Life’s Sweet Ordinary — through my lens

This to me is Life’s Sweet Ordinary. No pretention, no posing, no perfectly coiffed hair. Just a pure, simple moment of genuine concentration.

One thing I always love to challenge myself with is capturing moments like this. When the subject becomes completely at ease with your presence and no longer is concerned with how they look, if they’re looking at the camera, and they block out your presence folding into themselves. Love it.

Do you have photos you’ve taken, or that others have taken of you, that capture moments like this? Add a link in your comment and I’ll take a look!

{Yes, I did some post processing on this one.} My main online venue for photographs

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.  ~Vincent Van Gogh

I love night time photos, particularly those taken in the city. This is from my recent trip to Edmonton (I took several at night). Do you have any night light photographs hanging in your home? Do they have special meaning to you?

“Huge lemons, cut in slices, would sink like setting suns into the dusky sea, softly illuminating it with their radiating membranes, and its clear, smooth surface aquiver from the rising bitter essence.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

I’m so excited! I’m leaving the boondocks to spend a few days in the city! As I’ve mentioned before, although where I live is ‘pretty’ and has an abundance of nature to enjoy, it’s way too remote for me. I often go weeks without seeing another human being other than my husband. So, a trip to the city is like recess is for kids — only better.

It’s a six hour drive from my home to Edmonton so the driving time really takes a chunk out of the traveling days. My husband is taking all day Friday off work to look after the dogs so I can have an extra day! It’s partly a working trip but I’ll also be spending time visiting my son and his family.

Because I’m stuck out here on the farm I really don’t have any good clothes and I always feel so self conscious when I’m in the city. I’ve decided I’m going to buy myself a new top while I’m in Edmonton so I don’t feel like such a country bumpkin. And I might buy a pair of shoes too if I get time since all I have to wear is boots.

With all the outrage by the public over Facebook sneaking in those new terms of service, I see they retracted those outrageous terms! But, careful friends. Those of you who do participate there, I bet they incorporate them later on down the road anyway. Next time they’ll be ready with a well polished PR campaign to sell the idea with all kinds of spin.

I’m finding that I’m spending more time on the Internet again than I really want to. In fact, I’d even say I’m becoming a bit of a mouse-potato. In the past I’ve given myself time limits for the amount of time I would spend on emails. It often works for as much as a few months at a time, then I slip back to spending more Internet time. The same thing happened a couple years ago with blogs I would visit. Again, I gave myself limits — an hour and no more per day. That worked quite well for a while but, you guessed it, I’ve allowed myself to slip back into spending more time online. So, here I sit writing this taking time that should otherwise be spent outdoors, working on my writing, or even house cleaning (egads).

The moral of the story friends is that I have to go back to limiting my online time. Beginning Monday when I return from my fabulous weekend in the city, I will go from mouse-potato to life-spud (busy-with-life). I will be spending no more time at Flickr. I will be spending less time blogging. Blogging will be sporadic and visiting blogs will be greatly reduced.

I have some fiction I need to focus on. I have two photography projects that need my attention for some gallery submissions this year. I have dogs that need to be exercised and stimulated at least twice or more a day. And so it goes. I know that most of you have the same types of responsibilities and likely understand.

I’m not leaving altogether but I must move away from the Internet and back into my real life.

For those of you who love photos and are interested in seeing some of my work, you can visit my daily photos. I don’t even have to be on the Internet for those: I load up a bunch and let it be; the comments come to my email which is much more manageable.

So, I’m off to the city and look forward to the sea of people; the buzz of conversation; the delights of spending time with my son, his wife, and my grand daughters (and their Boston Terrier, Mabel); and Starbucks. May you have special times doing what you love or being with those you love.

Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can. ~Danny Kaye

I hope you’ll leave the mouse behind and go toss a little paint on life too!

Many people tell me that I’m a sharing kind of person. I don’t think that should be such an unusual virtue. Since I’m an only child, people have told me that it’s more common for an only child to be adverse to sharing. I’ve always been that way. I have never understood why a person wouldn’t share what they know. So on that note, today I plan to share with you a trio of useful items (and I hope you will share them with others as well).

