No longer a total newb!

Tonight I started playing around with my Nikon D50 and choosing the other photo settings on the camera, you know, the settings other than "Auto".  :)

This has been one of my goals this year.  It's a goal where I start to get to know how to use the camera to get different results based on lighting situations that I may come across when shooting photos.

Here is one of the photos I took while changing the shutter speed.  This was taken with a one second delay, giving the blur effect as the blades on the fan spun around.

I also worked on changing the exposure compensation, which I think could also help a bit to get a better shot out in the field.  It's the (+/-) on top of the D50 and can be set between +5.0 exposure compensation and -5.0.

Below are a couple of examples.  The first is with +2.0 setting.

The next is with -2.0 setting.

The last is with -1.0 exposure compensation setting.  I liked this option best.

I think by using this setting I was able to compensate for the additional light that was being cast on the subjects and get a better picture.

I have been following Ken Rockwell's guide to the D50.  I'll definitely be giving him a donation for the work he's done on his site as I've already found it very helpful as I try to learn more about the settings on the D50.

I'll do some more studying tomorrow evening and then get ready for practice this weekend.  I have a golf outing on Saturday and plan to hit the local hiking trails for some nature shots on Sunday.

Time to take the lens cap off!

It's been a design kind of weekend!

This weekend has been a great one as far as creative ventures go... first I worked on my new Zic Apparel design for about 3 hours on Saturday evening.  It's a silver / blue fade with musical notes flowing upward from the bottom of the shirt, continuing around the back and fading out into white.  I'm quite proud of this one as it's my first official t-shirt design under the Zic Apparel name.  I'm looking to have this one for sale and available shortly.  I'll be continuing on with more designs and hope to have about a dozen ready for launch by the end of year.

Sunday morning started with a great movie called "Into the Wild" and after watching the movie, I was ready to mess around with another design that I had started a couple months ago.  Below is what I started with this morning.

This design idea came from taking some of Andy Valentine and my music and using a format of it to extend the meaning into another creative format.  The musical notation is from a song of ours called "Just Once", you can hear the song on our MySpace page.  It's a personal favorite of mine, as the song meaning is pretty deep around the side of loneliness and adoring someone from afar, wishing that maybe, just maybe, someday you could be in that person's arms...

I added the words LOVE, LISTEN and LIVE, because I've learned that to start living a successful, happy life, you need to open your heart and love all that is around you.  Love everything that God has made and forgive easy, let go of anger and hate and love completely.  When you do this, you'll also gain great joy from things like music and other creative pursuits that others pour their heart into, and it will allow you to appreciate such beauty at a completely different level.  Rinse and repeat in all that you do and you'll be living a full life.

Today I wanted to remind myself that this is an important lesson that I've come to learn and I wanted to remember it each day... what better way than with adjusting the design and making it so that it can be shared.

This coffee mug is now available in the Zic Apparel Cafe Press shop.  Again - I'm very happy and proud of how it came out and I've already ordered mine! 

After working on Zic items for a bit, I decided that I really needed to focus on getting ready to spread the word for the launch of the Chelsea Adobe User Group, so I worked on a design for a postcard that I'm going to have made up by VistaPrint next week.  These should help me spread the word and I'll use this design for the basis of my website header as well. 

As you can see, I've been productive this weekend as far as design work goes, I think I'll call it a day and maybe watch a bit of the tube... or maybe write some lyrics, or maybe work on "Hurt" or maybe....