Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Dear Self: Slow Is The Way To Go
Weight loss seems so brutally slow. It's hard to wait for results, and that goes for all of us. A word of encouragement, if I may, addressed to myself, and to others who may be feeling the same angst to GET THINNER.
Dear Self,
It took you a long time to put on that weight, and it is going to take time to take it off. The opposite of eating poorly, haphazardly, recklessly, gluttonously ... is eating sensibly, thoughtfully and mindfully. Making what you put into your body a priority and staying vigilant about it will keep you focused.
You spent too many years doing nothing but sitting, chained in self-pity because you knew you were getting heavier and unhealthier, using food to self-medicate, telling yourself there was nothing you could do because you didn't have the constitution to put yourself ahead of your love for food. The opposite of sloth is exercise. Making time daily to feed your heart, muscles and mind will make you feel younger as your body begins to change for the better. You won't simply look different, you'll feel different.
You convinced yourself that pizza was a food group, that two pieces of pie was no worse than one piece of pie, that a six pack of beer was a normal serving, that grilling meant eating three brats, a burger for good measure, and a pound of potato salad ... and worse ... that willpower was not a word that could be placed in your vocabulary. The opposite of weakness is courage. Learning to say no is, at first, the hardest thing, but having the courage to do so is the beginning of your quest for victory.
Yes, the weight is coming off so slowly. But, today, you discovered that in six weeks you have averaged 2.3 pounds per week and lost fourteen of the forty pounds you wanted to banish to hell. And in doing so, you have found vigilance, constitution, willpower, courage.
Slow is the way to go, so it seems. Keep at it ... victory is a light at the end of a tunnel, and just now, it became a small, twinkling pin point of a star.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Kindling ...
"A Friend With Benefits"
A review of the Kindle Fire
Preface …
A good while back I started to consider purchasing a “tablet”. Now, with full disclosure in mind, most of my friends know I’m not too keen on Apple, which is a bias I have developed due to my ire for iTunes. I’d guess I’m not the only person in this digital age that can say, “I like my iPod Touch just fine but I loathe iTunes.” The thing about Apple that really bugs me is that iTunes is proprietary. If you want to download and manage content, you have to do it through iTunes, period. And, I simply find iTunes a bloated, annoying nightmare. Having been up front about this, I am admitting that the iPad tablet is the standard by which all others aspire to. I get it, and I concede the point. But, I will not own one because I refuse to be tethered to iTunes, not ever again. (Please, hold back on the vitriolic feedback from those who can’t imagine someone not supporting the great Apple. It’s not a personal attack on you.)
Kindling …
So, moving on, I resolved that all other products were fair game. I looked at, researched, Googled, and generally poured over just about every other tablet, including e-readers, until my head nearly exploded. Back and forth, comparing specs, reading reviews … ugh. Then one day, I just had a moment of impetuousness and ordered a Kindle Fire. Right up until the day before I clicked “Place Order”, I still had no definitive idea what to do. I reckon, in a moment of clarity, I realized the answers to a simple question … “What are you going to use it for most?”
The answers in order were 1) reading books and magazines, 2) streaming video, 3) minimal amounts browsing, email and social networking, and, 4) listening to music.
Full disclosure in mind, part deux: I’m already an Amazon Prime subscriber, an avid online consumer and a big fan of Amazon. Big. My annual $79 Prime membership easily pays for itself in shipping and convenience and, although the content doesn’t match Netflix, Prime does include many thousands of movies and TV shows which can be streamed “for free”. I stream a good deal of content under the umbrella of my Prime membership already, and I love it.
Early on in my research, someone suggested the Kindle Fire but, after looking at it with a full blown tablet in mind, I dismissed it because it was comparatively slim on internal memory (8GB) and wasn’t 3G. (It’s Wi-Fi only.) I quickly said “Meh” … and moved on. But, someone had said in a review that at $199, the Kindle Fire was almost an impulse buy at its low price, and that is certainly true. In fact, an iPad cost substantially more than twice that and so do a lot of other full blown tabs. A tweaked out iPad … three times as much. You can get a decent lap top for that kind of scratch!
