Slow Month

I was touring the blogosphere this morning – you know one blog links to another and before you know it you’ve found someone new…  Anyway, I made a new friend today.  She doesn’t know me from Adam but she’s my new friend all the same.  She wrote a post about her slow month.  Basically the concept is that we consume too much and she is attempting to back off all the consumerism.  She was inspired here.

I would absolutely NOT describe myself as a tree hugging granola.  Not that I see a problem with that stereotype but I am a child of the eighties who grew up wanting more and more of everything.  My middle initial – C – might as well stand for consumer.  If one of something is good then a collection must be even better.

You might recall one of my New Year’s resolutions is to purge.  There are a couple reasons for it.  All of which lead to me following my dream.  The stuff requires too much time to clean it, maintain it, organize it, and generally deal with it.  That is time away from studying photography.  It goes back to the opportunity cost thing that Randy mentioned in my last post.  The stuff also turns into clutter that prevents me from taking a picture if it’s in my way.  It happened again just last night.  I wanted to take a picture for my 365 blog but there was too much clutter around for me to bother moving it all to get the shot I wanted, so I skipped it.  That is not okay with me anymore.

Another issue I’m facing is that my husband and I have been spending too much money.  I can’t tell you where it’s all going (he could though) but I am shocked that we have enough money coming it to do the things we want to do yet we can’t afford those things because we aren’t controlling the money effectively.  I can only surmise that a lot of the money is going toward the clutter.  No one small item is to blame but when they all add up it’s a big fat bill that I’m tired of paying.  I want real things in my life.  Cozy, comfortable furniture in my family room where my family spends the vast majority of our time.  Equipment for my photography business.  Experiences with my children.  These things are real.  The other "things" are poor substitutes.

I’ve also been feeling for sometime that I want my family to be healthier.  Less processed food and more healthy choices.  Healthy doesn’t have to be hard.  I don’t have to go gourmet but I can start offering more healthy choices and a little less prepackaged over processed food.

So you can see that the reasoning for my "Slow Month" is less about the environment and more about my Peter Walsh, Flylady, Suze Orman side.  Mine is a changing of focus.  Any environmental benefit is a bonus.  So I’m making a commitment for March.  March will be my version of a slow month.

1. We will not be eating out or ordering in for anything that is not a commitment that is already on the family calendar as of today.  I thought this would be a hard sell to my husband but he was totally excited about the idea.  He even suggested that perhaps he’d like to cook more!  Can you believe the Prince of a Man that I married?!  I’m a lucky girl.  Then he went on to add that he would contribute by not even eating out at lunch at work!  Clearly this is an idea my family is ready for.
2. There will be no toys purchased this month.  None.  Zero.  Nothing.
3. There will be no clothing purchased this month that is not essential.
4. There will be no money spent at all that is not for basic groceries/house hold supplies or some commitment previously made.  For example, I committed to participating in a stamping/scrapbooking club for six months.  I will fulfill my commitment because I said I would and I like to keep my word.  But I will not go over board.  I will not be out buying scrapbooking/stamping/crafting supplies other than that.
5. I will look to see what I have before making any purchases.  For example – I love books.  Amazon is my friend.  For my slow month, I will not buy any books.  If I get a reading bee in my bonnet, I will pick up a book I have on hand already.  I’ve already become good at checking to see if my library has it before I order it but I think it’s time for me to just read what I’ve already got.

Even though this plan of mine officially starts on March 1st, I have actually already begun.  I’m supposed to go to an event tonight and I’m supposed to bring two snacks.  The old Alissa would have run to the grocery store on my way to the event.  The new Alissa went to the pantry and came up with two really yummy snacks out of stuff I already have on hand and would like to see used.  I’m VERY excited about this change of focus for me.  My mind is all a-twitter with ideas and plans.

Now in the real Slow Month/Year plan, people start to make their own cleaning supplies and begin reusing their clothes for other purposes (re sewing them etc.) and getting every last morsel of use out of everything they own.  I’m not ready for all that.  This is where I feel comfortable jumping in the water so this is where I’m going.  I’m going to try it for a month.  It’s only one month, right?  Who knows, my focus may change and I might find I just love the effects.  I may even want to hug a tree on April 1st.

Now for today’s picture.  We had another ice storm on Wednesday so I took another shot of photographing the icicles on my deck table.  Here it is. 

I’m delighted to report that it was shot in manual mode with back button focus and in camera raw.  I’ve been doing that for about a week now!  Exciting stuff.

Randy Pausch

Over the last two days, I’ve watched two lectures from a guy named Randy Pausch on YouTube.  He is a professor at Carnegie Mellon who is dying of cancer.  The first one I watched was his "Last Lecture" where he talked about childhood dreams, following your dreams and enabling others to follow their dreams.  The second one I watched was about time management.

