From the Studio; Just Get Rid Of It.

In photography you may have heard of the rule of thirds. Most people think that it only has to do with the composition of a picture. You know dividing a picture into three parts for a more balanced and astatically pleasing photo. However the rule of thirds pertains to so much more in photography. For professional photographers it also applies to how they determine what to charge; one third going to the photographer, one third for expenses of any given shoot, and the last third to run and maintain the studio. Back in the day when we had to deal with darkrooms there were three chemical baths used to develop a photograph. Then there is my favorite, three things you should do to managing your photos.

This managing of your photos applies to anyone taking pictures. It makes no difference if they are a professional photographer charging money for your services, or just you average fancy cell phone user; everybody taking pictures has to manage what they do with the pictures they take. If you don’t you could end up like the guy back in 1941 that did not do his job and the entire world lost out because of it. To find out more about this guy, how badly he messed up, and why it was the entire world that missed out, you are going to have to come back next Monday Dec. 6 to read and see what happens when you do not manage you photos like you should. Mark your calendars right now.

For now I am going to go over the basics of How to Manage Your Photos but first let’s go over the rule of thirds that we will be dealing with today. First you take the picture; next you develop the picture; last what to do with your pictures. “Wait a minute” you say. “I shoot digital not film so I don’t have to develop my pictures any more.” WRONG.

Assuming you are not a perfect photographer like me, ha ha. You just might have to adjust the pictures you have taken. Lighten or darken, color correct, crop or even add and removing objects from the background and foreground is still something you have to do even if you are shooting digital. Then there is the filing and storing of your photographs. To accomplish this you should number each picture and store those pictures under a file name that makes sense when you want to find those pictures again. Now days it also helps to name each shot or individual picture too. Something like File name; Toys for Tots Bike Run 2010, photo # 116, name of photo; Bikes Arriving at Post; will let you find that group of photos and the exact picture you want when and if you ever want to use that photo again. Also keep in mind that most programs and/or picture storage sites now offer a database that will let you find pictures easily using keywords if the photographs were imputed correctly. So if at some future date you want to see that photo of the 2010 Toys for Tots Bike Run and wonder how many bikes showed up you can type in Toys for Tots 2010 Bikes Arriving and shot # 116 will be there.

This also brings me to my point of this article. If you are doing what I told you to do and taking lots of pictures you might have well over 100 photos to go through each time you drag out your camera. That is a lot of pictures to go fix, name, and file. What I suggest is just what I did back in my darkroom days. I just got rid of the pictures that didn’t tell or show what I was trying to photograph. Then I just got rid of all the pictures that I screwed up when I took them. As an example if you are photographing a dog and he runs out of the frame just as you snap your photo, just get rid of it. If someone bumps you and the picture you are trying to take is crooked or out of whack, just get rid of it. You pointed the camera at the sun and the picture is blown out, get rid of it. Even if you did what I told you to do and took several shot of the same subject, pick one and just get rid of those extra shots.

Can’t bring your self to delete all those unwanted and bad shots? I don’t blame you. I never could either. What I use to do was in each job file in my filing cabinet was an extra folder marked Not Used. When I switched to digital I simply did the same thing. Each event or subject has a file name. Under that file name is an extra folder marked Not Used. Even if I was going to use an on-line picture storage site like Flicker.com I would only store the good or useable shots there. The Not Used folder that contains all those bad shots I would store on my computer so only I would know how often I messed up. Bad photos should be kept a secret anyway. Like Mr. Scott said, “How else are they going to think you are a miracle worker.” Or in this case what a great photographer you are. ONLY SHOW THE SHOTS THAT WORK and lock away the ones that didn’t or just get rid of them. That is if you want to be as good of a photographer as I am. Now you know.

As for the last third or what to do with your pictures, well we did hit upon that a few weeks ago. Professional photographers sell or display their work. This may sound like a no-brainer but selling and displaying photo opens up a whole other can of worms for us pros. For all you average, I like to take pictures, type of folks you too should think about what you are going to do with all of your pictures. Put them in that shoe box, album, or store them in your computer? Maybe you want to send them to a friend or family member. Bottom line is now that you took the pictures and you fixed them, marked them, and stored them, you should now find a way to use them so that everybody can enjoy them. As a matter of fact, this article and your photos might have a lot in common. In this case what ever you do with this article? Do not just get rid of it. Read it, Store it, and Do it.          

From the Porch; Grandmothers and Grandfathers

Maybe it isn’t right to post something someone else has written, but my blog is about retirement and even though I could rewrite this and make it my own I choose to post it the way I received it. Because I am lazy and this is good just the way it was written?

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between Grandmothers and Grandfathers? Well, here it is: 

There was this loving grandfather who always made a special effort to spend time with his son's family on weekends. Every Saturday morning he would take his 7-year-old granddaughter out for a drive in the car for some quality time -- just him and his granddaughter.

One particular Saturday, however, he had a bad cold and really didn't feel like being up at all. He knew his granddaughter always looked forward to their drives and would be disappointed. Luckily, his wife came to the rescue and said that she would take their granddaughter for the drive.

When they returned, the little girl anxiously ran upstairs to see her grandfather who was still in bed. "Well, did you enjoy your ride with grandma?" he asked. "Oh, yes, Granddad, it was really wonderful. We didn't see a single asshole, blind bastard, dipshit or son of a bitch anywhere we went!"

Almost brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it?

Now before you call me a son of a bitch, I promise I will not exercise my right to use my copy and paste feature to post cute things people send me ever again. At the very least I won’t do this again until I run out of things to say on a holiday weekend. Just so you know it is not that I am lazy, overstuffed with turkey, or that it is the day after Thanksgiving that made me resort to cheating by using someone else’s work; although I really don’t want to write anything right now. Come to think of it I am so stuffed from yesterday that all I want to do is nap. No, the real reason I stole this e-mail and used it as my own posting is because I am home alone.

