September 2011

365 Photos – Day 7: Family

Day 7’s topic is Family

Here is my photo:

I thought all day about what I was going to for a “family” picture. Then, when I was thinking about starting dinner, this idea came into my mind. We have “Dave” who grows “Old Fashioned Tomatoes”. At least that’s what his sign says. We live for Dave’s sign at the end of each summer, when we can drive 5 minutes from home and get today’s pick of the vine. These are all from Dave’s.

The varieties are: Yellow Heirloom, the striped ones are also Heirloom (my favorite), an orange tomato, a beefsteak, yellow grape tomatoes and the small red ones are called Juliettes — sweet and delicious, all!

A note from Annie: ok, so what do all of these random 365 tomatoes have to do with quilting? Not much, so far — except that it is making me look at fabric differently, I find that I’m being more thoughtful about new quilt designs, and I’m more aware of how I look at things. I just read a fantastic book by Michelle Richmond, “The Year of Fog” where the main character is a photographer and she talks about how she looks at things through her lens and how our memories sometimes plays tricks on us. (If the theme of kidnapping bothers you, don’t read the book)

taken with Olympus sp-500uz, f 3.2, 2 second exposure, natural light

Here is Guy’s photo:

It was a busy day. I came home from work and couldn’t find anything more creative than to pull this picture off the wall and shoot us behind it. Taken with Olympus E-500 50mm f4 1.8 seconds – no flash.

365 Photos – Day 8: Building

Today’s topic is Building

Here is Annie’s:

Building… blocks!

I used Carrie Nelson’s way-too-cute fabric collection with a touch of some Riley Blake that just happened to match perfectly. I can’t stop making these Exploring Fabric Choices blocks or quilts…

Taken with Olympus E-500 F8, 1/2.5 on a tripod with ordinary kitchen light

Here is WebGuy’s:

I was going for a moody but descriptive – illustrative example of today’s theme. This might work well as an illustration to a blog post or a magazine article. Taken with Olympus E-500 F8 5 seconds with hand-held light painting out shadows.

365 Photos Day 6: Sugar

Today’s theme is Sugar

Here is mine:

Taken at my local Walmart. I think it speaks for itself. Even though I am eating differently, Reese’s Peanut Butter cups is the candy I miss the most — and I could eat myself into a coma with those liitle sweets. I wonder how much sugar is really in all of those bags… A ton?
Taken with my phone’s camera

Here is WebGuy’s:

I was trying to include motion along with the sense of the sugar coating the strawberry. The motion really is there, sugar was raining down over the strawberry as I shot the picture. It seems that the grains were too small and I exposed the image for a much too short a time to get the motion of the sugar pouring over the strawberry. Still the sweetness and moistness comes out in the image.
Taken with Olympus E-500 with a 13 second exposure and using an LED flashlight as the source light at f8.

365 Photos Day 5: Vegetable

Day 5 Theme is Vegetable (animal and mineral are in the jar too ; )

Here is WebGuy’s photo:

I was getting some great window light in my bedroom and thought the slicing of the tomato would jive with the slices of light in the background. What do you think? I really like the way the lens caught the translucence of the tomato through the skin on the left-hand edge of the front part of the tomato. Taken with Olympus E-500 40mm f5.6 at 1/30″.

Here is Annie’s Photo:

The only vegetables we keep in the cupboard. I was hoping for corn, peas and green beans — but we don’t eat them any longer because they are considered to be starch rather than a healthy vegetable like broccoli, cauliflower or cabbage. We’re on a health kick at our house. I’ll be talking more about that later.

taken with Olympus DLSR 500, mushroom label slightly over-exposed.

365 Photos, Day 4: A

Day 4 theme is “A”

Here is Guy’s photo:

A is for AMAZING — and that is exactly what my daughter Kirsten is. This photo tells the whole story about her. She is beautiful, confident, and secure in who she is. Her eyes can look into your soul and see the good in you. Her mouth speaks kind words and is always ready to laugh with you. I used a small amount of vignetting in the photo and softened the image to help describe the softness of her touch. I particularly love the way the afternoon shadows cast by the tree we are under play on her skin. I hope you like it.

