Show me what you would have me do

9:31 PM Posted In Edit This 1 Comment »
After a hiatus, I've picked up "The Sound of Paper" by Julia Cameron again. She writes, "The grace of creativity is a great underground river. It flows on, untouched by the events and the apparent droughts of our outer life. Like the great rivers that flow within the earth, it is there, waiting for us to acknowledge it and dip into it with humility."

I love her work. In this chapter she reminds me to open myself to divine inspiration, to let go of self-will, to be a channel for His vision. I can do that. She even speaks of a sign she posted that stated, "Dear God, I will take care of the quantity. You take care of the quality." All one has to do is show up.

Her suggestion: in any period of creative drought, kindness is critical. We must become for ourselves the good mother. Find ten possibilities to be kind to yourself:
1. Clean my scraproom
2. Color my hair, get rid of grays and add blonde chunks
3. Drink more water
4. Display your art publicly
5. Get a pedicure
6. Buy that shabby chic lamp for the bedroom that you saw today
7. Get a chandelier for over the loveseat in your scraproom
8. Take a walk
9. Eat more vegetables
10.Drink more herbal tea

And here is my photo for today: (click on the image to enlarge) my Christmas tree and my collection of stockings in the background. How I love stockings! This photo illustrates the points I posted at SBO about depth of field. I used my dRebel XT with a tripod, with self-timer, no flash.
Shooting Mode
Aperture-Priority AE
Tv( Shutter Speed )
0.4
Av( Aperture Value )
4.0
Metering Mode
Center-Weighted Average Metering
Exposure Compensation
0
ISO Speed
100

I edited the photo with (my new) Photoshop Elements. The photo really started to sing in my opinion when I went to Filter, Sharpen, Unsharpen Mask.

Here are some more tips for evening photographs: use a flashlight to trick the focus. If the camera has trouble focusing, train your flashlight on the subject long enough to focus manually or automatically, and then turn off the flashlight before you take the picture. Use a level when using a tripod. A small bubble designed to fit on the flash hot shoe mount is an indispensable piece of equipment for avoiding tilted horizon shots. Tips are excerpted from the Digital Rebel Digital Field Guide by Charlotte K. Lowrie.

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Maryfrances Fabbri said...

Hey JA, Love that photo. Gregg loves playing around with the dept of field on our camera. He has gotten some of the best shots of this kids this way.