My wife has owned a first generation Nook for over a year now and she loves it and reads on it every day. Nice size, and in a nice case, kind of sexy. (Also true for the wife, I might add.) I narrowed it down to wanting a 7” device pretty easily. Although, I really didn’t consider the Nook Color because as a Prime member … well, why would I? Prime has its Kindle benefits, too.
Yes, well, so I pulled the trigger on a Fire, and here’s my blather on the “points of interest”.
Addressing My Own Criteria First …
As An e-Reader – Fabulous. At my age, it’s wonderful to be able to size the font to my own needs. And, although it’s not as “booky” as e-ink (like the display on my wife’s Nook), you do have options of black on white, white on black, or my favorite, brown on tan. With the brightness toned back, it’s very easy on the eyes during long reads. Also unlike her Nook, you can read in portrait or landscape orientation, and of course, it will self-adjust accordingly. It comes loaded with a comprehensive Oxford Dictionary which offers a really wonderful service; see a word you aren’t familiar with and you can long touch the word which will immediately bring up the dictionary entry of it. Now that’s something you can’t do with paper.
Images look rich because the screen is backlit and uses “in plane switching” (IPS) technology, the same technology that my best monitor offers, the one I use for professional photo editing. This means it looks great at almost any angle of view.
Magazines look fabulous, too. The Fire offers a PAGE view and a TEXT view. In page, you see the entire original magazine page, and you can pinch to zoom in, but on a 7” screen, it’s not really very practical. In text, you get to bypass all the ads, still see the images in the articles, and adjust your font to taste. Hit the “like” button for me. That’s a terrific feature.
The Fire is fairly heavy in the hand, heavier than the wife’s Nook, but I just am not bothered by that. I parked it in a RooCASE Dual View Multi-angle Leather Folio Case Cover ($25) which easily allows you to prop the device up in either orientation. It acts equally well as a stand or for lap support and it looks and feels great in addition to being protective.
No buttons to turn pages. You just touch the right or left edge of the screen, or sweep a finger across it in whichever direction you want to go. One friend told me, “Yeah, sorry, I like paper.” That’s fine, and I get it. Old habits die hard. As for me, the thing I most dislike about books is having to hold the damn book open (e.g. … a thick paperback) which, as you get older, becomes more tiring on the evermore arthritic hands. Further, real books certainly do look great on a shelf, where they gather dust, and take up space … a lot of space if you are a real an addict.
As A Personal Streaming Video Player – Fabulous. Wi-Fi required. (Of course, you can store movies on the device, but that’s a little silly. Six or so movies would eat up your onboard storage. But, if you do that, you could view them without Wi-Fi.) The aforementioned IPS technology makes for a beautiful visual experience. The player buffers quickly and streams super smoothly with no glitching, at least on my home Wi-Fi network and everywhere else I’ve used it. The LCD screen is bright enough that I actually like to dial the brightness back substantially (which also extends battery life). One could listen to the little built-in speakers for audio, but in this age of ear buds, I’m not sure why you would unless it was your only choice. The standard 3.5mm stereo audio output will take any headphone with a compatible male jack, or could just as easily be run to your home stereo amplifier and listened to on the “big system” with little more than a trip to Radio Shack (or Amazon) for the right cable / adapters and an available auxiliary input on your home stereo system.
I’ve watched everything from vintage Rocky And Bullwinkle to Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse while sitting comfortably at my desk, in my big leather office chair, audio connected to my head courtesy of Bose headphones, even whilst sipping a wee dram of Irish whiskey … and it all looks great. Needless to say, it interfaces seamlessly with Amazon Prime Instant Video, but YouTube is just as stable.
As A Browser / Email Utility – Great. Wi-Fi required. Amazon Silk, the browser that comes with the Fire is fast and smooth and easy on the eye. I like it very much. As for email, I was able to configure it for my Google Gmail account in about five seconds flat. To be fair, while it’s nice to be able to check your email and respond and have all your contacts on board and all that, I really don’t much care about it. Sometimes I just don’t want to be reached, and while using it as a reader or video player I’d prefer to escape the world and its immediate connectivity. So goes it with Facebook and similar networking, too. Although the app and interface for Facebook on the Fire is quite nice, it isn’t a deal maker for me. I already have a 3G phone that does all that. (I pay a minimum fee of $30 a month for 5GB of “data” access on my Droid, and use about a tenth of a gig, which tells you how much I want to be browsing and emailing when I’m not in my office or my home workstation.)