Here are the links if you’d like to watch them yourself.

Randy Pausch’s Time Management lecture

Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture

The Last Lecture didn’t speak to me as much as I expected it would but here is the quote I will take away from it.

Remember, brick walls let us show our dedication.  They are there to separate us from those people who don’t really want to achieve their … dreams.

This is the lecture I watched yesterday and I’ve thought about this point he made several times in the last 24 hours.  As I think back over the years about how I’ve always loved photography, the things that stopped me prior to now are so insignificant that I find them embarrassing.  The next time you encounter a road block on your way to making your dreams happen, think to yourself that it’s there to separate the wheat from the chafe – to identify the real achiever from the wanna-be.  One more lesson from this lecture I thought was pertinent on this journey of mine -

Experience comes with time and it’s really, really valuable and there is no short cuts to getting it.  Good judgment comes from experience.  Experience comes from bad judgment.  So if things aren’t going well, that probably means you’re learning a lot and it will go better later.

Today I watched his lecture on Time Management.  I think the time I spent watching this lecture was well worth it.  But then again, I’ve always loved this sort of thing.  Stephen Covey is a rock star to me.  Anyway, here are a few things I learned from Randy today.  He talked about opportunity costs in his lecture.  About the fact that some of the poor choices we make in how we spend our time come at a cost because we can never get that time back.  For example – one of my new year’s resolutions was to spend less time playing webkinz.  Webkinz is not a bad thing but it is not time well spent in my desire to become a successful photographer running my own business.  The time I spent playing that game is time I can never get back.  Wikipedia defines Opportunity Cost as

the loss of potential gain from the best alternative to any choice. Thus, opportunity cost is the cost of pursuing one choice instead of another. Every action has an opportunity cost. For example, someone who invests $10,000 in a stock denies oneself the interest that one can easily earn by leaving the $10,000 dollars in a bank account instead. Opportunity cost is not restricted to monetary or financial costs: lost time, pleasure or any other benefit that provides utility should also be considered.

Opportunity cost is a key concept in economics because it implies the choice between desirable, yet mutually-exclusive results.

Webkinz isn’t bad.  I play games with my children, I’m a part of their world and I send them virtual gifts while I’m entertained for a time.  Yet at the end of a year, I would have accumulated a lot of virtual items in my webkinz world but no experience for my real world business.  I’m sure this is a concept that will impact my free time decisions over the coming weeks.

Randy also quoted Walt Disney who said

If you can dream it, you can do it.

Randy went on to say

If you refuse to allow yourself to dream it, I know you won’t do it.  The power of dreams is that they give us the power to take the first step toward an accomplishment.

Then Randy talked about how the original Disneyland park was built in 366 days.  From the first shovel full of dirt being moved until the first paying ticket holder entered the park – 366 days.  If Disneyland can go from a plan to reality in one year, why can’t I go from an enthusiastic amateur photographer to a capable photographer beginning her business in a year?  No reason at all.  I can.  According to Randy when someone asked Walt how he did it in 366 days he responded, "We used every one of them."

Another thing he covered actually came from Stephen Covey.  Being a Covey fan, I’m surprised I’d forgotten this.  Perhaps it was just hearing it from a new source that struck me today but Randy covered Covey’s four quadrant to do list.  He talked about how much time we spend in quadrant 3 and 4 that is really a waste of time.  Don’t know why, but today a light bulb went off over my head while he was talking. 

One final lesson I got from the time management lecture was this.  He said to find your creative time and defend it ruthlessly.  As aspiring photographers, we all need creative time.  I know for myself, I frequently find myself thinking I’ll do/learn/watch/read after my children are put in bed.  Then once that finally happens I find myself worn out and too far removed from any creative spirit I might have had earlier in the day.  Even if I only set aside creative time once a week, I’m sure I would benefit from it.

Well, that’s all I have to share today.  Maybe we could each throw up a prayer for a man named Randy who is dying of cancer who made the world a little bit better of a place.

Stay focused!

-A

Lesson two – Assignment one

The first assignment for lesson two is

Take a landscape photograph using each available aperature on your camera, while using a 1/60 second shutter speed for each shot, similar to… the example in this lesson.

I was hoping to have a nice day around here somewhere so I could take advantage of one of the zillion gorgeous landscape views that are around my area.  Unfortunately, I was at a funeral last week on our one nice day and I was too anxious today to wait any longer.  It was frigid here today so I settled on taking my pictures for the assignment from my back deck.  They aren’t terribly exciting but I think I get the point of the assignment.  ISO is set to 100 for all of these photographs.