What does being home alone have to do with anything? Well it is Black Friday and my idea suggesting, proof reading, spell checking, nagging, lovely wife is out shopping and there is no one to suggest to me what to do, or read what I have done, to say nothing about that there is no one I can yell out to about how to spell that word I would want to use if I knew what words to write after she told me what I should write about. No the only way I can hope to post anything today is to resort to subterfuge and hope my wife does not spend all of our money. Happy Thanksgiving and Good Bargain Hunting on this Black Friday.      

From the Kitchen; Put a Lid on It

Tomorrow is a big cooking day for a lot of us. Here is an idea I picked up from the pros. Put a lid on it. That is how the pros get all that wonderful individually prepared food to the table still warm and tasty. I had to use this trick myself last Sunday when my wife invited our neighbors and friends over for breakfast. Apparently Sharon, my wife, was going on about my omelets to our neighbors when they admitted they had never had omelets prepared the way I fix them. Sure enough she suggested they come over Sunday morning and try one of my omelets for themselves. She didn’t even ask me if I wanted to cook for 4 people; just committed me to cooking breakfast for the whole damn neighborhood.  

Now the truth of the matter is that I enjoy cooking and love to show off my culinary skills and my wife knows this. What she didn’t know or take into consideration is that omelets are individually prepared; meaning you have to cook and serve just one omelet at a time. Meaning by the time the last person gets his meal, the first person has finished his or her breakfast. To me this defeats the purpose of having a meal with friends. Unless of course you want 3 people to sit around and watch one person eats. That is not very neighborly if you ask me. This also brings up another point. Should I put all 8 eggs in one bowl at the same time then ladle out 4 servings or only mix up 2 eggs at a time? The things my wife gets me into.    

Getting all 4 omelets to the table at the same time, making sure they were still warm but not soggy, was only my first challenge. What was I going to serve with the omelets? When the wife and I eat we generally do not have side dishes. I had no problem cooking up a mess of grits, firing up some home fries or hash browns with or without onions, or even slicing up some fresh fruit or tomatoes. But how much food can 4 people eat? That and the fact that Sharon and I usually only have a one egg omelet with a cup of coffee; no side dishes, no toast, and of course nothing to brag about either, or so I though. Dag-nab that woman, why didn’t she brag about my meatloaf, my chicken alfredo, or even my spaghetti?

Here I am cussing my wife out when it was she that came to my rescue. I said something to her about how omelets should be individually prepared. She suggested keeping them warm in 200 degree oven until ready to serve. The pros sometime use heat lamps to keep their food warm don’t they? This got me thinking in a new direction about my problem. I remembered back in Jr. High, we didn’t have Middle School back then; I had a friend whose father would make pancakes every Sunday morning for his family. Pancakes are another meal served individually. He kept his pancakes warm by putting them into a pot with a lid on it. He was then able to serve everybody hot pancakes and sit down to eat with the rest of the family. All I had to do was put a lid on my individually prepared omelets and everybody at my table would get a hot omelet and I could even join them.

With that out of the way I was able to think clearly about my other challenges. I boiled up some small potatoes for dinner Saturday night making sure I boiled extra potatoes for our Sunday morning breakfast. When it came time to start cooking Sunday morning I cubed up my extra potatoes and fried them up with a few cut up onions. While the potatoes and onions were cooking I took out a monkey dish. If you do not know what a monkey dish is it is a small one serving size bowl. If you ever ordered extra lemon for your ice tea in a restaurant they more than likely brought it to you in a monkey dish. Now you know. Anyway I cut enough onion to fill a monkey dish. I did the same with a bell pepper, some mushrooms, and chopped smoked ham. I placed each of these ingredients into a larger bowl and added that bowl into a large fry pan with a drizzle of olive oil that I had preheated to medium low. After I got everything coated in oil I put a lid on it to trap in the moisture escaping from the vegetables. I prefer this method of cooking vegetables as apposed to just frying them. The outsides are moist and tender while the insides have a slight crunch.

When my potatoes and onions were done I put them in a small mixing bowl and put a lid on it. In this case the lid was a bread plate. My side dish was now cooked and could be served warm when I was ready to serve them. I did much the same thing with onion, peppers, mushroom, and ham mixture. They were now ready to use and would remain warm until I was ready for them. All I had to do then was to wait for our guests.

When they arrived I started my omelets while Sharon and our neighbor’s wife made the toast. I can’t be bothered with something as trivial as toast. I had decided on 6 eggs instead of 8 because Sharon and I really only wanted a one egg omelet. So with 2 eggs in a bowl I added a teaspoon of sour cream, a splash of 2% milk, a sprinkle of parmesan grated cheese, and a shot of hot sauce. Then I whipped and whipped until frothy. This I poured into a frying pan and put a lid on it. That way the center of my omelet cooks faster. It is kind of like frying and baking at the same time. Once the egg liquid gets firm I add in one large spoonful of my vegetable and ham mixture along with a good hand full of graded cheese right from the bag and put the lid on it again. I wanted the cheese to melt a little before I fold over my omelet which I then slide onto a plate and put a lid on it. This not only keeps my omelet warm but also will help finish cooking the middle of the eggs. To cover the omelets on the plate I happened to have several 3 qt sauce pan lids but I have been known to use another dinner plate as a lid. That was one down and 3 more omelets to go, thanks to my lids.