As A Music Player – Great. Wi-Fi not required to access files on the device, but is required to use Pandora or similar cloud based services. You can listen to music while reading if you so choose. Again, the built-in speakers are adequate, but don’t expect mind-blowing bass response. In fact, except for the lack of substantial volume, (it is, after all, a “personal space” device) it sounds every bit as good or better than the first CD boombox I ever heard, which was a hell of a step up from a cassette tape boombox. Anyone remember those? Of course, headphones, earbuds, or output to an external stereo system would be a preferable audio experience.
More To Consider …
Charging - You can use the device normally while charging with the supplied AC charger, but not while connected to a computer via USB where is it being recognized as a storage device, even though it is charging while connected there. I really appreciate being able to use it while charging; both places where I read most often, my desk and my recliner, are AC outlet friendly. Incidentally, it does NOT ship with a USB 2.0 / micro B connector cable, but if you have a smart phone, you probably already have one.
Internal Memory – Yes, 8 gigs (under 7 after the space the OS hogs) is small by today’s standards. Amazon is banking on the cloud, and giving away 5GB of cloud storage right out of the gate. Additional space is dirt cheap if you need more. The Fire offers two side by side, on- screen buttons: CLOUD and DEVICE. You can choose content from either when in wireless range. You can easily manage your content, swapping stuff to and fro using your Amazon account (It’s the Manage Your Kindle link). But, this is NOT iTunes, baby. You can also manage and back up content by plugging your Fire into your computer via USB and dragging and dropping into and out of folders at will. Take that, iPad. That was a big one for me.
Yes, I know … we’ve become digital collectors. More is gooder. Our devices have become our digital junk rooms. Some of you have 240 GB of space on your music players and feel compelled to carry 20,000 mp3 files around with you everywhere you go. Book addicts, I ask you, are you going to have to carry 10,000 books on your device? I mean, after you’ve totally enjoyed Cold Mountain, do you really need to carry it with you as if at any moment you might need to suddenly reread it on impulse? In my own case, I lean more toward non-fiction which includes a good deal of “how to” content, some of it reference material. Even at that, I couldn’t imagine myself needing to carry thousands of books with me. Realistically, even on a long vacation where Wi-Fi wasn’t available, I think 6+GB of storage would provide all the space I would need to read and enjoy some music. All I would have to do would be to prepare for the trip by managing the content I intended to take along.
Whispernet - The Kindle Fire uses Whispernet to sync all your compatible devices.
What’s that mean? Well, even if you don’t have a Kindle, Amazon has developed software for a broad variety of platforms including Windows, Mac, iOS, Blackberry, Android and so on. For instance, I had Kindle For PC on my home computer, even before ordering my Fire, for reading a few free books. Whispersync sees to it that when I quit reading on one device I will be able to open and continue reading at the same spot on any other device. Pretty smooth.
Common Complaints – Having read through a great many reviews and message boards about the Kindle Fire before (and moreso after) I purchased one, I saw a some recurring beefs from consumers, both Kindle Owners and non-owners in the Anti-Kindle camp. My thoughts and observations:
Clunky Interface … Some complain that the interface itself is sort of awkward and “clunky”. The main carousel stores your recently accessed content using large icons in the chronological order you accessed them. (You sweep through the icons the same way you sweep through your albums on an iPod Touch or iPhone.) Customer feedback has been serious enough about the lack of customization that at the time of this writing, Amazon has already announced that in a few weeks a seamless, wireless upgrade via Whispernet will be uploaded to everyone’s Fire. Most of you, if buying a Fire in the future, will never know the original issue existed, if it was a problem at all. Also, this announcement from Amazon is good news to me, as I know that they will continue to make improvements to the OS and interface and upload upgrades automatically. It will just keep getting’ better.
Not Responsive Enough … This is, in my opinion, quite true. There are moments when you tap and nothing happens, and you must tap again, and again. The device seems “selectively problematic”. I find no troubles while reading books, scrolling page to next page. The carousel can be troublesome, sometimes reluctant to lock onto an icon. Double tapping is often ineffective, requiring subsequent taps and faster or slower intervals, or harder pressure to be effective. I have considered the possibility that I just have to get used to the feel of it, but it’s been a while now, and I’m still noticing the problem.
