Mail Surprise Puzzle

Its time again for a photo craft.  This craft would be fun for a loved one, near or far; kids or even to hang on the wall.  I am making mine into postcards, which I will send to a loved one.  Lets get to making a photo Mosaic.

I'm going to go through the basic instructions on how to put this project together, if you want more details send me a message.

I started with picking who I wanted to send the postcards to, then decided what subject would be fun and picked a photo.  Then I sized it to fit the amount of postcards I wanted to send, and its printing time.  In order to print the photo I had to split the image in half. Now its printed and its time to break apart the postcard paper and write the address and a note.

 I decided I didn't want to chance the postcards being ruined so I put each one in an envelope.

If you'd like to do something like this let me know and I can give you more details on the instructions.  Or if you made one and sent it I'd love to hear how you did it.

Merry Christmas (few days late)

As another year comes to a close lets take some time to look back at the last year.  I have enjoyed sharing my life with all of you.  I hope you will all stick around for the next year of travels.

Happy Holidays!  Hope it was full of family and friends.

Merry Christmas!!

Photography Night

For my moms birthday we got her a private glass blowing class for two at one of our local glass studios.  We finally went to the class a few days before Thanksgiving.

This was a great experience.  I had wondered how much it would be like working with clay as we got started.  It was a lot like clay with the difference of not touching it, and working a lot faster.

For the class, Boise Art Glass, we both got to pick what we wanted to make and the colors we wanted.  I chose a paperweight and mom chose a cup.  I got to start, the basics of mine was dip it in color then take big tongs and pull the glass while turning it.  That is how we made the swirls.  Mine also got another blog of glass around the outside, which we shaped into an egg shape.

Moms cup was very involved, she had to blow air in the the glass while it tuned.  She also got to make an ornament.  The photos show the process of the cup and ornament.

If this looks like something you'd be interested in go check out their page.  They have great groupons and do a first Thursday deal too.

Bulb setting

I've talked about the AV setting, the TV setting and the ISO of the camera. These settings are the base for understanding the bulb setting. The bulb setting, the "B" on your cameras dial allows you to set the AV setting and keeps the f-stop open all the way. The biggest use of this setting is for photographing at night.

Here's what happens, turn the cameras dial to B. You'll see the display says "bulb" and you can decide how small or large the aperture is. When you push the trigger the lens will stay open as long as you hold the button.

While I was making sure I was giving the correct information, I found out that my camera displays a count of the seconds I've held the trigger open. At first i thought that was as good as sliced bread, till I remembered in the dark you cant see it counting. I'd have to shine a light on the display to see how long it had been and that could mess up the photo. 

Back when i was using a film camera for everything I had the timing down to a science. I knew how long any given photo would take to get it right. For a few years when i had a digital camera I still liked the film for my night shots cause I knew how to work it. Now that I've figured out the digital I've relaxed on knowing how much time each photo needs. Now the way i keep track of the time is by either counting or simply guessing. Before I leave a shoot I have checked my images to be sure I got what I wanted. 

It is a lot of fun to go out and use the bulb setting. For me it helped me really understand my camera. Now it's your turn, get out there and have sime fun. 

Disc failure

Its Sunday morning and we've had breakfast, I have plans for the afternoon so I figure I'll get on the computer and work on some photography stuff. I get the computer woke up and the first thing that comes up is a windows warning about a discs failure. Ok this could be junk or this could be serious, lucky for me Wayne was not playing his video game. I ask him to come look at my computer, even luckier for me is that he understands my computer. A few hours go by and he has decided the message isn't junk and we need to do something about the computer asap. So here I am freaking out a little because I have a lot of photos on that computer that haven't been backed up to anything. We come up with a plan to be sure the photos aren't lost and order the stuff for my computer. I'm so worried about crashing my computer I haven't turned it on since we shut it off on Sunday.

Here are some words of wisdom to all of you out there with your photos in one place. BACK THEM UP. I know own an external hard-drive that will be backing up my photos on a regular basis. 

I hope to have the computer running after this weekend. Keep an eye out for new posts with pictures.