I’m still getting used to the new blog, even after a week or so actively using it, and more than two years cursing at it. It’s been a fun transition, though. Exciting, new and all that.
One of the more surprising changes is that my main post MUST HAVE A PICTURE. As in, if it doesn’t, then there will be a big, ugly, empty box next to the text on the homepage. This isn’t appealing, and the whole point of choosing this theme was to make Musings more visually appealing.
I tried to use Creative Commons photos from Flickr, but apparently those don’t work. And then I tried to use miscellaneous photos that I’d taken, at which point I discovered that if they are over 1mb, then that box will have an error message on it. Also unattractive.
Well, as luck/coincidence/the stars would have it, this month’s picture theme for the Digital Photography Meetup group is Colors in Bokeh. Dude. If that didn’t speak to me, I don’t know what would. Seriously. I’ve been trying to learn all the different things my little point and shoot can do, and if there is one challenge I knew I could win, it was taking blurry pictures.
To give you a little background: It is a well-known fact that point and shoots automatically focus, right? Like, that’s the whole point of a point and shoot. But, um, how do you get them to unfocus? Sure, I could shake the camera a little, maybe set the shutter speed a little too slow, but then I’d either have an ill-framed picture or one that might be too bright. What’s a girl to do?
And that was the challenge: Figure out how to take a blurry picture, one that is pleasing to the eye, doesn’t need Photoshop (because I don’t even have my own computer, let alone special software), and isn’t glaringly overexposed. The answer?
The answer, dear Grasshopper, was my Nikon Coolpix s550’s notoriously useless macro setting. I knew when I bought the camera that the macro was crap; it is an opinion born of shutter-happy bloggers and trial and error. It just doesn’t work very well. But for bokeh? For bokeh it ROCKS.
For example, this is a computer keyboard on macro:
I know what you are thinking, oh sure I do. The macro works just fine, so long as you are EXACTLY 10 cm away from the object. And this is true. Only, I routinely forget to carry my measuring stick with me at all times. Woops, my bad.
Anyway, thus solved my problem: From now on, I’m going to use one of the 8,000 pictures I’ve taken for the Meetup group’s challenge as the pictures for the posts. Waa laa. I promise to try to make them all moody-like.
Totally cool, dude! Like, far out! Wicked!
Ok, time for bed…obviously!
Love ya, Shanz!
That is sooooo cool!
soooooooo jealous that you have an effing digital photography CLUB!! wow!!!
also- let me know if you want a link to a great site that has images that can be used for free on-line. but I think YOUR pictures will be fun to look forward to!
e-mail me back about the other thing before I get a complex