wacky wednesday - is more better?

Digital cameras and smartphones completely changed the way we view personal photography - everything from how many photos we snap to what we photograph and even how we store our photos.

The advent of the "selfie" dramatically increased the number of photos being taken every day. Researchers estimate more than 93 million selfies are taken every day. (And in case you're interested, the Philippines is the selfie capital of the world.) FaceBook claims more than 350 million photos are uploaded to their site every day. Estimates for the total number of photos taken in 2014 range from 880 BILLION to one TRILLION! That's about a quarter of the total number of photos taken EVER.

Personally, I went from shooting two 24-exposure rolls of film on a one week vacation to shooting over 1000 images on a similar one week vacation. It cost no more to shoot 1000 images than it did to shoot 48 and the likelihood of getting a great shot dramatically increased. Of course, it also means I have OVER ONE THOUSAND vacation photos to sort through on my computer before I print any.

Film and developing were costly so I used to really think about whether or not I wanted to take a particular photo. I would get irritated with my kids if they were being goofy and I wanted a serious shot. I seldom took photos just to capture our everyday life; they were more event related like a birthday or holiday or the first day of school. Now I shoot more "frivolous" photos - things like the Dole Whip we had at Disneyland or people I don't even know doing stupid things at national parks. I experiment more, trying new things just to see if I can figure them out or if they will work. And I always get the goofy shots!

Boxes. That's where I used to store my prints after I got my film developed until I had time to put them in scrapbooks. And I kept my negatives at someone else's house so a fire wouldn't destroy everything. Now, my digital images are stored on my hard drive and an external drive. And I have several backups. I'm not sure which is better. The digital images take up waaaaaay less room but out of sight is also out of mind. I find I print fewer photos and it's easier to put off scrapbooking them. Having a limited amount of physical space to store photos made me stay more current with putting them in scrapbooks, swapping out photos in frames and discarding the ones I didn't want to keep.

So, is more really better? Ummmm. Yes. And no. Or maybe it's just different now.

wacky wednesday - my pineapple plant progress

Almost two years ago I planted the top of a pineapple to see if I could grow a pineapple plant in the desert. Okay, it's in my house, not outside in the sweltering dry heat of an Arizona summer. But the point is, I wanted to see if growing a pineapple was possible. You can read that post here.

Last summer I wrote a post about the progress of my pineapple plant. It had finally, after much coaxing, started to grow.

I was excited thinking it wouldn't be long before a tiny little pineapple started to grow on a stalk shooting up from the center of the plant. At least that's what I was told would happen.

Yeah, that didn't happen.

What did happen was my pineapple plant took off and is growing like a weed!



Although it still has some of the original crown leaves, my pineapple plant has sprouted quite a few new leaves. It's "leaf-span" is about 48-inches by 36-inches by 24-inches high.

In the fields in Hawaii, pineapple plants grow to six feet by six feet before producing fruit but as a "houseplant" they generally produce fruit (often smaller) when they reach a height of 24 to 28 inches. Winter is their fruit-bearing season and according to the internet, there are several methods to "force" them to produce fruit.

Maybe next summer we'll have a home-grown pineapple.

Really.

wacky wednesday - the right tool for the job

June has arrived. School is out. Outdoor temperatures are rising. People start heading to the beach, to amusement parks, to national parks, to cruise destinations or to the middle of nowhere for a family reunion. Yep, it's vacation time!

And I want to let you in on a little secret I have known for quite some time... your phone is NOT the only camera you need to take on vacation. Oh, the smartphone industry would like you to believe otherwise and spends lots of advertising dollars to promote the camera-aspect of their smartphones, often over their phone functionality, but how many times have you seen photos on Facebook or Instagram of a grainy dinner-in-a-low-light-restaurant pic or an other-worldly-looking flash portrait? Or blurry toddlers (especially their hands) making the great escape? And the list goes on and on.

Geoffrey Fowler, a personal technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal, conducted a test on a recent family vacation in Paris. He took every photograph TWICE, once with his smartphone (iPhone 6 Plus) and once with a mirrorless digital camera (Samsung NX1). I think his family deserves an award for going along with this test. When he and his family looked through their vacation photos, the overwhelming majority of the ones they wanted to print or post were from the "real" camera, not the smartphone.

I commend Fowler for analyzing his photos not just for which ones he liked best but also asking himself why he liked them better. This is a step most hobby photographers skip because it takes time - sometimes a lot of time - and can also be painful when you realize what you captured was not what you wanted to. But in doing so, he determined he (and I would venture to guess, most people) liked the photos that told a story - ones zoomed in to the action or that capture the drama in low-light situations. He preferred the subjects to be sharp and crisp but the backgrounds soft so his eye knew right where to go for the story.

For his test, Fowler used higher end equipment, both smartphone and digital camera.  I have a small point-and shoot camera (about $200) that consistently outperforms the camera on my iPhone 5S. It fits in a pocket or slips in my purse. The only downside is that I cannot instantly upload photos to FaceBook or Instagram but that's a small price to pay for not just good photos but great ones.

My camera of choice when weight and size are not an issue is my dSLR. My iPhone is fine for those impromptu photo ops but when I know I will want photos of something or someone and don't want to lug a big camera around, I take my point-and-shoot. I think it's a great compromise and have never regretted having it with me.

My point-and-shoot camera is smaller in length and width and only ¾" "fatter" than my iPhone. 

Certainly the smartphone is fast, convenient and very portable but often what's easy isn't what's best.

wacky wednesday - a new language

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Can you read these two sentences? I looked at the funny little icons for a good ten minutes trying to decipher them. And I must admit, I wasn't even close to the meaning.

Emoji... the new language of social media. 

It started innocently enough with just a few "smiley faces" or emoticons which were actually helpful in showing tone in written text messages. Were you being snarky  or "over the moon"  when you texted "Love you!" to your best friend? 

Emoji, which in Japanese means "picture character," are little pictures that represent words or emotions. Soon, emojis for everyday objects, people, animals, you name it began showing up. There are now nearly 900 emojis with new ones being added almost daily.

Some of my friends string lots of emoji together to create a thought or mood. Unfortunately, most of the meaning is lost on me. But I do enjoy looking at the cute pictures. Many of my friends, and me, use them sparingly in short messages to add flavor, color or emotion. But whether you use them or not, love them or hate them, all indications are that emoji is here to stay. 

So, did you figure out the sentence at the top? It says, "I pride myself on being good at expressing myself in words and even photography. But I'm ashamed of how bad I am at writing in emoji."