Below – 1/60, f 22

Below – 1/60, f 20

Below – 1/60, f 18

Below – 1/60, f 16

Below – 1/60, f 14

Below – 1/60, f 13

      

Below – (we all recall that they should all be at 1/60 so I’m going to stop typing that now.) f 11

Below – f 10

Below – f 9

Below – f 8

Okay, so we all get that these are getting more and more blown out as I go along, right?  I don’t need to upload f 7.1, f 6.3, f 5.6, f 5, f 4.5, f 4, f 3.5, f 3.2, f 2.8, f 2.5, f 2.2, f 2 and f 1.8 for you to see that they get whiter and whiter as we go along until the final two images are completely white.  Do you trust me that I did my assignment and I took them?  I just don’t want to sit here all night uploading each of them as I’m sure you don’t want to scroll through each of them. 

Anyway, it’s a good experiment to see.

By the way, for those of you who don’t think ISO is so very important (like me a few short months ago) I offer the two following pictures.  Initially, I had my ISO set at 400.

First, I offer you this picture.  ISO 400, 1/60 sec., f 22

and compare that with this one.  ISO 100, 1/60 sec., f 22

If you’re still with me (you have to admit this is a fairly dull post), I am pretty excited to share that some of these concepts I’ve been struggling with for so long seem to finally be taking root in my head!  I am beginning to think shooting in manual mode may actually happen for me some day after all!  That’s pretty exciting to me.

Stay focused!

-A 

More Resources

I was visiting around to some of the blogs I like to visit from time to time and I came across one photographer who published a list of her favorite vendors.  Here’s a link in case you are looking for a new vendor/lab/royalty free music source or something. 

Julie C Butler’s favorites list

Stay focused!

Back Button Focus

I came across this information on Chris Humphreys’ blog last summer but I wasn’t ready to put it to use yet.  I just came across it again on Melissa Jill’s blog yesterday.  Chris talks about setting up the camera to use the * button on the back to focus instead of the shutter button.  He says the idea is to seperate the shutter function from the focus function.  You can read his whole blog post here.  Melissa Jill talks about how she feels her focus is much more accurate with this set up.  You can read her post here.

With professionals like these using this function, I thought I should at least try it.  Afterall, tack sharp photographs are what we’re after, right?  I just set my camera up with this function today.  It’s interesting and like Melissa says, it will take some getting used to. 

When I was reading through my manual, I took note of the AE lock function too.  I was thinking about how useful this is for situations with backlighting.  I plan to focus on practicing with that feature in the coming week.

The next assignment in class is to set up my camera at 1/60 shutter speed and then take a landscape photo at each available aperature on my camera.  As soon at the weather cooperates with me and I have a little bit of time to myself, I will tackle that assignment and post about it.  I keep reading that Manual mode is challenging in the beginning but at some point something just clicks for each photographer and it just starts to make sense.  I’m not anywhere close to it making sense yet but I intend to keep trying until it clicks. 

I feel like my feeble brain might be trying to tackle a wee bit too much right now with these three focus areas.  But that is where my focus will be this week.

a) getting used to this back button focus set up

b) attempting to get a couple shots with the AE lock to see proper exposure on my subject in a backlit situation

c) attempting to master a proper exposure in Manual mode before my subjects (usually my little kids) move away and the shot is gone.

Stay focused friends!

Lesson one – Assignment two

Sorry I’ve been MIA all week.  I got the flu on Tuesday and was not functioning until today.  On to Assignment two – which is…

take pictures of a subject from various viewpoints (near, far, from above, below, behind).  Post… along with an explanation of which you think is most visually appealing and why.

We woke up to an ice covering this morning here where I am.  This assignment started out with me taking a series of random photos on my back deck to capture the ice for my photo a day blog.  When I pulled this one up on screen, I thought it had potential for being the subject matter for this assignment.

I went back outside (this time with my ISO set at 100 instead of 800!) to see if I could capture the ice from interesting angles.  Too bad it had begun to melt so it was a bit fragile. 

Since I was on a deck, I couldn’t go too far out from the subject matter.  Also, I was using my 50 mm fixed lens so I couldn’t zoom in or out with anything but my feet.  So, I played with different depths of field.

Number 1

Number 2

Number 3

Number 4

Number 5

Number 6

   

And then I attempted to move a chair to get more angles and CRASH.  We were done.

I think number three is my favorite.  Probably because the repetition of the ice.  All of these pictures are ROOC.

I don’t think this is what the teacher had in mind for the assignment so I think I’ll probably attempt it again with another subject matter but it was fun trying before the ice fell!