Next Christmas

If you're on the Christmas card list, you got a card with a photo from my Disneyland trip. It was one of my goals to get some kind of photo from either BlizzCon or Disneyland to make personalized cards. When Liz said you could meet Tigger, assuming he was out, well, that's who I wanted to have my photo taken with. We wound up waiting 20 minutes but it was worth it. Using my cell phone and my camera, Liz took quite a few photos.

The cell phone camera has a darker color than the digital camera. These were good but when I compared them to the ones on the digital camera, I felt the color was better on the camera. 

I went with the last one in the series. The cell phone seemed to latch onto the dark of the area and enhance it. The background got lost in the shade. I liked the color and our positioning of the bottom photo. What you can't see is that my tee shirt had Tigger on it. He's always been my favorite Disney-fied character so it was exciting to get a photo. Pooh turned out to be just around the corner in his photo spot. It was funny to see Tigger's line be twice as long as Pooh's. 

Making my own cards was a lot of fun. There is free software with the new printer so it was reasonably easy to print what I wanted. It has me looking ahead to this Christmas. What do I want to do for cards? I have a lot of regular cards I've accumulated over the years which would cover my needs. I wouldn't have to buy any this winter. And then, it snows. 

There is a pine tree outside my office window. I watch squirrels go up and down, chasing each other. I left one noon to get lunch after a morning of wet snowfall. I was greeted with these images. 

There are large pine cones on this tree. I'm not up on my identification of pines so I don't know what kind this is, but they make for great photos. 

I particularly like this photo below. 

If I was going to do a personalize card this Christmas, there is great potential in this photo. I don't spend a lot of time composing my photos. I'm very much a point and shoot person. Photos like this tend to be a happy accident. 

So, I will keep this in mind for the winter. Of course, there are 10 months between now and when I need to have cards. We'll see what other photos present themselves as card potential. 

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

This is Going to be Fun

Memory card procured for the camera and my first photos were taken last night and this morning of, what else, the amazingly beautiful flowers Carole sent.

For comparison, here's a photo using the camera on my phone.

It's pretty good. That's natural light from the east and north windows in the living room. You can see everything. I rearranged the bouquet last night so it was more mixed. It's just incredibly stunning.

Here's the same bouquet taken with the camera.

Look at the detail. This is why I needed a new camera. There was a "daylight" flash that filled in some of the dark spaces. This photo is incredibly sharp and true to color. Some of the comments about the camera were that it tended to produce some yellowed images, but I don't see that.

I took this one last night before I rearranged the bouquet.

I think it looks a bit washed out. A dark room with the indoor flash and, pop, wow. As with my last camera, there are dozens of settings I don't quite understand, but I made a good choice with this.

This photo was better. I backed up a couple steps so I wasn't right on top of the bouquet.

I took a photography course in college back when SLR's were just starting to be the rage. (I know. I'm old.) We used these box cameras in the class. It was taught from an arty point of view, which has merit, but I'm a documentary-type of photographer. The photos I take document what's going on at any given time. I am not interested in pushing f-stops or manipulating timers. What I see is what I want. Sometimes those can be happy accidents, but I've already composed the photo in my eye, my camera is just documenting that.

So, buying a $850 camera is kind of a waste for me. Just give me point and shoot with few bells and whistles. I need to figure out reducing the flash and turning it off for those night shots where all I want is natural light; a full moon, for example. There is an old joke that the device isn't very intuitive if you have to read the instructions to make it work. Well, I'm going to modify that a bit. The camera is out of the box ready but the bells and whistles need to be explained.

This is going to be fun. Watch out girls. You thought I took a lot of photos of you before. You ain't seen nothin' yet.

Beverage:  water

Deb

Smile

I got a new digital camera.

As okay as the cell phone camera was, and there are a number of articles I've seen lately where people talk about how the cameras in cell phones are nearly as good as dedicated digital cameras, it's not the most convenient for me to use. It requires a swipe and a push and a hope that what I wanted to document is still there. I really missed the convenience of having a small digital camera in my purse, just waiting for those occasions when I want to document something like, oh, plastic wrapped potatoes at the grocery store.

This camera was on sale through a web site, Woot.com. They have a lot of great deals and then, a lot of, um...okay, deals. I'm thrilled with it and the price was right. I do have to buy a different memory card as the ones I had at home didn't fit.

I'm excited to get out shooting photos again. Yeah, I know that everyone takes photos with their cell phone now days, but I like actually having a camera to do that. A large SLR digital camera didn't appeal to me at all. That's why this one is exciting to me.

Right price. Fits in my purse, it's perfect. Plus, it's red and so cute.

