terms and definitions

So here I am, blogging away, thinking "this is my photo blog and if my visitors come to see the pictures, I'll be thrilled!!" Of course, while I'm blogging away, I'm not thinking about people actually reading it and trying to understand what I'm saying. My buddy, Kim pointed out that some of my lingo is like a foreign language to people who haven't had any formal photography instruction (not that I have - I've taken two photography workshops - Karen Russell rocks every house!!!). I guess it's time to have a few terms defined. (some of these definitions are in my own words...anything marked with an asterisk is taken straight from the PhotoNotes.org dictionary)

1. SOOC - Straight out of the camera - a completely unedited photo.

2. OOF - Out of focus - could be the whole picture or just a part of a picture - blurry.


3. Vignette - darken the edges and corners of a photo - this can be done a number of ways, but I do it with PSE6. Example: the photo on the right is vignetted.















4. PSE6 - stands for Photoshop Elements 6.0 - the lastest Adobe version of a really good photo editing software that's still affordable (my parents got it for me last Christmas making it even more affordable for me...hee hee).

5. Composition - what your shot is made out of - ***The art of arranging elements of a scene or image in such a way that they are visually pleasing, emotionally moving, etc. Good and bad composition are utterly subjective concepts, about which get photographers very excited. (I only get excited about good composition...I get agita from bad composition).

6. AV mode - Aperture Priority mode on your camera - this setting allows you to adjust the aperture - the how wide your lens is open to light - while the camera will choose the ISO and shutter speed to get the correct exposure.

7. backlighting - light coming from behind your subject.

8. front lighting - light coming from in front of your subject.

9. Emotionally Perfect Photos - this is a completely subjective phrase. A photo is emotionally perfect for you if you can say, I love this picture because... It doesn't have to fall into the definition of #10.

10. Technically Perfect Photos - Everything that you did to take this picture, is technically perfect.

11. ISO - In digital photography, ISO is the measurement of how sensitive your camera's light meter is to light. ISO stands for the International Organization for Standardization who regulates the coordination of every kind of international standard. In film photography, it was a measurement of the speed of your film.

12. Noise - **In digital photography, noise is the appearance of random dots or changes in colour value in an image - much akin to the “snow” that would appear on old analogue televisions. Digital cameras use sophisticated error correction systems to minimize the appearance of noise, but most are increasingly vulnerable to noise at slower shutter speeds or high simulated ISO film speeds. (eg: at ISO 100 most cameras can take fairly clean photographs, but at ISO 800 or 1600 most digital cameras suffer from noticeable noise).

13. Shutter speed - how long your lens stays open to let light into your camera - you can control this in shutter priority mode on your camera; your camera will choose ISO and aperture for you.

Haven't had one in a long time

This weekend, it was the girls' turn to go camping with my in-laws at Jellystone Park in Sturbridge, MA. This time, mom and dad took 5 girls - Caitlin, Meghan, Samantha, Angelica and Melody. At least the weather turned out nice. If you don't live in New England...this had been a very soggy summer since mid-July til now. I think we're in a stretch of good weather - cross your fingers that it's just like it was yesterday - low 80's and sunny, no humidity - for my Tastefully Simple gathering next weekend. If you're coming, please bring your own outdoor chair.
Anyway, it was just Dylan, Adam and me until later today....the girls will be home sometime late morning. Dylan stayed with me at work a few hours on Friday night where he cashed in his piggy bank - $58.60...(some of it was the change in my purse that I hadn't put in the can we keep loose change in). He treated us on our date after work to ChuckE.Cheese (where a kid can be a kid).

After I got home from work yesterday, the 3 of us took off to the Museum of Science in Boston, MA. The last time we visited my parents in NYC, my dad bought the grandkids a membership to the NY Hall of Science. Their membership program extends to over a hundred different museums around the country including our own Museum of Science in Boston. So we got in for free. But we did have to pay full price for the Butterfly Garden. I took some pretty good photos there including these (I edited this down a little - just added some vignetting):
A blue morpho butterfly - besides the orange and black striped monarchs, I can't really identify what kind of butterflies they are - all I know is that they are pretty.
In this picture, one butterfly is still (the more focused one) while the other one is flying (the blurry one) The blur infers motion - sometimes, you want it - like in that picture. These butterflies were next to a sign that said if you find 2 stuck together they were mating. That bottom one tried to get some but didn't get any - in this picture, he was still trying.
One of this butterfly's wings was in focus while the other one wasn't. I can't remember if it just landed or if it was starting to take off but again, the blur infers motion. Let me rephrase:
you can tell if your blur is caused by you or your subject.

If your whole shot is blurry, either you moved (or I should say, the camera moved) or you took the photo OOF. If just a portion of your shot is blurry, chances are your subject moved. This is not applicable, if you took a picture blurring out the background, because sometimes you want that. In each of the pictures above, my background is blurry...I want that so we can all focus on the butterfly, but that blur adds to the photo because it gives you part of the story that the photo is trying to tell - in this case, what a butterfly would look like in it's natural habitat.
There are different kinds of blur - there is blur that infers motion which when it happens, you can kinda see where movement began until when you snapped the photo. There is background blur (done by adjusting your depth of field - aperature). Adjusting your depth of field can also blur your subject and make your background focused. We can get into this later.

