Ah! Potatokie!

I would like to propose a new term to be exclaimed when one is surprised. The term, or word, is “Potatokie!”

My students, especially the girls, get frightened very easily. When they do they say “감자기” (Gamjahgi) Translated to English this means “suddenly” or “all of a sudden”. This of the students as saying “That was so sudden!”

To me it sounds alot like they are saying 감자, potato, but minimised the way Afrikaans way. Afrikaans allows one to turn any noun into a “small version” or pet name of itself by adding -ie, -kie, -tjie. Therefore a small potato, using Afrikaans grammar, will be a “Potatokie”

When something happens and give me a fright I can now exclaim “Potatokie!”

What does that button do?

On all but very basic cameras there are settings that you can, for the most part, change to your hearts content. Even most of the point and shoot like compact cameras can change settings like shutter speed and ISO. Most larger camera have a dial on the top right of the body with smaller cameras usually having the setting hidden somewhere in the menu systems.

Looking at a typical mode change dial you will usually see some modes represented by pictures and some by letters. The pictures are the Scene Modes designed for night photography, portraits, fireworks and the like.These can be quite useful, but once you understand the “Letter Modes” you will rarely need to use these scene modes.

Between these scene modes and manual modes, there is often an Auto Mode. Stay away from this. The only time you use this is when you hand the camera to someone who has never touched such a modern device.

This leaves us with the four lettered modes. These are only modes that we are really interested in. On Canon cameras these modes are marked with P, Tv, Av, and M. On Nikon cameras these are P, S, A, and M. Other cameras have their own variations, but the ideas are the same and easy to recognise. If it is in the menu system it might have a more descriptive name. There is also a button on many cameras to make it possible to quickly change your ISO level. If not, go menu system searching.

P Mode stands for Program Mode. For all intensive purposes P is just another Auto Mode. The camera does everything for you, but you are able to make some adjustments to the setting. Just like with full Auto Mode, you should stay away from this. It is not your friend.

S Mode on Nikon, Tv Mode on Canon, is Shutter Priority Mode. This lets you choose the shutter speed for your photos. The shutter speed determines how long your camera’s sensor or film is exposed to the light. That is the soft “click” sound you hear when you take a photo. When you look through your viewfinder or at your display on the back of the camera you will see your shutter speed displayed. It is usually a number displayed as 1 over something, e.g.. 1/30 or 1/250. This means that the shutter will be open for one 30th of a second or one 250th of a second. The larger the bottom number the faster the shutter will open and close. When the shutter speed is shown as a small number with what looks like a starting quotation mark next to it e.g.. 2”, it means that the shutter will be open in full seconds rather than fractions. In this case larger numbers mean slower shutter speeds.

Why would you care about this mode? Because this mode is useful when you are trying to capture motion. Those evening photos where cars rush by leaving the lines of light all over the image are done by leaving the shutter open longer. In other words, a slow shutter creates movement, blur and shake. Shake is bad. To avoid it most people shoot normal daylight photography comfortably at 1/30 shutter speed. Action, like sport, are often shot at about 1/250. It is a little more complicated than that, but this is not the place to discuss that.

A Mode on Nikon, Av Mode on Canon, is the Aperture Priority Mode. Most photographers seem to prefer this mode as it is easy to change aperture for full control over depth of field and knock-on control of shutter speed. A camera’s aperture is the size of the hole that allows light into the camera. The bigger the hole, the more light comes in to the camera. Usually this is very easy to change. Once you are in Aperture Priority Mode you usually have a wheel on the camera body to turn and change the setting. In your viewfinder or on your screen the Aperture will be represented by a “f”or ”F” followed by a number, eg. F8.0 or F2.8. Because of the f many people prefer to call this the F-Stop. Confusingly the smaller number means a larger aperture.

Aperture is very useful for “artistic” reasons because it is what you use to adjust Depth of Field, the focus area. Basically, a small large aperture Depth of Field mean a small area of the photo will be in focus and a large area will seem blurry. A small aperture will put most of the photo in focus.