Here is Annie’s photo:

A is for Apple… Apple…

I just couldn’t resist.

taken with Olympus sp-500uz in the auto Portrait setting

365 Photos – Day 3: S

Day Three Topic: “S”

Here is WebGuy’s photo:

S is for ‘scrumptious’. Despite my weight loss achievements this year, I still love good food. This berry cobbler does it for me. It truly is scrumptious.

Aside from that, I am trying to capture the yumminess of the food I photograph. I use all natural light. I choose food presented in a white plate or bowl. I get as close to the food as possible, to allow the viewer to see the texture, grain, and sheen in the food. I will try to have a relatively short depth of field to avoid any distractions from the background. All of these items contribute to a picture that makes my mouth water every time I look at it.

Oh yeah, I took this with my iPhone.

Here is Annie’s photo:

Stars

This is Robin’s bedroom door with his mission service poster. I count each day with stickers, not counting off the days til he returns home, but each day he serves. The regular days are stars, the days we get letters are hearts, and the days with double hearts are the days I’ve spoken to him on the phone (there are a grand total of 3 in the last 254 days).

I liked how this photo came out, illuminating a portion of the shiny stars with the light from the bedroom window. Not a competition worthy photo, but a fun one nonetheless.

taken with an Olympus sp-500uz

Podcast 211, winner announced

The winner of the Easy Canvas Prints giveaway is … Anne Jacobsen!

Congratulations, Anne! Your odds were really good!

I’ll notify Easy Canvas Prints for you and they’ll be in touch.

365 Photos – Day 2: Ten Minutes From Home

Day Two Topic: 10 minutes away from home

This is WebGuy’s:

taken with Guy’s iPhone

I take the bus to work every day. I get to walk about a half mile to my office building. Each day, a new sunrise greets me. Today it was no different than any other day. This time, however, I was looking to capture the beauty found in the sunrise and how the sun welcomed me this morning. I think I was able to do that in this picture.

Here is Annie’s:

Today, I walked ten minutes west, away from home, where I attend church. My friend was teaching friends how to can pears. I’ve never done any canning before and it was fun to see how to do it and help peel pears for my friends. I thought the finished jars were beautiful and took the opportunity to snap a shot. I only had my cell phone with me, so this was taken with that cheap little camera inside. I think the picture turned out pretty good for that silly camera.

365 Photos, Day 1: Only the Eye In Focus

I’m adding a new feature to my blog.

WebGuy and I just found a renewed interest in photography — something we can do together. For instance, I went back to the most recent place, a county fair, where I judged Quilts. We both took cameras — I have a DSLR and WebGuy uses a 35mm film SLR and an iPhone. We can take the same pictures and have them turn out differently. We’re going to use a point-and-shoot camera, our cell phone cameras, an iPad camera and a Holga during the year.

I’ll share photos that we’ve taken recently, and ones we took a looooong time ago in this portion of the blog.

What I want to do today is share with you what we started yesterday — 365 Photos. We each picked topics to shoot and each day, the challenge is to take a photo of the topic of the day. Here are today’s photos.

Our topic is: “An eye that is totally clear, using depth of field”.

Here is WebGuy’s:

taken with Guy’s iPhone

Here is Mine:

taken with Guy’s iPhone

and here’s a bonus shot that we both set up. (It took both us of to corral Piper. She got a cookie for being a good model)

I think it’s amazing that her eyes are the same color as her coat.

taken with Olympus sp-500uz in Portrait mode

Why the eye?

Eye’s are incredibly beautiful and unique. Did you know that no two eyes are the same, just like snowflakes? It’s true. The patterns in our eyes are all unique. Some look like layers of tissue, others like rock formations. I have a dot in mine.

