Chicago

I was digging around my hard-drive tonight and found some old picture from Chicago. Enjoy.

Kidding Around part 3

Alaina with Doe-doe.

I know, I have cute nieces and nephews. It's a curse, but someone has to photograph them.

We were all six years old once - time is short and there's only so much time to play in a given day. So, really, Mom and Dad, who has time for the camera? I have a slight bit of an advantage, because I'm "Uncle Pete" (or in Lily-Bug's case "Uh-oh Pete") and I seem to be a magnet for their attention.

Here's some tips for you while you take pictures of your little minions.

1: Know your camera. I've played with each of the cameras I own enough so that when I grab one, its settings and controls are second nature to me. If you're a beginner here's a few things to get you started.
       - Use "auto" mode, the camera will change the settings for you.
       - Make sure you know how to turn your camera on at quick notice.
       - Be sure you always know how much battery power you have.
       - Also know how much space you have available, nothing is worse than seeing that "card full" icon when you are in the middle of taking pictures.
       - Clear your card frequently, and keep your pictures organized in your computer. (I'll have to do a blog on that.)  
 
2: Take pictures while your kids are playing, reading or not paying attention to the camera. This works great if you have a shy child, or even for adults. So often when we realize that there's a camera on us we put on fake smiles or try to hide away from the lens. The main goal when I'm taking pictures is to disappear, let your subject forget you're even there. Much to the annoyance to my family, the best way I have found to do this is take a ton of pictures when we're together, like these pictures from vacation. After the first day, they get use to the snap of the camera and learn to ignore me.

3: But there's a trade off; what do you do when you take a good picture but it's too dark? - This is a great question, each of the pictures in today's blog where either under exposed or the lighting was bad. This is where Photoshop or some picture editing software comes in handy.

Not everyone wants to invest the money or the time to learn Photoshop, which if understandable. However if you are looking for a free, user friendly, option I would recommend a program called "Photoscape" if you click on the link it will take you to a page for a free download.

Below is one example of a picture, before and after, that was taken as the sun was setting. I felt the picture was too blue, and was loosing the kids faces in the shadows. With a few adjustments I was able to take the cool tones of sunset and make it feel more like the warm summer afternoon that it really was. In the end, I was able to salvage a picture that would have otherwise just been nice to look at, but not really useable. So don't despair if you have taken a picture that you like, but just isn't fully what you want, there are ways of changing it.

In a future blog I will break down the steps I took to correct this picture.  

Before

After

Kidding Around part 2

Precocious 2 year old + breakfast = frustrated mommy. 

Here we have our next subjects. (Much to my sister’s chagrin.)

My niece Alaina is a very busy young lady who has way too much in her schedule to sit and eat breakfast. But for some reason her mommy felt it necessary for her to finish her cereal before she could go play. – A perfect opportunity for a photo shoot. A few tricks to keep in mind in a moment like this.


1: Don’t be a distraction. Try to be a part of the scenery and let them forget you are there.

2: Don’t be afraid to take “too many pictures” Alaina was all over the place, she has a tough time sitting still. So the more you shoot the better luck you’re going to have in getting a good picture.

3: Try not to have a window behind your subject. I would have liked to have them move, but sometimes you have to take what you can get. Work with the situation and make the best of it.

4: Watch your focus. – I love this last picture of Alania with a little drop of milk on her chin. But the main problem is I missed my focus. Admittedly it’s tough to hit a moving target, especially when the moving target is a two year old. – I could have said that this was the “artsy look I was going for” but that would be dishonest. – It is a fun picture though, I’ll keep it.

Have fun snapping and enjoy the simple moments in life; they sometimes make the best pictures.

Kidding Around part 1

This is Lily Campbell, AKA Lily-bug - just a little over two feet high and about 25 lbs of pure cute. Last year on vacation I took a ton of pictures of my nieces and nephews who are more than willing to show off for the camera.

Lily-bug is the daughter of my brother Scott and his wife Margaret, who have three great kids, and one on the way. Over the next couple of days I thought I would do a few blogs on how to take cute pictures of those leg biters in your life who never seem to sit still long enough for you to get a shot.

Tip 1: Take pictures while they are distracted by something else, in this case watching T.V. (Or in Lily's case trying to watch T.V. - Uncle Pete wouldn't get out of the way.)

Tip 2: Good lighting in a house is hard to find, so make sure that they are by a window, to give that nice soft glow. (Ideally it would be to the right or to the left of them, not directly behind.)

Tip 3: If you have an digital SLR, it's really helpful to hold the shutter down and snap off a few consecutive pictures at a time, most often when you are trying to pose pictures with kids you get eye blinks or a funny face (and not the kind you're going for.) By taking plenty of pictures it gives you the option to take out the ones that don't work. - For this shoot I took close the 30 pictures.