Once we were all done eating and everybody was full and happy we all went our separate ways for the day. I had fun cooking for more than just my lovely wife. The neighbors got a free meal out of the deal. Even Maggie the dog was happy, because she got two extra plates to lick up. I didn’t tell you, Maggie is our pre-wash plate cleaner. Bon Appetite’   

From the Studio: Holiday Photo Ideas

With Thursday being Thanksgiving I thought this would be a good time to give you some ideas on how to improve your holiday photos. I used some shots from my archives for a visual aid. Some are family pictures but others I took while on the job and at someone else’s house. However all the pictures were taken under the same shooting conditions as you will be facing this holiday season. You can even discount the fact that I was using a Nikon camera with a zoom lens and a big old flash. Most cameras today can do the same job as my camera did. A lot of cameras today can do better without a flash as mine did with that flood light flash I was using. At most you might have to find a wall with nothing hanging on it. More to the point is you should crop out or zoom in until you get rid of all the unwanted stuff you see in most people’s pictures.   

You’re right about this picture. It is not an in-home holiday table food shot, but it could be. My point is that if something looks good or interesting, take a picture of it. Not all photographs work and you may have to get rid of a picture or two later. But you can’t get rid of that shot if you didn’t take the shot in the first place. Table setting and holiday decorations almost always make for great memories and few people think to photograph them.

Kids can be tough, especially the small ones. Here is the most important thing you will need to remember when taking a child’s picture. “You can not reason with them.” You can fool them, lie to them, even at times bribe them, but reasoning with a child never ever works. Having said that; here is how you can get around a few of the pit falls and get the perfect photo of that curtain climbing, crumb snatching, ankle biting, loving child you have always wanted.   

Let mom hold the baby. You can zoom in or just step in closer to crop mom out of the picture. Although there are times you might want to include mom in the picture too.

Take lots of shots of the same pose. Sooner or later you will get what you want. It never hurts to be fast when shooting this way. Oh, here is hint; once they start to cry give it up for a while. The only thing you are going to accomplish it to make it worse. Wait 10 or 15 minutes and try a new approach to get the same shot. Now to really get a great shot you may have to play with the child while trying to get their picture. It can be done. Hint no. 2, when trying to get children to get their picture taken you will need lots of patients, act like a fool, and a shot or two of bourbon helps when you are done.

As strange as it may sound when it comes to photographing kids the one thing I learned was they are smarter and better at posing themselves than I ever could be. Let the child be themselves, take lots of shots of the same pose, play with them, and you might have to get down on their level to get the best shot. Come to think of it these rules also work on the big kid too.

It is now time to get serious or speak to you serious photographers out there. You may have come to this Thanksgiving dinner prepared to take some great family photos but everybody is there to eat and have a good time. A good time to them has nothing to do with listening to you tell them where to stand and what to do. So your first job is finding a way to make it fun to have their picture taken. This means you yourself have to be fun and inventive. All the while you have to remember all those things that go into making a good photograph. That is what being a photographer is about. You have to be in charge of the people who don’t want to have anyone in charge of them and act as if you are having the time of your life doing it.

Photographing Groups: First thing I do is put a chair out facing the group. I put my camera on the chair and go up to the group and move people around so they are facing the way I want them to face and fix what is out of place. I may run back to the chair once or twice and look through the lens to make sure I have them where I want them. Then when I am ready I stand on the chair and shoot down on the group. That way I almost always get the back row. You have to keep talking to them so they will be looking at you and not talking to one another. Take a minimum of 6 shots because people are fast and will turn their heads away or blink. Keep in mind that the longer you have them standing there the better your chances that you are NOT going to get a good shot. Have fun, make them have fun, and be fast.  

Need for Props: Some props are going to come in handy. Props can be anything you find that will help you get a better picture, like a chair, a foot stool, or even some pillows can be helpful. The idea here is to have the subject’s head where you want it for a good picture. Having someone lean on the back of a chair will tilt the body forward. This can be done while he or she is sitting or standing. Placing one leg of your subject on a foot stool, again sitting or standing, will give him or her a way to lean forward by having them lean out on the raised leg.

 



Having someone stand on a foot stool raises the head for a better composed shot. The rule here is that the top of one head should be at eye level of the next person. Notice the word should? Nothing is written in stone. If it looks good to you then shoot it that way. If you want you can always do it the other way too. Then pick which one works best for you.  

If a person is too short when sitting you can always have them sit on a pillow or two to make them taller.  

But most of all do not be afraid to have some fun and try a few things that you think might reflect the personality of those you are photographing. You never know when something is going to work. That picture of the family on the couch having fun in now used as the grandmother’s facebook profile picture. They did it all just goofing around and I happened to be there to get the shot.     

Joys of Getting Old

For the most part getting old is kind of a bitter, sweet victory of life. To me the fact that I lived long enough to get this old is an accomplishment in itself. Thinking back on my youth I suppose I could have written a book titled “A Wild and Crazy Guy” except somebody had already used that line. Which is one of the downsides to getting old; most of what you come up with, someone has already used. Case in point my three marriages and two live in girlfriends. On the up side my current loving wife was also married twice before. Guess I wasn’t new to her either.

Discounting all the aches and pains associated with old age, being old has lots of advantages. For one thing I don’t have to worry about what to ware or even how clean what I am wearing may be. If I miss my mouth every now and then when eating, who cares? The up side is I don’t have to remember what I had for lunch. All I have to do is look at the front of my shirt. That way I can always fix something different for dinner. Because variety is so important to us old codgers; except when we are telling stories.

There is a reason that old people tell you the same thing over and over again. You see the things we tell you are of interest to us and therefore we feel they should be of interest to you too. But in our long lives we have met lots and lots of people. It is not our fault that all you young people keep showing up at the very moment we are relating that interesting story, again. You could always just not listen. We do that all the time; and there is a reason for that too. We are trying to remember that interesting story but it is hard to do when you keep telling us that you know it already.  