In the butterfly garden, you can walk freely among loose butterflies (thankfully they don't land on the floor - that could be tragic). This one blue morpho butterfly loved Dylan:
This was on the way out. This butterfly loved him, landing on him 3 times before he took off. You should have seen the lady behind Adam who saw it land on him - I think she didn't like bugs too much. There's a mirror at the end of the garden that you use to check for hitchhikers and this shot was taken right in front of that mirror. This photo I did not edit - I will try later though to lighten up the background behind the butterfly to see him better.

Let me just say, I haven't had just one child in a very long time. And while it was nice, it was only ok because I'll have them all later today (and want to rip every hair out of my head after). We took a picture at the Museum of Science in the their Baseball as America exhibit - we were up against a green screen and then they replace the background with some scenery. Even though it was the best picture taken of me since 2003, Adam couldn't get it - two people missing from the photo. And while I totally dig that, I still wanted the picture....goodness, even Dylan had a decent smile in it. Of course, at that moment, I realized that I missed the girls - and like many moments, many times a day, I knew - I wouldn't want to have just one, or even two for that matter. I need all three and I couldn't have it any other way.

Them's a lot o' kids!!!

Before I post pictures of anyone outside my own family, I always ask for permission - just in case someone has a thing about putting themselves (or their kids) on the internet. Some of my friends and family were willing subjects while some weren't - and then there was my own brother who emailed me: "Derf? Are you turning into a pedophile?"
I'm not sure if that meant yes or no, I can post his family pictures or not...what I am sure of is that he was trying to be funny (because he's like that....thanks Jon, that was hilarious! NOT!!!)

Anyway, thank you to those who did give me permission...including my sister-in-law, Kristin. She and my brother-in-law, Sam have 6 beautiful kids. Every year, we vacation up in Maine together. This year I got to take these - in the order of eldest to youngest:

This is Michael - he's 16. He had gotten his license the day before we went to Maine. This was also one of 2 good shots I got of him because he didn't want his picture taken - I guess I can relate - I don't like my picture taken too unless someone can find the skinny button on the camera...this is Michael's GQ cover shot (yeah, I used the GQ cover shot button on my camera). Thanks for letting me take this shot, Mike. (It also helped that I was about 15 feet away with my Canon 75-300mm out at 290mm.)












This is 11 year old Dennis - star football player of the family. We took pictures of whatever catch the boys brought back to the camp...Dennis is a great quick photo taker. If you ask him to turn around and take a picture, he's ready with a smile and can do it at a moment's notice....so wasn't the fishy. I edited this picture (and the one of Michael above) with Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0. I used an action called EZ Vignette that I got from photoblast.com. Actions are a series of steps that you happen to get a certain result. In this case, I took the original picture and hit the EZ Vignette button which resulted in a slight vignetting around Dennis and the fish (hard to see but the edges - especially the corners are darkened to frame Dennis and the fishy). - I did the same thing to Michael's picture but not as much....Surely, you can vignette a photo without the action but I don't know how to and because I don't have enough room in my head to memorize those steps - the button approach is for me.


This is 9 year old Andrew...superstar ice hockey player of the family - he plays for his city's team and the Boston College team. (Dylan plays ice hockey too but he's just a beginner - I hope he takes after Andrew someday) Of all my nieces and nephews, this one is the biggest button pusher of them all...I hope he lightens up on the button pushing before his brothers have all but enough of him and just squash him...I don't think that would make a pretty picture. Although, I will say, when he's with me, he's an angel...never disrespectful, very helpful...maybe he likes me - he probably just wants to make sure that his uncle won't handcuff him when he's with us.







This is 7 year old Meghan. By far, she is the most photogenic and one of the most willing to have their picture taken. Thank goodness!!! I took this photo in color but it was slightly OOF. So I vignetted her after I converted the photo to mocha (another action available at EZactions.com) and I think it made the OOF not as noticeable. Meghan is so pretty!














Then there is 5 year old, Samantha...who we call Sammy. She is 3 days older than my Angelica. She too was a willing subject. I edited this picture too because originally Sammy was underexposed relative to the background. I isolated her with the magnetic lasso tool and adjusted the shadows by 25%. Then I vignetted her. You probably noiced that vignetting works well with darker backgrounds than with lighter backgrounds (for example, it's plainly obvious that this picture has been vignetted at where Sammy's arms are resting, but not necessarily at the top where the background is the pond, sky and mountains)...











Finally, this is 1 year old EvaMarie. I vignetted her alot - 5 times...but I love how it makes you focus on her and not how her mom is holding her or how she is holding her mom like baby monkeys hold on...she was pretty little last year when we went to Maine...this year, even little Eva got more freedom...more pictures of her adventures to come. I love this picture of her though there are no lights in her eyes - that's because I took the picture with not too much light behind me to reflect in those peepers. I tried to put them in while I was editing this photo but then it made Eva look like an Alien. Yeah, not that look that I was going for....this little one is super cute - but she's a screamer....I guess you need to be one if you are the smallest of 6.

This week is just as crazy as the last - I've gotta work 6 days this week. We have a work event on Monday after work. Tuesday, I'm off to Frannie's house to celebrate Mimi's birthday with a CTMH demo. Wednesday, Adam is helping his brother move into a new apartment. Thursday, I'm working an 11 hour day and Friday, my in-laws are taking all their granddaughters (except for Eva) camping at Jellystone Park - so Dylan will have to hang out with me at work for a couple of hours. Welcome to the zoo - please don't feed the animals!