Tip 4: Get as close to your subject as possible, most of the time when I'm not happy with my pictures I realize if I only would have gotten a little closer, the picture would have worked.

Happy picture taking!

Still Life

Needing some inspiration for a project that I'm working on for a friend.
I needed to step away tonight and do something completely different.

Post-Production Supervisor #1

Lately, I’ve wanted to write about my job as a Post-Production Supervisor, mainly because it’s a rather unique position and I get a lot of questions about what I do. I also thought that I’d record my notes here for anyone else out there who might be struggling with some of the same issues as a PPS. So I hope that this is of some bit of interest or help to you.

Here’s a brief summery of what I do as the Post-Production Supervisor for Footnote:

In short, once the production team has completed shooting, my team takes over and begins to work with the footage to cut it into the show that you finally see on the air every month.

My role is to ask a lot of questions and do a lot of running around. When you’re working with creative people and tight deadlines there is a constant need to clarify what the director(s), in this case Jon and Alicia, want the show to look like, and then effectively communicating that to everyone on the team. There’s nothing worse then putting in three or four days on a segment only to find out that we were supposed to take it a different direction.

The other main aspect of my job is to always make sure that everyone has something to do. That is a full time job in and of itself and one I often fail at. When you have anywhere from 7 to 11 workers, depending on the day, working on an assembly line production schedule, everyone must be in sync. If someone along the line, from an editor to the motion graphics guy to the sound mixer to the colorist, needs an extra day to finish their job, this sends me scrambling to adjust the timeline and still make it to the deadline on time. 

Being a Post-Production Supervisor is like an endurance contest. So much of what I do is dependent on everyone, including the computers, completing their work on time. It stretches my patience daily. The long hours of waiting for my team to finish their latest edit, while I pace the halls trying not to pester them. The exorbitant upload and download times transferring files to my out-source freelancers. And then the Achilles heel of the production world… RENDERING the final file. Oh the agony, the pain, the horror! This is why I keep a collection of bad sci-fi in my office.

Hopefully that gives you a general idea of my day-to-day job. Luckily we haven’t crashed the train yet. If you’d like to see examples of our work, check out the Footnote website at fntv.com.

Stay tuned for next week. The topic: work flows.  (Ooooooohh, exciting.)

Christmas Bells

Merry Christmas from Lincoln, Nebraska!

Though I have much to write about our move out here, I thought I would take this opportunity to write to you about what God has laid upon my heart over the last week or so.

I recently read the story behind the Christmas hymn “I heard the Bells on Christmas Day”, written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and it is quickly becoming one of my favorite hymns.  This past week I have found myself singing this song to myself often throughout the day.

On Christmas morning 1864, Longfellow awoke like many other Americans, exhausted and emotionally worn from four unrelenting years of civil war. Caring for his dying son, who had been wounded in battle, Longfellow found little comfort in the news of the re-election of Abraham Lincoln and the recent advances of the Union army. 

This would also be the fourth Christmas since his wife’s tragic death, and his grief over her loss had turned to depression. Life for Longfellow was anything but ideal that day as he observed Christ’s birth.

However, life is never really ideal, is it? When Christ came to this Earth it was anything but ideal circumstances. In our 21^st century perceptive, it’s hard to imagine what Joseph and Mary went through; the fear and pain, not to mention the smells. But somehow between cattle lowing and a makeshift crib, God had come to us in his own pre-ordained way.    

For some reason the Lord likes to work in those non-ideal moments in life. Like children opening gifts on Christmas morning, we always seem to be in need of more; more food, more money, more time.  We aren’t satisfied with our unfilled desires, and our patience wears quickly as we wait upon our Heavenly Father to provide.

And somehow we think we can do it all alone. We can be our own provider, or we can right all the injustices of this world through our own passion and will. But that isn’t our job. And like Longfellow, we despair and are overwhelmed by this sin-rot world.

As I reflect on these words, I cannot seem to restrain the tears that well in my eyes as I sing the last two verses. Like the Psalmist, Longfellow is moved from despair to joy as he rests in the fact that even in a world of trouble, God is still on the throne.

– Merry Christmas

“Christmas Bells”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

December 25^th 1864

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on Earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along

The unbroken song

Of peace on Earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime

A chant sublime

Of peace on Earth, good-will to men!

Then from each thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The carols drowned

Of peace on Earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent

The hearth-stones of a continent

And make forlorn

The households born

Of peace on Earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;

“There is no peace on earth,” I said;

“For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on Earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

“God is not dead;

nor doth he sleep!

The wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on Earth, good-will to men!”