for that announcement both here and at my Facebook business page. I’ll be looking for two types of models initially (hint: they’re not very tall and they say the darndest things!). The other important thing about the casting calls is that models actually get paid  to get their photos taken. Enough of that — watch in the next couple weeks for both casting calls.

Again, thank you to each of you who comes here to read my posts, even if it’s mostly business, but also for your warm comments in the “Kelly Made Me Do It” post.

“Poplars and Hoar Frost” :: This is a segment of our ‘back yard’, though back yard means something very different when you live in the country!

Many of you know that I live my life consciously, always aware of my impact on the environment. I’ve had this awareness since I was a very young girl with my connection to the land and the balance of life that is a circle of life, has always been a part of me. The other day I read a sensible article at PopPhoto about ways to be a greener photographer. One of the points the author of the article made used an apt twist on Mahatma Ghandi’s quote, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

Shoot the Change you Want in the World:

I’ve been making an attempt to incorporate more environmentally-friendly practices with my photography but he suggested something that really should have been obvious to me. Not only should we be aware of how we shoot and the practices we incorporate but that awareness should organically flow into what we shoot. Granted, I do take a lot of photos of my personal environment and the nature I live within but there is more.

I hadn’t really thought that the images I shoot, or at least some of them, could also serve to illustrate or represent solutions or simply showcase environmental problems.

Thus, the reason for taking and including this image of the egg cartons. We shop locally for many products, as much as what is available. Every week we attend the Farmer’s Market and purchase all our eggs, fresh produce, local meat (lamb, bison, pork in particular), locally made preserves, and occasionally gift items as well. We bring along our own reuseable cloth bags and, in the case of eggs we always return the egg cartons to the vendor from whom we purchase our eggs. I detest the styrofoam egg cartons because they are so intensely harmful to our environment but at least if we keep them recycling there will be less need for more to be made. The rare time we have to buy eggs at the store (in winter) we select our eggs based on the carton: if the carton is made from recycled paper, that’s our choice; styrofoam gets a pass.

It’s one small thing, but if more of us did one small thing, they all add up to make a big difference. The change we want in the world.

It’s the small things I focus on in my weekly environment column, “Everyday Earth Wise”, for a local newspaper. In the most recent archived column that you can now read online, if you wish, I addressed some small yet simple ways we can conserve water. Click on that link if you’re interested in reading the archived column. (Reminder: the newspaper does not leave these archived columns up for a long time so if it’s something you’re interested in, please print it out for future reference.)

So tell me this, what simple thing do you practice to see the change you want in the world (or what simple change can you adopt)? If you have taken a photo shooting the change you want in the world, please leave a link here and I’ll come take a look!

Diane is an environmentally conscious on-location lifestyle photographer based from Grande Prairie, Alberta. Visit Diane Schuller Photography.

My tulips are blooming!

Yes, finally my tulips are blooming and so are the dandelions. It just so happens, I don’t mind dandelions. In fact, I like them (hence my logo). If, unlike me, you do mind dandelions, I wrote about controlling dandelions in my last week’s environment column for Grande Prairie Ink! You can check out the archive of that article if you like but if you wish to hang on to the information, I’d recommend printing it out. The newspaper does not keep the archives online forever.

Although in last year’s environment column (for the newspaper I write for) I covered several other tips for controlling dandelions without using toxic chemicals, I would love to learn your methods or strategies for controlling dandelions. Please share them here in the comments.

Diane is an on-location lifestyle photographer based from Grande Prairie, Alberta (serving central & northern Alberta/BC). Visit Diane Schuller Photography.

Today is Earth Day around the globe. Being responsible stewards for the environment is not a one-day event; living responsibly every day is how we really make a difference.

[caption id="attachment_1251" align="aligncenter" width="287" caption="Web of life. Copyright © Diane M. Schuller. All Rights Reserved"][/caption]

“This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.” ~Chief Seattle

The environment column I write for one of the local newspapers goes online a week after it appears in the newspaper. For a list of some of my recent columns dedicated to making a difference to the environment, with a focus on simple everyday changes, visit the Everyday Earth Wise archives index. Perhaps you will find some small way you can make a big difference — in your life and to the environment. If each of us makes an effort to make small changes, each of these small changes add up to make big changes. Consider talking to your children and your grandchildren about the environment and being responsible stewards. Help them grow a garden this year, learn to compost, and go for walks in nature. If we teach them now, they grow up learning the important habits of a responsible earth steward. Although it’s best to get outside with them, visit Eco-Kids Canada or Eco-Kids (World) for some great online resources and teaching tools. I’ve listed a few books below for you or the kids but there are many more available at your local library or bookstore. Turn a new leaf starting today!

Before you head off to take some green action, here are links to two of my archived environmental columns. Please note that the newspaper does take these down after a time so if you find either or both of these helpful, I’d recommend printing it out. Here are tips on Repurposing Around the Home and a Do-it-Yourself Eco-Clean Kit. Print them out and put them to use — you’ll be surprised how easy it is to be green and how much money you will save too.

Earth Day is (also) for the Dogs.

Earth Day (Rookie Read-About Holidays)

The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time

Everything Kids’ Environment Book: Learn how you can help the environment-by getting involved at school, at home, or at play (Everything Kids Series)

Easy Green Living: The Ultimate Guide to Simple, Eco-Friendly Choices for You and Your Home