Shopping At A Chain Store..
It's "officially" FALL and Saturday underlined that fact.
My
photography group participated in the 4th annual World Wide Photo Walk in the evening and the weather was fantastic!
About 30 of us gathered by the impressive fountain at
Waterfront Park at 6pm.
Most were lugging large SLR cameras, a variety of lenses and tripods.
We all wore red and white stick-on badges.
When we all clustered together, passers-by would look around and ask
"what's going on? What's the event?"As darkness fell, one of the photographers stopped on the way to the Battery and aimed her camera at a brightly lighted dining room scene near Rainbow Row.
The barn-like doors were thrown open wide and she liked the set table with people preparing to enjoy a meal. Candles flickered.
A voice boomed
"PLEASE! This is a private residence and we do NOT appreciate you taking pictures!"She shared the story and, as we all passed back by and saw the open door, frankly we too thought it was a new small restaurant. Oh well.
I call this
"Sycamores At Sunset."If you know for sure these are not Sycamores, please let me know and I can change the title.
All trees should have little signs that identify them. And adding the Latin
genus would be nice too.
Here's a scene from the foot of
Broad Street. Fortunately there is a raised landing up above the very narrow sidewalk at the
Old Exchange Building.
Do you remember when there was a costumed Revolutionary War person standing up there greeting the passing cars and tourists?
Saturday night there were a dozen people with cameras and tripods taking long time exposures.
Waving and wearing red and white badges.
(Details can be seen by clicking on the photos. See if you can spot where I did some
Photoshop work.) Thanks for joining our evening walk. Please join us again.
Labels: chain store, Old Exchange Building, PhotoShop, Rainbow Row homes, SLRs, Sycamore trees, waterfront Park
NOW you see it ....
One of the "tools" I am struggling to master is called
PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS.
It is an abbreviated version of the full-blown
Photoshop which costs hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
My
PSE cost $49.95.
This
smaller-but-still-pretty-awesome software can do amazing things to alter a photograph. Sometimes I use it to create a visual effect.
Or to remove something that I feel should not be there.
The CLONE copies something - such as a brick wall - and you replace a door with wall.
Simple.
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Or make a silly sign go away.
Don't forget to remove its shadow.
[Click on the photos for details. Oh, if I take a picture of your car, I'll blur out your license number. Another good part of PSE.]
Labels: Clone tool, PhotoShop, Photoshop Elements, PSE
Return To Sender ....
We've all heard the familiar slogan
"You can't go home again."The Post Office says
"you can't even mail it there without a proper address and a ZIP Code."
Of course, after 70 years, I expected there might be a problem mailing a postcard in response to a small ad.
First of all, the penny postcard now costs an additional 27 cents.
As I clipped coupons from a 1939 issue of
Popular Photography magazine, I did hope to hear back from a camera store in New York that three score and ten years ago called itself
Fotoshop, Inc..
Today, Photoshop is the name of a software program used to enhance digital photos on your computer.
I also sent a copy of the postcard to the editors of the magazine but have not heard back from them.
I had the correct address in New York City, New York.
Labels: Fotoshop, Inc, PhotoShop, post cards, ZIP codes
Camera Does Not Lie ...part II
Well, what the human eye sees and what the camera "captures" often is quite different.
A beautiful display of fireworks on the
4th of July is a good example.
The small digital camera I have was challenged to be steady yet with a shutter speed slow enough to capture the bright images.
Some it did better than others. I clicked about 50 times to get 4 usable pictures.
A wonderful manipulation tool is called
PhotoShop and it allows you to create a layer for each photo.
Think of a stack of glass slides with one fiery burst on each.
You can change and adjust each layer, moving images around and, finally, combine ALL the layers.
I like the finished photo although my eye never saw it quite that way the evening of July 4.
Labels: 4th of July, fireworks, manipulation tool, PhotoShop, shutter speeds
The Camera Doesn't Lie.....yeah, right!