Beverage:  Huckleberry tea

Deb

This is Just Dumb

I've discovered there are photos I can take with my cell phone that I can't take with a regular camera. I'm quite mindful of how some places don't like photographs being taken. But, when you pretend to be answering a text on your cell phone, you can easily take a photo and email it to yourself and they aren't too much the wiser.

I've wanted to blog about this for some time, but my self-consciousness about photographing it overruled the collecting of the illustrative photo. But, lacking a camera right now, the cell phones camera is remarkably decent at capturing those photos I use for blog illustrations.

I have been puzzling about this for months. It's a potato. It's in plastic. It costs 3 times what the potatoes lying loose above it cost. The label on the potatoes says, "Perfect for the microwave. Just prick and cook for 45 minutes." And what do you want to bet someone buys one of these and just puts it in the microwave without poking it?

I guess there is a market for plastic shrink-wrapped potatoes. I guess this makes it easy to have a baker when you want it. I guess I come from a mind-set that taught me how to cook.

Bah. You don't shrink-wrap potatoes no matter the convenience. Now, if you will excuse me, I have cottage fries to make. Don't you dare shrink-wrap those.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

The Bad, the Good and I Took A Nap

This weekend was filled with events. The best way to view this is from the bad point first and work forward.

My camera broke; this one, here, to the right. I was setting up a photo for my blog post on the Printer's Row book fair. I had the camera on the ottoman behind me as I worked to get things arranged on the recliner. The girls were in one of their "chase me-chase you" moods". It's rather funny to watch. There's some hissing and spitting as Pilchard chases Mija into the bedroom. Then, Mija turns around and chases Pilchard back into the living room. They seem to be having fun so I don't break that up.

Saturday, Pilchard was being chased back into the living room and she collided with the ottoman. Now, 13 pounds of cat colliding with 5 pounds of wicker ottoman and, well, you can imagine what happened.

When the thing tipped over, that scared them enough that Mija dashed under the bed and Pilchard ran behind the TV. I can't really get mad at them. They didn't know. But, I am without a camera until the end of the month when I can afford a new one. I really, really liked this one. It was compact, fit in my purse, went everywhere with me and took very adequate photos for what I needed. Since it broke on Saturday, I've had several occasions where, "Oh I need to take a photo of that" come up and I can't. Plus, this is an unplanned expense at a time when I'm trying to save up for a trip west at the end of July.

But, this is minor in life. I took a raft-load of photos at the book fair and I never finished blogging the theme for last month, old photos. I'm sure in the 6600 photos stored in my Mac, I have something I can use to illustrate a blog post. Not having a camera is an inconvenience, but I did very well when I had a camera that shot only film. I wrote long letters that didn't include photos. This is not the end of the world.

The good was a great time at the book fair on Saturday. I'll have a separate post on that. I didn't spend all the money I had budgeted for the event. I didn't find any books that jumped out at me as "Buy Me! Buy Me!" but I had much fun wandering around and poking my head into stalls. I did come home with one treasure and I handled the heat and the amount of walking required fairly well. I prepared and enjoyed the time I spent there. I have always wanted to attend the Gold Coast Art Fair which is at the end of June. I think, based on how well I did with the book fair, this will be the year I go.


I came home and, after the camera fiasco, decided the best course of action was a nap. Naps are wonderful things. I stretched out in the recliner, turned on the AC and fans and the girls and I drifted off into blissful sleep. I didn't sleep very well Saturday night so Sunday late morning saw us stretched out again in the recliner. I didn't get the outdoor furniture scrubbed. I got the closet sort of organized but the box on the kitchen table didn't get unpacked and moved. Instead, I did laundry, did cross-stitching and did a lot of "me" time. I set aside the "shouldda's", set aside the anger at myself for not setting the camera somewhere safer, set aside the slightly fried feeling after being out in 90 degree weather and just spent time sitting without guilt. Life is to be lived and sometimes that simply means just being and a nap in the recliner.

Beverage:  Huckleberry tea

Deb

It would take me a month to prepare.

While reading through the blogs to the right, I noted the Craft blog had an article for a pinhole camera. Carole and David are avid photographers. I've linked to and used some of Carole's photos in the blog. I posted the link to the pinhole camera on David's Facebook page and then went back to check some of the other links mentioned.

It turns out there is a Worldwide Pinhole Camera Day upcoming on Sunday, April 24th. It's a day to take your pinhole camera out into the world and take photos with it.

What a novel idea. You take a light-tight container, poke a pin-sized hole in one end, add photo sensitive paper and then expose the paper for a long period of time and see what you get. While I wouldn't make the Hasselblad camera the initial link had, I did find this one.

