“All great achievements require time.” — Maya Angelou
“When you forgive, you don’t change the past…you change the future.” — Inspired by Paulo Coelho
“People who make us happy are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. [ed]” — Marcel Proust
“I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see that you are unarmed.” — Unknown (but often mistakenly to William Shakespeare)
“Upon leaving, our feelings about the business mirrored a line in a country song: I liked you better before I got to know you so well.” — Warren Buffett
“When you choose to see the good in others, you end up finding the good in yourself.” — Unknown
“An action may have its pleasures, but it also has its price.[ed]” — Socrates
“We all learn by experience, but some of us have to go to summer school.” — Peter De Vries
Zach King specializes in “Vines” – six-second videos that capture a particular segment of time. These short episodes joined together will demonstrate to viewers why one cannot always believe what they see. Don’t ask me how these were done. Just sit back and enjoy the video magic that will trick your eyes in most of the short sequences.
Thanks to Zach for making these mesmerizing videos and sharing them with us. One thing I would like to know is: “Who cleans up the mess left behind in many of these sequences?”
“Hope is a waking dream.” — Aristotle
“You can’t turn a ‘no’ into a ‘yes’ without a ‘maybe’ in between.” — Frank Underwood, House of Cards
“At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards.” — Hunter S. Thompson
“My life has a superb cast but I can’t figure out the plot.” — Ashleigh Brilliant
DIY Photography has a video that explains 9 Photo Composition Tip/Rules in a bit more than three minutes. The compositional techniques are listed below:
Composition is one of the basic building blocks of a good photograph. There are a couple of rules demonstrated that aren’t often explained such as “Center the dominant eye.” Watching the rules take form in front you brings home the impact of some of the techniques highlighted.
You can watch the COOPH (Cooperative of Photography) video below:
COOPH explains 9 photo composition tips with the help of Steve McCurry’s incredible photographs. Special thanks go to Steve McCurry for his time and permission to use his photographs in this video!
A follow up to this video is an article posted on PetaPixel, 9 Photo Composition Tips As Seen in Photographs by Steve McCurry, which carries the same video, but also breaks the rules down via still shots so that they are easily noticed and understood.
Watching both the video and reviewing the PetaPixel article provides good reinforcement of the concepts demonstrated.
“It is not sacrifice if you love what you’re doing.” — Mia Hamm
“Excuses are the rocks where our dreams are crushed.” — Tim Fargo (?)
“There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“You have to be odd to be number one.” — Dr. Seuss
Living in North Phoenix brings us close to the natural desert, but when guests arrive, they often want to visit the second most popular attraction in the state, after the Grand Canyon of course, which is the Desert Botanical Garden (DBG). Some might argue that Sedona, AZ would also be a close second, but I am just repeating what I have heard based on statistics.
Last week we visited the gardens with family. It has been unusually warm during the last week or so to the tune of 10 plus degrees so I wasn’t sure what the flowers would be like at this time. I am glad to report that many of the spring standard bloomers were still strutting their stuff although there were areas where drying had taken its toll.
Before we get to some of the flowers, however, here are a few pictures of the cactus and succulents we saw:
The silver highlights and varied leaf margins make this agave a stunning plant. The chocolate outline with the yellow surround are superb!
The wider-leaved agave had a very unusual color almost like a pickle. The serrated edges were also particularly colorful and pronounced.
The plant pictured above appeared to be an agave, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a succulent of a different family. In this particular arrangement, it wasn’t named although I am certain that elsewhere in the garden it would be. It was a smallish specimen being about twice the size of the average closed fist. The dark leaves and silver edges make this a winner.
These Daisies/Asters and Penstemon Parryi were doing well in the wildflower garden. Not pictured were the Firecracker Penstemon, Brittlebush, Lupines, Fairy Dusters and others that were plentiful along the paths.
More about our trip to the DBG shortly…
“Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” — Terry Pratchett
“Inspiration and awareness without action is just entertainment.” — Unknown
“I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be.” — Joan Didion
“Golf is a game of expletives not deleted.” — Dr. Irving A. Gladstone
It has often been said that timing is everything and when it comes to photography, that may well be true in SOME instances. A recent post on the blog Photography Life titled “Shooting with Lady Luck” got me thinking about those instances when I was taking pictures and luck might have intervened.
First let me say that luck favors those who are prepared. There are numerous quotes about luck and anyone who follows my blog on a regular basis knows I collect and publish quotes. You can see my posted quotes here and one such quote by Oprah Winfrey states: “Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.”
One such picture of mine that comes to mind is the picture below of a Packrat that we removed from our property because it was eating our courtyard plants. Timing was all important as the cage was opened to release the critter and it ran full speed ahead to get away. It was caught just in time at the right edge of the frame.
Another picture where luck might have played a role is the picture below of the white pelican taken at Grand Teton National Park. When I took the picture, I did not appreciate the pattern that the ripples, light and reflections made on the water and I think they add a great deal to the picture.
I can go on and on of course and I suppose you could as well. Needless to say a person with a camera needs to know how to operate it to capture the scene at hand in order to render the picture well exposed, have the appropriate depth of field and a well-composed scene. It is always nice of course, to have the fates on your shoulder helping to guide the press of the camera’s button.
Check out the article:Shooting with Lady Luck for more photographic instances of “Lady Luck” helping to guide the camera/photographer.
Do you have a picture story to share about shot you took that incorporated a bit of help from “Lady Luck?“
“Grow wherever life puts you down.” — Ben Okri, The Famished Road
“Every gift from a friend is a wish for you happiness.” — Richard Bach
“It’s not what you achieve, it’s what you overcome. That’s what defines your career.” — Carlton Fisk
“It’s innocence when it charms us, ignorance when it doesn’t.” — Mignon McLaughlin