Taking Great Photos – Part 1: Introduction

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Part 1: Introduction

I’ve had many people ask me over the years, “Teachinfourth, how are you able to take such great photos?”

Wow, how much time do you have?

While many may claim that natural ability and ‘the eye’ are key elements (which they are) there is no reason why the common man (or woman) cannot take great pictures of their family, friends, people they stalk, and beauty of the world around them.

By the way, I was just kidding about the stalking part. Please don’t think that I condone stalking – that is, unless you’re stalking me, and the main reason thereof is to shower me with lavish gifts, heaps of money, and summa cume laude.

If that were indeed the case, please feel free to stalk…

I digress.

To help those who’ve asked (and those freeloaders who didn’t), I have decided to start a series of photography hints and helps. This will be a collection of posts to help you understand just what photography is, how to compose a great shot, and a little bit about all of those buttons and dials on your camera that you never seem to touch. I feel the reason we don’t mess with these buttons is that they are so deliciously scary that we believe that the camera just might explode if we touch them.

Don’t worry, your camera really won’t explode; well, that is unless your camera is a bomb. If this is case, then this is not the tutorial for you; I would suggest consulting the MacGyver series.

Now, just understand that you shouldn’t get too excited; in this series I will not be explaining everything. I do not consider these mini-lessons to be ‘explain-it-all’ tutorials, but rather small helps and hints which will (hopefully) be of assistance to those of you out there who want to do just a bit more with your camera other than just point, shoot, and hope for the best.

*Kapish?

Thanks for reading the introduction. In a sense I feel that this is like those pages in the novel we all skip because we don’t feel that it is important to the overall story, and we want to get on to the good part. I’m flattered that you felt it important enough to read in its entirety.

“So, when do we start, Teachinfourth, today?”

Patience my young padawan, patience.

I look forward to creating this series, and hope that you are able to walk away with something of value. If not, you might just want to consider taking up bomb diffusing as a pastime instead.

Until next time; shoot ‘til you get it.

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: About Your Camera
Part 3: Aperture
Part 4: Shutter Speed
Part 5: White Balance
Part 6: ISO
Part 7: The Breath


* This is a term used to say something to the affect of, "Ya feel me?", "Ya get the overall gist of what it is that I’m saying?" , or “Do you understand the extent of what it is that I have just told you?" Also used to ask the person being spoken to whether he or she would like to add to the statement.

But Everybody's Doing It...

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Addendum: I guess I should have explained this at the outset. It only works if you copy the code after entering in your link and adding the blog hop to your own blog…this in turn gets it out there and it makes it possible for more people to sign up.

Yeah, I am new to this, too.

So, I've never done one of these before.

Mostly just because.

So why now? Well, I guess it's because everybody else is doing it.

My mom once asked me if I'd jump off a cliff if everybody else was doing it.

I asked her how high the cliff was.

I think she learned her lesson...



Get the code here and put it on your site, too...

I’d Love to Meet You…

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So.

We’ve never actually met in real life now, have we?

Kind of sad, really.

So here’s your chance to turn cyber stalking and online buddyism into a real-live meeting, and a chance at being friends in the real world.

(Cue deep breath).

One week from tomorrow (June 12th) I have decided that I will be driving up to Draper, Utah and will be having lunch at 1:30 at either the Chuck-A-Rama or Texas Roadhouse; I’d love it if you were there, too. Would you join me? Could we be friends in real life instead of merely acquaintances via the anonymity of the Internet?

That would be awesome.

Please feel free to send me an email if you think that you’d like to attend this particular blogger lunch at teachinfourth@yahoo.

But teachinfourth…what if nobody shows up? Are you still going to go? Would you really eat all alone? Which of the two places will it really be: Chuck-A-Rama or Texas Roadhouse? How will I recognize you?

It’s still okay. Yes. Yes. I don’t know, I guess I’ll let the vote decide, just check out which place it will be when the voting ends at noon on Friday. Look for the guy with the spiky hair and the lack of B.O.


Hope to see you there…and tell you what, I’ll even blog about our meeting.

Texas Roadhouse

200 W. 10600 South
Sandy, UT 84070 

801-572-7718

Chuck-A-Rama

12344 South Minuteman

Draper, Utah

801-748-4850

Santa of the Fe

Pin It I’m convinced that most car lots would do much better in regard to sales if they were to play something other than country music. Granted, living in near a place where ‘fork’ is pronounced by some as ‘fark’ and ‘bag’ is pronounced ‘bage’ would probably account for this sad and sorry plight.

Classic rock—I’m convinced—sells far more cars than country.

As many of you know, I am currently in the zone of car buyage. Yeah, the looking, driving, considering, wheeling, dealing, refusing, starting over…it’s a vicious cycle to be honest. But in a way it’s fun, too.

Over the past few weeks I’ve felt myself running the gambit of finding, wanting, calling my dad for sage advice, and taking five or six different people out along with me on test drives. Yeah, I want to be sure.