My most frustrating moments come with “graphic novels”. The Fire is touted as offering an amazing experience with comics, and comes with an app for reading them. There are many fine comics available, including free content … and so, as a fellow who was once a kid who loved comics, I downloaded a half dozen or so free titles. Once I got the feel for navigating … (double tapping the first frame of a page zooms in and then sweeping left advances you to the next frame, a wonderful concept in theory) the experience began to improve. However, the double tapping at the beginning of each page was simply terrible with regard to sensitivity, just awful. That kind of frustration simply kills one’s immersion in the story and swaps it out for higher blood pressure.
I’m not sure whether this is an app issue, an OS issue or a hardware issue. All I know is it’s probably my one serious complaint about the device. Again, the previously stated, newest upgrade is said to include an improved responsiveness. I sincerely hope that is true.
Smallish Keyboard … I’m inclined to agree; I’d like to see the pop-up, on-screen keyboard have larger keys. It still feels cramped to me, and on a 7” screen, I can’t imagine a reason not to utilize the majority of the space.
Wi-Fi Only … Just speaking for myself, I don’t need 3G or 4G to read books. I have a Droid phone for all the other stuff. In my case, why spend extra money for that?
Too Few Apps … While it’s true that there are not yet a huge number of apps for the Fire, I’m not too concerned about it. I found a free note pad utility and some other small things that seemed useful, and I’m not a gamer at all. There is a toggle in SETTINGS to allow installation of apps from unknown sources, but I haven’t been too eager to fill the device with stuff I probably won’t use anyway.
No Camera or Microphone … I have a Droid phone for that. And, at $199, I don’t think you can whine too awful much.
No USB 2.0/3.0, HDMI, or Other Outputs … All true. And, at $199, I don’t think you can whine too awful much.
All That “Amazon Stuff” … I showed my new Fire to a friend while in the company of a young, computer techie stranger, and I mentioned it was not a full blown tablet. The young fellow rolled his eyes in disgust and made it clear that, in his expert opinion, it was a completely inferior device and waste of money, that it was a joke compared to iPad, and that you are forced into “all that Amazon stuff”. Hmmm, how curious. I explained to him that I loved Amazon, was a Prime member who found it a tremendous value, that I didn’t expect it to be a fully functional tablet, didn’t need 3G, and that it was exactly what I was looking for. Then, I reminded him that he was perfectly OK with being tethered to the proprietary behemoth known as iTunes, so what was the problem? (The answer is … he suffers from IT’S-NOT-AN-iPAD-SO-IT’S-CRAP syndrome.)
Too Little Memory … I’ll have to admit, I’d have liked to see a 16 GB device for a little more, but as I stated early in the review, I came to terms with it. Amazon was adamant about keeping the price under $200, and with that came sacrifices. Fair enough. I’m over it. One observant Kindle advocate on a message board addressed the memory complaint of another poster as follows: “If you really must have more memory, you can buy two of them and still spend less than an iPad costs.” Indeed.
Poor Battery Life … This issue is the subject of much Internet fodder. So, some reality checking is in order. It’s a backlit screen, and a small device, which means it contains a relatively small battery. One cannot expect the kind of battery life one gets with an e-ink reader. Remember that with Wi-Fi on, the device is constantly searching for a network, sucking juice. Remember that the brighter the screen, the more battery it eats. The first day, on the first charge, with Wi-Fi continuously on and the screen dialed up, I got just a few hours of charge. (After a few charges, the battery breaks in and improves.) And now, I am getting exactly what Amazon claims, about eight hours, give or take. Guess what I do? Yep, keep the Wi-Fi off if I don’t need it and dial the brightness back considerably … actually, I prefer it dialed back; I think it reduces eye strain. By the way, on a full charge, I can easily watch five to six hours of streaming video, for whatever that’s worth.
Poor Substitute For An iPad … Apples and oranges are both fruits, but you can’t substitute one for the other. Duh, it’s not a full blown tablet. It’s an e-reader with extras. It’s a hundred and ninety-nine bucks, for cripe’s sake.
The Down Side …
Did you think I couldn’t find at least a few things that bug me?