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” ~Winston Churchill

1. I absolutely love using Lightroom 2, as you can tell by some of the sepia or black & white images I post here and at my daily photos. Using Lightroom is the digital darkroom for photography, not to mention a dynamite tool for organizing photos (far, far better & easier than doing so in Photoshop). I never would have known half of what Lightroom is capable of had I not invested in the excellent how-to book by Scott Kelby, Lightroom 2 for Digital Photographers. I’m one of those who learns best with visual cues and not by books but this is one exception. Kelby has written this book in such a logical and easy-to-follow manner, that he makes learning from a book a snap. That is no mild statement coming from this technically-unsavvy person!  If you have Lightroom, you need the book to get the most out of it — believe me.
2. Speaking of learning, here’s a freebie for you. If you are just beginning to get serious about photography, or even if you simply want to know how to take decent vacation or family photos, I came across a photographer who is offering online lessons at no charge. Besides being free, and full of excellent information, you can take the lessons at your leisure. In his own words, the lessons are targeted to those who, “If you want to improve your shots and get more enjoyment out of your pictures.” Please visit Brett Trafford photography to begin today.
3. As many of you know I have been ‘green’ since before it was cool to be green. I write a weekly environment column for a local newspaper so I can’t share the column here but I do have a tip I want to share. I could write pages about how harmful those so-called “air fresheners” are but you can do an online search to find lots of credible information about how terribly harmful they are to you and the environment. Those commercial products do nothing to ‘freshen’ the air but they do mask smells temporarily. The best way I know of freshening air is to open a window for a while and to clean our home with good old white vinegar and water. But if it’s masking odors temporarily you’re after, here’s a few safer and much more pleasant ways: a) Burn a soy or beeswax candle (never paraffin candles); b) simmer a pot of water with cloves, a stick of cinnamon, and/or orange peels; or c) make your own safe spray of pure essential oil of lemon diluted in water, add to a refillable atomizer, and voila!

“Thousands of candles can be lit by a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” ~Buddha quote.

As Scott Ginsberg would say, “let me ask you this” … what do you love to share?

"books" Copyright © Diane Schuller

As many of you know, once you put your images online, you risk having them stolen by people who seem to think they are free. Some of these people help themselves to our photos for their blogs or websites and others are making money from them. We need to know how to protect our images.

Thanks to Roberta of Uncommon Depth, she has shared information for those posting at Flickr who are concerned about people who help themselves to our photos. It’s such important and helpful information, I too am passing along this helpful article on protecting your images.

That article by Greg Cope spells out specific ways to protect your images and I encourage you to read it and take steps for protecting your images from theft. You’ll notice that I have begun adding a watermark and, in some photos, I include both a watermark and a copyright notice. Sure someone can still steal the image. With the small copyright notice on the bottom corner that many people use, it’s so easy for anyone to clip that off and use the photo. The watermark is a bit more difficult to remove but people can do it — if they want the photo badly enough. My hope is that most who steal photos will be discouraged when they encounter my photos with a big watermark (or two of them) appearing on the photo.

I’ve also begun to make the photos smaller in [resolution] size but have not figured out how to add the right-click feature so it can’t be downloaded to start with.

This past week I deleted a bunch of my photos over at Flickr because they are real easy to steal plus Flickr is a hotbed for photo theft. No doubt you too have heard many stories of those who have experienced photo theft. I’ve actually had people tell me to my face that if they need a photo for their blog, website, (and a teacher who uses them for teaching tools) or other purpose the first place they go is Flickr! And you can bet your bottom dollar they don’t ask the artist for permission either. That is theft, pure and simple. So, I have decided that in the next month I will be removing a bunch more of my images from Flickr and the ones I plan to leave there will be replacing them with a duplicate that has my watermark plastered prominently in the image.

It has always astounded me that a person might see a neighbour’s tools in the backyard but they’d ask permission to borrow them yet the same person won’t think twice about helping themselves to a photographer’s photos (or a writer’s writings) and then slip away in the night.

If you’re on the other end however, as a person who is interested in using images found on the web, there IS a proper and legal way of doing so:

• If you see an image you are interested in using for your own blog or website, check the person’s website/blog or photo sharing site (such as Flickr) for information on their copyright or copyright policy. You’ll usually find this information on a page or sidebar such as the “about”, “copyright”, “permissions”, “profile”, or similar page/area.
• If the copyright notice indicates “All Rights Reserved” — they are definitely not yours for the taking.
• Now you need to contact that person (and that information is usually always available as well) to request permission to use their image. Don’t be afraid to do this; some people are flattered and will grant you permission. Some will ask for compensation. Don’t take it personally if they choose not to provide permission. After all, it does belong to them.
• If you don’t get permission and are really in need of a particular type of photo for your blog or website, use your search engine using keywords, “creative commons + [keyword for type of image you need]“. There are some people who have images available under licence as creative commons. Those are images where permissions will be granted for your use, yet you likely will be required to provide attribution (give credit to the specific owner). Flickr has a listing of their members who provide creative commons images as well as a simple explanation in the sidebar on what the particular type of creative commons entails.
• Not so difficult, right? And this way it’s legal.

Jenn and Karina over at Tiny Choices blog are a great example of the correct way to use other’s photos and how to give proper attribution. (Note that they use photos from Flickr that fall under “creative commons” and that they correctly provide attribution & a link directly to the individual; it is not correct to give attribution to Flickr because Flickr does not own the photos.)

I hope this is helpful in providing information on how to protect your images online. On the opposite hand, if you know of someone who may benefit from learning about the legal way of using online images, please share the link to this particular post. You are also welcome to link to this post from your own blog or website to share with others.

“If we know better, we do better.” ~ Maya Angelou

PS: After receiving some comments, I want to re-emphasize reading that article noted & linked to at the beginning of this post (the one by Greg Cope). My post is an effort to begin the conversation and to offer some tips and suggestions. Mr. Cope’s article is much more indepth and provides very specific how-to information in this regard.