New Year's Photography and Backpacking Resolutions
Take More Photographs- This sounds simple enough but for someone that works 45 hours a week and commutes 15 more hours this can be quite a chore. As I get older I seem to take fewer photos than when I was younger maybe this is because of inexperience when I was younger but as I age the photo's are getting better but I'm taking fewer. I want to take more quantity and quality photo's.
Take Photo's that Tell a Story- Many times we get caught up on the scene at hand and end up taking really good snap shots that are pretty, but don't really tell a story. Photo's that tell a story are more meaningful but not only for you to remember them by but for others that see the photograph. The story doesn't have to be a dramatic one it could be something in the photo that tells the viewer where it is. For example taking a photo of the Mississippi River can be a fine photo but if you have the St. Louis Arches in them then you know exactly where the photo is from. A very small story but anyone that see's the photo knows a small story. Explore New Places- Taking time to research and go to places where I haven't been before. Taking Backpacking trips and hiking places where I've never been. I'm also looking into a teardrop trailer (Small Travel Trailer) that I can pull behind a small vehicle to go camping at RV parks with my wife to save cost of hotel rooms. Would really like to take a trip out west but I really don't see that happening this year but maybe in the future.
Get out of my Comfort Zone- Getting out of my comfort zone will help me be a better photographer. When you take photo's out of your comfort zone you tend to think more and take your time to get a shot and that usually always produces a good shot. So get out of yours. Print more Photo's- I have a nice printer that I don't use as much as I should. People like photo's they can hold either in a frame or just the print. When you make a print you have something that can last for decades and also gives your relatives something to look at. One of my favorite things to do is go through photo's that are saved in a shoe box. Flipping through the photo's by hand is a real treat. I would love for my grandchildren to do that with my photo's. So print more! So these are some of my Photography New Years Resolutions. What are some of yours. If you don't have any make some or use some of mine but please make some. Keep Shooting!
Top 10 things begining photographers should Know or Do
1. Use a tripod. Using a tripod when you can does a few things. The first thing it does is to keep camera shake to a minimum keeping shots Tac sharp. I believe that it also helps with framing especially if your using live view. Lastly it slows you down! I like this element the best it slows me down so I can think about all aspects of the shot. I know you can't use one all of the time but try to use one more. 2. Use a Polarizer Filter. The polarizer filter is the only filter that you can not be duplicated in Photoshop. A polarizer reduces glare and reflections off of surfaces like windows, water or any slick surface. A polarizer filter also saturates colors. They are like polarizer sunglasses. If you notice how everything pops when you put on a pair of sunglasses this is what a polarizer filter does. 3. Use Camera on Manual. Camera's are very high tech now. When I started they were completely manual. Using the Auto modes on you camera can help you take photo's especially in sports or wildlife photography. But when you use the auto settings the camera is making decisions for you. As photography is a art I want to make the decisions whether they be good or bad. I still think that I can make a better photographic decision than a computer.
4. Sunny 16 rule. The Sunny 16 rule came about early in photography's history when camera's were first starting. When camera's didn't have light meters built into them. The Kodak company did the research to come up with this rule. If your shutter speed is the same as your ASA(ISO) on a sunny day your Aperture should be f16. For example Shutter at 1/100 at ISO 100 and aperture at f16. This actually works every time. The aperture changes when it gets cloudy or in snowy conditions. Knowing this rule can help you when your camera is in manual and your starting from scratch. Something every photographer should be familiar with. 5. Always have a camera with you. To me this goes without saying . You never know when a photograph will appear in front of you. It doesn't have to be a Fancy DSLR it could be any camera. We have cameras all around us from Smart Phones to DSLR's and we should always have one with us. I take a Sony A6000 almost everywhere I go. Its small but a very good quality camera. Cell phone cameras are getting so good now that everyone should have a camera with them . 6. Have photo projects. Photo projects are a great way to be inspired. They can get us out of the rut that we sometimes get stuck in. They can be anything from farm houses, to baseball stadiums. I've done Christmas photo's to 50 shots with 50mm lens. Always try to have a project in the back of your mind. 7. Shoot out of comfort zone. For any growth in your photography you must do this. Shooting out of ones comfort zone really helps us in the long run. If you are a Landscape photographer shoot portraits and vise versa. Shoot city scares, Still life or use Strobes. Whatever is out of your comfort zone do it. It will make you a better photographer!