Why would you care about this? Let us say you are trying to photograph someone, but you don’t really want to see all the people in the background. Set your camera to have a large aperture, a small F number. When you focus on the person, the background will be mostly blurred and the focus is taken of those people in the back completely. If you are taking a photo of a landscape then you want everything to be in focus, right? This is where you will use a small aperture, or a large number.

M Mode is the full Manual Mode and is not really as difficult as it sounds. It just lets you change what you already change in A and S modes. The biggest issue with this mode is that it takes time to set up your camera. With varying lighting situations like you might have while walking outside, this might not be the easiest mode to shoot in. This mode is good for cameras on tripods or in studios.

The last setting you need to worry about it your ISO. All this does is change your camera’s sensitivity to light. A higher ISO makes your camera more sensitive to light and you can therefore shoot photos in darker situations. In clubs, for instance, you need your camera to be very sensitive to light. More sensitive cameras mean brighter photos. Easily done because we can just bump up the ISO. The problem is that those club photo always seem like they are lower quality than that daylight photos. That is because a more sensitive camera picks up stray light and electrons which cause photos to look grainy. As a rule of thumb you try to keep your ISO as low as possible.

How do you know what your ISO should be? The best indication is your shutter speed. If it is too slow then your photos will be blurry. Keep pushing the ISO up until your you get 1/30 for normal photo or faster if movement is involved.

 

“Cheat Sheet” Aperture ( F Stop) Mode: Small numbers give out of focus background for portraits and single objects Large numbers for everything in focus like street photos or landscapes Shutter Speed Mode: Very slow 2” for lights at night Medium 1/30 - 1/50 for hand held everyday photos Fast 1/250 for action photography ISO: Is your shutter speed to slow? Increase the ISO number. Reset it to ISO100 when you are done

 

** I was hoping to have time to write multiple shorter posts that do not jam everything down in one read. Alas, it can’t be so. I will eventually rewrite this post and split it up into descriptions of each mode.

Ussher Creation

According to James Ussher, a prolific Church of Ireland scholar from Ireland the world was created on this day in 4004BC.

This date was part of the Chronology that he created based on the Proleptic Julian calendar. At the time such a calculation was an amazing feat that required great knowledge of the history of various civilizations as well as knowledge of other sciences.

Today, however, we know that he was hopelessly wrong. It does not stop many a Christian to claim that the world was indeed created about 6000 years ago, with no idea who came up with the idea or how.

It does not matter which camp you may fall in, the fact remains that this is a date worth celebrating because what is more important, the birth of your insignificant self, the founding of your soon to die country or the creation of the world? I say we party like it is 6016.

Rule Number Three

The last of my Three Rules for photography concerns positioning. This might be the single most mysterious thing that will make your photo look better than those of people around you. Getting decent light or knowing how to use aperture will help, but even with those perfect, if your positioning sucks then the photo will somehow look, off.

At the core positioning is really easy, and once you grasp it you will understand that you should always consider it and when to throw rules out the window. The execution takes practice and everyone gets it wrong, often. The Rule of Thirds says that there are certain lines and points within a frame that are more important for overall balance than other points. Google “Rule of Thirds” and you will get lists of articles, books and examples going into  great detail, the kind of detail I will not go in to because you have better things to do with your time than sit here all day wondering what on earth I am trying to say.

To make things easy, go play with your camera setting. Most cameras have a function that adds lines on your display helping you use the rule of thirds. In the photo above, a screenshot from my phone, you can see these lines .

The horizontal lines are good for horizons and shore lines. Put the horizon on the top line and the waves breaking non the bottom line and you have a nicely spaced photo.

The vertical lines are very useful for placing people in scenes and for placing tall objects in a frame.

The intersections of the four lines are slightly more complicated. Those are the points you use for very specific focal points in the photo. For a portrait shot, those are useful when positioning the eyes in the frame. When you take a photo of a flower say, place the bud or bloom on one of these points with the stem crossing the photo.