Smudges … Like my Droid, the screen is glass and it does take fingerprint smudges to the next level. I’m over it. I just pack a little microfiber cloth and when it bugs me, I wipe it clean.
PDFs … I was hopeful with regards to PDF format because I have a few eBooks that are in that format, as well as a good many User Guides / Owners Manuals for everything from high end cameras to electronic appliances. This is where a 10” screen would be a benefit. Pinch zooming and dragging the document around is a pain in the … oops. Then again, I should have expected such … it’s a 7” screen. My bad.
The Price …
It’s a hundred and ninety-nine bucks, for cripe’s sake!! Keep that in mind, please.
In conclusion …
I think it best to consider the Kindle Fire an e-reader “friend with benefits”. I’m not the first to say or admit it will never be an iPad killer. Please refer back to the “apples and oranges” section when addressing that concept. Oh, and did I mention … I love it.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Scratching Another Item Off The Bucket List
This old Chevy has been calling my name for a long time. I have always envisioned a photograph of it. And this ... this is exactly the photo I envisioned.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
Geek Speak: Turning Your Food Photos Into Home Grown Food Porn
I recently penned an article for an online group of food and cooking enthusiasts. I had just joined the group and started posting a few photos. A discussion came up about food photos and I asked if members might find some tips of any value. What follows is the article in full ...
Geek Speak:
Turning Your Food Photos Into Home Grown Food Porn
by Clay Riness
Owner, Clay Riness Photography.
OK … full disclosure. I’m a complete geek. I’m a guitar geek; I’m a dog geek: I’m a cooking geek; I’m a photography geek. So, after a brief discussion with group guru Belinda Sauer about whether group members might appreciate some basic tips on food photography, here I am in all my embarrassing geekness. Be gentle with me. My intentions are honorable.
Question: Ever make the most succulent, mouth-watering dish and then snap a picture for posterity only to find that the photo doesn’t look quite as succulent and mouth-watering as the real thing?
“I mean … so, I made this organic lobster-stuffed Peruvian gopher with braised celeriac root balls and mint-anchovy sherbet and it’s killer beautiful and it’s gonna knock my girlfriend’s socks off, but this photo? Grrrr!”
Are you one of the many frustrated by this phenom?
Yeah, sure, and we all know, professional food photography is an art unto itself. It’s probable that our home photos of our beloved dishes aren’t ever going to look quite like the cover of Gourmet Magazine. Thankfully, that’s neither the point, nor what most normal foodies like us are trying to achieve when they snap a picture to share with friends online. And, you know what? There’s absolutely nothing wrong at all with simply snapping and uploading. A lot of folks would rather be cooking, or eating, instead of spending extra time to shoot or polish up some photo! However, if you do want to spend just a little effort planning ahead, it’s pretty easy to improve the photos you make with your trusty point and shoot, or even your camera phone. (Camera phones are really getting to be great these days. Some even feature 8 megapixels!)
As a freelance photographer, a part of my job is that I get to make some images of great food, and most of the time, for better or worse, I usually get to taste what I shoot after it’s all said and done. (Maybe that’s why I’m getting thick in the middle along with the thin on top part.) Of course, when I am doing a shoot for a restaurant or a commercial account, I pull out all the stops … professional cameras and lighting gear, reflector panels, sexy tripods, black clothing, blah, blah, blah. That’s what they’re hiring me to do, after all. Nonetheless, a good many things I do in the actual image making process are things that you can actually do right at home, and they’re not complicated nor overly time consuming. Trust me when I say, I’m just like everyone else. I love to cook and when something comes out of my kitchen that seems amazing to me, I want to make a picture and share it with my friends online!
So, before we really get started, just a quick word about contemporary food photography. If you compare your grandma’s cookbooks to today’s staggering selection of colorful resources, you will notice how trends have changed since the dawn of Barnes & Noble, Amazon “dot com”, sundry resourceful web sites and the beloved Food Network. These days cookbooks are almost as much picture books as recipe books. Sizzle sells. In your grandma’s day, presenting food in photos was a much more formal affair, usually including lavish place settings, and often shot from well (sometimes directly) above the food. Today, food photography is edgier, more colorful, often using less or even no props, and quite frequently shot very close up. Many food photographers hire or work with specialized food stylists who make sure the food is fresh looking, glistening or appearing steaming hot, or ice cold if need be. And boy, do they ever use some clever tricks to make the food look the best it can be! (However, these techniques often render the food inedible. How utterly unacceptable by my waistline standards!) We aren’t going to worry about such specialized detail. We’re just going to look into how we can adapt a few simple techniques, apply them for use with our basic home cameras and make images of our culinary milestones that we can excite others with! And … so it begins … I just pressed my geek button on “high”.
