The ordinary stuff of life that surrounds me here on Pollywog Creek seems to vary little from day to day, yet I marvel still at the beauty of gilded dragonfly wings, dew drops that balance on the edges of a blade of grass, and the burnt orange marigold's brilliant display of color - tiny glimpse of God's power, imagination and majesty.
I recently received the following email...
Greetings... I absolutely love your pictures and I, too, am in awe of our Creator God. I have a question. How do you get your pictures to be so large and look so great. I would really appreciate any help you could give. Thanks so much and thanks, as well, for sharing His beauty!
Thank you, kind reader. It most definitely *is* His beauty...""the splendor of a King, clothed in majesty, let all the earth rejoice, how great is our God!"
You do know that I am an amateur, that photography began as a hobby, and though it has become an instrument God has used to teach me, I'm still an amateur. I have an inexpensive point and click camera with multiple setting choices, but I only use about 2 or 3. I have to ask my daughter (the real photographer in the family) how to do anything different, and after she shows me, I forget everything she said. It's the truth - just ask her.
But since you asked, I'll mention the 2 or 3 settings I use and how I used them in a few photos taken yesterday.
First of all, 99% of the time, I set my camera on "auto adjust" for automatic settings, macro on. The only time I turn the macro off is for photos like this one...
If I want to fill the frame with a close-up, I use the macro setting without zoom for photos like this one...
But if the subject of my photo is too far away - or it might bite me (bee, snake, bobcat, etc.) or flee (dragonfly, lizard, bird) if I get too close - then I use the macro setting with full zoom and pray for a steady hand for photos like these...
I download my photos into Picasa, a free Google program. Most of the time the only editing I do is cropping, but I will occasionally adjust the contrast for clarity.
After editing, I upload the photos into my pro Flickr account - a subscription that costs about $25/year. Flickr does offer free accounts with a limited number of uploads per month. I use flickr codes to post photos in my blog, rather than the blogger upload options, which might be one of the reasons for the larger size of my photos.
That's it. I'm an amateur.
3 comments:
And it's (partly) because of pics like these I posted today's entry.
Have a JESUS-filled day! ^i^
Very nice pics and explanation of how you use your camera. Obviously you have an eye for it even though you are and amateur. You have an artistic approach to the images you capture.
I never tire of the simplest things in life either.
I'm curious about the Flickr account for uploading instead of using blogger. Blogger can be a pain and I do like the way your photos end up being large. I guess that is also how you create your collages?
Meems
Sophiemae - thank you very much. You are most kind.
Meems - thank you. There are some flickr tools for creating collages, but I usually use the collage tool in picasa. I've created my own collages in the past - what a pain. Picasa is super easy. And it is free.
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