There is a place, there are many places, where dreams are supposed to come to their frutation and win over whatever it is that man was dreaming of. Blood, sweat and tears go into such dreams and man overcomes all obstacles to see it through, to win over whatever it is he needs. But not all paths started by a dream, come to bear any fruit, and indeed, the dreams of yesterday fade into myth. The dreams of today too will be forgotten when our grandchildren come to look upon the land that we toiled upon.

The dreams may have been lost, forgotten, or simply bore all the fruits they could, but relics are sometimes left behind, and there is a faint trail left by some, that we might follow to see what another once dreamed.

Ok just a quick how to related to Natural light and wildlife.

How many times have you taken a shot and thought how snapshotty? Two little things that can make a difference. Composition and lighting. Both you have SOME control over even in nature even when the conditions are unfavorable. Your biggest tool, patience.

I spotted a moose eating in a pond. So I grab my gear and carefully climb down to a place I can observe and shoot. Over a 30 minute period I just stand and enjoy nature and photography together. Had I simply popped in shot and left I'd have a couple snapshots. But enjoying what is there and being mildly patient, 30 minutes is not long after all if you have time. Hours can be spent doing this and if I'd had hours who knows what I might have gotten?

A few minutes into shooting I saw two little ears in the reeds beyond the moose, but they wouldn't pop up. As I finally went to leave I took a different vantage hoping to glimpse the baby as I left, luck would have it as I was leaving the baby graced my presence. Even a 20 minute stop would have left me without the shots of the baby.

So onto examples.

Shot #1:
This shot is your typical wildlife snap, the lighting is dull at best, the sun hidden behind the clouds, the beast is centered, the shot is very static and does not hold you long....

If a photo is worth a thousand words, this photo says.

"there was a moose in a pond"

Shot #2
This shot is much better, its following the rule of thirds, the animal is off where it should be giving it room to move into the frame, the lighting much better, all I did was wait for a cloud to move, and I was giving this great lighting to shoot. Sudennly a static scene looks very dynamic.

If a photo is worth a thousand words this one sounds more like:

"The sun beats down on a moose, as it quietly forages in a pond for food"

And lastly, here we have good lighting still, however the momma moose has turned her back, the image is held together by the obvious interaction of momma and baby.

If a picture is worth a thousand words......

"the sun beats down on a quiet pond as a baby moose looks on at his mother foraging among the reeds, and ducks glide by on the glistening water"

So if your light is awful wait for clouds to come or go as needed, shooting in the magic hour is golden... it casts a beautiful golden light on everything. There are some that will only shoot during those times because of the magnificent light. Follow the standard rules such as rule of thirds until you know them and use them so easily without thought that you then can break them to good effect.

I think with just these few things one can go from taking snaps to taking photographs, and from there there is no limit.

Ok, I have often thoguht about doing a series of How To's:

While there is not much that has not been documented, done, redone, and beatup, in photography over the years. It never hurts to revisit it often, to share with the newer photographers, what we have learned in our years of shooting, and to give us reason to go and push ourselves. So without further adeu' How to shoot fireworks.

Ok first find some fire....

Then make it work.

VIOLA!!!!

I KEED I KEEDDDD :-)

Ok of all the things you can do wrong, this is the first no-no. Some will say get a tripod, some a wired or wireless release, some will say get a good vantage, some will say low ISO, some will say turn off autofocus. yes all good advice but 1st,
FIRST!!!!!

FIRST!!!!
turn off that flash. GAH!!! Anytime you are trying to capture light, that is coming along in a dim world, turn off the flash, otherwise your wasting your efforts. That means, P, M, A, or S modes. Get off of Flash. Now to the nitty Gritty.

1. Turn off the flash.

2. you have gone beyond the limitations of "dummy modes" so lets push to M, put your camera on Manual.

3. set your aperture to F11 (just a starting point)

4. Set your shutter speed to B for Bulb (if you dont have this experiment with 5-30 seconds.)

5. Get a tripod. :-) Setup your tripod, mount your camera to it.

6. use a wide lens, Dont get your 300 F2.8 out for this one kids. Grab your 50mm 35mm 18mm or wider. It all depends on where you are.

7. Point toward the fireworks. set your focus to the correct area, this is not science y ou will have to figure this out. Try by pointing at something in the same plane as where the fireworks will be, focus on it then tilt the camera to the sky where the fireworks will be.

8. Use a wired or wireless remote, you will check your images as you go. And make adjustments as needed, you cant see through the lens anyway while the shutter is open and no reason to miss the show.

Ok the fireworks have started now what? Hold the shutter open for several bursts of fireworks.

D90
58mm
F/11 2.8 sec
ISO - 200

Nikon D90
58mm
F/11 3.6sec
ISO 200

If you get this, you over exposed, stop down further or use a faster shutter speed.

Your trying to balance the background and the fireworks to what you find pleasing experiement a lot.

Nikon D90
48mm
F16 1.8 sec
ISO 200

Nikon D90
48mm
F16 2 sec
ISO 200

These are what I see as good exposure, nice dark background, in this case carnival is lit up well. And a few good bursts of the fireworks. Beautiful.

One of the fun things about fireworks is each show is different, you will never be able to just go and blindly shoot, each time you have to play with it. You'll soon have it down pat.

For more examples: [URL="http://www.fisherfamilylife.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=1414"]Fireworks[/URL]

Hopefully this was almost as fun to read as it was to shoot.

Ok Depth Of Field (DOF) is often discussed and is modified by the Aperture. A small aperture (big number) increases DOF and a big aperture (small number) decreases it. This is from Photography 101 : lessons from Grandpa.

