Learn Something New Every Day

by Judy

Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere. 

-Chinese Proverb-

My Mother always says, "You should learn something new every day."  I remember her saying this when I was a kid, and she still says it today.  Maybe that's why I've always had the desire to try new things, and maybe that's why I am a self-described research nerd.  When I want to try something new, I research it from all angles. 

My newest project is planting a vegetable garden.  It seems funny that I've never done this before.  I grew up a country girl in Upstate New York.  My Dad had a huge vegetable garden and we enjoyed the fruits of his labor just about every day of the summer and early fall.  I've often talked about planting a vegetable garden, but this is finally the year that it is going to happen.  

For the past two months I have been researching the best plants for a beginner gardener, when to plant, the best soil for the garden, raised beds, and on and on and on.  To some this may sound like a lot of work.  To me it has brought me such happiness. (and I haven't even planted one single thing yet!)  

Of course, being the aforementioned research nerd, I even researched information about how learning something new can make us happy!  And you know what?  It's true!  It's not just in my mind - learning does make us happy!

According to my research I found that as human beings we have a natural desire to learn and progress.  This makes sense if we think of our ever changing world.  There's much learning and progressing happening all around us every day.  

I also learned that learning fuels our creativity.  Learning something new in one area of our lives can trigger ideas in another. Don't you find this to be so true?!  Friends who have learned to draw have naturally moved on to painting.  As I mastered one area of photography it made me want to learn another and another.  Now, my love of flower gardening has moved me to learn about vegetable gardens.  

Doing something new gives us a chance to grow and to challenge our bodies and minds. As we learn, we gain confidence in ourselves, which allows us to learn yet another new thing!  One of the most exciting bits of information I found is that continuous learning has been widely documented by researchers as the single variable tied most directly to improved health and longevity!

Do you find that learning something new brings you happiness?  Have you seen your creativity flourish as you've gained knowledge?  Come on everyone!  What have you always wanted to learn to do?  Now's the time to learn it!  Not only will you learn something new, you will be improving your health and adding days to your life too!  

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. "

-Carl Sagan- 

Blur That Background

By Cathy

Every day my inbox is full of random emails. Most I just delete, but there are some that I faithfully read, like the ones from Digital Photography School. Their web site has photo tips, tutorials, weekly photo prompts, reviews on cameras and equipment, post processing tips, and just a lot of good information. This week’s email led me to an article about bokeh. For those of you who are new to photography, bokeh is “the aesthetic quality of the blur, in the out-of-focus areas of an image.” (Wikipedia)

The article included a super easy way to get background bokeh. Since it was not a good day for me to be outside, the heat index was around 115, I thought I’d give their tip a try.  All I needed was aluminum foil, tape, small objects, and my camera.

I tore off a piece of foil (a little over two feet) and crumpled it into a loose ball; loose being the key word here. Then I carefully unrolled the ball. If you crumple the foil too tight into a ball, it will tear as you unroll it.  Don’t straighten it out too flat. Those hills and valleys are what catches the light. Speaking of light, I used a work light pointed toward the foil for extra sparkle. A flashlight would work for that, too.

Next, I taped the foil to a board. You could use a piece of cardboard or anything sturdy. One piece of foil didn’t give me enough background, so I taped another piece below and slightly under the top one. I used my fingers to crumple the two pieces together so the edge would not show.

Now, it’s time for the object to be photographed. I had to find a small object, because the foil background was not very big. The object, which I placed on a table, was about 30" from the background.

For the picture above I used my DSLR camera with a macro lens. I set  it on aperture priority and used the lowest setting it would allow,  f2.8. The lower the aperture number, the prettier the bokeh.

I know that not everyone has a macro lens or one that will allow you set the aperture that low, so I took the above picture with my Fuji point and shoot camera. The lowest aperture I could get was 4.8. It also gave a bokeh background, but it's just a little too distracting.
So . . . 

I used a piece of sheer fabric to drape over the foil. Problem solved! I liked it much better.

I began to wonder if would be possible to change the background color. It was. The pink tint in the above photo was made by placing a translucent pocket envelope in front of my work light. Voila!  Magical pink in the background.

I thought you might like to see my setup. There’s nothing fancy about it. I don’t have a studio, I just set up in the living room. I used two TV trays; one for the object and another for the work light. The board with foil is propped in a kitchen chair.

Experimenting with bokeh was a fun way to spend a hot morning. With me photography isn’t always serious. I find that If I’m constantly worrying about lens, camera settings, correct composition, and exposure, I take the joy right out of my photography.  Some days I just like to play and playing with my camera helps me learn to use it easily and quickly. Photography to me is all about the joy it gives me, not the perfect picture!

