Tips for Taking Great Photos

Tripod:
In order to successfully take a good photo, it is important you use a tripod. Tripods will result in sharp, clear pictures. Photographers who do not use a tripod will often experience blurred images.

Prepare:
Take plenty of batteries and film for your camera. Don’t rely on finding stores, it might be difficult to locate supplies on location. Even worse, you may loose precious time or keep others waiting while looking for supplies.

Shoot:
Take multiple shots, so you can guarantee the outcome of your pictures. Experiment: Adjust your camera settings, different lighting, different camera angles. Try to find what works for you.

Groups:
If you are taking a picture of a group indoors, and conditions are fairly dark, there is danger that the people near you will be overexposed and the people further away will be a little in the dark. If you can arrange the group so that they are all equidistant from the camera. That way there will be an even spread of light.

Lighting:
Avoid direct sunlight, as this can alter natural coloring. A bright but overcast day is perfect. Get up early and shoot the sunrise in the best location. Scout the area the day before or during the dead time during the high noon sun. During midday if you have to shoot, try using a polarized on the lens. Use the filter only at a 90 degree angle from the sun. You must open up approximately 1 to 1 1/2 stops or more sometimes in order to compensate for the diminished light coming through the filter. Meter a gray card and open up from that reading.

Also use the polarized lens at sunset for some great effects on landscapes. The best time to take the majority of night shots is shortly after the sun has set. This allows a small amount of natural light to work with. Set your camera’s resolution at or near its highest setting (largest file size). The last thing you want is a grainy photo. In the majority of instances it is usually best to have the sun behind you when you take a picture. But watch out for shadows your own and the subjects.

Framing:
Look for ways of naturally framing a shot. Framing accentuates the main subject. Fill your frame!

Closeups:
Move in close. When first starting out you will be surprised at the difference moving closer to the subject will make. Handheld close-ups are often blurry or overexposed. A tripod is essential for taking good close-up shots, especially smaller items. An image stabilizer in the lens is a huge bonus because it means you can handhold the camera in lower light conditions and not have blurring occur in the final picture.

Francesca Black enjoys photography as a hobby and manages content at Future Photo

To Read Or Not To Read

“Do I need to know how to read music?”

A very valid question.

I’m sure many of us, when they first started playing, worked out of one of the old Mel Bay books that had shown standard notation while learning a song. Got pretty boring didn’t it?

Personally, I just wanted to ROCK! Forget all of the theory and reading music crap. Show me songs so I can play with others!!

To many, a piece of sheet music in standard notation looks like nothing more than a page full of black ink spots thrown across a bunch of lines. Very intimidating.

The answer really lies in this question:

“Exactly what is your goal for your playing?”

Do you wish to start a band? Just entertain yourself? Become a studio musician? Work for hire? Write your own music? Sit by the campfile and try to impress the ladies (or men)?

More often than not, if you are learning to play just for your own entertainment there may not be that much call in learning to read standard notation.

However, with being a studio musician it is almost a requirement. I’m quite sure you wouldn’t get all that many calls if you couldn’t read.

If you wish to write your own songs, it could be a great benefit to have the skills necessary to notate so others that can read could play along.

Guitar tablature is great, but it DOES have it’s limitations.

Bottom line, it all depends on YOU.

“Exactly what is your goal for your playing?”

Jerry Mathis has 25 years of guitar experience – playing, teaching, recording and performing live. Visit his website 1StopGuitar.com 1StopGuitar.com to get all of your guitar tablatures, articles, reviews, accessories and more all in one place!

How Do We Find Geniuses in Our Society Both Young and Old?

All civilizations have had their geniuses and almost any book on any era of history or culture will show several standouts and notables. Today with the Internet we might be able to find geniuses by their MySpace.com personal sites, thru their online social networks or super intellectual students in school. But how can we find the older geniuses that time or society has all but forgotten?

Did you know that those who grew up during times of civil unrest periods, war periods and such in their personal development maybe a clue to genius? In fact all these are major factors of when these people passed thru those time periods in their growing years. In one particular scientific paper Professor Dean Simonton PhD eludes to the fact that in the “final years” there is a burst of creative genius productivity in many senior adults, so why waste it.

Consider if you will the new paradigm of senior living and gated communities. Perhaps you have a Sun City that is not too far away and you know those gated communities really run things and could easily help us search their groupings too. Is it possible to enlist the creative genius to solve the gravest and most serious considerations of our civilization?

Could we use a multi-tiered search, both Web Based and in Gated Communities to locate genius of our present period both young and old? I bet it might extend the life of some of these folks, by keeping their minds active and a sense of purpose in retirement? People are living longer these days and we could sure use their wisdom, experience and insight?

Indeed we seem to be slipping a bit and we need more geniuses out there to help the human race into the future periods. We must continue to seek wisdom from these geniuses amongst us to propel the species. Perhaps this article might also propel thought into 2007.

“Lance Winslow” – Online WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/ Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance in the Online Think Tank and solve the problems of the World; WorldThinkTank.net www.WorldThinkTank.net/