9. Think like a photographer. This is not original phrase I saw it on a video. It makes lots of sense. We as photographers are problem solvers. Its too light , too dark, composure , camera settings all of these things come into play when taking a photograph and we must think like a photographer to solve the challenges that we come upon. 10. Exposure Triangle. This is the basis of what we do as photographers is the manipulation of the exposure triangle is what makes a photograph a photograph. Knowing the relationship between Shutter Speed , Aperture and ISO is essential to taking good photographs. Learn to use a Light meter! Light meters can be scary but they are fantastic when you master them especially when using strobes. 11. Shoot Everything. When your in a slump and you don't know what to shoot , Shoot Everything! This usually gets you artistic juices flowing and you start getting really good photographs.
These are just a few of my thoughts on photography and photographers. We must be educated in what we do to be any good at it. After equipment (and you don't need the most expensive) photographic knowledge is the most important thing you should invest in. So for now Keep Shooting! Spot "Find Me" Satellite Messenger
The Device is a small device that you can either put on your pack if your hiking or on a bike ,  
motor cycle or even your car. It uses 4 AAA batteries that they say will last a week. When you turn it on it starts sending signals. You need to have it pointing up for best reception. It sends signals to satellites every 10 min or more often if you prefer. With a App that you put on your phone or through a computer you can track the pings and people will know where your at. With a push of a button you can send a pre-programed message via text or email to your loved ones saying "I made it" or "I'm Safe". It also has a feature if you get in trouble but its not an emergency like if you had a flat tire you can send a message to people to come and help. Then it has a button only to be used in case of an emergency say a" Broken Leg" and the service will send rescuers to come and save you. The device cost about 100 dollars and you do still need to pay for the service. You can get different levels of service ranging anywhere from about 10 dollars a month to 20 dollars a month. I have about a mid range with insurance to cover the rescue bill if they have to send a helicopter to come and get me. I pay 14 dollars a month. I take ( or try to take) a trip either backpacking or hiking once a month and the 14 dollars for my wife's piece of mind is well worth it. There are many satellite messenger devices and they can be rather expensive from more fancier ones to satellite phones which are very expensive. This one is on the inexpensive side so you get what you pay for. But for me it works just fine. I haven't had any problems although you do have to have this pointed to the sky (line of sight to the satellites).
The messaging works like this you select the people and give the service their phone numbers or email address you want to text or send a email to and when you push the message button a message that you create will be sent to all of the addresses or text numbers that you have given them. Along with the message is a link to the App or a map that will show location. The service saves your track that you have made of your trip for 30 days I believe so you can go back and save the track for future purposes if you need to. I'm planning a backpacking trip this weekend and the Spot will be with me. Hopefully I'll get some great photo's. So get out and about and keep shooting! Spot Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boX2KVIX1d8 
Holiday Photography
Using external light sources for your portraits gives your family portraits that professional look. We are professionals after all (even if we're not getting paid) LOL I have a couple of mobile studios that I can take and set up at someones house or a venue to take portraits. One of them is a studio light set up with 3 studio lights, soft boxes, umbrellas and all of the accessories that you would need. The other one is one that is based with speed lights that is lighter and more mobile than the other but power of the speed lights can be a concern if your lighting up a large area or a crowd of people. To be honest I don't pull out the studio lights out often but when I do its nice to have that kind of power. My speed light setup consist of light stands, umbrella's, Soft boxes, beauty dish, reflectors and backdrop and its lightweight and a small family of 3 or 4 I have no problem shooting. You don't need a big set up just a speed light or two will do and I accumulated mine over time. No matter what type of system you use you need to be proficient at it and be able to produce photographs fairly quickly. People don't want to stand around why your fumbling around with lights.
