Just a little crusty! I love turtles. Unfortunately, my dog does too.

Is there a way in Picasa to open only a few files and folders? Or do you always have to wait until it opens every picture file you have?

3 hrs work for 650.00? What a rip off. and you don't even feel quilty? I guess more power to you if someone is dumb enough to pay that.

If you read all of UHH everyday, how do you have time to take all those gorgeous photos? I have to pick and choose and only look at 10 pages of the daily challenge or I wouldn't get anything else done. I learn so much and always get a few chuckles to boot. Love this site.

I love your quilts!

I loved your post...all fo it. So just ignore any negative feedback and please don't leave us. We could all do good to remember kind, true, and necessary.

Confession:

I am a bad Buddhist. In the sense that one of the pillars of the path is the vow to do no harm and the practice of right speech. A criterion for determining what right speech consists of is a formula called the “three gates.” (1) Is it kind? (2) Is it true (3) Is it necessary? Clearly, I need work on these aspects of the path. I am grateful to the forum and to the people who have put up with my darkness and my rants for through this process I have gained insight into my self, and all of you have been my teachers. I am grateful.

Admittedly, I have not figured out how I want to participate or if I want to participate in this forum. Admittedly too, I have allowed parts of my shadow side to show up in some of the comments I've posted. While this might be therapeutic for me, it can be harmful to others so if I stick around I will work on causing no harm - saying nothing if I have nothing constructive to add.

An Observation:

Photography has changed significantly in many ways since I first began back in the day of film and no Photoshop. Most of these changes have been good and I will be the first to acknowledge that my personal photography did not really come of age until I made the leap to digital. Digital imagery, and all its attendant capabilities including and most especially the power of the digital darkroom has taken the art and craft of photography into a new level of sophistication and creative power that was simply unimaginable twenty years ago. But here’s the deal – here’s the observation.

With all the power and abilities at our disposal we (using an editorial we) run the risk of losing sight of the fundamentals of our craft itself. I see post after post where the dominant thinking is a variation upon the idea that “well I can just fix it later in Photoshop; “ or “If the light is bad I can just take a sky from some other image and stick it in – no one will know.” Or, “just shoot raw.” “Just do some HDR,” “just get that nifty little plug in from NIK you know the one that will fix all the stuff I didn’t have time to do right in the first place,” “just get that great new L lens or tripod,” or “hey I know, it’s the camera.” And the list goes on and on.

The observation is simply that technology is great but it will not take a bad image and make it into a good one. Sometimes the shot is just not there. Sometimes you do have to go back (many times) and sometimes as Minor White (anybody know his work?) observed: “Sometimes we arrive too late in the moment to capture the setting sun – there is only time to expose the heart.”


The Rant:

Light. Photography is defined as "writing with light." I did a forum search today using various keywords having to do with the nature, or quality, or directionality, or contrast of light. I found nothing that addresses the very simple need to observe the quality and feel of light. Oh I found lots of posts having to do with the many technical aspects of how to work with the camera, how to meter, what to meter, what time of day is "best," and tons of questions on how to use post processing software to change, correct, eliminate, remove, filter, color, and otherwise alter or change the light that was somehow not so pleasing on the computer as it was in the field.

I saw nothing on how to see the light. Nothing about practicing patience. Nothing about having respect for the subject and maybe realizing the subject looks like crap in that particular light and maybe its better not shooting it but returning another day/time. I see
nada on the importance of simply observing light and its ability to shape, and texturize a subject, how the interplay of light and shadow create the basic building blocks of visual composition and communication. i.e., color contrast, tonal contrast, the feeling and the mood (among others). In other words, the basic building block of visual communication (light) seems missing.

We don't talk about light here - the effects it has on us, the emotions it creates, the ideas it sparks. We talk more about how easy it is to manipulate that light after the fact (and yes that’s important too), we talk about adding filters, gels, flashes, light modifiers, using HDR or the Orton effect all to obtain the results we want (and believe we deserve) and think we should be able to obtain because..........

Key word is think. All of us have an idea of “what the scene or flower or person or object “should” look like. And as long as we are trying to get that look – of how the image should be – we miss it. We don’t really see it. We see what’s in our heads and not what is in front of the camera. We see the concept and miss the moment. We relate to the idea and have no clue what the subject was trying to tell us. We look but we don’t see and when we get home and download our images we still don’t see the real image – instead we see our memory of what it was like – a memory of what we think we saw. Only the camera sees what we ignored and often our images prove it.

So I rant, and I rave, and sometimes my dark side shows up. But I really believe it is a great disservice to allow folks to blithely go on thinking all they need to do to make a killer image is simply to change the sky, or remove power lines, or muck about in Photoshop longer when what they really need is to just spend time learning to see - learning to just be present in the moment - learning to see with the heart and finding how to appreciate the magic of light.

I realize most of us are not naturally gifted visual artists (including me!) Most of us have to practice and maybe over time (years perhaps) we start to see the results of our patience, hard work, repeated efforts and many, many failures. We start to read weather patterns and cloud formations, so we have a foundation for making better "educated guesses." We take an interest in the subjects we are trying to photograph so we pay attention to them - we start to notice what light does to our subject. We pay attention to the world around us and less attention to our camera settings, and in doing so we learn to see. In time, we learn probably the most important factor in creating – we learn to get out of the way of the creative process!

The camera is merely a tool and this particular tool has the power to change our minds, to open our hearts, to discover great beauty within ourselves and within the universe. This tool has the power to change the world - (see photos of civil war in Syria as an example). The fundamental ingredient or fuel this tool (our camera's and our eyes) need to function is light.

Thank you and may the light be with you....

doc rob

ps PM's welcome i think maybe perhaps ok sure.[/quote]

Cokin? Is there a website by that name?
I have a Canon SX20IS. Do you think their mount would work on my camera?

Can you open just a group/album of pix in Picasa or do you always have to wait until it opens everything it can find?Takes forever. I do like how you can see everything at once and other things it can do.

I'm really impressed at how observant and camera ready you were! And they are great shots. What camera/settings did you use?

Well, you certainly added a bright spot to my day!!!

I can almost smell the rose. absolutely gorgeous photos

I think y'all misread this question? I think they are wanting to be able to display a good picture but that others cannot print.
Good question, I thought.

Glad I'm not a mouse! I'd be a goner for sure.

I love your pictures. You can almost read the cardinal's thoughts!!!

Who says they have to be super sharp? lol My eyes aren't super sharp so they look just fine to me!!!