Moments of thanksgiving

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, and confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow." - Melodie Beattie

Today I'm taking a break from my photo lessons to simply enjoy Thanksgiving.  But first, a little story about thanksgiving.

It is so amazing to me how humans (i.e., me and my husband) can be so affected by news.  How our moods can literally go on a roller coaster in a 24 hour period of time.  Yesterday at this time, we were receiving texts from our youngest daughter telling us the progress of her trip home from college for Thanksgiving.  She let us know when she got on the bus, when she arrived to the first destination and when she met up with her friends for the trip the rest of the way in the car.  We even went so far as to watch her with the i-phone app that tracks the location of friends.

The anticipation of seeing her, having her home for the weekend and all the thankfulness we experienced knowing she was safe was truly uplifting.  To see her and hug her was such a high.  After the fun of seeing her look around and see what is the same and different in the house while she's been gone the semester, she was ready to nap.  We felt the comforting feeling of gratefulness.  Just having her here and knowing right where she was, resting peacefully in her room.

I felt so happy and content.  It was a perfect time to bake the pies for Thanksgiving.  The lovely aroma of pumpkin pies baking added to the comforting mood.  I couldn't think of a reason not to keep smiling.  The mood suddenly changed with the news of "has anyone seen my school Id lanyard?"...  What is in your lanyard thing I asked?  "My school id, my license, my debit card, my insurance card, my travel card...I can't find it..."  

She must have dropped it on the mega bus.  Yikes, is all I can say.  I don't know about you, but it was so real, the mood in the house went from grateful and happy to fearful, angry, depressed and panic.  She amazingly stayed more calm than her parents.  Either she didn't know the magnitude of what can happen with the information she lost or she knew it would do no good to get angry.  Probably the latter, since we, the parents, tend to blow everything out of proportion now that she is a young adult.

We successfully talked her into cancelling the travel card and the debit card.  I contacted the insurance company and we decided when we would get the new driver's license.  The only other thing to do was to check with the school when she returned to get a new id.  We somberly went on with the day.  Let's be thankful she has learned a few valuable lessons.  She's been so amazing living in a big city, traveling all alone, and growing up, now she knows to put the darn thing around her neck instead of her pocket.  This will only help her grow more.  But...as I went to bed I still couldn't help but panic about what could go wrong with the loss of the documents.

As I awoke this morning, I started to plan what else we could do to find the documents.  I was in my own little world wondering what we could do.  My husband asked me how I slept.  Of course good because I was exhausted from the emotions, bad because of the worry.  I woke up still worried.  He smiled and said, "Worry no more, our daughter's roommate had texted late last night.  She found the lanyard on the table in the dorm room.  She must have laid it down and walked out in her tired state."  Great news!!!

Ah...now that's a moment to be thankful for.  Yes, a roller coaster 24 hours.  The doom and gloom has left the building, and now we can be thankful for the happy emotions filling the house.  The true thankfulness is that things work out no matter what when you stick together as a family.  Hopefully she'll forgive her crazy parents when she awakens today.

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your moments of thankfulness and gratitude on your Thanksgiving Day!

I took this picture early summer before she
left for school -
a frequent shoe dropping at the front door

So happy to have shoes at the front door,
thankful they brought her home for a visit!

Finding random rules of thirds

Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature. – Eric Hoffer

The lesson this past week was to discover the Rule of Thirds.  This tried and true method supposedly helps capture points of interest in pictures.  Following the rule, the object of interest intersects in one of four places on the photo.  Imagine two horizontal lines and two vertical lines intersecting to break the picture up in nine even boxes.  The trick is to line up the focus of the camera so you follow the rule instead of always placing the object in the center.

Instead of trying to see if I could do the lesson this week, I looked back at all my "spectacular" pictures (i.e., What I thought were spectacular at the time I was taking them.) taken over the past few months to see if I had unintentionally been able to follow the rule or not.