Podcast 211 – Finishing up and moving on…line

Podcast 211 – Finishing up and moving on…line
(Right-Click or Ctrl-Click on the icon below and select “save link as…” to download the podcast to your computer)

Running time: 01:17:02 Size: 74.1 MB

Here’s the rest of the Quilt Competition and Judging conversation. This one covers:

• Credit and copyright of designs when inspired by someone else vs. outright plagorism

• Handquilting vs. machine quilting

• Designing using a royalty-free block and calling it “unique”

• Two examples of designs that were plagorized and the original desired were told not to claim their creations as their own

• Using antique designs in designing a quilt – isn’t that considered plagorism?

Let’s start a new topic. Email me your ideas and I’ll present them in a podcast!

My online classes have become Open Term, which means that they start for each registrant on the day that they receive their login and password, rather than being at a schedule time as they were before. What does that mean for you? That you can sign up whenever you’re free and the class will run for YOU either for 12 weeks or 30 days, depending on which class you sign up for! Hooray!

So, if you go on vacation for two weeks, you won’t miss anything – but will be able to view each lesson at your convenience. Any time, any day it’s convenient.

Here’s the scoop:

The Quilter’s Palette – a sampler of techniques (12 weeks)

So unique, a true learning sampler.

Quiltmaking 101 – a sampler of fine quilt making (12 weeks)

Learn everything there is to making a quilt from A-Z. Great for beginning quilters or those who have been quilting for years. You will learn everything I know about quiltmaking in this workshop.

My most popular workshop: Exploring Fabric Choices, a very special workshop

When have you ever taken a class in how to choose your fabrics? Never? Oh, I’m not surprised. But this is the most important workshop you will ever take. (The quilt above are the blocks that used in my demo on The Quilt Show, episode 209)

It’s available to sign up for until September 30th, for 30 day access to the class, then, like all good things in the Disney Vault, it’s going away for an undetermined time.

You can click on the links above for each class. Exploring Fabric Choices doesn’t have an introductory video, but you can see a sample on The Quilt Show.

In other news, guess what’s coming?…

International Quilt Festival of Ireland

Wanna go with me? You can! Here’s the link to my tour itinerary.

Can I go with you if I don’t live in San Jose? YES! You can join us from where you live, anywhere in the world, but you need to register under my tour link.

How many people can go with you? I am limited to 40 participants, so don’t delay if you’re interested in attending.

Is it going to be like all of the other big quilt shows I go to? What’s different about this one that would make me interested in going? The festival will be held in the quaint village of Galway on the NUI campus, not in a convention center. Please visit the website (link above) to see all of the events and activities planned by the show organizers. My itinerary is unique to other tour guides itineraries. And there is a special non-quilters program for those who don’t quilt to come along with you!

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Now for the GIVEAWAY! With great thanks to Easy Canvas Prints!

(Here’s the one that I want to have a 16 x 24 canvas print made. Fun family! ; ) This was taken last year and we have all changed so much since then. Cambria, of course is bigger, Karen is expecting baby girl #2, Robin is in Mexico on his mission and Kirsten, Guy, Ryan and I have all lost weight! Pictures will make you do that…)

Here’s the precious one of our kids that captured their personalities perfectly:

My kids…

So, I know you want a canvas print of your own, right?

Follow these instructions:

Leave a comment for me, here, and let me know why you like canvas prints,

then

go to Facebook and LIKE Easy Canvas Prints, to be a valid winner. You can click on this link to go directly there.

You also need to live in the contiguous United States to win. Sorry Alaska and Hawaii : (

If you aren’t the winner, you can still win! Just by LIKEing Easy Canvas Prints on Facebook, you automatically receive 50% off on your next order and FREE shipping.

The winner will be chosen on Friday night, September 16th — good luck!!

Now, I’m doing another GIVEAWAY, but you have to go to the Classroom site to see it.

Don’t forget the CHAT, tomorrow night, September 14th at 6:00 p.m. pacific — especially if you have any questions about the online classes. If you click on the word CHAT above, it will take you to the directions to the Chat.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this podcast!!