Another joy of getting old is that almost everything we own is paid for, including our cars. Think how much peace of mind that is for us not to have a car payment or a lease payment. We no longer have to run around here and there to justify having to shell out all that money each and every month. We have been there and done that, so now we can take our time whenever we are behind the wheel of our paid in full car. Let’s face it old people don’t have to participate in you young whippersnapper’s rat race. On top of that we have no where to be at a certain time. All we have to do is cruse down the road with no worries about who is in front or behind us. We earned that right, right?

Although being old also means we have a few things that don’t work as well as they used to. We don’t really care because for us the hardship happened so slowly we still think things are the way they used to be. My first clue that my hearing was going was when I asked my wife a question about a TV show we were watching and she yelled back the answer because I had the sound turned up so loud. However she has her own set of non-working parts. For her it is her nose. Back in the day she would use a dab or sprits of perfume here or there on her body. She uses the same parts of her body to put the perfume on only now she uses the same method as I did when I had enough hair to use hair tonic. Anyway I think that is the reason my eyebrows are so curly now a days.

Even with all these advantages to getting old there does seem to be one or two drawbacks to this old age thing. I am talking about that extra 20 or so pounds that just showed up for no reason what so ever. No matter what I do to try to get rid of it, it just won’t go away. At first I thought it was just me and I had some sort of ailment causing me to gain this extra weight, but it seems my friends are also afflicted by this strange ailment. Perhaps it is an old epidemic. All I know for sure is that it can’t be my diet because I am eating less food than I did 15 or 20 years ago. I am also eating healthier food. No salt, 2% milk, little or no sugar, very little red meat and yet that 20 pounds showed up and stuck around. By around I mean around my waist. If you see me from the side you would think I am smuggling bowling balls. I exercise, take long walks after meals, and still the fat remains. Nothing I do seems to help. Nothing my friends do help them either. They are having the very same problem as I am. We all eat less, exercise more, and look fatter. If I had only known this is what they meant when they told me I was living in Fat City I would have moved to the suburbs.         

From the Kitchen; What Did I Forget Now?

Just what does this tub full of fired shrimp have to do with this article? Absolutely nothing at all. It is just that every now and then I like to look at foods my wife will not let me eat anymore. Now for the real article.

It all started a few years ago when I wanted to jazz up our oatmeal a little. I diced up an apple and opened a small box of raisins. I then added both to the skillet I had heating up on the stove. I had already melted some butter and dark brown sugar in the skillet. After a few minutes or about the time that the apple became soft on the outside but still crunchy on the inside I sprinkled in a palm full of chopped walnuts and continued cooking only until the walnuts were warm. All of this, what ever you want to call it, I poured into our oatmeal. It was not until I was half way through my bowl of oatmeal that I thought that this would have tasted better if I had added in a sprinkle of cinnamon or nutmeg. Shame on me, I am really good at these types of afterthoughts because I do not write anything down or follow a recipe. What I didn’t say out loud was that I would have to remember not to forget the spice the next time.   

The next time turned out to be a few weeks later when my wife suggested we have English muffins with some jam or fresh fruit for breakfast. While I was thawing our muffins, because I always freeze my bread products to keep them fresh longer, I remembered my oatmeal concoction. I could use that on our muffins instead of jam. That way my wife could have both, jam and fresh fruit. Would you believe I forgot the cinnamon and/or nutmeg again? Perhaps there is something to this write it down and do it the same way next time thing. Again I kept my mouth shut and didn’t say a word. That was partly because I had my mouth full of muffin topped with my apple concoction. I’ll have to remember not to forget next time.

This next time was a lunch time thing. I asked my wife that same stupid question I always ask her. “What do you want for lunch?” I say stupid question because I know the answer. Why ask a question when you know the answer before you ask it unless you are stupid or a lawyer. Her standard answer to my standard question is always, “Salad”. Doesn’t she know that salad can mean so many different things? There is fruit salad, meat salad, fish salad just to name a few. If she just wants a dinner type salad of onions and tomatoes on lettuce she has got to know that that salad is a side dish. What does she want as the main course? However no amount of questioning, no amount of begging, pleading, or explaining has ever done any good. All I ever get when I ask the question is her one word answer, SALAD.

It is not that I object to salads. It is just that when I think of a meal I think of something that is warm, and most salads are served cold. When I think about having cold cereal for breakfast, a cold fruit salad for lunch, and a cold fish or meat salad served on toast or crackers for dinner I do not get all warm and fuzzy. I want a good hot meal every now and than. But my very shapely, good looking, slim and trim wife would eat salads three times a day if I would let her. I need something hot. After all isn’t that part of the reason I married her in the first place. Then it hit me. I knew the answer to my always asked question. I could put hot over cold.

I went back to my apple concoction. This time I added in cubed leftover pork chop instead of the walnuts. I then poured that hot and juicy mixture over cold spring mix salad. She gets her salad and I get my hot meal. Pretty cool, huh? I was so proud of myself until I remembered that I forgot the nutmeg and cinnamon yet again. It is not just nutmeg and cinnamon that I forget. Quite frequently during the course of a meal I remember that I was going to add in this or that but forgot to do it. Of course anyone who eats my meals doesn’t know I have forgotten what ever it was I forgot because all my meals taste differently every time I make them. So how are they to know that I forgot the cumin in my sautéed shrimp? All they can taste is the Old Bay Seasoning because the cumin was only met to be a hint of flavor in the background. Only I know it was not there.

Now to the real point of this article; I never tell what I forget to add. If I was to tell what I forget to add into a dish, each time I remembered that I forgot it, then those at my dinner table would think I was a forgetful cook and therefore a bad cook. By opening my mouth only to put in a bite of food I remain a good cook in my guests’ eyes. Forget about my wife, she knows better. I don’t care how hot she is, I gave up trying to fool her a long time ago. However to the rest of you out there who have enjoyed one of my meals all I have to say to you is; “You will never know what you could have remembered if I had not forgotten to add in that ingredient that would have made the meal more memorable instead of simply unforgettable.”      

