Phriday Phun

This really was a Phun Phriday! Here is our new Phriday night date car, and yes, definitely an old age/retirement crisis!!!!! And the most amazing part, it was my idea. So how in the world did this happen! A friend in the ward (Jeff's age), wanted to show us what he bought for his wife for their retirement. When we saw it, I said, "that's what I've been waiting for." I knew I wouldn't like straddling a 4 wheeler, and then there's the safety thing. This 4 wheeler side-by-side drives like a car, you are strapped in, has a roll bar and long arm suspension making it very difficult to roll over. Added bonus, can add a heater and sun top. I like that Jeff and I can ride together and talk about what we see, plus I can tell him when to stop for photo ops. We got it yesterday, and took it out for a trial run for our Phriday date! Yes, we have gone over the edge, but we'll be the coolest grandparents around !!!!!!!!!!!!!! (See link below)







Now check out this link to see what we will NOT be doing, (but the boys already have plans).
(I had a link with some crazy kids doing all sorts of not so safe jumps, but I noticed that the lyrics of the music they used to accompany the video were offensive so I removed it.)

Springtime In The Rockies

We have waited sooooo long this year to see colorful blossoms and warmer weather. Don't let this magical time slip by without taking a few minutes, (and a few pictures), to appreciate the gift of spring... the lilacs, the blossoming trees, the vibrant spring bulbs, the brilliant new greenery, the puffy clouds in the sky. I was leaning over the fence of my neighbor (and stake president's) orchard on the busy street in front our our house to take this picture a couple of days ago. P.S. This is how I like snow....far, far away as a backdrop.

Water.....Colors

This was taken in the atrium of the Bellagio. There were several of these huge water globes. Everywhere you looked there were either vibrant spring flowers or beautiful, soft focus reflections of vibrant spring flowers. This was truly a feast for the eyes.

Tech Talk Tuesday

Well, I've had several of you say you like my pointers on taking better photos, so I'll continue. We are still talking about COMPOSITION, and today I'll mention LEADING LINES. When you take a photo, you want to be clear about what the subject is and you want to draw attention to that subject. Some of the ways you do this we've already talked about, such as 'framing' your subject and 'simplifying' or removing elements that distract from the subject. Another way to draw the viewer into your photo and take her to the subject is with leading lines. Consider the following photos:

In this shot the diagonal leading line of the purple pansies and grass edge, leads your eye from bottom to top taking you on a tour of the beautiful flowers along the way. Special Note: diagonal or curvy lines are especially pleasing to the eye.


Here, Jeff and I were in a glass factory in Mexico. I was attracted to all the shelves of brightly colored glass. I was looking for a 'creative' shot, and this lady with a bright red shirt and purse walked into the frame. I loved how the bright red in the glasses and the line of the shelves complimented and moved my eye directly toward the lady. Of course, this would have been a much better shot if the lady had been Jeff or someone I really wanted to remember.


Here the large rocks in the foreground lead your eye to smaller rocks that point to the Tetons, which are the main subject.



And in this photo that I also posted earlier, I still feel like I'm standing in the middle of the road, looking right down the yellow lines to the red rock mountains in the background.

NOW, GO FIND AN INTERESTING SUBJECT THAT HAS A LEADING LINE DIRECTING THE VIEWER WHERE TO LOOK. (Remember that leading lines in and of themselves are boring. They have to lead to something interesting for the viewer to look at.)

Happy Mother's Day

A Mother's Love Influences Generations

This could be a photo of Amber or Michelle or any of the other young mothers in our extended family. I can't imagine a family more blessed than ours, where our grandchildren are so fortunate to all have mothers who are totally devoted to this most noble calling of motherhood. Young women with many talents and accomplishments, who could contribute so much to other worthwhile endeavors, yet know and believe the most important contribution they can make in this life is to nurture, teach and guide these beautiful little spirits Heavenly Father has sent to our family. I love how all you young mothers can keep in touch with each other through your wonderful blogs, where you share the joys, sorrows, accomplishments, frustrations and all the funny, unforgetable little moments along the road of parenthood. Thank you for rearing such amazing grandchildren!