Assess your angles
Angles (of view) and artistic composition are sort of intertwined. (For a quick overview and tips on general composition, feel free to do a Google search on the “rule of thirds” and the “golden mean” and discover what the Net has to offer.) Suffice to say that contemporary food photos are not often shot from above the food. And yet, it’s such a natural instinct … stand above the dish and shoot down on it! This approach can be effective, but unless lit properly this angle tends to make an image that is very flat looking and one dimensional. These days, photographers tend to get down closer to the food’s level. This helps the shot look less like a behind-the-counter Chinese restaurant menu and more like a modern magazine or TV ad … or, something from a colorful cookbook page. It adds more dimension. Try it. Kneel down and shoot it right at lasagna level. Also, if you have noticeable lines in the shot, such as the edges in a square pan, consider shooting the shot with the lines running more diagonally, roughly from lower corner (e.g. lower left) to opposite upper corner (e.g upper right) in the frame instead of squaring the pan up in the frame. You can use lines to lead the eye somewhere in the shot, which can often make for a more interesting image.
Get up close and personal
It can’t be stressed it enough. Fill the frame with your subject. Get on in there. Show us that culinary masterpiece in detail! One problem with many basic cameras … getting too close can mean going out of focus. So, there are two possible solutions. First, back off a few (or more) steps and use the camera’s zoom to fill the frame with your sexy Swedish meatballs, or, see if using the macro setting will get you what you are hoping for. In both cases, you will want to have a strategy for keeping the camera steady. (That’s coming up later.) You can also crop a photo tighter later on in “post processing”. (Also coming up later.)
Nix the flash and bring on the fill
This is a big one. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is less flattering than a convenient built-in, pop up flash mounted directly above the lens of the camera. I know … it’s there for a reason, convenience. And, it can come in handy for some jobs, but that little light is problematic in more than one way. First, by nature it tends to leave the subject looking flat and without depth, sometimes even washed out. Second, it tends to be a very high contrast light source, which means, among other things, it can cast harsh shadows on backgrounds. If you take some time to look at food shots in magazines and on web sites like the Food Network’s you’ll note that one thing almost ALL of these shots have in common is very soft, even and diffused light. You never see shadows. OK … so how can we do that at home?
First off, cancel the auto flash on your camera and begin shooting by natural light. (For now, just set your “color balance” setting to auto.) But, that tip alone won’t take care of all the resources you’ll need. Continue by finding a nice soft light source, like a window through which direct sunshine is NOT shining. (For instance, a north facing picture window.) Set your delicious dish on something very close to, or in that light. Now, all you have to do is fill some light in on the side of the dish NOT facing the window. (I just heard you mumble, “huh?”)
Don’t worry … it’s not so hard. We’re simply trying to even out the light to illuminate (or bathe, if you will) the entire subject, both sides, with soft, diffused light. All you need is something white. Poster board, foamcore board, a chunk of drywall, an old ceiling panel, Styrofoam packing material from the flat screen TV you just bought … even a white T-shirt on a hanger … anything white and (preferably) reflective will do. Face it toward the light source (the window) and move it in close to the food. Keep your eye on the food. You’ll see the dark side light right up from the reflective light you’ve added. Get it as close as you can without getting it in the actual shot. Then, find a way to keep it there. Have a kid hold it. Prop it against a chair. Hang it off the treadmill … whatever. Congratulations, you’ve just learned one of the fundamental tricks of the professional photographer’s arsenal. Fill light … or, reflected fill light, in this case.
