San Francisco Fort Mason Orchid

Did you attend the orchid festival in San Francisco at Fort Mason on Sunday? What??? You didn't! Well, thats ok, I did and I took pictures. I bought one orchid for my mother as an early Mother's day present. I also took about 800 pictures. I had a blast. Parking was a bit of a trick. I ended up parking close to a monument erected for a gentlemen in 1941. I took some pictures of the water, people in the park, and then I went inside. I concentrated on the presentation pieces. Wow! This year's theme must have been Mardi Gras. I'm sure there were more photographers on Friday, but I was working that day so I had to wait until Sunday. I did see several photographers, amateurs and professionals, both. Everybody had a good time. I love the floral shots, they are so much fun to work with, they don't complain, they don't need a model release and they always please.

Sacramento Orchid Festival

Are you going to be there tomorrow? I'm going to the one at McKinley park. I'm excited! I love orchids. I would have gone to the big one in San Francisco today at Fort Mason, but it was raining and I had too much other stuff to do. I'm taking the telephoto with the UV filter. Handheld I think. I have to watch my shutter, it might be bright out there. I wonder if it will be cloudy, I hope so. I love it when I get a help from Mother Nature and she gives us all a great big soft box.

See you there!

Macworld 2010 San Francisco

I had a blast at Macworld 2010. I love the city. Its a lot of fun to be there. I attended users conference classes all three days. On the first day I went to the Best of session and the Kevin Smith lecture (stand up?) Kevin was funny, sweat profusely, and used a tremendous amount of profanity the whole time.

I really enjoyed the video focus classes especially. I liked the course on green screen, I think the instructor's name is Jeff Foster and he is out of the Santa Barbara area in southern CA. Apparently he has a book coming out on the subject in about 5 weeks. I am planning on buying a copy of that. I believe he said there was a discount for ordering a copy from his website pixelpainter. He was selling some dvds that I bought. I haven't watched them yet.

On Friday I attended most of the video courses. I went to the "Your life in High Definition" with Patrick Nugent. He was very entertaining. He also mentioned in addition to his companie's product "Toast 10."

In the afternoon I went to the "Stereo 3D Animation with Adobe Photoshop & AfterEffects CS4" class with Jeff Foster, the same guy who taught the other course on green screen. He is a good instructor, really knowledgable and good at handling a room full of people with varying levels of understanding.

Later, I attended the "From storyboard to completion" session with Angie Taylor. I think this was the most comprehensive course. She covered everything from how to foster ideas to dealing with the client and the subsequent meetings. Her voice was a little bit soft and the gain should have been turned up a notch. After that class I went into the course for educators and it was really just a very beginner's level so I left that one to attend the 'sharing & publishing your video content' which was much more informative and interesting. The instructor's name is Brian Gary and he said he was with Ripple. I know Ripple but he was new to me. I really enjoyed his presentation style and I hope he comes back next year.

The show floor was a meager shadow of its former self. Most of the big players and vendors were missing. The attendees were there. At least Shure and Blue were there. It took me only two hours to explore the whole thing. It used to take me four days. I did buy some shirts and won an offical MacWorld 2010 sweatshirt by wearing my Macworld 2010 tee shirt. By the end of the day on Saturday many of the tee shirts were reduced in price to just 10$.

We bought a copy of Art Rage3 Pro. Its a neat little piece of software. We bought it online and the show price was just $80. It would have been less but we decided to get the hard copy on dvd rather than just a download. We never know when we might need to reload everything.

We stayed out in Pacifica at the Holiday Inn Express because we like it there. It is about a 20 minute drive into the city but at home we normally have an hour commute so for us it was perfect. They have really nice staff, a view of the ocean, and free continental breakfast. Can't beat a deal like that plus the free parking. Awesome!

Ok, that covers the show. I would go back again. I hope they have the classes again. I can understand why the vendors aren't coming anymore. Its tremendously expensive.

A call for prayers

Hello out there in the blogosphere,

I am in need of some prayers for abundance. At the end of this month, both myself and my Dad will be back in the job market. We are both hard workers and the primary source of income in this household.

I know what I want to do and I also understand that the likelihood is that I need a day job to pay for my expenses. So thanks in advance for those prayers,

Alisha

This is why I do it

Yesterday I spent the afternoon/early evening in Galt taking pictures with the Sacramento Digital Photo Meetup. We went to the Consumnes River Preserve. I met a lot of great people. I got to see people I had met before. The evening was supposed to be about cranes but what we got was a glorious sunset and Canadian geese. It was spectacluar. I highly recommend visiting the preserve, its a beautiful place. They have trails and lots of wild life. I got pictures of a bunny, he was a little bitty, soft, fuzzy, brown bunny hiding in the brush. I met a church group and a bird watching group. I thought the bird watchers were photographers! Fooled me from a distance because they have all of this gear on tripods but they are really just for watching not for taking pictures. The weather was perfect. The night before had been rainy and windy. I was worried we would not get to go because of the rain. But, it cleared up nicely and even warmed up. We could not have asked for better conditions. The only thing we didn't get were cranes. They decided not to show up.

Learning to see and penmanship

It is important for any photographer to learn to see both with and without the camera.  After all, don't you see what you want before you even put the camera up to your face?  I do.  I have learned a lot from my mother who is an artist.  She has taught me to see.  I have also learned a lot from taking drawing and painting classes. Both required me to see in a different way.  Photography requires me to imagine what the camera could do.  Painting requires me to readjust reality to suit the composition of the art not the other way around.  Both disciplines require different ways to see the world.  It is very helpful to start to realize that the world can be seen in more than one way.  Not all art is created through the same process.  I am currently working to improve how I see by practicing a little bit of penmanship.  I hope to improve my ability to create consistent and accurate shapes.  Drawing is another way to pop open the brain and to evoke creativity.  One of the ways my mother taught me to get to the ability to draw is to focus on simple shapes through penmanship.  Not just writing, but really trying to create good, consistent shapes.  I am retraining my brain to see the world through my hands.  

Getting to know your camera

There are simple things you need to know about your video camera.  This list is not exhaustive but it gives you a general idea of where to start.

How long your battery is good

How to focus

Set white balance

Set your audio levels

Adjust your iris

Adjust your zoom speed (if you are going to use it, not everybody uses zoom.)

Shutter speed (not all cameras allow you to adjust this.)

How to navigate through the menus

How to find the histogram.

If it also takes stills, how to use that function.

Where are your Zebras?  How do you set those?

Set time/date.

The settings for your LCD screen/viewfinder.  You can often adjust for the camera operator's eyes, for example my Dad is near sighted and wears glasses, well, I'm not and I have to readjust the camera for my eyes.

Also, its really good to know how to get back into manual mode quickly if you have a need for it such as a sporting event or news event that you want to cover.  For example, maybe you are at the park getting a talking head interview and all of a sudden there is a UFO in the sky over head.  You might want to switch to auto focus when focusing on infinity to get that UFO nicely crisp.  Well, you get the idea.

Other things you might want to know are what kind of other devices can you hook up to and replay your video on.  You might want to google what those jacks are and what they really do.  Its very cool to know your gear.  There is no shame in being very geeky.