Day 7: Surprise Candy and What I've Learned

Someone snuck up to my room in the middle of the night and deposited candy in front of my door.

While that is always fantastic....

Having it delivered in a blue dinosaur basket is even better!

Would you like candy? Too bad, there is a dinosaur in the way. With beady eyes of justice to protect his phat loot.

Stop!... Candy time!

In the way of pictures. I'm ready for this coldness to be over. My already terribly shakey hands are shaking like chihuahuas in this cold weather. So I have to turn my ISO way up to catch non-shakey pictures. Lots of noise in them thar pictures.

Also, I'm finding that aperture mode (A of M A S P) seems to work best for me. As a nerd, I tend to hang out in low-lit, cave-like geek havens. As such, I need as low of an aperture as possible. For those of you playing at home and not in on photospeak, aperture affects how wide the shutter opens. To be contrary, photographers decided to call wider openings smaller apertures (eg f6.3). I suspect this was to secure their jobs by confusing the general public. But, think of it as squeeze. A high squeeze mean a small opening.

Why bother learning this when I have automagic? Using a low aperture gives a more focused portrait like picture on your subject (the focus point).

Oh look! Delicious candy. f5.6

Is that a foot? f14

Ew, that is definitely a foot! Why does it have a face? f20

See? When you want a picture of delicious candy and can only, for reasons unknown, balance it on your leg that icky foot gets in the way. Hardly anyone who sees the last picture will think, 'Yum, candy'. They will think, 'Foot with a face?'.

HAHA, BUT I WOULD NEVER BALANCE CANDY ON MY LEG. THAT'S JUST DUMB!

No, you probably wouldn't.

But you would be, say, at a restaurant on your friend's birthday (played by candy in my pictures). There might even be a table who've had too many celebratory libations after their team has won (played by my foot). They may even be right behind your table and think it is REALLY funny to pose behind the birthday girl with silly, drunken faces. Well, if you adjust your aperture to be rather low, you can stick your tongue out at them and snap away. They will be little blobs in the background. No one but you will even notice them.

Might automagic do this for me? Possibly, but you want to be sure. Also, restaurants tend to not be well lit. A higher aperture lets in more light, as well, so you can take pictures in low-lit places. Low-lighting would set off your automagic's flash, and make unphotogenic friends antsy. You want to take pictures of friends looking natural and happy, yes? You want to be a photoninja, yes? YES.

You should probably take a picture of those drunk guys, though, for the story's sake.

P.S. Still trying to type it aperature. *sigh*

Day 6: DnD

Tonight I played DnD with some of my friends. One of my friends had a very cool set of dice. Flash is pretty ick, but it turned out okay.
Was going to take a picture of the dice but my ninja friend got in the way.
My character sheet and the weapon of choice: juicy juice.

Day 5: Butterbeer

Today I made Butterbeer!
It was liquid diabetes!

I would edit the recipe a bit:

Butter Beer
Edited from: YUMSUGAR

1 Liter Cream Soda

200ml Cream ( I used half-n-half, may turn out a bit better with full on cream)

2 T Butter

3 Werther's Original Candies

1. Pour soda into a pot to boil. It frothed up when I poured it into a hot pot. So stir until that goes away so you can tell if it is boiling.

2. Put your butter in a microwave safe bowl and melt in microwave.

3. When soda is boiling, pour butter and cream into pot. Stir. Add the hard candies (wrappers off, you dolt!) and stir until they dissolve away.

4. Pour into a mug. Wave wand over for added deliciousness. Serve hot.

Too sweet for you? Cutting it with milk is pretty good. (That is what I did with this second cup in the picture). Although, if you want it to still be hot, pop your milk in the microwave for a minute.

But wait there's more!

Guys cooking! Two of them! However it is breakfast, so that makes it a bit less impressive.

BACON!

Day 4: Tea Time with Mom

It was cold and snowy. So I had tea with my mom at Borders. :)




Oh goodness, she's cute, isn't she?

Day 3: M A S P

Read some articles:

Master Your DSLR Camera: Part 2 Manual Mode and More

While there is a part one (link contained within the article), I found this section more helpful. I read up on aperture. I never understood it until I read this article.

Understanding Digital Camera Modes

Nifty, I didn't like it as much as the previous one, but it had useful information.

But, I started with this article:

A Rookie Guide to Digital DSLR Cameras

I really like the tone this was written in. It was very laid back and funny to boot. May I entice you with these quotes:

"you may find yourself too far away at times to capture your ideal shot. Stalkers are well aware of this conundrum. "

"You can take a lens like this to a party at night and shoot beautiful naturally-lit shots even in the dimmest of corners (where you will probably be hanging out, since no one wants to stand with the dork carrying an SLR)."

When I got home, I proceeded to take 50 pictures of the same people playing video games with different settings. I will spare you those. I then took about 20 pictures of this flower. I actually kind of like the effect of the larger aperture ( on a side note, I cannot stop spelling this aperature).

Small aperture and faster ISO.
I practiced different focus points on this bag. Focus on the blue guy, focus on the button, focus on the orange guy.

On a side note:

This awesome design is made by my friend Brandon Reierson, a graphic design student. He takes trips to Japan and snaps people of people dressed up on the Harujuku ( or anywhere else the fashionistas of Japan may be). Then he turns them into a great design.

http://lactoseintolerart.blogspot.com/

I have a bit of a thing for light fixtures. I probably like taking pictures of them a bit too much.

Day 2: Still Snapping

Was looking back through my stuff and found this:
It said Eye Gaurd, I think. I couldn't see how to attach it. Was I supposed to remove the rubber eyepiece and then cover it? Blarg. I threw it in my bag for later.

Also, Harry Potter was hanging out in my cup! This weird random HP popped up when my frothy top went down.

I heart having Venom in my car. He is sometimes a distraction at stoplights when I remember I can pull him down and he will wind himself back up.
3 man banana gang. Noticed they have changed the sticker to have a barcode. Lame.

First Pictures: Mirror

I really like the dino I drew on my mirror. It also shows off my giraffes, which I will miss when I move out.


Me and Emmy. I called the camera Emmy because I was talking to it and treating it like Colbert treats his Emmy.

I not-so-secretly-anymore like to spend time practicing my silly faces in the mirror. I was shooting from the hip, trying to point at my face. I failed mostly, and the ones that caught my whole face were at a bad angle--like up my nose.

First Pictures: Light Switch

What to catch first with my camera? To be honest. My VERY first picture was a very lame picture of a package of disinfectant wipes. Because that was the closest thing to me when I put Emmy together.

I dearly hate flash, so I tried to take the picture without flash.... Blurrry.

Then I used flash. Ick. I really dislike flash. I know it gives me the ability to take pictures of people in darkish situation, without getting noisy pics but....

But if I propped my arm against the door and turned off flash, it got a bit better.




But this close picture with flash wasn't so bad. I like it best.