Inspiring View

San Diego Temple

After our trip to San Francisco we turned around and drove back to California for a car show. We decided to take a few extra days to do some sightseeing. Our first stop was the San Diego Temple. We went on a session and by the time we got out it was dark. I set up my tripod, took three shots at three different exposures and shutter speeds, and combined them to get this magical image. The colors are just as they were, green lights and all. It is indeed a beautiful temple.

....Where Little Cable Cars......

Jeff and I had a wonderful time in San Francisco with his siblings and spouses a few weeks ago. The weather was beautiful, the sights, sounds, smells, tastes are like nowhere else, and the company was delightful. The only complaint any of us had was that our get-away was just not long enough! (Getting stuck in an elevator, stairwell and on a bus were just part of the adventure, not complaints....HaHa.) Great food, great times, great memories! Thanks Dave and Sherrie for coordinating everything.

Golden Gate Bridge

Well.....not so golden. Very early morning, very misty, shot very far away with a telephoto lens.
For those who want to see all of my San Francisco photos, here is the link:

http://karenlarsen.smugmug.com/gallery/8089015_tEUu4/1/527118915_FrwZB

Thursday Bummer!

This is what I woke up to last Thursday morning, (taken out of the kitchen window). Pretty yes, but I've had just about as much snow as I can stand at this point. Luckily we left that afternoon for a weekend get-away in San Fransicso with Jeff's siblings and spouses. We had a wonderful time and the weather was perfect!

Tech Talk Tuesday

A picture is much more interesting when you take time to compose the various elements in the picture artistically, which really means pleasing to the eye. Today I'll only mention one thing to consider, the Rule of Thirds. If you were to study photographic composition, this is probably the first thing you would learn. It is almost always more interesting to place the most important part of your picture off center. Imagine an imaginary tic tac toe board superimposed over your viewfinder or LCD screen, (like the one below), and put your subject in one of the 4 intersections where two lines cross.


I wish I had better examples to post, but since the 'crash' I don't have access to my last several years of photos, and I'm too lazy to pull older ones off of CDs or download from the website. So, here is a photo of tulips taken on Easter day, and another of the remains of an old building in Lehi that I passed last week. (I thought it would make an interesting photo, and titled it 'Stairway to Heaven' as a joke.)








As you can see, I've composed both of these photos to be 'off center'. I should have posted the same subjects set in the center. Side by side, I think you would agree that the 'off center' compositions are more appealing to the eye. (All this having been said, remember that at times all photographic rules are meant to be broken. As you think about your composition, there will be times when putting something smack dab in the center makes a stronger statement.) But back to the Rule of Thirds, I've saved the best for last.....

While I was watching the boys yesterday, I snapped a few of Chasey-bug. Even portraits usually look better if you place the eyes somewhere near one of the 'intersections'.

HE IS RISEN!

I just took this image of this morning's beautiful Easter sunrise. Can there be any holiday or message more important to mankind than this one - HE IS RISEN! And we, too, will be raised as well to be reunited with our Savior and our beloved family members. What peace and comfort this gives me to know that in time I will be with my parents and grandson again!

Phriday Phun

HOW OLD IS YOUR BRAIN!!!
This may drive you nuts!!

The instructions in the link below are in Japanese, so read the following English version and then click on the link:

1. Click 'START'
2. Wait for '3, 2, 1, to count down telling you the game will start
3. Memorize all the numbers' positions on the screen, then click the corresponding circles in order from the smallest number to the biggest number.
4. At the end of the game, the computer will tell you the age of your brain.

Mine is so old I could not even figure out how to play the game at first! Then I did it several times. This game must have been designed by someone who wanted everyone to 'feel good' about themselves. Three times my brain was 39, one time it was 37 and one time it was 29!!! Hey, I would have been happy with 50! Have fun, and I'd better have a few people tell me how old their brains are so I can confirm what I've always suspected...my family and friends are exceptionally smart!

http://flashfabrica.com/f_learning/brain/brain.html

P.S. Thanks to my friend Denise for e-mailing this to me.

MONEY and MEMORIES DOWN THE DRAIN - A Hard Lesson!

I keep all my photography on an external hard drive. With so many high resolution photos I don't want to bog down the memory of the computer's internal drives. I usually upload photos from my card reader, sort through them, save the ones I want. Then I copy the originals of important photos to a CD. Then I pull those up in Photoshop, do my post processing work then save the final images on another CD.

