Photo Class Take II

 

So Thursday was the second session of the photo class and it was much better. Our teacher redeemed himself somewhat anyway. We looked at our photos and he didn't hesitate to say if he thought something was crap and even to mock, but he at least made an effort to see the good and even liked quite a few. Plus, even better, he went through our pictures and had some good suggestions on cropping and such (ie, above). He even liked many of my hiking photos! I'm not entirely sure that I will be remembering all these cropping/composing suggestions easily, but hopefully!

The Oscars!

 
 
 
 

Its Oscar time!! Or it was. I'm a bit behind. But still, it was exciting. It was the first year in awhile where I had actually seen a lot of the nominated movies. Sadly, I lost the Oscar pool which means I owe B dinner, but oh well. I think Mickey Rourke should have won best Actor, but Sean Penn made a great speech anyway. I still need to see Doubt and the Reader.

This is Oscar, my beloved, but sadly sickly kitty. It might be in poor taste to put up pictures of my dead cat, but on the other hand, we'll consider it a kind of tribute to him. Just think of the Academy awards as being in his honor! (Plus, these are from a very old digital camera and a few scanned from film. Shows how much better they are these days anyway!)

Weddings!

 

I'm working on a photobook for my sister-in-law's birthday with pictures from their wedding. This is one of my favorites from the wedding (I spent much of my time taking pictures of the guests and other goings on, although sadly, this one is not mine).

Success!!

 

I successfully got up, went to the gym, and was at my desk by 8:45 this morning! How awesome is that!?! We are inching towards 9:45 now and I haven't made a ton of progress, but a few odds and ends are done and momentarily I will start reading those nasty documents which I will finish today! Yay! It is cold again, so I've broken out an ice picture. Technically from a few weeks ago when there was quite a bit of ice around, but it is still freezing out, so I'm going with it.

 

In other news, first photography class was last night. Oh my god, that guy is a pompous asshole! Comically so. It was ridiculous. I'm not saying there is no chance we will learn anything, but god lord that man needs some lessons in being a teacher. First, he made lots of references to how awesome he is while trying to claim he was not awesome. He referred to "those famous photographers" and then said things like, "I'm not famous, well I'm getting famous, but..." Ok, good for you. And there were too many other such similar things--repeated scoffing at amateur photographers, discussions of how idiot beginners do this or that, etc, etc Seriously, we are obviously amateurs!! THAT'S WHY WE ARE TAKING THIS CLASS. Next week he will be critiquing our pictures, many of which I'm sure he will think suck, but that's fine. The thing is, he has good information. The main thing I've learned from all my internet investigations of composition and the like is it is all about becoming more aware of everything that is in your picture, how those things relate to each other, and what they are telling the viewer. ie, in the most basic lessons, pay attention to if that building in the background will look like it is coming out of someone's head, etc, etc and he had lots of new things to consider and some good info on how people look at photos. And lets face it, B (introducing boyfriend, B), had a good time mocking him after, and I will be curious to hear what he thinks of our photos even I'm planning to take it with a grain of salt. But let’s not be so dogmatic about things. People have different tastes. Apparently he has a strong preference for rolling hills, I like jagged mountains, he informs me they don't make "pleasant, inviting" pictures, end of story. I can like them, but they are not pleasant. Clearly we are just not on the same page there and I've seen some amazing pictures of dangerous places. So since when is "pleasant" the only measure of "good?" Plus, as someone who was recently writing a teaching philosophy and has struggled in many hours of sections getting people to talk and given that B has taken many an education course to get that teaching certification, it was comical the extent to which this guy could use some pointers on being a teacher. You absolutely cannot preface a question by telling your students that they will not get the answer you want and then actually expect people to answer the question! Ok I'm done. Mocking is over. The above is a picture of a "texture pattern," something we discussed. As far as I can tell, it might meet with his approval, although not the most exciting photo ever in my humble opinion! :)

Efficiency!

 

 

Today (or last night really) I've decided that what I need is to be more efficient. I used to be a very efficient person, which meant I could do a lot more things. Now, I seem to be extremely inefficient, which means I don't get a ton done and when I do get things done, they take way longer than necessary. I'm only extremely efficient now when I have a deadline. Soooo....from now on, work time is work time, play time play time and I'm going to be doing a lot less jumping back and forth. Only scheduled breaks and so on. I'm off to a horrible start by not going to the gym and library immediately as planned, but we are starting now! In light of this, I have some photos from the tea shop, one of my favorite places to work or simply to be. I like these photos, although they aren't just quite perfect. Some new books have arrived and my photo composition class is tonight though, so who knows, maybe I will learn things!

 

 

Melting!

DSC_0157-1, originally uploaded by cmlamber.

A few warm days and most of the snow is gone. It is snowing again today, never fear, but for a brief moment, much of it disappeared. Here is a squirrel enjoying that moment. (Assuming Flickr works for me!)