From the Studio; Now What Do You Do?

With all of the point and shoot cameras, picture taking cell phones, and web cams, there is no reason for you not to take pictures. That is assuming you want to take pictures. Then again if you don’t take pictures and don’t like taking pictures, you more than likely are not reading this blog anyway. So those of you who are not reading this, you can just ignore anything I am about to say.

However for all you picture takers and people who are reading this article I ask you this question, “What do you do with your pictures after you take them?” Most of us, or at least those who like photography, want to take that perfect photograph. By perfect photograph I am talking about a photograph that is perfect to us. That could be a vacation photo or a picture of our loved ones. Remember our perfect picture does not have to have perfect lighting or perfect exposure. Our perfect photograph is all about the subject matter. This fact is the reason you see all those child and family photography places in strip stores and shopping malls. Let’s face it; no mother has ever seen a bad photo of her child. We money hungry photographers know this and some of us have made a good living based on that principle. So even if you have a professional photographer take family portraits or family members send you professional portraits of their family my question still stands, “What do you do with your pictures after you take them or receive them?” 

Back in my day almost everybody used an old shoe box to store the extra pictures that did not fit into a family or vacation album. Of course these albums and shoe boxes full of pictures were usually shoved in the back of a closet or under a bed. The only time we ever took these pictures out to look at them was when we were putting in more pictures. Not a very good system, so some very smart people invented a computer just to answer our picture taking and photograph storage problems. Heck, if we were willing to spring for a few extra bucks they even invented a full service dark room to use right in your own living room. For all of us hard core photographers we not only could have the original picture but we could do 16 different things to that photo, then make and keep all 16 copies. Some of us even printed or had printed hard copies of all 16 of those computer dark room enhanced pictures. A guy has to show off to his friends and family doesn’t he?  Sure enough those 16 copies eventually wound up in the closet or under the bed with the rest of our unseen photos.

So here are some quick tip ideas of what you can do with all those pictures in the closet, under the bed, or stored somewhere on your computer. Start out by buying standard size pictures frames that are made so that the picture can be easily changed. Arrange these frames on your walls so that whatever is displayed in the frame will enhance the rest of the room. Then pick out a group of photos that kind of go together from your stock pile of pictures. What I mean when I say “goes together” is anything from the subject to the color of each picture. You can even have a holiday theme. As an example some time in the month of June you could change all the pictures in your frames to shots from last years 4^th of July photos. This could also work for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Birthdays, Anniversaries, or just photographs of the seasons. That way your house will always have a newly decorated feel with very little trouble. Most of all each and every time you walk into that room you will be reminded of what a great photographer you really are. Because I have learned over the years that so many of you photo hobbyists do not know just how good you really are.   

Another tip would be to personalize your correspondence with a photo in the corner.  Think how much more readable your correspondence would be with your picture, their picture, or a picture of whatever you are talking about to enhance your message. Christmas cards cannot only convey seasons greetings but also answer that always unasked question we always seem to ask ourselves, “Oh ya’, I wonder how they are doing?” With a personalized picture card the folks getting your card will be able to see at a glance how you are doing. I had a photographer friend of mine who would send  a picture of himself, under a palm tree, in a lounge chair, on the beach, with a six pack of beer and a couple of good looking models all gathered around a Snoopy type Christmas tree. It always said “Bet You Wish You Were Here”.  

Bottom line; do not simply hide your picture but think of ways to share them. People in general are visual and think in pictures. I’ll bet you can see my buddy on that beach can’t you? I often said when I spoke on marketing your products, “If your customer can’t see it, you can’t sell it. So why not show them.”                    

From the Porch; Technology No No’s

No, no I am not saying this outhouse is a technological advancement. What I am saying is this is how a lot of us retirees see technology. Mistakenly we want to keep the old way of doing things. I remember sending a letter to a friend. It would take 3 days to get there. You always had to give them a day or two to answer and of course 3 days for the return letter to get back to me. Technology gave us texting and instant messaging. Yet there are still some of us old geezers out there who do not or will not use the internet. They still want to write and send a letter the old fashion way, using snail mail. There is a reason they call it snail mail.  

Not to long ago I was watching the DVD of Deadwood, that HBO mini series. One of the first things you notice is that everybody was talking funny. Oh they are using the same words we use today but they are using them in ways we normally would not. When you first hear the actors talking that way you think that the writers of the series must have went nuts with the thesaurus. Nobody talks that way. Well you are right about that, nobody does talk that way, today. However 75 or 80 years ago they did. This means, that in the span of one person’s life, the English language has changed. As one who is a lot closer to that 75 year mark than some of you I will say that I was able to understand what the actors on Deadwood were talking about; but I had to listen real close and pay close attention.

The reason I tell you this is because our children, or more to the point our grandchildren are the ones running most of the technology we have today. They really do not make the HELP section of any program impossible to understand on purpose, like those actors on Deadwood they just talk funny. The problem is that we don’t have an up to date, computerize thesaurus to understand what they are trying to get us to understand. These young-ins simply do things differently than we old folks do. That is because they not only think differently than we do; these young whippersnappers assume different things than we do. When our grandparents had to use the facilities they put on their boots, coat, hat, and grabbed a stick to beat away the varmints. Move them ahead into our generation and think how strange it would sound if we told them that the facilities were up stairs, first door on the left when they asked us where the little house was. That just wouldn’t make sense to them. We would not think to tell them that the crapper was in the house because to us that is where the crapper has always been. That’s why the HELP section can seem so strange to someone who did not grow up with computers. The kids that write those HELP segments assume you know stuff because that is the way it always has been, to them.