Another possibly obvious use of these lines on your camera is to use them to keep your photos straight. Look at lines on walls, or at the horizon? Is your photo lining up with the lines? No? Then make it so!

Time to stop thinking about invisible lines and start thinking about stuff. Let just imagine you are taking a photo of a group of people posing. Before you even lift your camera, look at the scene. Look to the sides and above the group. Do you have space to work with? Is there anything in that space that you don’t need, like a screaming toddler? Look at the background. Will it interfere with the photo? Strange lines, too dark, too bright, people hanging from trees? Everything clean there?

Although using The Rule is also considered composition, I personally think, the checking of the surrounding, when I hear composition. This is where you take charge. Punt that toddler to the side. Mark those people in the trees with a BB gun. Make everyone move to get a better background. You  have the power, use it while you can.

Of the three rules this one takes the most practice and effort. You might have to climb some stairs, or heaven forbid walk three paces to the right to make your photo just so, but in the end, it will be worth it

* This is the second post in a series, with Rule Number One  and Rule Number Two here.

Mad fun night of gaming!

For Mist of Pandaria, the new World of Warcraft expansion, I decided to take things slower while levelling to level 90. This means I don’t leave a zone until I’ve read and done every possible quest. It also means that if something looks interesting, I go to investigate.

My fun started last night when I went to an island way into the sea to go kill some dude.  He had a name I don’t care to remember, but he was messing with my game peeps and had to be stopped. I went in, tried to kill him and after about 2 minutes of doing pretty much nothing I had to run away (oh the same) to search on the internet for what I was missing. Turns out dragging his little friends over and killing them in front of him makes him an unhappy dead bad guy, so I did just that.

Basking in my assisted victory I started making my way back to the quest giver. I jumped in the water, realised that the long swim will take forever and THEN realised that I am a priest. I can Levitate and, get this, float over the water. With this I cut down my traveling time from about 5 minutes to about 3 minutes. I was Hyena Jesus.

Turns out I made my Home Inn, or base, right next to the quest giver and I could have used an ability to take me there in 20 seconds. Of course!

When I was done with that area I was lead to the last few quests of the zone. I had to convince a huge tiger to open a pretty gate to a zone I am not able to use yet (Oookaaaaay then) and then went on to meet a dude hiding in a tiny Great Wall of China. After doing his quests I was given a bread crumb to a quest at the other end of the wall. It was possible to get to the top of the wall, so wall running it was going to be.

Running the wall was like being on a tour bus - boring, but great scenery. About half way across I came to a room with some hostile creatures. After looking around I noticed players from the opposition faction on the opposite side of the little room. “No worries,” I thought “I would be able to mount up and just run straight through. I only have to worry about the hostile things in the room.”

Not so. The opposition faction players standing on the other side were not just there minding their own business. They were there they to buy their Player vs Player armour. Without me knowing it, I crossed to the other side of the room right into enemy territory. This tuned my PvP flag on right in the middle of a bunch of guys who liked nothing better than killing little Gnome Priests.

I had no idea what had happened and told the story to my guild. My question was met with laughter and an explanation of just why I had no business being where I was. Glad I could be your entertainment, guys.

To make that particular situation even worse, my body was lying right between the killers and I had no hope of recovering it it, so I had to ask the sweet angel at the cemetery to revive me. She penalised me by giving me Resurrection Sickness and making me 90% more vulnerable. The new plan was to jump off the wall (Remember Levitate? It also lets me jump off things and not die.Priests! Priests! Priests!) and run to the other end, long way round. I saw some quests along the way and thought I might polish them off while I am there.

I jumped off the wrong side.

Whatever!  I eventually made my way to the “in between quests” and was given my funnest/funniest instructions so far. The area had lots of Kawa (coffee) and the little traders there were trying to get their little hands on some. I was tasked with doing the dirty work for them.