“Professional” (circular / fold up) reflectors range from $20 to $50, the latter of which includes white, silver, gold and black surfaces, as well as a main frame which is features thin material that is translucent and can be used as a light “modifier” (in other words, you can pass a light source through it to diffuse and soften it). But, as I said, anything big enough and white will do for starters. Remember, we’re foodies, not geeky photographers. Well … I, ugh …
Another great tip here, for anyone who is willing to be as truly geeky as me, is that you can actually buy daylight balanced light bulbs, and they’re cheap! This has to do with the actual COLOR of the light, or something called its “color temperature”. (For instance … late day sunlight is kind of orange while an overcast mid-day light is somewhat blue, etc.) Simply visit your local Home Depot and look for CFL bulbs that are labeled “daylight” and rated for 5500 to 6500 Kelvins. (Sorry for the technical jargon. Your Home Depot guy or gal will know what you mean.) Screw a bulb or two into a few old portable lamp fixtures and move light in toward the dark side of the food until you see that the subject is filled in adequately. (Don’t make the fill brighter than the main light source.) These bulbs should be a close enough color match to the natural window light that is your main source. If the light from your bulb too harsh, you can “modify” the light by hanging a thin shower curtain liner in front of it to diffuse it. (Now you’re getting really geeky!)
Of course, if you have a couple of lights and a couple of reflectors and a couple of light modifiers, you don’t even need a window! By now, you should have a rough idea of how to experiment with these tools (if you’re of the mind to, that is) and try and make an evenly lit image. My best reminder here is to really watch your subject closely as you move the light around. Learning to see the light changes is how you learn to paint with light. And, by the way, these techniques also work beautifully for portraits. It isn’t just a foodie thing. But then, all of this talk leads us to our next equally important tip, which goes hand in hand …
Steady the camera
When the subject is not moving, as is the case with your most recent food porn masterpiece, it is essential to get a sharp image. In the photography world, a blurry shot of any still subject is widely held as unacceptable. As mentioned earlier, it is possible to get too close to the subject and experience a blurry result, but often in natural light shooting, it’s caused by camera shake or slight movement.
As I stated once in a blog post: “Let’s consider, for instance, a pocket-sized point and shoot, no bigger than a cell phone. Such cameras typically have no optical viewfinder, so you can’t “brace” the camera against your brow and triangulate your arms to stabilize the shot. Instead, such cameras have an LCD screen on the back, which requires that you hold the camera out from your body to frame the shot … (and if you’re old like me your arms are hardly long enough, even with glasses). This is problematic because there you are, floating the camera around in front of you, and worse, when you punch down the shutter, the camera tends to yaw to the right slightly. If you are in lower light (such as natural indoor light) or shooting at a slower shutter speed, more often than not, your image will not be sharp. The nature of how you shot it will introduce camera shake.” Cell phones fall into the same curse.
What’s the solution? Of course, stabilizing the camera is the first order of business. On almost all cameras, even the smallest ones, you will find a universal female thread on the bottom which will fit just about any commercially made tripod, monopod, Gorilla Pod, or pocket-sized table top tripod. For smallish cameras, you don’t need heavy duty gear. Wal-mart offers any of these products (except perhaps the Gorilla Pod) including a Targus telescopic monopod for fifteen bucks that is instantly adjustable for height and virtually invaluable for such jobs. Think of it as a telescopic walking stick with a male thread for your camera. Lightweight and versatile, you’ll see an instant improvement with your natural light photos once you start using one. Just mount your point and shoot, set the foot on the floor, adjust the height to your desired level, hold it still or brace it, focus and recompose if desired, and squeeze gently. (That’s our next tip.)
Lacking any kind of geeky gear to help you steady the camera, be resourceful. Place your elbows on the counter, bring in a chair to lean against, or lean against a wall and tuck your elbows in. Do whatever you can think of to get the camera as still as possible. I guarantee … just about anything is better than holding the camera out from your body and squeezing the button.
By the way, check and see if your camera has “image stabilization” and “motion detection”. Try turning them both on and see if that makes a difference.
Bead and squeeze
I have a little ritual that helps me during seer season. When I was young I used to get too excited, shoulder the rifle while failing to pay attention to the sights, and shoot! I missed a lot of deer by not taking my time. One year I made myself a promise that as soon as I saw a deer I would start whispering to myself, “bead and squeeze … bead and squeeze…”, a reminder to align the sights, exhale and then pull the trigger gently so my shot would have a chance to fly true to the target. I started enjoying venison that year, and to this day, I still subscribe to the ritual.