I wonder if it is natural to want to capture photos of subjects following the rule of thirds or is that where the creative photos come from?  Is that how one makes their photos truly more interesting?  Or is it simply random luck?  Now that is more interesting to me...random great photos.  If you know anything about photography, you have to take TONS of pictures to get very few great pictures.   It becomes a matter of introducing some order in to the randomness of life.

Thanks for stopping by ~ enjoy your moments of ordered randomness!  Next week's lesson to discover diagonal lines.

Dessy definitely fills up a third or more
of a clothes basket. 

Zoom in and her nose becomes a point of interest

Copper stands out sort of in this picture, but
I centered him.

Here I placed him in a better point of interest

The fork stands out in this placement.

A bunch of apples

Zoom in a little more, still see mostly apples.

Zoom in even more...now do you see the stem as the
focal point?

The red car intersects at a point of interest,
plus it is a really cook car...add that to my
wish list!

Both of Dessy's faces intersect the rule
of thirds!

Once again, she is filling a space.  Her nose intersects
properly, but she consumes a lot of the picture

Here's a bit more interesting placement, don't you
wonder what she's looking at that might
draw her out of the box?

Perfect intersection of thirds!
You see the moon is the
subject of the picture right...?

Zigzag shutter treasures

Previous journeys in search of treasure have taught me that a zigzag strategy is the best way to get ahead. – Tahir Shah

My lesson this past week was to learn about shutter effects.  After experimenting on several different days and subjects, I've decided the camera ready settings of "sports" and "landscape" are better at capturing the photos than I am at figuring out how to manually set the camera.  While I am getting brave at trying different settings to see what I get, I suspect there are more tricks out there to learn.  I also think that for the slower shutter effects, I would benefit from a tripod to steady the camera.  The blur factor would definitely diminish some if I did.

The treasures of the auto settings on my camera help me when I'm in doubt.  Not unlike my subjects (i.e., pets, moon, birds, etc.) I have zigzagged my way through multiple attempts over the past few months with those settings. Along with the continuous shot mode in the sports setting, it can be quite fun to see what pictures I end up with after the sessions.

Two hummingbirds - captured with the
continuous shot, sports setting.

Shutter speed, a steady hand or a tri-pod, and aim at the subject all help capture the photo you're going for. I attempted to capture Copper running fast in zigzags around our back yard.  I held the camera close to the ground to follow him as he ran around me.  The "sports" and continuous picture mode helped catch him at random moments.  I took 83 photos in our short photo session.  Unfortunately when holding the camera close to the ground it focused way too many shots on the grass instead of him.  I did end up with a couple noteworthy photos.  As I always say, the discovery process is the part I enjoy the most.

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your zigzag strategies - may you find treasures that help you get ahead in your journey!  Next week's lesson - rule of thirds.

Slow trot away from me, isn't that a cute trot?

Ready set, let's go

Yikes, here he comes, and I focused on the grass...

This one is my favorite shot of the day!

Motion blur, look at his focus though.

I was moving too fast to catch him.

I like the contrast and focus on his face.

Lean into it....

Wow, look at how his legs move...and his
tail curls under...

4:00 am moon...I definitely didn't have the
shutter speed correct.

One more attempt, a little better,
but still not right.  Maybe I
should have slept in longer...

Spend your energy finding answers

Don’t dwell on what went wrong.  Instead, focus on what to do next.  Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer.  Denis Waitley

Welcome back!  This week's lesson - capture depth of field.  Depth of field is where the camera focuses in the picture.  What ends up being in focus and what doesn't.  Good photography, is about finding the right answer in your pictures.  Makes me wonder if Denis Waitley enjoyed photography as much as he enjoyed sharing his secrets of success?  The quote above, really does fit for photography.

I do really well at taking pictures that show what went wrong.  I'm continually reminding myself that's the fun part of learning photography skills, especially digital photography.  All you have to do is delete the bad ones and keep moving forward until you get the good ones with the right answer.  You have to take bad ones to learn what not to do.  I keep some of the bad ones to remind myself that I am moving forward.