Nobody is saying this learning thing is going to be easy but if you are one of us old geezers and are not keeping up with technology, shame on you. If and when everybody around you is younger and more knowledgeable than you, there is no way you will be able to relate to them or understand what he or she is saying. It is called, self imposed isolation. I think it is also one of the reasons that so many of us wind up in a home. We couldn’t keep up so we give up.

So the next time you want to do something that you thing that technology might have improved, ask yourself why are you still doing it the old fashion way. Then do whatever it takes to learn how to do it better, faster, and easier. One of my first technology improvements came when I was reading a newspaper. I learned about news web sites and which ones are for which subject. I found that I could find any news I wanted faster and in more detail on the internet than I ever could from the newspaper. Don’t get me wrong, I still get the Sunday paper delivered to our front door. I tell myself it is because of the ads but I can get those faster and more plentiful on the internet too. Maybe I still get the paper for old time sake. After all, old guy that I am I still write my name in the snow every now and then. Of course for me I do my writing in the sand since I live in Florida. Thank God my name only has 2 letters.       

Raw Spaghetti Revenge

When I say, raw spaghetti revenge, you might get a mental image of something like this picture, or I could be talking about starting with the raw, naked, ingredients and building the revenge from there. A friend once commented on how I am a palm full, pinch of this, and a dash of that, type of cook. This got me to thinking that in the 30 some odd years of cooking for myself, and others, I have never made my spaghetti dinner the same way twice because I do not follow a recipe or measure anything. Still my spaghetti is always good even if it does come out differently every time. I have always thought of my spaghetti dinners as starting out as a kind of a raw concept meal that I build on from there depending on the mood I am in or the likes and dislikes of my company. Those who have consumed one of my always different spaghetti dinners always seem to like my cooking. Those who didn’t; I can always whip up some of my famous raw spaghetti revenge which I sometime serve cold but a meal that always warms my heart.   

Back in the day, before I honed my cooking skills my version of a raw spaghetti dinner was Franco American Spaghetti in a can. I loved that stuff. I would eat it cold right out of the can not bothering to heat it. The sauce was almost like tomato soup so whenever I could I would always have Ritz Crackers with my canned spaghetti, Yum, yum.

If I really stop and think about it I probably owe my culinary skills to my, can’t cook anything, mother. She would throw a glob of hamburger in a skillet or pot and then add in anything that we had left on the pantry shelf. Back then my Dad was in the Army and only got paid once a month. I will give Mom kudos for inventiveness during the last 10 days of the month. The good news was that she did stir her spaghetti sauce pot every now and then so it did not burn all that often. Then she would pour, whatever you want to call it sauce, over boiled, lumpy spaghetti because she rarely stirred the boiling spaghetti pot. Is it any wonder I loved Franco American Spaghetti in a can?

However the idea of adding what’s on hand instead of following a recipe that requires you to go to the store and purchase several items you don’t really need or want, appealed to me. Another palm full, pinch and dash cook was born. During my growth as a cook I learned that different people like their spaghetti dinners served different ways. Thick sauce, thin sauce, lots of meat, no meat, sauce with or without mushrooms or onions, no sauce at all, and of course they want their spaghetti over cooked or under cooked. Trying to please everybody with only one type of spaghetti dish is a raw deal for any cook. Someday I am going to find the real meaning of the word “al dente”.   

So here is my revenge for all of you who like to take spaghetti, then spaghetti sauce, and then combine them into a spaghetti dinner. I will make my spaghetti my way but never the same way. However I will not make it your way using a recipe. I CAN always whip up a quick spaghetti dinner for you picky eaters. Why am I such an obliging cook? Because raw spaghetti revenge is a dish best served warm.   

From the Studio; Magical Photo Tips, or not

It happens to the best of us and not just us ex-pro photographers either. Someone has asked you to take their picture using their camera or your camera. “Sure, why not” you say, grab the camera and click off a shot or two. They are happy and you are happy that you helped a friend. But could you have done a better job and gotten a better photograph if you had known just some of the professional tricks known to only a secret sect of professional photographers? You might have if there was a secret sect of professional photographers which there isn’t, but there is a trick or two that anyone can and should use. This happened to me just the other day and I thought I would share the tricks I used to click off a couple of shots of our neighbors before they headed out to a Halloween party.

Let us start with some basic set up for any picture; HEAD ROOM and BACKGROUND. The very first thing I do is click off a quick shot just to see what I have as far as exposure and lighting goes. You will also notice that the people’s faces are not in the middle of the picture and you do not see lots of sky above their heads. The tip here is to temporary put the face or the main subject of your photograph in the middle of your picture. (This is assuming you are using a camera and not a phone.) Push the shutter button part way down. This will lock in the exposure and focus for your shot. Now recompose your shot so that what you see is only what you are photographing and not a lot of unwanted stuff such as sky above the heads of your subject.

Next watch your background. Shifting just a little to your left or right can make all the difference in your photograph. What you can not see in this shot is that there is a lamp post in the yard behind Mr. Wizard that looked like he had lamp growing out of his shoulder. I shifted my weight to my left foot and suddenly the lamp was behind his head and out of my picture. However I was so concerned with the lamp that I didn’t notice that I had cut off the witch’s foot. This was a miss on my part and is the biggest reason there is to always take more than one picture of anything. You just never know until you look or until it is too late. I could have had a spell cast on me and been in real trouble had I stopped at on shot.

When I checked my first shot I also noticed that not only had I cut off her foot but she also appeared to only have one leg and it didn’t have a foot. I fixed this by having her move her dress so that we could see both legs and both of her feet. Another quick tip; notice her broom handle and the way it is pointing up to him. Think about how the picture would look if she had the broom handle pointing away from him. Also notice how his hands seem to lead your eyes to her face. You, as the photographer, can and should make the viewers eye see what you want them to see. You do this with lines and color and as I did with the broom handle and his hands and arms.