Then two summers ago after we got back from Belize I came down with a strange intestinal problem that lasted literally 9 months. I had every test the various doctors could come up with and nothing was found. Finally after about 9 months the symptoms slowly went away. It was at this same time that I had to produce a DVD about the YM/YW trek experience that I can only say was stressful and grueling. After that came the move into the house with all the chaos that brought and then summer and Gavin and Gabe. You know where this is going. I was preoccupied and lazy and just didn't back up my photos during that time. Now, for the past several months my 5-6 year old computer has been acting up. So I decided it was time to get a new computer which I did last week; and then my goal, as soon as it was up and running, was to transfer all my photos to a new external drive attached to my new computer. (Then instead of burning CD's as backup for all the photos I've neglected, I'd just keep safe the old external drive where they were all originally stored.) Talk about bad timing. The day I turned on the old computer to start this process, the computer goes crazy and the hard drive crashes. I'll skip the part about my tantrum, and the bizillion calls to Scott (my son-in-law and computer man), and other support services. Bottom line, I've taken it to a data recovery service. I'm waiting to see what they are able to recover. The good news.....after taking the thing apart, the tech thinks he can save a good share of the data....the bad news is that it will cost me between $500 and $1200. Yes, you read that right, there is no typo!!!!

With digital cameras we are able to take so many photos. It is easy to fill up cards and be lazy about either making hard copies, (printing them out), or procrastinate downloading them to a computer, and/or saving them to a CD. (Cards get lost or compromised, too.) When I read discussions on saving digital files, there still is a question about how long CD's will last, what happens if they get scratched or warped, what happens when the technology changes, (when was the last time you saw or tried to use a floppy disc), let alone how heavy several years of CDs are to store. (I have mine in a rubbermaid container, that I can hardly lift.) Many people save their photos on external hard drives not hooked up to their computer, but that certainly doesn't give me any comfort at this point. People who want to have an extra level of protection can subscribe to one of various websites that specialize in storing photos for you. The website I have www.karenlarsen.smugmug.com is just for that purpose. They claim to have user's data/photos stored on 3 separate servers in 3 separate parts of the country. I've been slowly uploading my photos to this website when I have time, but because I have so many, it takes time to sort thru everything. The real tragedy is that I have left all my family photos until the last to upload, because they are more complicated to sort through, get them in order and decide which folders/multiple folders to save them in. And of course they are/were on the hard drive that crashed.

The bottom line is that all important photos should be printed out, (hard copy), and displayed in an archival type album along with a copy on CD, and stored in a safe place. Something else for you bloggers.....you all have such a treasure of family history in pictures, every day stories, family events, etc. It would be a shame to lose these precious memories. Please find out how to back up your blog and also print out a hard copy. I'm sure there must be a way, but I probably won't get around to figuring that out for now. If anyone knows how, or can find out, please let us know.

Phriday Phun.........

You know how easy it is to get a speeding ticket going through the small towns in southern Utah on the two lane roads? We really try to watch for the signs outside of town that gives a speed limit change. On this last little jaunt we came to the outskirts of Loa, (I think), and I say, "Jeff slow down there's a cop on the side of the road just ahead." Of course Jeff slams on the brakes and we glide by the cop................................







Hey, wait a minute. There was something not quite right there. A block down the road we decide to go back to get a better look..................................



I guess the city budget of Loa is pretty tight! This guy probably doesn't get a very big paycheck, even though he probably is responsible for a lot less speeders going through town.....it worked on us!

HELP....I've gone to

the DARK SIDE!!!!!!!!!!

WHERE'S JEFF.....and the answer is

Jeff number 4. Most of you got it right. Amber, you and Will have been away from Utah too long. Sherrie, you got it right, but for the wrong reason. Almost everyone at the car show had a mopar hat on because it was a mopar carshow!

Phriday Phun.........

....well at least it was fun for the under 35 part of our group when we were in Las Vegas, (and it was Saturday, not Friday). Being at the top of the Stratosphere gave me heart palpitations without going on all the rides that dangle over the side. Here is a collage with a red arrow showing where the rides are for those of you not familiar with Las Vegas.....and yes, you can have fun in LV without gambling!