First up was picking up Kawa Deposits. Basically that is coffee beans in goat s***. In between pick-ups I had to fight mountain goats hopped up on the caffeine. Sweet! After having dealt with that mess I had to go pick fresh Kawa Berries while dodging and sometimes fighting Yetis. Yes Yetis, and not just any Yetis, Yetis hopped up on, you guessed it, caffeine. Awesome!

Kawa dealers done, I joined the final fight of the zone to open up the pass to the adjoining zone. Final quest there, go ask some guard dude to let me in so that I can talk to some important monks dude in some huge monastery. The result? Guard says no, attacks me and I kill him. Tough Diplomacy right there, boyyyyy.

Great night of playing and fun that will be remembered for a long time. And...Nerds Rule!

Rule Number Two

Rule Number Two is better known as “Know where your light is”. Well, I know it as that. If you want to get very technical about light then feel free to get a book, but I am not going that way. I will just give you some common sense to use. No flashes or reflectors or any of that stuff here. The main reason you need to consider light is because all too often people have photos with extremely dark shades or overly bright spots in all the wrong places. This happens because a camera sensor, unlike our eyes, shows exactly what it sees. Our brains interpret what we see and the variations in light appear much smaller than it does to the camera. With practice you will learn exactly what your camera can handle and you will learn to avoid situations that mess up your photos.

To illustrate, let’s imagine some situations. (Unfortunately I don’t yet have photos from my phone as illustrations) It is 1pm and the sun is shining in all its glory. You would think this is good, but to a camera all this means overly bright areas broken up with extremely dark areas. On your face that will mean dark areas in the wrong places. On a scene it will be dark areas with hidden shapes under very bright trees and roofs. I don’t know many people who like photos that make them look strange or hide important objects.

It is not fool proof, but you can avoid this to a certain extent by taking the most important photos before 11am and after 2pm. The sun is out, but it is just not that harsh and makes for much better photos.

Something similar to the above example is when you are standing in the shade but everything around you is in the sun. This is something that happens when you are standing under a roof of some sort and the background if not under said roof. You will most likely end up with a nice photo of the person, but everything else will be a harsh bright, something, if not completely white.

Avoid this by taking the photo at another time, using a flash or maybe just taking the photo from another angle to try and change the background.

The last example of something you will see often is when people take photographs with the source of light behind the person being photographed, be it the sun or some sort of light electric light. One of two things will happen. Either your camera will try to expose for the light and make whatever is on the foreground very dark, or it will try to focus on the foreground and you will see an extremely bright background that spills over and whites out part of the foreground. Neither is good. This one is easy to fix. Just move so that the light source is behind you, the photographer, and in front of the subject.

One last tip. Many people don’t think of as a useful time to take photos, but overcast days are great for photography. Everything is mostly at the same brightness and no ugly shadows or blown out white areas will be bothering you. The only time when weather like this is a problem is when you are actually trying to show the blue sky.

One last tip. Many people don’t think of as a useful time to take photos, but overcast days are great for photography. Everything is mostly at the same brightness and no ugly shadows or blown out white areas will be bothering you. The only time when weather like this is a problem is when you are actually trying to show the blue sky.

* I took these photos with my phone because I don’t want people to complain with "Yea, but I don’t have a good camera.” The camera does not make the photographer.

** This is the second post in a series, with Rule Number One posted last week.

*** Thanks to Jo for doing a few quick poses in an attempt to get example shots.

된장녀

I learned an interesting term yesterday. I’m sure I’ve heard it before, but never really noticed. The term for today is 된장녀 (Dwenjangyeo).

The names comes from Dwenjang Jjigae (my spelling), a relatively cheap soup made from fermented soy bean paste and tofu. This also explains the English translation of Bean Paste Girl.

A Bean Paste Girl is a girl who lives as frugally as possible, eating mostly rice and Bean Paste Soup in order to have more money to spend on luxury goods like cloths, accessories and shoes. I suppose makeup and even surgery might be included.

Aaaah, first world issues. Gotta love them.