So it's the last day of the annual
"Be A Tourist In Your Own Town"
and I am checking off places I will visit..the Aquarium, the Military Museum, the Powder Magazine and...Karpeles Manuscript Museum.
Fascinating to look at pieces of paper that give us a written link to the famous and some infamous. I was reminded how often Popes - and their families - were involved in history.
I stepped out and crossed the street to take a picture of the former church that houses one of the nine Karpeles Museums across the country and realized Spring Street obviously has never considered underground power lines. No way to avoid them.But, of course, that was before PhotoShop.
I am organizing a
Photography Meetup February 13, at 7:00pm at Madra Rua Irish Pub & Grill in North Charleston, near Park Circle. I sure hope a few people versed in PhotoShop will sign up and attend.
I can use a LOT of help.
Labels: American Military Museum, Karpeles Manuscript Museum, Madra Rua, Meetup.com, PhotoShop, Pope, Powder Magazine, SC Aquarium, Spring Street, underground utilities
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Wow. Technology just keeps changing!
There's something called
Meetup.com which has in a short time attracted 26,967 "members" in 286 groups in 200 cities.
So, I joined and decided to create a gathering of Charleston-area people interested in meeting up to talk about
"21st Century (digital and film) Photography." We'll share experiences, ideas and techniques.
Meetup is very organized and sent out a message to 65 local "photographers" and "PhotoShoppers" who had expressed interest. Their note stated we would meet the 2nd Wednesday of the month at 7pm and the first meet was set for February 13th.
Because I started this here - and pay a monthly fee - I am the official organizer and all the responses to the invite come to me. I had 18 e-mails waiting for me this morning!
Once I see how many send a RSVP and I can figure the area where the majority live, I'll make some calls and set up a meeting place.
Food is always a good idea at that time of day and I would prefer NOT to gather in a place that allows smoking.
Let's see how this works out.
Labels: cameras, film and digital, Meetup.com, paparazzi, PhotoShop, polite city, RSVP, technology
Where did THAT come from?
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A few days ago I noticed a large cactus plant in my neighbor's yard was looking sickly. The usually bright green leaves - or fronds or whatever they are called - were fading to yellow. It had become a nasty looking color that looked very unhealthy.
Then I looked up. And then, up some more. Like 20-25 feet high. That was not always there! What the heck was going on here?
I guess I already knew it was a Century Plant (
Agave Parryi) but it had just been sitting there for about 10 years (that I knew of) and had zoomed up "almost overnight." We're talking about trading the cow for some magic beans and
Jack and the Beanstalk.
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I chatted with the neighbor who said he thought it was about 25 years old and, once it started to bloom, the stalk jutted up almost fast enough to see it move.
It peaked out in about two weeks and then yellow flowers appeared on the top. Way up high. The bad news is now it will wither and die. All the energy was used up to bloom and make this marvelous display.
An article in
The Post and Courier Garden Section June 10 said small "baby" plants will pop up around the base after it dies.
Since I missed seeing something as big as a telephone pole spring up, I probably will not be elected to be the head of our
Neighborhood Watch.[Full disclosure: I used PhotoShop to eliminate telephone, electric and cable lines.]
Labels: Century plant, Neighborhood Watch, PhotoShop
Pick a card, any card...
So I reached into my box of business cards before heading out the other night and realized I was down to just a few.
Hmmm. Apparently 100 business cards - for a retired person - lasts about 2 years.
Almost to the day.
Well, there were some changes to make. I had been notified that as of July 1, my ZIP code for Hanahan would change to 29410 and my old cards had the old ZIP. I also ordered a rubber stamp with
"Read My Blog" and the URL, to stamp on the back.
I had PhotoShopped the store-bought cards to change the ZIP but obviously didn't match the typeface very well so I didn't mind ordering another 100. Should take me into the year 2009.
Unless they change the phone prefix.
Labels: business cards, PhotoShop, retired, ZIP codes
It's "officially" FALL and Saturday underlined that fact.
We all wore red and white stick-on badges.
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