So I drove the Torouqe, Xterra, Pilot, Element, Tucson, and half-a-dozen others I cannot remember the names to, but which sound like capitals of states or items found on the periodic table.

After an adamant search I found it…the Santa (not Claus) Fe, made by Hyundai.

In writing this post I came to the realization that I never blogged about my last car acquisition, mostly because I don’t believe that blogs were in existence nine years ago when I made my last car purchase. However, if I had, I’d have probably said that when I first slipped into the Honda CR-V it was like ‘coming home.’ It was a place I felt comfortable in, and from the first test drive of the model, I loved it.

The Santa Fe; love it, too.

I’ve driven five or six vehicles of this model and subjected several friends and family members to test drivage along with me.

I think I found it.

But now comes the part of finding that one particular Santa Fe where rhyme meets reason and mileage meets pocketbook.

Curses.

I found one I liked. It was a bit too expensive. I talked to a friend, telling her that I thought I was suffering from ‘non-purchasing remorse.’ Or at least that’s what I choose to call it, after all, I have no idea what it’s called when one doesn’t buy something they think they want and there is the fear that it will not be there if they procrastinate any longer.

Yeah, that.

Needless to say, I’m still on the lookout for the Santa Fe which will make all of my dreams come true and bring world peace. After all, if there were a car out there that would bring peace to a world, it would surely be the Santa Fe.

So now it comes to the present. I’ve got high hopes. I’m on the lookout. I’m not in a huge rush to buy something today or tomorrow. I am still looking, and when I find the right one, I’ll buy it.

I have had to face some burning questions though. The most pressing is probably: will people still recognize me without the red CR-V? Probably not. Is this a bad thing? Probably not. Will it take some getting used to? Probably. Am I ready for the change?

Well, let’s see what Santa brings…

Moments with Joey – Expression

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SCENE 1, INTERIOR. AFTERNOON, CLASSROOM. The class is practicing reading their picture books aloud for the visit to their second grade buddy class later that day. The teacher roves about the room, listening to each child’s reading expression. He offers up suggestions as how to make the reading better as he listens. He approaches a particular boy reading in a completely monotone voice.

TEACHER: Joey, read that page again, but this time put a little more into it. It sounds like you’re reading your mother’s grocery list.

[The boy looks at his teacher and then back again at the book].

JOEY: But Mr. Z, I can’t read it with expression.

TEACHER: Why not?

[The boy shrugs].

JOEY: Um…

[The boy lays the book down and rubs his stomach. His voice suddenly starts to quaver as he gives two little coughs into his hand and a pained expression flashes across his face].

JOEY: I feel sick.

TEACHER: Really?

JOEY: [nodding].Yeah, I feel like I might throw up any second.

[The teacher looks at the boy who flashes his Bambi eyes, and is trying very hard not to smile as he does so].

TEACHER: Yeah, nice try, Mr. Faker. Read. Expression.

[The boy raises his hand to his mouth again and says in a very high, effeminate voice:]

JOEY: Cough, cough.

TEACHER: Now that’s expression.

Fade to black.

Classroom 18 - The Prank

Pin It It was 4:30 in the morning two months ago that I woke up with a fiendishly clever idea. This idea was so brilliant that I couldn’t help but begin work and keep going nearly until school was nearly ready to begin at 8:20. I wanted it to be awesome.

It was April Fool’s Day two months ago, and I decided to play a little prank on my class. You see, I’ve never played a practical joke on my whole class before (at least that I can remember) and I thought that I’d do one this year.

Why? Just because.

I did a little research.

It seems that back in 1976 an astronomer, Patrick Alfred Moore, pulled a prank on BBC radio listeners. He stated that as Pluto passed behind Jupiter, it would cause decreased gravity temporarily on Earth.

Hundreds of people were completely faked out. It was brilliant.

I decided to recreate the hoax—after all—I’m all about keeping things green and recycling whenever possible. Also, this idea was much too good to NOT use.

I copied the HTML code from the Wikipedia as well as the NBC website. I put this code into Dreamweaver (my webpage creation software) and began to rewrite portions of the sites…after all I wanted it to look real.

I changed the dates, added information, and made the Wikipedia site not state anywhere in it that this was a hoax which happened in 1976, but rater a late-breaking story which had been on the 11 o’clock news the night before; therefore, many of the students may not yet had heard of it. Since these sites were not ‘live’ but rather clever imitations, I had to use only my computer.

I had these webpages already pulled up on the Promethean as the kids came in that morning and it went from there.

I could tell you all about the experience, explaining it brilliantly, but I think it would be better to show you what truly happened.

Just know that you are coming in about 5 minutes into the actual joke. I thought it a bit too long to keep the portion of ‘the setup’ about website accuracy, having multiple sources to check and recheck information, and the explanation about time zones.

I love it.

And yes, the parents all signed consent forms for this to be posted online; when it comes to embarrassing their offspring, it seems that parents are just awesome like that.

It's Tuesday Again, You Know What to Do...

Pin It Teachinfourth, you're posting over at 4P today? Well, bless your heart…

I think that about sums it all up.