So, aside from the quaint and possibly annoying little personal story, can you see where I’m going with this? Yep, you’ll increase your odds of a sharp image by slowly, gently pressing the shutter button. And, if you’re in really low light, you can even go as far as mounting the camera on a static source such as a tripod or table top tripod (a.k.a. a “pocket pod”) and use the self-timer setting on the camera. If the camera is sitting completely still … and the fresh baba ganoush is sitting still … and you set the camera for hands off picture taking, I don’t care how slow the shutter speed and low the light is, your shot will be sharp!
Cell phones do not have a female thread for a pod, so again, you’ll have to be resourceful in devising methods to get the device to sit nice and still. Good doggie.
Vary the exposure
Photographers have a fancy term for taking different exposures of the same shot. It’s called “bracketing”. The idea is that even though the camera assumes settings are optimal for the right exposure, to be safe, you take a couple of underexposed shots and a couple of overexposed shots, too. Somewhere in there, you should have the right exposure. Your camera (and possibly even your cell phone) will offer something called “exposure compensation” or “exposure control”. Check your user guide. Usually it’s super easy to use. Press the little button, up comes a plus/minus diagram or interface, and you simply use your command dial to adjust the exposure by a click at a time (usually a click being 1/3 of a stop … for those of us snoots who like to throw geek terms around.) On most cameras you’ll actually see the LCD screen get lighter or darker as you adjust.
And hey, it’s digital! You have instant visual feedback and no wasted expense for film and prints. Bracket away and keep the best shot!
Post edit
And finally, this is where we get geekiest of all. I promise you, every single food photo you see in a magazine, cookbook or food related web site is post processed and enhanced to (in theory) be the best it can be. I may spend as much as two hours editing on a single professional shot for a commercial client. Of course, I’m not suggesting that you commit to that at all. What I am saying is … if you want to optimize your images, you’ll need to run them through some sort of image editing program. It’s part of the digital equation in today’s world. You used to have to either process your photos in a darkroom using chemicals, film and light sensitive paper (oh, the nostalgic smell of it all), or like most people, you sent your film off to have it processed into developed film and prints. In the digital age, your darkroom is a computer program.
Take heart. Before you hyperventilate into a cold panic thinking you’ll need to master Adobe Photoshop, let me set your mind at ease a bit. You don’t have to know much to see an improvement in your images. There are plenty of little (and even free) utilities that include image editing tools, and most of them offer simple options like “auto correct”. You can simply click that option and if you don’t like the results, click “undo”. Using programs like this you can crop your photos tighter, reduce their size for faster uploading, sharpen edges slightly, and adjust brightness and contrast, and more.
If you happen to own Microsoft Office, as many do, there’s a wonderful little program called Microsoft Office Picture Manager included. (You can configure your system to use this program or any other image editor as the default to open your image files.) It’s a very simple and very useful program.
If you want to take a look at a more powerful image editor, try Photoscape, which is a free program, and probably best (and most safely) downloaded from cnet.com. You can find this download here:
You’ll find plenty of Youtube videos about using Photoscape, too.
An even MORE powerful (and free) editing program, for those who want to get really geeky, is an open end user program called GIMP. It’s super powerful, and with that comes a little more confusion. There’s a much steeper learning curve with GIMP. It may be steep enough for some to say, “Meh, that’s really more than I want … or need.” However, it’s great, and it is free. You can download it here:
Adobe Photoshop Elements versions 9 (and now 10) are full featured, consumer targeted programs which are just amazing, even though they are scaled down from the bigger, professional versions of Photoshop. Elements costs under a hundred bucks. To geeks like me, that’s a true bargain.
Whichever program you might decide to learn and use, editing time on that image of your average pride-and-joy-fresh-off-the-grill masterpiece should take no more than a minute or two. Open it up, crop to taste, auto correct, sharpen (often using something called “unsharp mask”), resize for web, and SAVE AS. (Oh yes, remember to always do a SAVE AS and create a new version. As a general rule, photographers always work on copies of their files, so that any editing is non-destructive of the original.) And finally … upload!
So, my friends, there it is. This geek has spoken, and it’s the geek’s hope that you’ll find these tips useful and hopefully, even fun. You never know, you may end up as geeky as me, on a quest to try and make your food images as sexy as your culinary triumphs. Good luck, fellow foodies!
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