We use this extensively to decide how much of our subject is in focus. Does the front of the car start in sharp focus and fade to blur by the back, or is the whole thing in focus.

Recent posts of mine show how action shots namely with Dog sleds can be troublesome cause you need a small aperture but still need a big DOF.

One thing that is oft over looked is how you can use the blur to your advantage. Some foreground objects can be all but entirely "erased" with a small DOF given the right circumstances. Namely you are near the object that you want to "erase" and your subject is relatively far from it. The easiest and most common place to see this is the ZOO. As i went there at lunch I and was shooting I thought, GOSH, there have been a fair number of new or newish to DSLR users on the boards so I better share this tidbit.

Get as CLOSE AS YOU CAN to the fence (or other small object you want to get rid of) make sure your subject is reasonably far from the fence. Select the biggest aperture you can (smallest number). Use the longest focal length available. The fence "magically" disappears. Try that with your expensive P/S. Your only option is to stick the lens THROUGH the fence.

And now for the examples.

Nikon D90
300mm
F32 1/30th sec
ISO 1600

This look familiar? I bet it does, every P/S shot you made and you wanted to show grandma how cute the thing was, but no those dumb fence lines wont go away.

Nikon D90
300mm
F16 1/160th sec
ISO 1600

Well this is nice you could blow off the lines by claiming its artistic? NAW this just doesnt cut it.

Nikon D90
300mm
F10 1/320th sec
ISO 1600

Hey we can send that to grandma, if you look close you can see the fence lines in wide swaths of different toned snow but this is not terrible, heck its usable at least.
But we can do better.

Nikon D90
300MM
F5.6 1/125th
ISO 200 (oops meant to use the same for all)

Ok now we are talking, the only thing that could have helped more was a longer lens, or larger aperture, F2.8 anyone?

Fast lenses are not JUST for low light, they can give you a DOF that does more than throw the background out of focus, they can help you get shots through trees, bushes, grasses, fences etc.

Try this at the zoo or local playground.

I hope this was helpful to a few of you.

Those that know me know I've said it before, when the shit hit the fan they should have let it go, turn the fan off walk away.... It's what America was built on... If you build a company on lies it will fall eventually, when it does others that are honest will rebuild and build BETTER.

Now we have these morons in Washington, believing that they can throw OUR money out there in the fire and somehow stop the flames. Stupid morons, you don't put fires out by pouring gas on em. Those that lost and lost big, are not hurting, everyone is down 50% or so in their investments. That means Mr 10 million a year only is worth a few hundred million dollars, why the holy hell does he need to be bailed out?

If Citibank cant get their shit together THEY SHOULD FAIL, they should go into the ground kicking screaming and scorching. Let some upstart begin again and do it better.

If Joe blow signs on to a risky mortgage he signs up for that he says "I know the risks, I know its dumb but I want to" and then the bank says "ok we know its dumb and we know its risky but lets do it" when the chips fall why do we bail these two out, on the backs of those that looked at it and went um NO I'm not doing that its dumb and risky.

If I invest in penny stock number 7 and lose it all, should the guy that put his money in bonds be forced to pay me for my stupidity? NO!!! and I should not have to pay for someone elses. What up AMERICA TAKE RESPONSIBILITY... let the shit fall and move on.

Bush screwed up, Obama is really screwing up, and who pays for it? Not the multi billionaires, they get our money, not the multi millionaires, nope its the working class, making anywhere from 15k to 500k a year, we pay the price for the rest of the idiots.

I mean ok come on, I show up to class without my work, and the teacher looks and says "well joey you didn't do your work, I'll just give you half the grade of Sam who did his and got an A" that's what we are talking about people. WAKE UP!!!!! And that is where we are going.....

The last two years we have shown to our children the way to the top is cheating, lying and stealing, doing stupid things and then getting bailed out for it. Great, when the time comes and we look around and someone says where did we go wrong, I'll be that old geeser saying, look to your kids, you fools, you taught them this is how to win.

So much for hard work, values, ethics, now it's lie cheat and steal, and make sure you have the govt on your side, wooohooo.. Might as well move to Cuba.

And to the title, finally someone said it right....

John Rich

Shutting Detroit Down

My daddy taught me in this country everyone's the same.
You work hard for your dollar and you never pass the blame,
When it don't go your way.
Now I see all these big shots whining on my evening news,
About how their losing billions and it's up to me and you
To come running to the rescue.

Well pardon me if I don't shed a tear.
There selling make believe and we don't buy that here.

Because in the real world their shuttin' Detroit down,
While the boss man takes his bonus paid jets on out of town.
DC's bailing out them bankers as the farmers auction ground.
Yeah while there living up on Wall Street in that New York City town,
Here in the real world their shuttin' Detroit down.
Here in the real world their shuttin' Detroit down.

Well that old man's been working in that plant most all his life,
Now his pension plan's been cut in half and he can't afford to die
And it's a crying shame, cus he ain't the one to Blame.
When I looked down to see his calloused hands,
Well let me tell you friend it gets me fightin' mad.

Cause in the real world their shuttin' Detroit down,
While the boss man takes his bonus paid jets on out of town.
DC's bailing out them bankers as the farmers auction ground.
Yeah while there living up on Wall Street in that New York City town,
Here in the real world their shuttin' Detroit down.

Yeah while there living up on Wall Street in that New York City town,
Here in the real world their shuttin' Detroit down.
Here in the real world their shuttin; Detroit down,
In the real world their shuttin' Detroit down.
Their shuttin' Detroit down.