Rule Number One

I am not pro photographer or teacher of photography, but over the last ten years or so have learned some useful things. Whether I look back at my first point and shoot photos or the photos from the various upgrades all the way up to my SLR, I see that the same basic ideas that make one photo better than another. When I say better, I don’t mean from OK to National Geographic’s, but from “This is useless, horrible and Sucks b***s” to “This is nice.”

Even before I learned the official rules of Composition, Focus, Light and Exposure I created my own rules

My three personal principles, rules or ideas, whatever you want to call them are:

1. Know what you are trying to photograph (Focus).
2. Know where your light is (Light).
3. Position things properly (Composition).
4. (Exposure is generally handled by the camera, so no regular rule for that.)

In this first post I will talk about knowing what you are trying to photograph.

I would like to start with a confession. I have a pet peeve, people doing Self Photos. Most people with cameras absolutely creating Self Photos. In Eastern Asian countries this normally involves people standing next to something interesting, turning to the camera and throwing up two finders and a huge smile. Old people, for some reason, feel the need to look like someone just died, but that is another problem for another day.

“So?” I hear you say.
“What is the photo of?” I ask.
“Of the painting,” You reply.
“Really? Then why are you in the photo?” I ask
“To show I was there, of course,” you say, looking at me like I am stupid.
“Show who?” I ask.
“My friends!” you say.
“Do your friends normally mistrust you?” I ask
“What?!” You ask, so I explain.

When you take a photo of a painting, say, then surely that is enough proof that you were there. Unless your friend don’t trust you, or you are a liar who needs proof to show you are NOT lying this time, you have no reason to be in the photo yourself. You should be able to just show the photo and say “See, we saw this. Nice, huh?”

As soon as you put yourself in the photo you change the photo dramatically. More often than not the photo becomes about you. This is where you will need to ask yourself, is this photo about me, or about the painting. You can’t really make it about both of you at the same time without putting a bit of thought and effort in to it.

Puzzled, and wondering why this would this be an issue for me? I don’t know. It just is.

Let’s go back to the painting. Let us say it is a great painting of a nice landscape, done by some Dutch master. The scene is tranquil with not much action. Next, we put you next to the painting, even covering it ever so slightly, looking straight at the camera, smiling and doing something, most likely a peace sign. Maybe you are even filing half the photo area. What do you think people will look first when they see your photos? I’m guessing that 99% of the time they will look at you, making YOU and not the painting, the subject of the photo. I ask you again “Why are you in the photo?” and this time think before you answer.

Instead of being the subject of the photo, consider just getting the completely out of the frame. You usually have no reason for being there anyway. If you must, make yourself part of the photo. Do something that looks very natural, face the painting at an angle and pretend to read the description. That way the photo is saying “Here I am admiring this great painting”, instead of “Look at me, oh, and there is a painting next to me.”

Humans are programmed to look at faces. When you interact with the scene instead of facing the facing the camera I will look at your face sometimes, but it will be a fleeting action. When you are deliberately facing the camera, smiling and doing something to specifically attract attention to yourself, then my instinct will draw my eyes back to you every time. I will look away, but just pop back to you again. If you want me to look at you, then take a photograph of yourself and call it what it is.

“But Otto, this is a photo of me and my friends.” Groovy! You are right. Now get everyone in to a nice pose and everyone smile because none of us are pretending it is not about your group.
“Demmit, Otto Teacher! We want the place in the background to show that we were there!” Aha, more progress! You are trying to tell a story, are you? Well, not to worry, because I will explain later how you can have yourself and they background in the frame and still have a nice photo.

When it comes to inanimate objects then making the fill a larger area of the frame, thereby cutting out irrelevant parts, will usually do the job.

*****

All about you.

Not just about you any more.

Just what is the photo about?

Obvious what this is about, innit?

 

* I took these photos with my phone because I don’t want people to complain with "Yea, but I don’t have a good camera.” The camera does not make the photographer.

** The second two photos are from a previous post about depth of field and was not initially intended for use here, but for the purpose of explanations I think they get the point across.

*** Thanks to Meg for standing there looking silly in the first photo and then fitting right into the second photo.