The Holidays are a great opportunity to take lots of great photo's don't miss out get out and shoot!
Apple Fan Boy " Why I choose Mac as my computer platform"
I am a Apple Fan Boy! The first step is admitting that you have a problem. LOL This blog is about why I chose the Apple/Mac platform for all of my computing needs. First I want to say that this is not a Windows/PC bashing blog. In my real job " not my want to be job as a full time photographer" I use the Windows/PC platform. I have 4 computers on my desk and they are all Windows/PC based and they work fine. But for my personal work and my photography I choose to use Apple/Mac. And there are many reasons why. Here are just a few. Like I said before I am a Apple guy. I have iPhone, iPad, iPod , Macbook, iMac and even iTV. So all my personal devices are Apple/Mac. One of the main reasons is the ease of use. For a long time Apple had the easiest interface with touch screen phones to the ever popular window based operating systems long before Windows was called Windows . I chose all Apple devices so no matter what device I'm using its very similar and easy. Now I have to admit when I first got a full blown Mac computer there was a learning curve but after I found my way around to me its much easier to navigate. Another reason is that the graphics on Apple/Macs resolution , picture quality is better on Apple/Mac thats not to say that there are some great windows stuff out there , there defiantly is, but as a whole I prefer Apple/Mac. Most creatives use Apple for that very reason. I also like that Computer Viruses do not attack Apple/Mac as often as they do Windows. Windows based computers are generally cheaper and there are far more of them in the world and most of the Malware and Viruses are aimed at them. If you have a windows computer you know when you first get it its very fast but the longer you have it the slower it gets unless you really manage malware/virus detection very closely. Another thing that Windows based computers do a lot is updating . It seems that you always have to update the software with them. Apple does update also but not as much. Which to me means they got it right in the first place and didn't need to update to fix bugs in software. Now as I said windows based computers are cheaper or should I say "less expensive" but sometimes you get what you pay for. Customer service on windows based computers tends not to be very well where as Apple's customer service is excellent! Apple/Mac computers are made from High Quality materials only! There are no inexpensive models. Where as in Windows/PC based products you can get many levels of quality. Now that can be good if your on a tight budget but the lower end models can give you problems in the long run. Now when I talk about customer service let me give you and example of what just happened to me with my Macbook. I purchased my Macbook Pro in 2012 and it comes with a 1 year warranty. Last month I had a hardware crash and my computer would not start. I tried all of the online fixes but nothing would work. I was very upset because this was my main computer because my cheap Windows based desktop had died months ago. So here I am a photographer without a means to process photos. I couldn't stand it so I went out and purchased a iMac because I didn't want the hassle of a windows computer and made the iMac my main computer. I used a backup I had made from my Macbook just a few days before my Macbook died (Make Backups!) and used that backup to restore my iMac so I had all of my files and more important all my settings to my iMac. But I still didn't have a laptop. I decided to take my beloved Macbook to the Apple store knowing that the warranty was two years out. I figured I would have to pay up to 500 dollars to get it fixed and to me it was worth it. Well after I got to the Apple store and the Genius Bar the technician found the problem very fast and told me that it would be repaired at no cost to me! NO COST TO ME!!! Now how can this be its not under warranty. He told me that in 2011 when this computer was made that some of the video chips (from another company) that were soldered to the motherboard could be faulty. Apple took the ethical stance of standing behind their name and equipment and is replacing all of the motherboards that show this problem and my computer fell in this category. So they took my computer on a Saturday and they shipped it off to get fixed and on Tuesday it showed up on my door step! Hows that for service and its warranted for another year! All this was done after I had made alterations to the computer like increasing the memory and replacing the hard drive with a solid state one. You would be hard pressed to have that kind of service with any company especially electronic type companies. So whats to come of all of this. Nothing really, its like the Ford/Chevy or Nikon/Cannon debate. Just pick one you like and stick with it. I really love my Apple/Mac products and I'm sure a Windows/PC guy will say the same about his. Its just what you come comfortable with. So thats my two cents. Keep Shooting!
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