“Anything that excites me for any reason, I will photograph;

not searching for the unusual subject matter, but making the commonplace unusual.” 

~ Edward Weston

Enjoy your day and don’t forget to play!

Taking Time To Learn

By Cathy

I’ve gotten lazy, really lazy with my photography. It started about six months ago. I began having problems with my old camera and was in the market for a new one. Since I’ve been having more and more trouble with hand trembling, I was looking for a camera that didn’t weigh much and one that would work with the lenses I have. The answer was the Sony E6000, one of the new mirrorless cameras. I bought the camera, set it on automatic mode to get the feel of it, and never took the time to learn anything else about it. I love the camera. It does take good pictures on automatic, like the one above, but I wasn’t getting the full benefit of it's features. I kept telling myself that someday I’d learn the settings and dials, but someday never came. I needed something to push me to learn.

The push came when I heard of a photography class at a local gallery taught by a professional nature photographer. My sister and I decided to take the class which was held once a week for five weeks. I knew if I paid for the class I would work hard at learning and completing it. It was small class of only six which allowed our teacher to help each of us individually to obtain the pictures we wanted. I knew a lot of what he taught, but I didn’t know the “whys” of some of it, especially the histogram. I knew about histograms; what they were, how to read them, but I didn’t know how to put that knowledge into taking a correctly exposed picture. Through the class I finally understood where to start and what to adjust to take the picture I had in mind. One fantastic thing about my camera, is that the histogram is right there in the viewfinder where you can see it before you take a picture. No longer do I have to wait and see the preview to see if the picture is properly exposed.

Our class worked through the exposure triangle, aperture priority, shutter speed priority, and then moved to full manual. I practiced each day and learned how to quickly get the picture I wanted using different settings. The class was the push I needed to gain confidence in using manual mode on my new camera.

Will I go back to automatic? Sure! Automatic is good for when I’m out wandering trails or just happily snapping pictures of my grandsons. The difference is that now if there’s a picture I want to take a certain way, I know how to quickly set it up and I finally trust myself and my camera.

When I see the finished picture it’s satisfying to know that I set up the exposure and got the picture I had in my mind. If you haven’t tried manual mode or the other settings on your camera, I hope you will. There are online classes, in-person classes, books, or websites that can help you. Learning more about your camera takes your photography to another level. I know it caused me to slow down and enjoy the creative side of taking pictures.

Learning New Tricks

by Dotti

You learn something every day if you pay attention.

                                                           ~ Ray LeBlond

Don’t you just love learning new things?

I do and I must tell you that I have thoroughly enjoyed this month’s Dark and Moody theme – which came as something of a surprise to me. You see, even as I’ve oohed and aahed over dark and moody photos created by other photographers, I have to confess that I didn’t have much success trying it on my own photos. To be really honest, I love sharp, colorful photos with a lot of light and backlighting. But after reading Linda’s post a couple of weeks ago, I decided to take a different approach to dark and moody.

In the past, I tried to create this feel through post processing. Given the aforementioned passion for color, it didn’t work very well. But when Linda shared her techniques, I decided to challenge myself to try again. You know – if at first …

My approach is a little different than Linda’s but neither is right nor wrong, we’re just different. For one thing, I don’t underexpose as much as she does. One full stop is about as far as I’ll go and even then, it’s more likely to be a third or two-thirds of a stop. However, here’s what I found worked for me: morning and evening light. {Surprise!} Instead of utilizing backlighting techniques, I would shoot in the same direction that the light was coming from, being careful to keep my shadow out of the frame.

Much to my surprise, the whole thing began to grow on me. I like having a pop of light in my photos with the deep shadows behind and I was surprised how pretty the color orange was when given a dark and moody makeover.

Sometimes I would use presets but just as often, I would do nothing more than auto tone and lens correction along with some shadow darkening in Lightroom. Almost all my editing is done in Lightroom. And usually it doesn’t involve a lot of steps. While I used to spend a lot of time adding textures and other creative touches, I’ve moved to a simplified form of editing. This leaves more time for actually taking pictures and other fun things.

It’s not likely that dark and moody is going to become my calling card but I do like challenging myself to learn something new. As photographers, I think it’s important to do this. This keeps us fresh, it keeps us motivated and it creates wide diversity within our portfolios.

Soooo – how about you? Have you tried dark and moody lately? How did you like the results? I hope you’ve had as much fun with it as I have. It’s always fun to learn something new.

I am still learning.

                                                            ~ Michelangelo