 

Now that's the kind of crazy camera I would make. I'm tempted, very tempted to give this idea a try. My photos are documentary in nature. When called upon to do something "arty", I don't do well and I certainly don't have photo processing software on my computer to add or remove things. What I took is what you see, although I do crop photos to make them less memory intensive. 

I have a bit less than a month to consider whether I'll participate in this. Easter Sunday is April 24th. That could lend itself to some interesting photographs. 

Beverage:  Hot Apple Cider tea

Deb

A Little Too Good

My job takes me into some unique and interesting buildings. We joke that if we get to go up in the elevator, we're doing something wrong.

Today, Mike, Jon and I walked a very large project. The purpose of the walk about was to determine where we are going to place equipment for this job. The building we were in was old. It is a warren of rooms in the basement and many have original brick walls. We entered this room and determined it would suit our equipment needs perfectly. I'm documenting the locations for reference. 

I took the photo and looked at it in the view finder. What the...? I looked at the room. I didn't see any white speckles in the air. Snap another photo and the same thing happened. So I turned off the flash and got a good photo without the speckles. 

I was quite confused. I looked at my lens and determined there wasn't dust on it. If you believe in ghosts, there is a body of work that suggests the random orbs one will sometimes see on photos are spirits. If this was the case, holy cow. We have a small city crammed into this room under the sidewalk in front of this building. 

Seeing my puzzlement at my photo, one of our escorts asked what was wrong. I showed him the photo. "Oh yeah," he said. "I meant to tell you to turn off your flash if possible. When you took the photo, the air lit up with dust particles from us walking in there."

Dust. Yes, dust. It happened in a couple of other locations later, too. You couldn't see the dust in the air until the flash went off. I'm rather impressed at this little camera's capabilities. That's some mighty fine looking dust there. 

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Relative size

I had to go to Milwaukee today to do a training session for a company that purchased brand new equipment. Charge up both the cell phone AND the camera and I'm good to go. The camera does not take AA batteries as my last digital camera did. There's a plug in the bottom that charges the unit from a standard outlet. I have both the phone and camera chargers in the kitchen. If I remember to charge them at the same time, I'll remember to grab them at the same time, she says, optimistically.

Anyway, I thought I would show off the size of my new phone once I got back to the office. It's really roughly the size of my cell phone so it fits in my coat pocket, my jeans pocket and the center section of my purse without being bulky. I found the wrist strap in the bottom of the box last night so I need to attach that. Then, I can carry it around without worrying that I'll drop it somewhere. The USB download cable for my Nikon worked perfectly with this camera so I just plug it in and turn it on and iPhoto does the rest. The last 2 days of posts have used pictures I took with the new phone. Although the kids prefer Nikon, I am really liking this camera. It was a great purchase for me.

Beverage: Dr Pepper

Deb

Works like a dream.

Remember me mentioning I dropped my old digital camera? Thanks to Niles and newegg.com, this arrived in the mail on Tuesday afternoon before I left. I opened it up, looked it over and, there's no memory card. Um... Plus, the software enclosed is for Windoze. Double um... Oh well, I have a regular camera that shoots good old fashioned print photos. I have 4 rolls of film to use up. I'll just use that until I can get to Carole's and they can help me buy whatever card I need.

Carole and David snickered at my camera. They use Nikons exclusively and consider those the best cameras. My former camera was a Nikon. It was a good camera. But this was on sale and there were no Nikons in the same price range.

I asked about the memory card. "You can get a 4 gig card for $20," he says. "So how many photos does that hold?" I ask. "Oh around 3,000," he replies.

Now, if I was a serious photographer, that might be a good thing to get. But, I use my digital camera to document my life, my cats' antics, snow and rain, my friends and family, in short, not the serious kind of photography that Carole and David do. I do enter photos in the Farktography contests, you'll find them under "Gimmlette", but I shoot what I like. Three THOUSAND photos is way too many. David actually had a small card he wasn't using that holds 300 photos. That's more than enough for me. Possibly, had I had use of the camera on the way to Connecticut, I would have used up the 300 photos, but, as it was, I shot 271 and a few of those, now that I've uploaded them to my computer, are destined to be deleted.

This is a great camera for me. The downloading cable from my Nikon works with this camera. It takes a bit longer for the photos to upload but it's very easy to do. It fits in my purse and is palm-size. I kept it on the dashboard of the Jeep on the way home. When I get the photos from the trip up on Flickr, I'll provide a link. I like the quality and the camera is fast, in bright light as well as low light. It was easy to learn to use, too.

So, that was a good way to start the trip, with a camera that turns out to be a good fit for me. I'll be taking more photos now. I may need to stick some from my iPhoto libraries onto CDs to make room on my hard drive.

Beverage: Apple Cider tea

Deb