Changing your WordPress site’s theme is a mixed blessing. There’s nothing like a new look to wrap around your work.
But, there can be a few hurdles that you must cross before beginning the new look.
Watch our video to see a few tricks of the trade that will make your theme change go smoother. [Read more...]
Creating a great menu system with WordPress is much easier than you imagine.
Most modern themes permit modifying the menu system to change the order of listed items, to add specific menu items and to remove pages from the default method for displaying page menus.
Some themes also include a space for a second menu and the menu system allows you to create a menu that better matches what is usually categories and tags.
Watch our video to see for yourself how an efficient menu will make it easy for your blog readers to see what’s important.
Copyright 2011 - Gary Gardiner
I recently updated the Copyright and Usage Permissions for photos displayed at GaryGardiner.com and WestervilleLife.com.
Each page now displays the following set of rules and requirements for using my photos.
I’ve decided it is near impossible to prevent personal use on Facebook and personal Web sites. What I can try to prevent is commercial use without proper compensation.
My photos are licensed for use by individuals and businesses.
The rules are easy to understand.
Photo Copyright Gary Gardiner - SmallTown Stock
Several discussions took place this week between myself and a few friends. Not all were professional photographers. Nor were they artists or designers. All called themselves photographers because they owned digital SLRs and had sold some of their photos which they thought placed them among those of us who make our livings from photography.
Scientific America, in a 2006 article, used a California State University, Fullerton professor’s anthropological study of chess to help explain how experts are created.
Photo Copyright Gary Gardiner - SmallTown Stock
The request was simple. The execution slightly complex. The results certainly worth the effort.
The client, a furniture store, wanted several strong images to showcase how its furniture looked in a home instead of the cyclorama white wall in a studio.
The chosen home’s original furnishings were replaced with a selection of pieces that complemented each other and the home’s color scheme.
There were only a few restrictions, all centered on budget and time. The budget was fixed and too small for a full complement of focused strobes with grids, snoots, and shaping tools to light the room in one gigantic explosion of light. And, the furniture had to be removed by the end of the day so the family could return home to its normal routine.
The only choice was Strobist glory.
Effective use of a Canon G9 in closeup mode. The EXIF info contains all the camera particulars.
Pulled the RAW file into Adobe Camera Raw for the first edit. Modified saturation, vignette, fill light, and graduated filter to darken the top edge. Second edit increased fill light for the stem.
From today’s commercial shoot of furniture for a catalog. This frame is the splash page image for beds and bedding.
Had access to multiple lighting sources, multiple studio flash with all sorts of light modifiers, soft boxes, umbrellas, light panels, and scrims. But, being the simple Strobist fan, I decided to finish the day with two SB800s using Nikon CLS, with a couple of Strobist-style modifiers.
The light at right has an SB800 with a round globe modifier. This is similar to the Gary Fong modifier but much simpler. It’s a translucent globe that fits over the end of the SB800 like a paper lantern. Perfect for simulating the light from the lamp.
The light at left is an SB800 on a stick with a set of barn doors to narrow the light to simulate a reading light on the head of the bed.
Part of my Labor Day was walking through Barnes and Noble with family, watching the grandkid’s excitement at every book they found. It was a relaxing time as I enjoyed a 6-year-old’s feverish search for the best books he could find for his reading level and hi solder sister’s rediscovery of books she’d found at six.
I never go to the bookstore without investigating two aspects of the publishing industry.
How many catch lights in the eyes of the models on the magazines published for women and what is the source and who is the photographer for the most recently published books? I can’t even enjoy a simple day at the bookstore with my family without exploring good photography and advanced techniques.
Later, when I went out for the daily photo shoot, the covers of books was on my mind as I watched two fishermen “drowning worms” in a familiar inlet on Hoover Reservoir.
I’s purposely carried only my Canon G9 to simplify my photo search with the limitations of a point and shoot camera. The restriction can be liberating although it takes a radical mindset to think that less is more.
I’ve often seen the tips of inverted rods with plastic lines passing through the final eyelet. This particular arrangement of color and background with light focused through the open space above a thin inlet at sunset seemed perfect for a book cover photo.
G9, 7.4mm, f3.5, macro focus, ISO200, -4/3 exposure, RAW, ACR, blacks increased, slight vignette.
I’ve waited several weeks to shoot this photo yet it is not what I intended when I began.
The original plan was an interior photo, looking out through the windows on the third floor of the Holmes Hotel in Uptown Westerville, with the restoration workers on ladders scraping old paint or applying new to the exterior of the landmark.
I had already taken numerous photos from street level and from the third floor across the street as the building was prepped and painted. What I wanted was a different angle showing Uptown in the background with the painters framed from inside in the windows.
Once inside, which took some leg work, the angles were all wrong. Even with the 14-24mm on the D300, the workers were too close to the windows for a foreground emphasis angle and the third floor level too high to get the cityscape without tilting the camera making the windows keystone. The best angle was leaning out an open window as the painter worked in shadows for a near silhouette.
The image had to be taken in the afternoon because the building owner didn’t open his shop until 2:00 pm which was the earliest I could get the key for the empty third floor offices.
So out the window I leaned, compensating for the shadows and fearing the bright highlights in the full sun by dialing down the exposure. It darkened the shadows a bit but they were recoverable in ACR.
There are only three cherry tomato plants in our small garden yet they produce as if they are ten times that number. I do nothing to hasten the plants grown or speed up their ripening. There’s no regular application of fertilizer. No consistent spraying of insecticide or herbicide. The only moisture the roots receive is natural from beneath the mulch layer applied at their plantings. I don’t sing to them, pray over them, threaten them with uprooting, or waste their produce. Yet they grow so prolific that I can’t eat them fast enough to keep up. It’s even difficult picking them fast enough to prevent splitting with too rapid growth. I’m tired of salads. You can eat just so many cherry tomatoes like grapes before it begins to affect the intestinal tract. I know.
The next best thing to eating all these tomatoes it to make them the photo subject for the day. I’ll eat them later, with olive oil, basil, pork roast from the slow cooker, fresh carrots, yeast rolls with butter, and sweet iced tea. Maybe some of the fresh corn although there’s less of it and it’s almost gone.
Technical stuff: Natural light near sunset. Open shade with shafts of light moving through the trees. Slight fill from wall of nearby house in sunlight. My front yard is a great place in the late afternoon.
Digital cameras have leveled the playing field making it possible for amateur photographers to have access to the same quality camera and lenses previously available only to professionals. New Digital Photographer helps you learn new skills to make better photos. ►
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