Depth of field helps you capture unique photos of ordinary things.  With my camera, it is pretty easy to do so without even knowing what I did right, the camera is smart.  I have figured out that it is about where you place the camera in relation to the subject.  Where it ends up focusing is the discovery process that I find fascinating.

I'm not going to get stuck on the bad ones.  I'm going to enjoy the good ones of this week.  Just the motivation I need to take more and learn more.  Next week's lesson "shutter effects."

Thanks for stopping by ~ enjoy focusing your energy on moving forward to find right answers ~

A row of glads ready to dry up for the winter;
they are all in focus, no real depth of field

Moved in a little closer, all still in focus.

A little closer, still all in focus. Well, maybe the
outer edges are beginning to un-focus

Change the angle and now the background begins
to get out of focus, I'm starting to see the depth
of field difference.

Now I can see the difference, look at all
those baby flowers that won't produce
anything because they aren't mature enough.
See how the camera focused on the bulb in
the front?

This picture is more interesting.  Weird flowers, no
wonder they are so pretty when they actually
bloom.  There's so much stuff going on under
the ground!  Seeds of Greatness (as Denis would say)

Photo bombed by Copper!  I focused on the
second flower, not the first, now I'm getting
the depth of field down.

The fog one morning was so cool.  

I changed where the camera took the picture,
less ground,.  This one is more interesting, the tree
stands out more.

These two love to stare at each other
through the door - which two....?

My favorite one of the week, I finally
got a cool picture of the
moon, and it was in focus by
changing my settings...I can't
remember what they were though!
Time to take some more pictures.

Don't be bitter, just enjoy

There will be times when you will be in the field without a camera.  And, you will see the most glorious sunset or the most beautiful scene that you have ever witnessed.  Don’t be bitter because you can’t record it.  Sit down, drink it in, and enjoy it for what it is! – DeGriff

This past week, my camera assignment was to learn about exposure.  Light in front of me, sensitivity to the light (i.e., ISO on the camera), amount of light going through the lens - aperture, and the shutter speed.

Like the quote above, I missed many beautiful moments because I didn't have the camera set properly to capture them.  After a week of staring at my camera, wondering how to switch any of the buttons on it to adjust any of the above things, I finally took a dare this morning and switched the ISO.  Little did I know, I discovered that my daughter had set it on 800 and that's where I've been taking pictures ever since.  I think I need to study this topic further.  Is there really a difference?  Seems to me the camera is pretty smart on it's own when it is set on automatic.  If I look closely at the pictures, there is a subtle difference.

The first lesson on exposure was to discover "The Sunny 16 rule".  I still don't know that I had the camera set right, but I definitely had the ISO set to 100, the sun was behind me and I took pictures of lots of objects and they look okay to me.  I guess I won't be bitter because I don't know if I captured them right or not?  I simply enjoyed the moments for what they were.  An opportunity to continue discovering photography.

Thanks for stopping by - enjoy the sit down, drink it in moments of life!  Next week, depth of field will be my assignment, along with continuing on with exposure, I think there might just be something to that after all...

ISO 800, sun shining on the frost on the trees

Sun to my left, the frost on
the leaves - reminds me I better
pull these out of the ground today...

Close up of the frost.

Shadow of the flower, looks almost like a heart to me.

ISO 800 looking into the sun, the frost was
pretty to look at, not so great in the picture.  I
hadn't discovered the ISO 100 thing yet.  Plus, you're not
supposed to look into the sun according to the lesson.

ISO 800 - kinda dull picture

ISO 100 - I think I see a difference...the yellow is brighter.

ISO 100 - the greens are prettier than the
ISO 800 picture, but then I'm further away than
the first picture.

Frost is clearer with the ISO 100

Sun to the right, the frost is easier to see.

Sun to my back and looking up - can't see the frost
as much, the sun had melted it away on this
side of the tree.  Nice contrast of colors though.

Ah...Copper has it right, it's time for a run...I always
see picture worthy moments when I'm running.
I always enjoy them, and I never have my camera
with me to capture them!