The next big trick is to watch the subject’s chin. For some unknown reason people tend to point their chin up in the air or down on their chest when you point a camera at them. Seems like I spent most of my career telling people to lower or raise their chins. It isn’t a big thing but if you look at the first picture and then the rest of them you will see I not only had him lower his chin I had him tilt his head toward her just a little. As for her I had her raise her chin to give her an appearance of being aloof as you can see in this third shot. Again if you try it several ways and take lots of pictures one of them is bound to work.

Last thing I want to address is lighting. The last shot I took I shot too fast and the flash did not have enough time to recharge and therefore did not go off. That’s right, I used a flash outside in the bright sun light. The bad news here is that most point and shoot type of cameras do not have a flash strong enough to do what my big flash is capable of doing. If you look at the last shot and then look at the others you will see how the shadows are softer and you can see a little more detail in the faces. You can also achieve this effect by reflecting light back up into the subject using a light colored or reflective material. However that might be a little much for a quick couple of shots like these.  

So there you have it; just a few common sense tips to help you gain membership into that secret sect of professional photographers. That would be the Al Allen School of “DON’T JUST POINT YOUR CAMERA” Remember the next time you have your camera out to grab a couple of shots; if all you want to do is take a picture all you have to do is push the shutter button. To create a photograph you have got to put in a little more effort. It’s not magic you know, it just looks that way. At least when I do it, it does. Hey, it’s my blog and I can say what I want to.   

From the Porch; Embracing Retirement

Every job I have had, every career path I tried, every project I took on I embraced whole heartily. Even my first job, if you discount mowing lawns, shoveling walks, raking leaves, or that paper route, I totally embraced. No, my first real job was at 15 working for the United States Government. You see I was a bag boy at the commissary on the base where my father was stationed. But I learned the best way to put groceries in bags, how to carry 3 paper bags at once without squishing the bread, and who the best tippers were. I was so good they appointed me head bag boy. Which meant the store manager only had one kid to yell at instead of six.  

Even though I am a retired photographer I did try several other career paths along the way. Like the time I tried my hand in the construction industry. Embracing my career path it only took one month of 100 degree August heat working at putting hot burning tar on a flat deck roof to tell me that the labor end of construction was not what I wanted. Still embracing the construction industry concept I determined that a foreman does less work and gets more money. That was for me. I even worked my way up to superintendent of special projects. It was a great job title with lots of responsibility and very little money for my effort. Next!

Special projects were no different. I embraced each and every one with the same gusto as I did any job or career path that I tried. When my wife asked me to paint the living room walls you would have thought that they were filming an episode of Extreme Makeover, Home Edition. I painted not only the living room; I painted the hall way, the kitchen, the office, both bedrooms, and rebuilt the cabinet doors in the kitchen, hallway, and baths. All this was done in one week, just the way Ty would have done it. I don’t know if Sharon liked the job I did or the fact that I was acting like Ty Pennington but she seemed very proud of me.

If it was my practice to embrace every job, every career path, and every special project with all my heart and soul, then why did it take me so long to embrace retirement? Isn’t retirement sort of a job or career in itself? If not a job then retirement is at the very least a continual series of special projects. Why did it take me two and a half years to embrace the retirement concept? I think that deep down inside I was a little intimidated by the concept of not doing anything at all. Let’s face it; you can only sit on the front porch and do nothing for so long.

Once I did embrace my situation I formulated a plan. I would take the things I liked doing best from my past and do that in my retirement. Since I no longer had to worry about what to charge or how much I was going to make I could make this work. I could do it because I wanted to and just for fun. I made a list of all the things I like doing that didn’t cost a bunch of money. I crossed off drinking beer, watching women, and taking naps. That left me with how much I like making people think and laugh. In the past I had done this by writing a newsletter about photography that I used as a marketing tool. I also kept and posted the minutes from a business group. Since I was no longer a member of a business group or had a web site to write and post a newsletter to, I would have to find a different way to make me feel that I was making people think and laugh.

The obvious answer was for me to start my very own blog. But how does one go about setting up a blog? I also had to come up with something to write about. The subject of photography, the subject I knew best, has a limited following. I would need to write about more than just photography. But first I needed a blog to get started. There was only one real drawback. I was going to have to use my nonexistent computer skills to write my blog, and then learn all about the internet to post my blog.

What I didn’t know was that while I was embracing my retirement there were others out there that were embracing a different concept entirely. That would be those geekie, millionaire types, who own and run the internet. These people seem to embrace the idea that if they hide and obscure each and every little bit of information that would make things easy and make sense to people like us know nothing retirees; then us know nothing retirees will spend more time using our brains to find those obscure answers. Those young know-it-all’s in their strange clothes think that if we retirees use our brains more we will live longer. The longer we live the better chance they have to sell us some new fangled software program that will only confuse us more. I read that book “Catch 22” a long time ago, you ain’t fooling me.

So if any of you really smart, nerdy, money grubbing, strange clothes wearing, rich young people ever find and read my little no nothing retiree blog, I have a warning for you. Someday, somehow, somewhere you too are going to be old. Your children’s children will be running things then and believe me when I tell you that they will be so much worse on you than you ever were on us. It will be your children’s children that will know more than you and it will be them that torment you the way you are now tormenting us. As last we retirees will have our revenge. OLD GUYS RULE!   

