Keeping it Together

During the past week, I have admittedly not been doing a good job of staying connected with the EC&I 831 network. My fiance's grandmother passed away a few days ago, so we have had an abundance of family time this week. It has been a bit of a challenge keeping up with life and staying on top of things. However, sometimes death forces us to slow down and focus on what's really important in our lives, as we are reminded of how precious life is.

On Thursday, we had all of the cousins and their families over to prepare a speech from the grandchildren for the funeral. There are 7 grandchildren in this family, and one of them lives in Calgary. Because of modern technology, we were able to Facetime with this cousin, and keep her involved in the conversation. She was able to feel part of the event, and not left out due to her physical distance from the rest of us. I kept thinking of our class with Dr. Richard Schwier, and his discussion about communities. This story I have shared is an example of how technology can connect us in an authentic way.

Expanding My Photography Network

As part of my photography project, I have joined a MOOC and have followed a blog that are both set up to teach basic photography skills. I have also started following @digitalps (Digital Photography School) on Twitter for more tips and articles about photography. The MOOC and blog lessons have been informative in terms of learning about the principles of photography. However, I am still having considerable difficulty understanding all of the technical features of my camera. So, I have joined a forum specific for Canon camera users. Hopefully this will help me learn how to use my camera to its fullest extent.

A Forgotten Past

When my fiance and I purchased our Samsung tablet about a year ago, we were required to enter a Gmail address for the App store and some of the other programs. Since I didn't have one, we used Mike's. When I was getting set up for EC&I 831 on Google +, Mike said that I could continue using his Gmail. I could have signed up for my own account, but I was being admittedly lazy about it. As my blog site is through Blogger (linked with Gmail) I used his email address for this as well. Once the course got going, I felt bad about Mike getting 10-20 notifications every day on his phone. However, I am unsure if I can change my email now that everything is linked to it. Anyway our school has started to use iGo accounts to share our staff news and dates. I wasn't able to log into my staff account, as I already was using Mike's account and it kept defaulting to it. Today, I attempted to sign in to iGo again. My principal said I needed to use my firstname.lastname and a generic password that was provided to us. When I put this in, I was told the password was incorrect. This made me think, hmm, have I already set up my own Gmail account in the past? I was able to change the password and log in. Sure enough, there was my old Gmail account that I signed up for in 2005 (about the time I took ECMP 355 from Alec...coincidence?). Not only was there an account already in place, but there were 260 messages waiting for me in my inbox from 7-9 years ago. Apparently I had been using Gmail to communicate with various people back when my teaching career was just beginning. I had unread messages from a former financial planner, my former administration when I worked with the Calgary Board of Education, old messages from friends. How could I have completely forgot about having a certain email address?? I am baffled by my forgetfulness. Have similar things happened to anyone else?

Light, Camera, Action!

This week I took a portion of my MOOC called "Using Light in Your Photography". It was the first instructional portion of the course, and was two short videos that explained how light can be utilized and manipulated to create better photos. There was a fair amount of new vocabulary, including histogram, aperture, hard light, soft light, transmitted light, and reflected light. The instructor of the course, Karl, explains that "understanding light is probably the most important aspect of good photography." Here are some of the things I learned:

The four main types of light:

1. Hard light- comes from an apparently small source. Ex: Sun. Has a high contrast and gives sharp-edged shadows.
2. Soft light- light source that has a large surface area. Ex: Overcast day. Has a low contrast and gives little shadow.
3. Transmitted light- light you can see in the photo from the source. Ex: A photo of a light bulb or a candle.
4. Reflected light- light that is reflected off an object onto the subject. Ex: The sun reflecting off of the water.

"The Magic Hour" is a time of the day which photographers love. It is the half hour before and the half hour after sunset. During this time there is a good combination of soft light (the sky) and hard light (the sun itself). I wanted to experiment with this time of day, and was lucky enough to see a beautiful sunset in action. So I brought my camera out and snapped a couple of shots from my backyard. Here is my favourite example.

This week, I also started to follow a Twitter feed (@digitalps) that will give me more digital photography tips. There is still a lot I have to learn about digital photography! But I think I'm headed in the right direction.

I Took the Plunge!

Well, here it is! My new toy. In the end, I decided to stick with my favourite brand and purchased the Canon.

I am so excited to finally own an SLR camera. However, at the same time, I am also feeling quite overwhelmed by it. I counted 24 buttons on it, not including the dial with all of the options. Oh boy. What do all of these do? Where do I start? My old point-and-shoot has 11 in comparison. At least I have learned how to charge the battery, put the battery in the camera, attach the lens, flip the screen out, and take a basic picture using the automatic mode. It's been a basic beginning to a long journey!

As I clearly have no clue about what it is I'm doing, I have found two promising online courses to help me learn all about photography. The first one is a Udemy Course, called "Karl Taylor's FREE Photography Course." (Check it out- I made a hyperlink! Yay!) This course offers 6 sections, with 20 lessons. The topics range from Understanding Light to Composition to Advanced Portraiture Techniques. 

The second course is "Best Photo Lessons." This course is a blog laid out in a more traditional format and offers 12 lessons ranging from Exposure to Rule of Thirds to Balance. I think this site will provide some more basic and practical skills. Best Photo Lessons offers feedback from the author of the course, as well as the ability to communicate with other participants on the blog, and on a Facebook page. 

I think that I will have to have a deeper look at each course, and possibly pick and choose which lessons I plan to do. 

For now, I am going to complete Lesson 1: Intent from Best Photo Lessons. 

This lesson asks students to reflect on why we want to take pictures in the first place. The questions are broken down into four categories.

1. Things I like about photography: 

• looking back at memories of fun times with family and friends
• the instantaneous nature of "capturing a moment"
• sharing pictures on Facebook
• capturing the beauty of nature 
• enjoying the feelings an incredible photo evokes at a craft sale or art show 

2. What do I want to achieve with photography?

• create beautiful images of nature
• capture images of architecture and nature when I travel
• create a digital timeline of the people in my life

3. What subjects do I want to shoot?

• flowers
• landscapes (winter scenes, hoarfrost, sunsets, prairies, storms, etc.)
• family and friends in candid moments
• wildlife if possible!
  

4. How do I feel about the above subjects?

• flowers- fascinated
• landscape- peaceful
• family and friends- nostalgic
• wildlife- excited 

I can't wait to start shooting. If you are interested in photography I would love to hear your answers to the above questions! Thanks for reading.