Three Hundred Sixty Five_Day 2

Cuauhtemoc Mexica Dance Group 

I captured so many images this weekend it was hard to decide which one to select for day 2 of the 365 Day Challenge.  I finally settled on an image from the Cuauhtemoc Mexica Dance Group.                          (Learn more here )  If you click on the image to see it full size you will notice that the headdress is sharp but not his face :(  Lesson learned, when shooting wide open at 2.8 be sure the focus point is where I want it.)

Manual:  I read pages 65 and 66 Setting the White Balance and Custom White Balance.  Setting WB is easy enough for me - just make a judgement and turn the wheel. ( I should memorize the settings so I don't have to try to see those little icons in the bright sun). Custom WB is a bit more difficult. Taking that extra step to find a white object and import the data is time consuming and a bit of a nuisance for street photography or when photographing events like the Watts Towers Jazz Festival. I just put it on AWB, shoot in RAW and make changes in Lightroom when necessary.

What a Weekend

I spent Saturday at the Watts Towers Day of the Drum Festival and  returned today for the Simon Rodia Watts Towers Jazz Festival today.  What a party it was.  Good music, good people and great fun.  

I chose images for this post from the Shine Mawusi troupe performance Saturday Morning. If you have a Facebook account you can learn more about SHINE Mawusi and the traditional African dances they perform.  You can see more images from the Watts Towers Day of the Drum Festival and the Simon Rodia Jazz Festival on my flicker photostream at  http://www.flickr.com/photos/cynthias_gallery/ 

S.H.I.N.E. (Sister, Healing, Inspiring, Nurturing, Empowering.  Mawusi – borrowed form the Ewe language of Ghana “In the Hands of God”.

I have a bunch of images so it is going to take some time to sort through them, make my selections and get them all uploaded.  Keep checking in to see more……

Three Hundred Sixty Five_Day 1

I was following up on an assignment to browse through the image of some photographers suggested by one of my instructors (Greg Bumatay Greg's Blog ) when I ran across this challenge posed by Scott Bourne to Tasra Mar.  The idea is to take three actions daily for one full year.

Take at least one photo every day
Read at least one page in my camera manual every day
View other professional images everyday

It sounded like something I could do - since I take photos almost everyday and spend some time viewing other photographers work either on the internet or at a gallery pretty frequently - the only thing I wasn't doing frequently - was reading that dratted manual.

Another incentive is that Scott states I will improve my photography drastically If I take these actions every day.  So I signed up and got started right away - I plan to add some of my images to this blog but  I also joined the tasra365 flickr group , so be sure to check in there to see all 365 of my images as they accumulate over the year.

I could not resist capturing a portrait of this precious little girl being carried in her mothers arms.

Yesterday I captured images of two of my grand daughters,  Zoe and Dakota.  Today I dropped by the Watts Towers Drum Festival and watched some amazing percussionists and dancers - I chose this portrait of a little girl being carried in her mother's arms as my first entry in the 365 challenge. The festival continues tomorrow so tomorrow's image will probably be created there too.

Manual:  Using the Quick Control Screen - I must have skipped this component on day one - at least I don't remember what I read - so I don't think that can count.  Today I read pages 38 and 39 Using the Quick Control Screen.  The problem is that I have already changed the settings in my camera - and the Multi Controller Button no longer controls this function.  It looks like I have a puzzle to solve. Finding my Quick Control Screen and how to access it.

Happy Birthday

I’m in Highland Park, a suburb of Chicago where my mother’s older brother lives. I traveled here with my brother to help celebrate my uncle Edwin’s 96^th birthday.  It was a wonderful party but just a bit poignant because we see him growing more and more fragile as the days spin by.  Big Brother (that was the name we adopted from our mom) kept telling us how rich he was to have the love of his life by his side (married 69 years to our Aunt Gladys) and his family and his friends visit him.  We ate cake and ice cream and sang happy birthday – He gave us a great smile in return.

Happy Birthday Big Brother – we all love you. 

Lake Michigan - North Shore

I really wanted to see Lake Michigan from the North Shore.  I have been to Chicago several times and I have seen the lake from that perspective but never from the North Shore. So I twisted my brother's arm and he finally said O.K.  We jumped in the car and took off in the general direction of the lake.  When we got to Highwood, Il.  we took a chance and turned right.  Wow - did we discover a jewel - Fort SheridanForest Preserve  .     I couldn't wait to climb out of the car and start capturing images.  Here are three of my favorites.

I wish I could go out again today, but rain is forecast and I can't imagine my brother will choose to spend his morning driving me around the lake, and I don't think it would be particularly wise for me to go off traipsing through the forest by myself.  I Hope I can use one of the images I captured here for my new landscape assignment.

Crystal Cove

I was down at Crystal Cove State Park with the Available Light class from Cypress College yesterday.  It was in the middle of the day and the sun was really bright.  I set my camera up and tried to capture some slow shutter speed images to make the waves really smooth - but I was not very successful. After a while I took a walk into the historical district and took photos of some of the cabins.  Finally the sun began to recede and I saw these little shoes sitting on one of the posts stuck in the sand.  When I stopped to look at them, I could just see a little guy pulling off his shoes and heading straight for the waves?

A lesson from Raul

I've been wondering how other photographers get such large photos on their blogs.  I looked at Ari's  blog this morning and sent him a message asking for his help...  later I saw Raul and told him about my frustrations. Right away Raul offered to help, and gave me a little tutorial on how to embed larger photos on my blog - so here goes my first try.....

 Voila. I had to change the format of the blog to fit in the larger image but I think this
 arrangement will do a better job of showcasing my work......Thanks Raul.


P.S.   Next time I won't make the mat quite so wide  :)

More Photos

  This is one of my favorite images from the shadow assignment in the Available Light class.

I came up with a "brilliant" idea this morning.  I decided to start a new blog to post the images I submit for class assignments. This will allow me to keep my Cynthia Terrell Photography blog primarily restricted to personal work and the portraits I create with families. The new blog is named Photo School News.  The address of the new blog is:

http://cynthias-photoschoolnews.blogspot.com/

Ariel

What a joy it was to work with Ariel and her family this week.  We were on the lawn at the Cerritos Library and boy did we have fun.  Ariel was a little live wire.  She climbed on the tree trunk and jumped down, she ran across the lawn and rolled in the grass - I was exhausted when I finished but captured some great images.