From the Kitchen; Moving into the Cottage, Cheese

This is another; “Thinking Outside the Pot”, thing. I was watching the Food Channel or the Cooking Channel can’t remember which but I do remember the show was about cheesecake. The show was all about the different types and styles of cheesecake, and some cheesecake history. Unfortunately if you want to know about cheesecake you will have to find a re-run of that show or do a search for cheesecake on the internet. So why did I bring it up to begin with? Well because one of the styles of cheesecake got me to thinking a whole new way about cottage cheese. Seems this style of cheesecake was made with half cottage cheese and half cream cheese. Perhaps I have overlooked the value of cottage cheese. Later on in the show another style of cheesecake used the half and half method but this time with sour cream and cream cheese.

I am no baker and like a lot of cooks do not like to bake as much as I like to cook. However I do like to mix things up every now and then and this cottage cheese thing really had me intrigued. I could dry out the cottage cheese or perhaps I should say, take away most of the liquid; then use it instead of cream cheese in dips and things. I might be able to sub out cottage cheese instead of sour cream in recipes where lumps are not an issue. Wow, what a great idea; then all those cottage cheese thoughts went away when the program ended because my retired brain can only hold so much information at one time and I had naps to think about.

A couple of days pass, it was breakfast time and I was doing a spinach and cheese omelet as per a request from my lovely wife. Normally I start any omelet by cracking 2 eggs into a bowl with a splash of water, sour cream, and whatever spices I am in the mood for that day. Next I use my whisk and whip and whip making my omelet more French style. Then I fold in the finely chopped, whatever I am going to add to make my omelet. In this case that was going to be spinach and parmesan grated cheese. Once it is all mixed I pour the bowl into a sauté pan making sure to cover the bottom of the pan. Put a lid on the sauté pan and walk away for a few minutes because I am cooking on medium low heat. FYI, the reason for medium low heat and a lid is so the middle of the omelet will cook before the bottom of the omelet burns or turns too brown. Once the edges are firm and I am able to fold the omelet in half, I do so adding grated cheddar on top and re-cover until the cheddar in melted.

On this morning I was all set to do just that when I remembered the TV show. So when it came time to add in the sour cream I drained off a heaping teaspoon of cottage cheese. Then just to be different instead of a splash of water I added in 2 little packages of our favorite taco sauce left over from Taco Bell take-out. Then whipped the heck out of it French style and did the rest as usual.

Now the real reason I added the mild taco sauce was because I was going to add mild salsa as a topping to our omelets. Something Sharon and I do often. What I found was that using cottage cheese made the omelet sweeter than normal. But was it ever good. It changed the whole Spanish, spinach omelet experience. Now I can’t wait to try this cottage cheese thing on something else. I know; pancakes. I’ll keep you posted.                  

From the Studio; Basic Horse Sence

As a photographer I often found myself driving around looking for pictures to take. It was my job and my hobby. I enjoyed taking pictures. The difference in the two types of photography; one did not have the pressures of deadlines, clients, or even subjects to photograph. This made my hobby photography entirely different from my job as a paid photographer.

It was the month of May when I found myself driving in horse country around the rolling hills of Ocala Florida. Unfortunately, the day had turned hot and cloudy leaving me with nothing to photograph that had any real punch. I couldn’t even find any horses. They all seemed to be hiding in their stables or under some shade tree and not visible from the road. So I headed back into town for a late lunch where I could sit in the air conditioning and cool off.  

It was then that I spotted five or six horses on top of a hill. Two young stallions were playing. They were rearing up on their hind legs, seemingly boxing with their front legs. Then one would chase the other. The one being chased was kicking out his back legs as he ran. I couldn’t get the car pulled over fast enough!

Grabbing my camera I walked slowly to the place where I could get the best view of these two young playful stallions. However, by that time they had stopped their antics and gone back to grazing. I was heart broken. It was then I saw another eight or so horses that I couldn’t have seen from my car. One big gray stallion raised his head and looked straight at me. I wasn’t sure what I should do so I stopped dead in my tracks. These were more than likely very expensive race horses and I didn’t want to cause them any distress; or anything else that might cause me to be sued. Then that big gray started walking towards me.

I did what any good photographer would do. I raised the camera and started shooting. For some reason this got him running right at me. Still I clicked away. After all I was outside the fence and safe. I glanced at the settings in my viewfinder more out of habit than anything else, but I couldn’t see them. Seems I was in such a hurry when I grabbed my camera that I forgot to grab my glasses. That’s okay, I was able to see what I was shooting and I was confident that my $2000 dollar camera would not fail me at a moment like this.

The big gray stallion half raised up and half turned back up the hill toward the rest of the heard, whinnying the whole time. This got all the horses running along the top of the ridge. A couple even kicked out their hind legs as they ran. It was a beautiful thing to see and I just kept clicking away getting one great shot after another. Once the big gray got to the top of the hill he and several of his close and personal friends turned and faced me. I remember thinking that they looked more like sticks stuck in the ground than horses. But it did not stop me from shooting away even if it wasn’t the best angle to photograph them. As the rest of the heard disappeared behind the hill the gray and his friends held their ground. I knew beyond a doubt that I was getting some of the best shots I had ever taken.

After a few minutes of them staring at me and me taking their pictures they all turned and followed the rest of the heard over the hill. Never again would I be able to get shots like these. I headed back to the car and my glasses to see what I had photographed. Ah, the beauty of digital photography at work.

With glasses in place I pushed the button that would turn on the viewer in my fancy camera. Then all that joy and elation I was feeling vanished. The screen was blank. None of the shots I had taken had come out. Each and every frame was nothing but a white screen. Was my camera broken? Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. This was a Nikon for crying out loud and one of the better models. How could this have happened?

It seems that the night before I had been shooting in low level light with little or no flash. My camera was set to work in dark places. I on the other hand had just been using it in bright sunlight. Meaning everything I shot was blown out. All the camera could see was white light. Therefore all I got was nothing but this story to remember the day I was horsing around and lost the opportunity for some of the best shots in forty years of photography.