Tomorrow I'm starting a brief photography class! Yay! And I've also ordered some books. So hopefully new and exciting photos will be coming soon!

A tree...

Somehow a picture of a tree doesn't seem all that interesting, but I like it. Or maybe this isn't the best picture of this tree ever, but still. This is the oldest or biggest Burr Oak tree in Missouri... Something like that. Either way it is big and old.

In other news, I'm temporarily giving up on blogging from Flickr. When I have time, I'll be exploring more. Apparently if I change my blog layout, it will work better on the large pictures, so there is hope.

In totally unrelated news, I've been applying for jobs teaching at high school summer schools, which is a pretty serious pain. For one, I have to come up with a recreational activity to do with 20 high schoolers that lasts at least 90 minutes. Holy shit, that is a long time. I had a great plan to do one of those photography scavenger hunts, but it is too expensive. Since then, I've spent just way too much time coming up with something. My high school recreation involved a lot of time on the phone and painting my nails, which I've ruled out as options so.....

 

The Great Debate Text

Ok fine. Flickr or whoever is against me wins. I'm reposting the text for the Great Debate post below, because it simply refuses to appear. One of these days I'll figure it out. Enjoy.

So I've always used a combination of Picasa and Shutterfly for all my photo sharing, storing, and ordering needs. I can't say I have any complaints, but with the new camera, I'm looking for something a little more...let's be honest, I'm looking for more public exposure. I'm not saying I'm a professor photographer or anything like that. I'm not. I'm a history graduate student who takes pictures here and there and every once in awhile one turns out decent enough. Nonetheless, I wouldn't mind making them available for others to see in the rare event they might want to look at them!

Enter the debate. Do I expand my use of picasa to make more public and well organized folders? Or do I open a flickr account, requiring me to obtain yet another email address, log in screen and uploading process.....I'm very wedded to picasa for my desktop software, but the coolness factor of flickr and more importantly the ability to see if anyone actually does look at my photos is appealing. After what can only be described as an absurd amount of time spent reading about the two, I've decided to just suck it up and try Flickr out while also expanding my picasa use. Hopefully, I'll make a firm decision and then be able to focus, but in the meantime, I'll be embracing them both. So here we are. Testing out the blogging capabilities of flickr.

This is a old but favorite photo. It is from the Canadian Rockies. One of my absolute favorite places in the world. I've only been there once for a scant couple of weeks in the summer of 2006, but it was amazing. If I could pick one place to build a little cabin and live for a few months writing my dissertation without the distractions of other people and daily life, it would be at this very lake....I'm sure I'll post more pictures from trip later, but for now this is it (and maybe I'll figure out how to blog more than one photo at a time with this thing!)

Flickr Take Three

IMG_0867
Originally uploaded by cmlamber

Ok, we are trying once again, with a smaller size to see if that works better.

Flickr You are Losing Me!

IMG_0721, originally uploaded by cmlamber.

The previous post was supposed to be trying things out with flickr, but my text did not appear, so I'm trying again!

The Great Debate

IMG_0867, originally uploaded by cmlamber.


So I've always used a combination of Picasa and Shutterfly for all my photo sharing, storing, and ordering needs. I can't say I have any complaints, but with the new camera, I'm looking for something a little more...let's be honest, I'm looking for more public exposure. I'm not saying I'm a professor photographer or anything like that. I'm not. I'm a history graduate student who takes pictures here and there and every once in awhile one turns out decent enough. Nonetheless, I wouldn't mind making them available for others to see in the rare event they might want to look at them!

Enter the debate. Do I expand my use of picasa to make more public and well organized folders? Or do I open a flickr account, requiring me to obtain yet another email address, log in screen and uploading process.....I'm very wedded to picasa for my desktop software, but the coolness factor of flickr and more importantly the ability to see if anyone actually does look at my photos is appealing. After what can only be described as an absurd amount of time spent reading about the two, I've decided to just suck it up and try Flickr out while also expanding my picasa use. Hopefully, I'll make a firm decision and then be able to focus, but in the meantime, I'll be embracing them both. So here we are testing out the blogging capabilities of flickr.

This is a old but favorite photo. It is from the Canadian Rockies. One of my absolute favorite places in the world. I've only been there once for a scant couple of weeks in the summer of 2006, but it was amazing. If I could pick one place to build a little cabin and live for a few months writing my dissertation without the distractions of other people and daily life, it would be at this very lake....I'm sure I'll post more pictures from trip later, but for now this is it (and maybe I'll figure out how to blog more than one photo at a time with this thing!)

Update: The posting did not work as well as it could have, so I'll have to work on that....several error messages later my photo has appeared though!

Doggy!

In keeping with the pet theme, here is a cute, old dog. I didn't take this photo, but it is one of the first from the new camera, so I'm enjoying it nonetheless. I think he has a particularly expressive face, despite not really being a dog person (I know, I know, all the dog people out there are offended).