Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Never Too Old To Learn

I took a photography class with Gail Zucker this past weekend at Webs yarn store. I've been dabbling in photography all my life and this was a nice refresher course. If you have a chance to take the class with Gail I highly recommend it. Let's see if I learned anything....

Black Velvet Background
 Sucks up the light and makes your object pop!
 Side light. Textures. Depth.
 Use round shapes when looking down on your subjects because humans like it.
 Reflect light.
Play with photo enhancing software.  Picnik used here.
Now I need to gather my finished objects and start shooting!

Thursday, June 02, 2011

Spared

This year we were spared the violent storm that tore up trees and knocked power out for 3 days that we endured around Memorial Day in 2010. This year Westfield, Springfield, Brimfield and Monson were brutally attacked by not one but two tornadoes in a very short span of time. Montague suffered a wimpy thunderstorm during the whole thing. Here, look:



It got dark and rumbled. Then the rain came down and rumbled a little more.
 But no major damage. A few bent petals here and there.




 Er, sorry, playing with the settings on my camera. Can't decide which one I like better.


 The wind blew what was left of the blossoms off my June Snow.

Texted all my Springfield area friends for their status. All are safe, thank goodness. The rest of the evening was spent watching local news and when they went to the Bruins game I switched over to NECN to see how much Boston was paying attention. They were paying attention plenty because the same storms went through their territory. A winter Nor'easter is easier to handle than a tornado for us here in New England. We know what to do with snow. Tornadoes, not so much.
 So while I watched the news I wove some ends. Checked on the Bruins.
 Admired my mitered corner. This cotton v-neck would have come in handy this morning. The temps have gone from 90 to 70.
"I don't like thunderstorms. My stoopid brother wanted to go outside during the storm. I hid in the cellar. The human got so sick of listening to him whine at the door that she banished him to the cellar too. Then I had to listen to the whining. What is up with that?"