Mopars at the Strip (the annual pilgrammage)

The first thing Jeff does when we get to the car show is to go to the swap meet section to see if he can find more junk....er valuable stuff....that he can't live without. Here he is hauling out what I'm sure are two very valuable car parts. Then he spends the first day judging 'show' cars.

I try to take pictures of my family and you can see how well they cooperate, hence, lots of back shots! (The young lady is Dalin's friend Emily.)Actually, Jaron and Michelle cooperated once in a while, but as you can see I've broken every rule of photography I talk about i.e. high noon, direct sun, no flash, no thought to composition. Oh well!Part of the show is looking at the 'show' cars and another part is watching the drag races. They race everything. It is loud, and interesting what they come up with to race. Here is the first of its kind diesel engine car. It was loud, fast, and as you can see very smokey.There are always an interesting mix of characters, which are by far more fun to photograph than the cars. I like the lady who was dressed to match her 'mod' car top of the 1960's, and yes, it is her car that she restored, not her husband.
And then we have the rediculous!!!!!The paint jobs are always more interesting than the cars.


So many cars to see, and it's time for a break. I actually tricked them into looking at the camera.

Tech Talk Tuesday

We are still discussing composition, and today I'll talk about framing. There are some simple 'tried and true' techniques for making your photos more interesting and dynamic and one of them is framing. I've talked a bit about determining what your subject is, then making sure that subject stands out over other elements in the picture. One way to do this is to create a frame out of other objects or elements that will naturally lead the eye toward the main subject. Framing the subject also adds detail that makes the photo more interesting. Remember, however, that the framing needs to support the subject and not detract from what you want the viewer to concentrate on. Study the following examples:



Notice how the bride is framed within the arch of the gazebo. (Also notice how the lighting naturally highlights her face, the most important part of a portrait picture.)




































Lindsey is definitely the focal point of this photo. She stands in a frame within a frame. The dark outside frame naturally leads your eye to the beautiful bride in the center who is lighter and brighter than the frames that surround her.












































Here is a beautiful Belize sunrise. I think this photo would have been boring if I'd stood at water's edge and just shot the sky. Standing behind the palms and letting their silhouettes frame the sunrise adds depth and interest to this photo. (Yes, I did have to look up the spelling of the word silhouette!)








Once again, the part of this photo I want people to focus on, (the spires and Angel Moroni), are framed by the tree branches.






































I took shots of this cactus from many angles and this is the one that was the most interesting. The bloom is the main attraction, and it is perfectly framed by the backdrop of a cactus leaf(?) in soft focus. Even the highlighted needles are pointing toward the bloom.






























This was taken on location of a movie set in Santa Fe during our photography workshop. Other photographers were taking photos of her posing by the bar or sitting on a stool. I saw the reflection in the oval above the bar and thought that would be a great frame to highlight her face so I asked her to pose this way. When you look at this photo try to imagine her facing the other direction. Would this picture be as interesting? Would the most important part of this portrait, (her face), stand out as nicely against the shelf with the bottles? Now go back and look at all the photos and imagine the main subject, but without any of the frames. Do you think they would be as interesting?

Assignment: Next time you pull out your camera to take pictures of something or someone you already have in mind, take a few seconds to look around for an angle that will frame your subject with other objects. (P.S. I don't know if I'm giving tooo much info (boring), or if it's tooo basic (more boring). Is any of this stuff helpful?)

WHERE'S JEFF???????

I was going to post this on Phun Phriday, but I had to do something fun today. We just got back from the annual car show in Las Vegas where the weather was so beautiful and of course we came home to snow!! Anyway, I always tease Jeff that I never see so many gray haired old men all in the same place as I do at these car shows. If I'm looking for him, I always have to really look close because I see him all over the place. So here's my version of "Where's Waldo." See if you can pick out Jeff. I know for those of you who don't see him often this will be nearly impossible but I'm expecting guesses from his siblings and children to see if they know the back of their dad/
brother's
head. (Actually, forget the boys, they were all with him and know what he was wearing. I'll post some more photos of this annual Larsen family pilgramage later.